jade

The type of relationship you and Dean Di Laurentis have is…interesting, to say the least.

You’d been unlikely friends since the beginning of college. He went to you with all his problems regarding hockey, and you enjoyed the company he brought.

Eventually, things began to shift between the two of you. You’d often catch him staring at you, unmistakable heat and lust in his eyes, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you tingle with need. The friends with benefits arrangement that inevitably followed was easy and fun.

Until you caught feelings, that was. Now, you stayed for the sex and good times in bed, but your heart yearned for something else. Something more. You wanted all of the lovey dovey stuff that came with a relationship.

You wanted it all with Dean.

You laid flat on your back on Hannah’s bed, ranting about yet another failed opportunity to tell Dean how you truly felt.

“I was going to tell him I loved him last night, but I got choked up when he did that thing with his tongue and I totally forgot all sense of rational thought!”

She grimaced. “Yeah, that’ll do it to you. So what’s your game plan now?”

“I don’t know, Han. I just can’t ever seem to find the words to say how I really feel.”

She sat back against her headboard, pondering how you could tell Dean your feelings without making a fool of yourself. An idea flashed in her head, and she sat up suddenly with a gasp.

“Hey! We’re all meeting up for lunch at the quad later. Why don’t you stop by after classes? He’s out of his class first, so you’ll be able to catch him alone and tell him then.”

“Alright, that may work.” You seemed to genuinely appreciate the suggestion. “That way, if he rejects me, I have an easy exit after.”

“That’s the spirit! I’ll be there too to have your back either way, and regardless of what happens, you’re still the best person I know. Dean, or any other guy on campus, would be super lucky to have you as their girlfriend.”

You gave a small smile, mumbling a small, “Yeah, I sure hope so.”

You clutched your notebook tightly to your chest, scanning the quad for the sixth time in the last two minutes. Still no sign of Dean. Your anxiety grew with each passing moment, feeling a lump forming in your throat and the notebook starting to slip from your slippery palms.

Just as you were about to chicken out and head in the other direction, you saw a tall, muscular blond man enter from the opposite end of the courtyard, immediately knowing it was him.

As he approached the meeting spot Hannah had told you about, you took a deep breath to steady yourself and headed in his direction.

Instead of the warm welcome you were expecting, you were met with a panicked look on Dean’s face and a hushed, “What are you doing here?”

You met his nervous stare with a confused smile. “I’m here to see you, silly. Wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

His eyes darted around, checking to see if anyone had been watching the two of you.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The smile on your face fell as quickly as it had appeared. “What?”

“Y/N, we had a deal. I offered you a good time in private if we spared the public from all the gross romantic shit. I’m supposed to be a good time, not a long time, remember? If people see us together too often, they’ll think we’re locked down or something.”

“Well, what if I decided I wanted more? What if I told you I wanted the ‘gross romantic shit’?”

“Then I’d say you’re looking at the wrong guy.”

“God, Dean, you make it sound like I’m the least desirable girl on campus. Would being with me for real really be so bad?”

He sighed, looking down and pinching the bridge of his nose before bringing his gaze back up to yours.

“Yeah, it would be.”

You gasped, breath getting caught as you felt your heart breaking. You could see the rest of your joint friend group approaching from behind Dean, only having it in you to squeak out an “Oh.”

Tears welled in your eyes, threatening to fall at any given moment. You spun on your heel right after catching Hannah’s confused stare, taking off in the opposite direction toward your dorm.

From behind you, you could hear Dean’s “Y/N, hey, wait, we need to talk about this!”, followed by Logan’s “What the hell did you do, man?”, but their words didn’t deter you. In fact, they only made you run faster.

Your lungs burned once you made it to your dorm room, collapsing on your bed in a heap and finally letting your tears fall in silent sobs. 

You were a fool for thinking Dean could ever love you like that. You were a good fuck and a place to vent; that was all you’d ever be.

In the days following the incident, Dean tried to reach you in any way he could. It started with phone calls, leaving long voicemails begging you to pick up and talk to him. After that came the texts.

DUMB EVIL ASSHOLE NONUTS: hey, can we talk?

I’m so, so sorry baby

I didn’t mean any of what I said

I was stupid and scared, but I’m not scared anymore

just pick up the phone when you get the chance, ok?

The new contact name had been Allie’s idea, and you couldn’t help but smile slightly whenever you saw it. Regardless, his texts and calls remained unanswered.

When both of those methods failed him, Dean tried sending his buddies to talk to you in the hopes of creating a peace offering.

“Hey, Y/N, funny seeing you here.” Tucker greeted you, speed walking to catch up to your pace.

“Respectfully, Tucker, cut the shit. I take this path to class every single day. What are you here for?”

“I’m asking you to hear Dean out.” He winced at your immediate scoff. “He’s really sorry for what he did and regrets it daily. All he talks about is you.”

“Yeah, well he can keep talking about me all he wants. He made it very clear that he’s only in it for a hookup.”

Tucker went to say something else, but you cut him off before he could continue pleading Dean’s case.

“Listen, I’ve gotta get to class. It’s great you guys want us back together, but I honestly don’t see it happening again. Hope to see you around- take care.” With that, you began your walk to the last morning class on your schedule, also known as the only one you shared with Dean.

As you settled into your seat and pulled your journal to scan through your notes, you saw someone sit in the seat directly next to yours in your peripheral vision. Upon one whiff of the familiar cologne, you sighed, not daring to raise your gaze at the unwelcomed man.

“What do you want, Dean?”

“Hello to you too, sunshine. Just wanted to see my favorite girl on this fine morning. I brought your favorite, too.” Your favorite drink slid across the table to you.

“I don’t feel like talking to you right now. Or ever, for that matter.”

He sighed, turning in his seat to face you completely. “I know what I did was incredibly shitty. I regret every second of that interaction, believe me. I’ve never been in a serious relationship before, but for you, I’m ready to try. I was a coward and don’t deserve your forgiveness in the slightest. There’s one thing I know for certain, though.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to trust me again. If it takes a day, a month, hell, even a year, I’m still going to be here. Say the word and I’m yours completely.”

You glanced sideways at him questioningly. “And what if I’m never ready?”

He paused, looking taken aback by your question.

“Then I don’t get you back and live with the fact that I’ve ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. But I’ll still always be grateful for the time I was almost yours.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, fuck no.” Dean’s lips fell into a deep frown. “I’ll regret it the rest of my life and be always wish for what could’ve been between us. But I’d rather you be happy, regardless of whether that’s with or without me.”

You closed your notebook, turning so you were face to face. “Look, I’m really glad you had a change of heart and realized you fucked up, but I don’t think I’m ready to entertain the idea of us being together for real yet. I deserve time to find who I am as a person and think about where my future could go.”

“That’s completely understandable. Just do me a favor, if or when you’re ready, give me a call. I’ll be right here waiting.”

As the lesson began and you ceased your conversation, a small flutter began in your heart once more that became impossible to ignore.

Something that felt a lot like hope.

When Dean promised you he’d let you find yourself, that didn’t mean stopping the gestures and acts of love to prove he was still thinking about you.

He knocked on your dorm door twice a week, handing you flowers with a bright smile before turning and walking right back down the hall without a word. Some had notes on them; nothing crazy, just sayings like a simple have an amazing week, gorgeous or thinking of you.

He still went to parties with his friends but didn’t engage with the many women throwing themselves at him like he used to. That, of course, brought a buzz amongst students, many of them questioning who the mystery woman could be stealing his attention away.

“Did you hear about Dean?” You overheard a sophomore gossiping with her friend in hushed whispers. “He hasn’t had sex with anyone in weeks. Months, even. Lisa told me she wore her shortest skirt that made him fold last time and he didn’t even look twice at her!”

“Damn, he’s a changed man.” Her friend responded. “I really wonder what, or who, managed to take his attention away from the playboy life.”

“Must be someone really important to him. If only it could’ve been me, right?.”

Their conversation devolved into giggles from there, but you couldn’t find it in you to see anything humorous about the situation.

He’d given up sex? For you? That wasn’t a point of conversation or a rule set when your fling ended. Both of you had come to a mutual agreement that you could see other people…or so you thought.

You caught Dean later on his way to practice, gear slung over his shoulder as he headed for the doors of the rink.

“Hey, wait up!”

He turned, confused look giving way to a smile when he saw it was you approaching him.

“Oh, hey, baby, didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Why aren’t you sleeping with other women?”

“Woah, getting straight to the point, I see.” His chuckle that followed only angered you more.

“I’m serious here, Dean! Why is everyone on campus buzzing about how you haven’t slept with a girl in ages?”

“That’s easy, it’s because I haven’t.”

“But why?”

“Look,” he stepped closer, dropping his bag onto the ground beside him. “I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to tell you, baby: you’re the only one for me. I’m not interested in sleeping with other women because they’re not you. There’s no situation, no scenario, where you’re not my happy ending.”

Dean closed the distance between the two of you, cupping the side of your face in one hand and gripping your waist in the other. He leaned down so you were eye level, faces dangerously close.

“Say you don’t want me too. Tell me you’re not mine like I’m wholeheartedly yours, and I’ll back off forever.”

Your breath hitched, scrambling to sort your racing thoughts.

“I-I… you know I can’t.”

He backed off with that stupid grin of his, having caught you right where he wanted.

“Whenever you’re ready, sweetheart. It’s your call.” With that, he picked his bag back up, turning and finally heading through the doors and into his practice.

That night, you tossed and turned in bed, restless at the thought of him. You went back and forth, alternating between hating his guts and wanting to see him for the rest of your days right by your side.

Around 3 AM, you had a moment of clarity. You were tired of denying yourself the opportunity to be happy.

You were ready to be with Dean for real, once and for all.

The day had come at last- the finals of the Frozen Four. Also known as the Olympic gold medal game equivalent of college hockey.

You had limited contact with Dean after your interaction a week ago, sending each other small smiles in the halls and occasionally bumping into each other on campus or in your joint class; the time for your own gesture of love grew near. What better time to tell the love of your life that they’re it for you too than at the biggest game of their season?

Hannah squealed as you exited your bedroom, noticing the blue #66 jersey you were wearing.

“Oh, that man is going to flip out.”

You’d never worn anything of his in public before, choosing to respect his wishes of wanting to remain private. The jersey had been an accidental keepsake, something you wore after a particularly passionate night together that you’d forgotten to return. It sat hidden in the back of your closet until now.

“You think?” Your nerves shone through your voice. “I just don’t know if this is too much or not.”

“Y/N/N, it’s clear as day that the two of you are completely head over heels for each other. You, cheering him on, wearing his jersey, at the most important game of his college career is only going to make him love you more.”

“Alright, Han, if you say so.” You took a deep, steady breath, smoothing your hands down the front of the jersey. “I think it’s about time we head out, don’t you agree? I’ve got a hockey player to confess to.”

You sat on one of the bleachers a few rows behind the ice, sandwiched between Allie and Hannah. Beau sat to Hannah’s left, shooting you a smirk every now and then as he watched you fidget with your hands.

“It’s almost tiiiiime…”

“Oh, shut it, Maxwell.” Allie snipped. “She’s nervous enough as is.”

Beau opened his mouth to retort, but the lights dimmed, signaling the introduction of the players.

As the announcer introduced the Briar University Hawks, the arena erupted in enthusiastic cheers. The players took the ice one by one, and as Dean skated forward, you swore you could feel your heart stop.

He waved, scanning the crowd before ultimately spotting you. His demeanor shifted entirely, stopping in his tracks momentarily.

You sent him a shy smile, and it was if a switch flipped. He immediately became twice as pumped, pointing in your direction and sending you a wide smile before entering their starting lineup.

When he pointed to you, you couldn’t care less about the hundreds of people now staring directly at you. The only thing that truly mattered was being here, supporting your favorite guy, and watching Briar U take the championship.

As the game progressed, Dean was on fire. His assists were all perfect, and he managed to score two goals of his own. After each one, he’d point right back at you as you jumped up and down and dedicated each goal to you.

The final buzzer sounded- Briar won 6-4.

The team rushed to the ice, cheering and hollering as they huddled in the middle. As you walked to the end of the row where the gate was that led out, you saw Dean standing still at the corner of the rink.

He seemed to hesitate for a brief moment, tossing his hockey stick at Tucker and setting his helmet on the ground before skating with a purpose toward the connecting gate.

“Hey, man, don’t you wanna celebrate?” Garrett called from the center of the ice.

“I got my girl, dude. That’s all the celebration I need.”

As if you could read his mind, the two of you reached the gate at the same moment. Instead of pushing it open like you thought he would, he grabbed your waist instead, hoisting you up and into his arms.

“You did it!” You grabbed his face in both hands, smiling up at him.

“You’re wearing my jersey.”

“Yes, very observant of you, Dean.”

“Does this mean-“

“I think you’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

He smiled, but instead of going to kiss you like you thought he would, he brought his forehead to yours instead.

“If we do this, just know that this is it. You and I, forever. Nobody else. Until we’re old and wrinkled.”

You laughed. “Yes, until we’re old and wrinkled. I choose you, Dean.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath the entire time you were talking, muttering an, “I love you so fucking much.” Before finally, finally bringing your lips together.

The remaining crowd around you, including your friends, cheered at the scene. Jules caught the whole thing on camera, the rest of the hockey team whistling and hollering behind you.

As you broke apart, you stayed close together, cocooned in your own little bubble. He twirled you on the ice as both of you giggled uncontrollably, finally able to just be in love and proud of it.

The fling, the breakup, the championship, all of it led to where you were now.

Your story with Dean is only just beginning, and you can’t wait to see what’s next.

<3

park the shark who willingly took you to his place that night, something that he doesn’t do very often. and even if he did, he would usually go back to her place, not that he’d ever tell you. 

“i hate you,” you glared at the man between your legs. 

“i can live with that,” placing his hands on the back of your thighs, “up,” he commanded, and you obeyed. 

lifting you up, you felt your back hit his door and before you could complain, park placed his mouth over yours. wrapping your arms around his neck, you pulled him closer.

“so needy,” he smirked against your mouth, at his mouth you grasped his hair and pulled. park responded by pushing you closer to the door, his cock beginning to grind into your stomach. “feel that, princess? hope you can take it.” 

park the shark who matched your freak. wasn’t judgemental with what you wanted to do in the bedroom. 

“you wanna bite me?” he grinned, flashing his canines. “i thought i was the shark.” 

you made a face, “why would you say that to me? i’m like, dry now.” 

scoffing, his hands drifted down to your damp panties. “sure, princess,” grinding his thumb against your clit, park watched intently at the way you threw your head back, your breathing becoming laboured. “look at that.” 

“brendon,” you gasped, feeling his teeth sink into the meat of your shoulder, dragging your nails down his back, you could hear his grunt against you, the jerk of his hips. 

removing himself away from you, brendon licked the bite languidly, a contrast to the erraticness of his hips. “look at you,” he purred, as he took in the multiple marks he’s left across your skin. “beautiful.” 

you looked up at him and the meat between his neck and shoulder was practically tantalising. sensing where your attention was, park grinned to himself and lowered his shoulder. “come on, baby.”

“i’m not going to fucking break, bite me,” still a bit hesitant, you moved your mouth back to his traps, sinking your teeth slowly, you could feel brendon squeezing your hips. “that’s a girl,” encouraged.  

park the shark who started to treat you slightly better at work. he wasn’t goading you like before, but he was more or less ignoring your entire existence. 

“you get in my pants and then you practically ghost me when we’re at work?” you slammed his locker, refusing to back down when he glared at you. 

“i didn’t realise i had to converse with you every time i saw you,” he sneered. “did you want flowers as well?” 

“no,” you sputtered. “of course not. but i want you talk to me like i’m actually there.”

park sighed, “we didn’t talk before.” 

“because i thought you hated me,” when he opened his mouth, you quickly interrupted, “i know that you don’t hate me.” 

“i don’t understand why i have to talk to you outside of when i go downstairs.”  

“it’s courtesy,” your tone was bordering on whinging you and you quickly reeled yourself back. 

“what’s courtesy, princess, is me leaving hickeys where people can’t see it,” his eyes quickly flashed to your breasts, and you frowned, crossing your arms. 

“don’t be gross.” 

“i usually don’t talk to people i fuck,” sighing, he turned back to his locker. 

“fine,” you pouted, too tired to argue, and not that you’d ever admit it, a bit hurt at his statement. “i’ll see you when we both fuck next i guess,” turning to leave, you heard make a noise before grabbing your arm. 

“don’t be dramatic,” he bit out, annoyed at the whole situation. “i don’t know what to talk to you about when we’re at work.” 

“the weather? the shitty but overpriced cafeteria food? the gossip?” you listed off. “it just makes me feel used, park. like i’m good enough for you to fuck but not good enough for you to talk to.” 

park frowned at your statement. “i didn’t mean it like that. i thought that you would prefer for me to not talk to you.” 

you couldn’t help but laugh at the miscommunication. “i like talking to you.” 

park shifted, as if your words impacted him in a way he couldn’t decipher, “i like talking to you too.” 

“don’t ignore me again, i swear to god, otherwise i’ll ban you from sex,” you pointed your finger at him. 

he rolled his eyes and then looked around, “this is like your shitty grey’s anatomy.”

you rolled your eyes, “you like my shitty grey’s anatomy.” 

“if you ever,” he threatened, a playfully mean look on his face. holding up your hands in surrender, he opened back up his locker. “what are we having tonight?” 

you sat down on the bench and watched him, “i want pho,” you watched in appreciation as brendon began changing into his normal clothes. he was always so big but his movements weren’t clunky or awkward, it was always so sure. 

tossing his hoodie wordlessly behind him, you barely caught it. “you’re going to get cold,” he stated and you mumbled under your breath. 

“do you want to eat in? cause if so, we have to head home and shower,” he mumbled into his locker, grabbing the last of his things. he closed it and turned to you, a small smile gracing his face before it quickly dropped. 

“take away?” you suggested. “i’m kinda beat,” you shrugged then stood up. 

“you good?” 

“tired,” before you could lift your bag to your shoulder, park grabbed it and held it for you. murmuring a ‘thanks’, you moved closer to him. “i just really want to eat pho and watch shitty grey’s anatomy.” 

“you’re lucky i have netflix.” 

“i have all the dvds, that won’t stop me.” 

brendon park who slowly became your friend in public since that talk. he’s actually nice. he’s considerate (in and out of the bedroom), stubborn but loyal, remembers the smallest things you talk to him about and he’s sweet. 

brendon park who knows how to deal with you when you’re being particularly bratty. 

you weren’t seething out of jealousy, no of course not. you were just being logical. because if park was fucking other people, you needed to know because of health reasons, obviously. 

you didn’t know her, she was stationed upstairs with him. but she was really pretty. soft, blonde hair, a smile that unfortunately made you fall in love. she was a stunner and you’re not an idiot, brendon probably thought she was pretty too. 

his demeanor was calmer than usual. it seemed like he actually wanted to listen to what she was saying, that he wanted to be in her company. 

looking up, park nodded at you in acknowledgement (which you promptly ignored) before finishing his conversation and heading over to you. 

“you ready?” 

giving him a terse nod, you kept eye contact with the woman from before. “who is she?” you jerked your head towards her. 

“one of the or nurses,” he replied. 

you hummed and tore your eyes away from her, instead looking at park. you eyed him up and down, disdain clearly on your face. 

“what’s wrong with you?” 

“nothing,” you said. “i’m heading home.” 

“i’m going to ask you again. what’s wrong with you?” 

“nothing,” you said slower this time. “i’m going home.” 

“i thought we had plans,” he said, starting to get irritated at your avoidance. 

before you could reply, the nurse from before came back. her blonde her swishing as she walked, her hips swaying a little bit too much, and a sultry smile on her face as she came up to the two of you. “night doctor park,” she grinned at him, not bothering to pay attention to you. 

scoffing you mocked her under your breath, something that park didn’t miss. “you jealous, pup?” 

“if you’re fucking her, i need to know, i’m not risking an std because you want to the fuck the entire hospital,” you snarked, tamping down the green eyed monster. you had no right to feel jealous. you were just fucking. 

“i’m not robinavitch,” he spat out, as if he was offended at the thought of being with other people. at robby’s mention you frowned and you felt like he hit you in the heart. “i don’t treat the hospital like my own dating show.” 

“doesn’t seem like it,” you snapped. 

“fucking christ,” park exhaled deeply, and you could practically see him counting to five slowly in his head. “we’re going to my place tonight.” 

-

“how the fuck do you think i have time between work and you to find time to chase some other woman,” you groaned as he punctuated his statement with a particularly mean thrust. 

“brendon,” you could feel your drool pool beneath you, no doubt seeping into his mattress. clasping the fabric beneath you tightly, you were too fucked out to do anything else. 

“come on, pup,” twisting his hand into your hair, brendon yanked your head next to his face. “you were so talkative before.” 

gasping his name again, he slowly moved his hand to your throat, the other sneaking around  to your stomach. “if you ever think that i’d go around your back,” he tightened his grip around your neck, hips snapping. “you think i want some fucking nobody, huh?” 

“say who’s fucking me right now,” he growled into your ear, and when you didn’t respond quickly enough for his liking, he gave another rough jerk of his hips. 

“me,” you sputtered out, your hands grasping his forearms, nails digging into the flesh. 

“fuck, that’s right,” peppering kisses down your sweaty neck, the hand on your stomach moved further down, fingers latching onto your clit. “you think i fuck just anyone raw? that i just cum inside of any woman, huh?” 

you shook your head, one arm going behind his neck, pulling him down to your mouth. needing him closer than you already were. you let him take control, taking whatever he wanted, you just needed him. 

“come on, pup,” he goaded you, his hips no longer having a rhythm, as his fingers pressed harder, the circles against your clit becoming tighter. “cum on my cock.” 

white hot orgasm rushed through your body, you would have fallen if not for brendon holding you. gasping into his mouth, you chanted his name against his lips. 

spilling inside of you, he panted on your back, holding your body tight to his. softly moving you down, you melted into the bed. you never wanted to move, or think about anything ever again. you were content. 

brendon hissed as he slipped out of you, his cum slowly dripping onto his sheet. moving to his bathroom, he came out with a warm and damp towel. slowly and gently cleaning you, he tossed the rag to his hamper and began slowly kissing up your neck. 

“come on,” you could feel brendon lift you up and you whined in protest. “i’m not having you get a uti, you of all people should know how important this is.” 

lifting you on the toilet, you didn’t want to acknowledge just how intimate this was. so, instead, you looked at him impatiently. 

“what?” 

“get out,” you whinged as you watched him stand next to his sink. “i’m not gonna fake pee!” you exclaimed. 

brendon eyed you before nodding and leaving to go back to his bed. 

walking out of his bathroom slowly, you were practically ambushed, “jesus, brendon.” without another word he lifted you up and carried you to bed. “i have legs, you know.” 

“i know, but i also know that you can’t walk right now,” he grinned devilishly at you, and you couldn’t help but gather the little strength you had left, and smacked his chest. 

brendon park who brought you a coffee (one from an actual cafe) and a pastry to the pitt because you said you missed breakfast and you were hungry. who gave every single person a glare as they looked at him in shock as he hunted you down and gave you the food. 

“park?” you furrowed your brow, wondering if came down for a consult, but you can’t recall anyone calling for ortho in the pitt. 

“pup,” he greeted, then practically shoved the contents in your hand. “eat,” he could practically see the question mark forming on the top of your head and rolled his eyes. “you haven’t eaten since you left my house. eat.” 

“brendon,” you said softly, looking around the er. “I’m okay.” 

“do i have to feed this to you?” when you didn’t reply, he wordlessly took the pastry back and opened it up, holding it to your face. 

“park!” you chided, but nonetheless taking a small bite, very aware of the stares being thrown your way. 

javadi looked around, wide-eyed, trying to see if anyone else was watching the scene unfold in front of her. finally seeing whittaker and santos across the room. gesturing with her head to where the two of you stood, she made a face. 

“what the?” whittaker wondered out loud. “when did park and her become friends?” 

-

“shark bait,” santos practically purred as she rounded the corner. “i always thought it’d be robby that you’d be fucking.” 

rolling your eyes, you decided you were far too tired to entertain her antics at the moment. walking away, trinity followed you eagerly, her hands on her stethoscope, “so, is he mean in bed?” not answering her, you continued down the hallway. 

“garcia tells me that he talks about you sometimes,” that caused you to pause your steps. smiling, trinity skipped to you, “talks about your plans together. he mentioned that you love those coconut buns from the bakery near the hospital.” 

“trin,” you hissed. “stop.” 

“tell me if you’re fucking him, so i can change my bet. i don’t really wanna lose fifty bucks,” she whined, rocking on the heels of her feet. 

“brendon and i-,” 

“brendon?” she repeated, a sly grin on her face. 

“is none of your business,” and with that you began walking again, trinity trying to catch up to you. 

“what’s going on?” robby held out his hands, a playful smile on his face as he saw the two of you. 

“park brought her coffee and pastry because she complained she’s hungry.” eyes wide, you turned to trinity.  

“oh?” robby tilted his head towards you, and trinity almost gagged as he gave you the look only reserved for you. “we could have grabbed something, if you were hungry.” 

before you could answer, trinity answered for you, “when? between all the patients and nurses needing you, when?” 

you both turned to her, you incredulously and robby confused. “santos,” robby snipped, “i think garcia needs a set of hands in room six.” 

“shark? when did he start bringing you food?” it was an innocent question, if you didn’t know robby that well. unfortunately, for you, you knew him very well. 

“he’s actually nice,” you defended. “when he likes you.” 

“when has park ever liked you?” robby made a face and shook his head, “uh, sorry, not meant that way.” 

you laughed at his charming awkwardness, “we became friends recently. i like him.” 

“you like him?” robby arched a brow, his head tilting. 

you could feel a flush approaching your cheeks, and you really didn’t want to do this right now. especially with robby. with a hurried excuse, you scampered away from him. 

robby who didn’t realise why park suddenly started appearing a lot happier when he was down for a consult. 

robby who could see that the two of you obviously had inside jokes together, inside stories that only the two of you were privy too - something that he once had with you. 

robby who didn’t know where the nickname ‘pup’ came from, all he knew was he hated how you lit up at the name, practically preened whenever park said it to you. 

robby who always had feelings for you but never wanted to do anything because you’re good. you’re kind, and you’re you. and he was too old and too weathered for someone so good. 

brendon who stood by the nurses station in his normal clothes, waiting for you to finish. he ignored the looks that were thrown his way, or the appreciation in some.

he watched as you began your final chart, his eyes roaming all over you. you didn’t seem that tired compared to other days, you actually seemed to be in a pretty good mood. chatting away to him as you kept filling out forms. 

“did you see that photo that i sent you during your break?” you briefly looked up to brendon, the back to the computer. “the sushi place on station square.” 

“i already made reservations,” brendon simply replied. eyes scanning you and then the report briefly, tsking under his breath and pointed to the mistake. 

“i was getting to that,” you snapped playfully. “and thank you.” 

he looked back out to the space and saw hastings and robinavitch stopping at the station where the two of you were. 

“so i was thinking of coming over tonight?” park practically rolled his eyes at the blatant flirting happening in front of him. he glanced at hastings, leaning over the counter to talk to robby and watched as the other man briefly look over to you. 

“i don’t think that’s a good idea,” robby smiled tightly, still glancing between you now and then. not that you realised, too busy frowning at the computer as your screen decided to freeze. 

“i swear, you motherfucker,” you cursed under your breath. 

listening to the conversation happening right beside you, park closely kept an eye on your mood. anticipating your face scrunching up in distaste at the flirting going on in front of you

“done!” you celebrated as you stood up and slammed your folder shut. “fucking finally,” turning to brendon. “you ready to go, shark?” 

brendon hopped off the desk he was leaning on, “let’s go, pup.” 

“night,” you nodded to the other two before leading brendon to your locker. 

brendon barely glanced at the two as he passed, but he did note gleefully the look on robby’s face. 

brendon who isn’t afraid of dropping everything to make sure you’re okay…as friends

you watched mel instructing the breathing patterns and you tried your best to follow her, trying to will down the fast pace of your heart. 

“that’s it,” mel encouraged, a smile on her face. “just a couple more.” 

you breathed through your nose again, eyes looking around the room. a bit embarrassed at the situation that you were unfortunately placed in. you could see langdon and santos giving you a reassuring look, and robby who looked like he was about to blow a fuse. 

before anyone could say anything, you could hear dana bellowing a ‘room three’ to someone and then a harsh opening of the doors. “what the fuck happened?” brendon barked at the room. his attention solely focused on you. 

“i’m fine,” you called out. “just a bit of a scare.” 

not removing his eyes off you, he addressed the room again. 

“a patient got aggressive, said some mean shit, yanked her arm and threw her against some machines,” santos answered quickly, her eyes shifting between the two of you. 

the air was charged and mel moved out of the way, eyeing park like he was a predator going to snap at any minute. 

“you okay?” he asked softly, eyes running over your face and body, scowling when he saw the red print on your arm. when he saw you nod, he looked away, and then commanded, “out.” 

without another word, you watched as your colleagues scurry away. robby hesitating at the door, looking at you softly, fighting every cell in his body that wanted to stay with you. 

“i’m okay,” you murmured softly once everyone left. you weren’t, not really, but he didn’t have to know that. 

“no, you’re not.” 

“bones aren’t even broken,” you joked, trying to smile at him. 

“i’m not talking about your bones,” he tsked, stepping forward. 

“bren,” you said softly. your muscles relaxing as soon as you could feel his body heat radiate off him. 

“we’re staying at mine tonight,” he muttered, tucking a strand of her behind your ear, then dragging down his fingers until he landed on your injured arm. tapping your fingertips with his a couple of times, he looked back up at you. “what were you doing with king before?” 

“breathing exercises, helps me,” you watched as he slowly drifted both hands to your wrist and held them gently. 

“show me,” he whispered. “i can hear your heartbeat all the way from here.” 

brendon who felt his heart racing in his chest, who hasn’t felt this way since he was in high school asking out his first girlfriend. 

“we’re dating,” he declared. 

“excuse me?” you turned to him, baffled at his sudden announcement. you stopped chopping the carrot and leaned over to pause your music. 

“we only have sex with each other, i know what you like, you know what i like, you’re practically over here every day, we make a point to have dinner together at least once a week,” brendon listed off reasons. “do you want me to go on?” 

“since when was this us dating?” 

brendon stared blankly at you, “if i had it my way, ever since i kissed you in my house. knew you were the woman for me after you yanked my hair.”

feeling yourself beginning to get flustered, you breathed out loudly. “and you kept this from me because?” 

brendon shrugged, “you would have never said yes.” 

“maybe you just liked me yanking your hair.” 

rolling his eyes, “you want to date me.” 

“you’re presumptuous,” you replied, a bit amused at his obvious nervousness. 

“i’m falling in love with you,” he stated simply and that took your breath away. you looked at his face, scanning every nook and cranny that you familiarised yourself with the last six months, trying to see if he was misleading you. 

but you saw none. 

“unless you’re still fucking in love with robinavitch, i’m willing to wait until you love me back,” he affirmed, like those were the only two options that you could choose. 

“most men ask,” you reminded. “and they usually have flowers or some gifts when they ask.” 

“i’m not most men, and i bought you those flowers when we went to the market a couple of days ago,” he pointed to the beautiful flowers on your kitchen table. 

“hr’s gonna have a fit,” was all you said. you watched in amusement as brendon took a while to understand your words, and when he did, a bright grin took over his face. ignoring your exclaim of his name, he wrapped you up in his arms. 

Companion piece to:

Peppermint - The taste of peppermint will always have a special place in Dennis’s heart.

The Morgue Thing - A miscommunication between you and Dennis almost ends things before they begin.

Written In The Stars - Your first date with Dennis takes place underneath the stars.

In The Park - Dennis reveals a secret after the two of you spend the night together in the park.

Virgin - There's a rumour going around about Dennis.

Debauched (NSFW) - Karaoke night ends a lot differently than it did the first time around.

Symphony (NSFW) - Dennis has never eaten pussy before…

Pretty Boy (NSFW) - You and Dennis take the next step in your relationship.

Firsts (NSFW) - Dennis experiances alot of firsts during your first night together.

Permanent Marker - You find out about the betting pool.

Denny’s To Do List -  Dennis realises he’s in the midst of a sexual awakening.

The Porn Boom (NSFW) - Dennis isn't like the other man you've been with.

Bite (NSFW) - Dennis doesn’t mean to edge you.

The Winter Flavour - Dennis has already found his favourite winter flavour.

Wild Flowers - A crown of wildflowers leads you and Dennis to discuss the issues he has with his family.

A Friend of Denny’s - Your relationship with Dennis takes a turn when his parents come to town.

A Cold Day In Hell - Dennis tries to make amends for his actions.

Pause - You and Dennis have a frank conversation about the future.

Gardens of Babylon - Dennis has made his choice, now it’s time for you to make yours.

My Future Wife - Dennis makes a promise to you at Jana’s celebration of life event.

Virtue - Dennis’s mom makes her distaste for you known.

Wild Boy - Dennis has a surprising reaction to his mother’s protests about your relationship.

Bison Daddy - Dennis shows you a whole new side after a baby bison is rejected by it's mother.

Eight Seconds - You find out the truth about Dennis from his brother Rick during a bachelor party.

The Boy In The Box - You tell Dennis you know the truth about his heritage.

The Third Time (NSFW) - You show Dennis how loved he truly is.

The Hangover - Dennis wakes up after this brother’s wedding with your name on his chest and no memory of the night before.

A Whitaker Wedding - Dennis and you start your future together.

7 For 7 - Dennis thinks he already knows the gender of your baby.

Whitaker Babies - You and Dennis disagree about telling people.

Venti Blonde Roast - Things spill over between you and Dennis when it comes to the baby’s care.

On The Edge - You find yourself on the edge of the roof, preparing to take that final step.

Wounded Creatures - Dennis discovers what happened on the roof.

Heartbeat - Your recovery leads you to take a first step with the baby.

The baby is kicking.

You wake up to the sensation when a tiny foot boots you in the stomach. You’ve been feeling butterflies on and off for the past few days, tiny flutters. It isn’t until now that you realise that Mia is making her presence known, that she wants to interact with mommy and daddy.

“Dennis.” You hiss into the darkness, flailing for his hand. Your husband jerks awake, his entire body surging into action as those bright blue eyes fixate on you.

“Are you ok? Is it the baby?” They’re the first questions rolling off his lips as you take his hand and press it to your baby bump. Mia nudges against his palm, and his face lights up, his mouth opening in delighted surprise as he realises what’s happening. “She’s kicking!”

“She is!” You grin, cradling the bump between your hands as he shuffles down the bed until his mouth is pressed against your skin.

“Mia, this is your father speaking. We can’t wait to meet you.” He murmurs to your baby, placing his ear in the space where his mouth previously resided. Your fingertips run through his dirty blond waves as he pretends to listen intently, saying ‘uh huh’ and ‘ah ha’ before he lifts his head to meet your gaze. “She says she can’t wait to meet us either.”

You laugh, your thumb chasing over his cheek as he looks up at you. Despite the rocky start you’re so glad that he’s the one you embarked on this journey on. You’ve always wanted a family of your own, but after being surrendered in the foster system as a toddler you’d never quite known what that was supposed to look like. Not until you met Dennis.

“I think she’s going to sleep for the night.” You say as the kicking tapers off.

“Sleep tight little Mia.” Dennis places a final kiss on the place where his baby resides before he draws down your pyjama shirt, covering the bump. “We hope you have the sweetest dreams.”

Like My Work? - Tip your friendly fan fic writer here!

Leon moves ahead of you with that familiar economy, every step deliberate, shoulders slightly rounded forward as if he's braced against a wind no one else can feel. Years ago, you would have called it tension. Now you know it's simply how he stands when he's ready to protect something.

You.

He lifts one hand without looking back. Two fingers. Hold. You stop immediately, rifle angled down but ready, covering the rear out of habit. Your breathing slows to match his. In the quiet, you can hear it, the faint rasp of fabric as he adjusts his grip, the tiny click of leather at his wrist. He glances over his shoulder, blue eyes catching red light, and the corner of his mouth tilts.

"Tell me you hear that too," he murmurs.

"Ventilation system struggling to keep up with poor life choices," you whisper back.

His mouth twitches a little more. "Comforting."

"Very."

He turns forward again, advancing with a careful sidestep around a fallen gurney. You follow close, boots landing where his did, stepping into the spaces he clears without thinking. Years of missions have worn this path between you into muscle memory. You could navigate a battlefield blind if he were moving ahead of you.

Sublevel three, quarantine wing. The official report had said that the outbreak was contained. Minimal hostiles. Data retrieval only. You and Leon had both read that and packed extra ammunition.

Something scrapes faintly above you. You both stop again. A wet sound follows, soft but unmistakable, like raw meat dragged across tile. Leon's shoulders go rigid. He tilts his head, listening, then slowly raises his pistol toward the ceiling vent ten feet ahead.

"Don't," you breathe.

Too late. The grate explodes outward in a shower of dust and rusted screws. A shape drops hard onto the floor between you, limbs hitting at angles that don't belong to anything living. The body spasms once, twice, then snaps upright with a sound like tearing cloth. Its eyes are wrong. Its mouth is wrong.

Leon fires twice. The creature barely stutters before lunging. You're already moving. Your rifle cracks, recoil thudding into your shoulder as you pivot left to avoid Leon's line of fire. The rounds chew through rotten muscle, splashing something dark across the wall. The thing keeps coming anyway, a puppet yanked forward by invisible strings.

"Persistent," you mutter.

"Understatement."

It reaches Leon first. He sidesteps, grabs a fistful of its ruined jacket, and uses the momentum to sling it into the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Before it can recover, he drives a knife up under its jaw with brutal precision. The body convulses, fingers clawing weakly at his sleeve, then goes slack. 

For a moment, the only sound is your breathing and the slow drip of something unpleasant onto the tile. Leon exhales through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. He wipes the blade on the creature's shirt before sheathing it, movements efficient, practiced, almost weary.

"You okay?" he asks without turning.

"Fine."

He turns anyway, eyes scanning you head to toe, checking for tears in fabric, blood that isn't yours, the small tells you can't hide from him even if you tried. His gaze lingers on your face a second longer than necessary.

"Your heart rate's up."

"So is yours."

"Occupational hazard."

You step closer, bump your shoulder lightly against his arm. "You jumped."

"I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"I adjusted my stance."

You snort. "Sure you did, hero."

His hand comes up automatically, settling at the small of your back as he guides you past the body. The touch is brief, grounding, gone almost before you register it. He does it all the time now, in doorways, on stairs, whenever the path narrows. Years ago he used to keep that kind of contact locked away behind professionalism. Marriage burned that barrier down to ash.

"Remind me why we didn't retire somewhere with a beach," you say quietly.

"You hate sand."

"I could learn."

"You said that last time. Then you threw a shoe at a seagull."

"It started it."

He huffs, a sound that might be the ghost of a laugh. "We're not buying a coastal property just so you can wage war on wildlife."

"Coward."

They're soft words, familiar words, the kind that live comfortably between you, even in places like this. Especially in places like this. If you stop talking, the silence fills up with too many ghosts.

Ahead, the corridor splits. One path descends into deeper shadow. The other ends at a reinforced door marked MEDICAL ISOLATION.

Leon studies it, jaw tightening slightly. "That's our best bet for antiviral storage."

"And our worst bet for everything else."

"Probably."

He reaches for the panel. It flickers, unresponsive.

You lean in, shoulder brushing his. "Stand back."

"I am standing back."

"Further."

He sighs but obeys, stepping aside as you pull a compact breaching charge from your pack and set it against the seam. Your hands move quickly, efficiently, though you can feel his eyes on you the entire time.

"Try not to blow yourself up," he says.

"Try not to worry so loudly."

"I don't worry."

You glance up. "Leon."

"...I worry a normal amount."

You smile despite yourself. "Uh huh."

You trigger the charge and pivot away, grabbing his vest to pull him with you behind the corner. The explosion is sharp, contained, dust puffing into the air like a violent exhale. When the ringing fades, the door hangs crooked on shattered hinges. Leon looks down at where your hand is still gripping his gear. His expression softens in a way that has nothing to do with combat.

"You can let go," he says gently.

You realize you're still holding on and release him, suddenly aware of how solid he feels under your fingers, how warm even through layers of tactical fabric.

"Right," you say, clearing your throat. "Professional."

"Very."

But he brushes your knuckles once before moving past you, so quick it could almost be an accident.

Inside, the medical wing is colder, air conditioning still struggling on backup power. Cabinets hang open, supplies scattered across the floor as if someone had tried to pack in a hurry and failed. A hospital bed sits abandoned in the center of the room, sheets twisted into ropes. You sweep left. Leon sweeps right. The familiar dance resumes. For a few seconds, nothing moves.

Then something thumps weakly from behind the bed. You both pivot, weapons raised. A figure drags itself into view, lab coat smeared dark, face gray with fever. Human. Barely.

"Help," he croaks.

Leon lowers his weapon first, but doesn't relax. "You're infected?"

The man nods frantically, clutching his side. "Bite... hours ago... there's... antivirals... storage fridge... code..."

His hand trembles as he points toward a small sealed unit in the corner.  Hope flickers, fragile and dangerous. You step forward. Leon catches your arm immediately.

"Careful," he murmurs.

"I know."

His grip tightens just a fraction before he lets go, thumb brushing your sleeve as if memorizing the texture.

The man coughs wetly, body shaking. "Please... I don't want to... turn..."

Leon's jaw flexes. You can see the calculation in his eyes, the grim understanding of how this story usually ends. You move past him anyway, crouching by the fridge, fingers already working the manual override. The seal pops with a soft hiss. Inside, rows of vials gleam faintly in the emergency light, liquid clear and precious as water in a desert.

"Jackpot," you whisper.

Behind you, the man makes a sound that isn't quite human.

Leon's voice snaps sharply. "Back."

You turn just in time to see the change sweep across the man's face, muscles locking, eyes clouding over like frost creeping across glass. Too fast. Leon fires once. The body collapses before it can lunge.

Silence crashes down, heavy and absolute. Your hands are still wrapped around the cold vial when Leon steps in close, one hand settling at the back of your neck, fingers warm against your skin. He leans his forehead briefly against your temple, a gesture so intimate it almost hurts.

"Hey," he murmurs. "Stay with me."

"I'm here."

"Good."

"Leon," you say, unable to keep the lift out of your voice. "We've got—"

The ceiling tile above the doorway caves in with a thunderous crack. Something drops through in a tangle of limbs and teeth. Leon fires before it even lands.

The room detonates into motion. Another body slams through the door behind it, then another, drawn by noise or scent or whatever twisted instinct drives them now. The first infected hits the floor crawling, jaw snapping, fingers scrabbling for purchase on slick tile.

"Back!" Leon snaps.

You're already moving, grabbing the case and pivoting away from the fridge as gunfire shatters the sterile quiet. Your rifle kicks against your shoulder, rounds punching into torsos that refuse to care. The air fills with the acrid stink of cordite and something fouler underneath.

One lunges for your legs. Leon intercepts it, boot driving into its chest hard enough to send it skidding across the floor. He doesn't even look as he fires downward, ending it with clinical precision. 

More are coming. The hallway beyond the ruined door is a writhing mass of shapes pushing over each other, hungry, relentless. The lab equipment rattles as something heavy slams against the wall.

"Too many," you shout.

"Move!"

You sidestep, firing, trying to carve space, trying not to hit Leon as he crosses your line. Your shoulder clips the edge of the bed. The case slips in your grip for half a second.

A larger infected barrels through the doorway, body swollen, movements jerky but powerful. It collides with a rolling cart, sending metal instruments clattering across the floor like thrown knives. Leon pivots to engage, emptying three rounds into its upper chest. The creature staggers backward. Straight into the open refrigerator. Glass explodes.

The sound is high and crystalline, almost delicate beneath the gunfire, like a chandelier being smashed in a ballroom no one will ever dance in again. Vials shatter against metal shelves, against tile, against each other. Clear liquid splashes across the floor, instantly indistinguishable from the spreading mess of everything else. You see it happen in horrible, slow clarity. Hope, reduced to glittering debris.

"Leon!"

He fires again, dropping the brute for good. The body collapses forward, crushing what remains of the storage rack beneath its weight. For one stunned heartbeat, neither of you moves. Then another infected claws over the fallen bulk, and survival yanks you back into motion. You fire. Leon fires. Bodies drop. The noise is deafening, claustrophobic, relentless until at last the hallway falls silent again, littered with unmoving shapes.

Your ears ring. Smoke hangs in the air like a dirty veil. Slowly, cautiously, Leon lowers his weapon. His gaze drifts past the carnage to the refrigerator, to the floor, to the glittering field of broken glass and spilled medication soaking uselessly into grout lines and fabric and things you don't want to identify. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. The man on the bed has gone very still. His eyes stare at the ceiling, clouded over, whatever fragile thread holding him to himself finally snapped in the chaos. A drop of liquid slides off the shelf edge and hits the tile with a soft, final tick.

Leon exhales, long and controlled, like he's forcing the air out through a space too small for it. "...We'll find more," he says quietly.

He steps closer to you, one hand settling on your shoulder, firm and grounding. His thumb moves once, a brief stroke through dust and sweat, as if confirming you're still solid beneath his palm.

"You hurt?" he asks.

You shake your head, throat tight. "No."

"Good."

His hand lingers a moment longer, then drops. He scans the room again, already shifting back into mission mode, but the tension in his jaw has sharpened, lines around his eyes etched deeper by the red emergency light.

"Storage areas are usually clustered," he says. "If there was one unit, there are probably others."

You nod because he needs you to nod. Because forward is the only direction that exists anymore.

Together, you step around the shattered glass and the ruined promise it once held, boots crunching softly with every movement, and head back into the corridor where the dark waits patiently for you to return.

The corridor beyond the lab is narrower, older, the walls traded from clean hospital white to poured concrete stained by decades of leaks and neglect. Emergency lights hum overhead, casting everything in a tired amber glow that feels less like an alarm and more like a dying sunset that forgot to go away. Your boots echo differently here. Hollow. The sound carries too far.

Leon slows without saying anything, adjusting his pace until you're shoulder to shoulder instead of single file. His arm brushes yours with each step, solid and reassuring in a way that feels deliberate without calling attention to itself. After a minute, you realize he's listening to your breathing.

"You know," you say quietly, "most couples go to dinner."

He huffs under his breath. "We tried that."

"You got a call."

"We both got a call."

"I didn't even get to eat my pasta."

"You ordered something with fourteen ingredients I couldn't pronounce."

"That's not a crime."

"It should be."

You bump his shoulder lightly. "You promised dessert."

"I'll buy you dessert."

"You said that last time."

"I meant it last time, too."

His hand comes up automatically, resting on your back as the corridor narrows, guiding you around a fallen chunk of concrete. The touch lingers just a second longer than necessary.

"When this is over," he adds quietly, "we'll go somewhere that doesn't have reception."

You glance at him. "You're serious."

"Dead serious."

A small smile pulls at your mouth. "You'd last two days."

"I'd last three."

"Two and a half."

He considers it like it's a tactical estimate. "Two and a half."

The next door is heavier than the others, industrial steel with a small wired-glass window clouded by years of grime. A faded placard reads BIO STORAGE B in letters that have peeled into something ghostlike and hard to trust.

Leon raises a hand automatically, stopping you just short of the threshold.

"Hold."

You halt with your boot inches from the seam, rifle angled down but ready. He steps past you, placing himself between you and the door without thinking about it. He always does that. As if the hinge of the world were located somewhere in his spine.

He wipes a sleeve across the glass and peers through, eyes narrowing as he adjusts to the dim interior. "Don't see movement," he murmurs. "Shelving units. Containers. Could be clear."

"Could be."

He glances back at you, reading your face the way other people read weather. "You good?"

"Always."

One eyebrow lifts. Not convinced.

You roll your shoulder where your gear has started to dig in, trying to work out the stiffness before it becomes a problem. "Just cramped."

"Switch packs with me."

"I'm fine."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"It wasn't an order either."

For a moment, you just look at each other, the quiet argument unfolding in expressions instead of voices. Married diplomacy in a war zone.

Finally, he exhales through his nose, conceding the point without admitting defeat. His hand comes up instead, settling briefly at the side of your neck, thumb brushing the muscle there in a grounding stroke.

"Tension," he says softly.

"Observation skills of a seasoned agent."

"Comes with the badge."

"You don't even carry a badge."

"Metaphorical badge."

You lean into his touch for half a second before you can stop yourself. He notices. His thumb stills, then presses lightly once more before he lets his hand fall away.

"Stay behind me on entry," he says, voice shifting, professional edges sliding back into place.

"I take left. You take right," you counter automatically.

He gives you a look. You give him one right back.

"...Fine," he mutters at last. "But if I say fall back, you fall back."

"Yes, dear."

His mouth twitches despite himself. "Don't 'yes, dear' me in a mission."

"Yes, sir," you salute.

Leon grunts and shakes his head, trying not to smile. You reach past him to test the handle. Locked.

"Stand clear," you say.

He moves aside this time without commentary, covering the door while you pull a compact bypass tool from your vest. The metal is cold against your fingers, humming faintly as it interfaces with the ancient locking mechanism.

For a few seconds, the only sounds are the tool's soft electronic chirp and your breathing. Then the mechanism clicks. You don't open it immediately. Instead, you glance sideways at him. Close enough to see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tiny scar along his jaw, the exhaustion he carries like a shadow that never quite detaches.

"After this," you say quietly, "we're getting that dessert."

He studies you for a long beat, something unspoken passing through his expression. A deep, stubborn refusal to imagine a future where that doesn't happen.

"Yeah," he says at last, voice low and certain. "We are."

Your hand brushes his wrist as you shift your grip on the handle. He turns his palm just enough to catch your fingers, squeezing once, firm and warm. A promise disguised as reflex. Then he releases you, raises his weapon, and nods.

"On you."

You pull the door open. Cold air spills out, stale and chemical, carrying the faint scent of something spoiled long before anyone stopped coming down here. The room beyond is a maze of tall storage racks and plastic containers, shadows pooling thick between them like standing water.

Leon moves through the doorway first, silent, precise, clearing angles with ruthless efficiency. You follow a half-step behind despite earlier negotiations, covering what he can't see, trusting him to do the same.

All you hear is the hum of failing lights. The soft creak of metal settling. The distant, almost inaudible drip of water somewhere in the dark.

Leon lifts two fingers, signaling pause. You freeze. He tilts his head, listening.

"...Thought I heard something," he whispers.

You hold your breath. The room holds its breath too. Then, very softly, something shifts deep between the shelves. A scrape. Leon's posture tightens, every line of him sharpening toward the sound.

"Stay close," he murmurs.

You move in beside him, shoulder brushing his arm, the warmth of him grounding against the cold air of the room.

"Always do," you whisper back.

The air grows colder the farther you go, heavy with the stale tang of chemicals and something faintly organic beneath it, like fruit left too long in a sealed container. Your flashlight beam skims across plastic bins, sealed crates, labels bleached into illegibility. Dust floats in slow spirals each time you move, disturbed ghosts reluctant to settle again.

Leon advances at a measured pace, weapon steady, shoulders tight enough to telegraph that he hasn't liked this room from the moment the door opened. You mirror him, covering the angles between shelving units, eyes darting through the narrow gaps where shadows knit together into something almost solid. Another scrape, closer this time.

A container shifts on a shelf to your left with a soft plastic thud, tipping just enough to rock in place. Your rifle swings toward it automatically.

"Probably just settling," you whisper.

Leon doesn't answer. He takes one careful step forward, angling to get a better view past the rack. The beam of his light cuts across the gap, illuminating stacked boxes, a collapsed cart, nothing that looks immediately threatening.

Your shoulders start to loosen. That's when the hands shoot out of the darkness. They clamp around your calf, iron strong, nails digging through fabric as something drags itself from beneath the lowest shelf with a wet, hungry sound. You don't even have time to shout before you're yanked off balance.

"Leon—!"

He pivots instantly, dropping his aim to avoid hitting you as you hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from your lungs. The infected is half-crushed, lower body mangled, but its arms work just fine. Its mouth snaps inches from your boot, teeth clacking together with a sound that vibrates up your bones.

You kick, connecting with its face, but it barely registers the impact. Its grip tightens, hauling you closer, closer, jaws opening wide enough to show the slick black of its throat. 

Leon moves. He doesn't fire. Too risky. Instead, he lunges forward, grabbing the back of your vest and hauling you backward with brutal force. The infected comes with you, still latched on, dead weight and fury combined.

"Let go!" he snarls, driving his boot into its shoulder.

Bone cracks. The grip loosens just enough for him to wrench you free, dragging you behind him as he finally gets a clear shot. Two rounds. Point-blank.

The body jerks, collapses, and goes still. For a moment, all you can hear is your own ragged breathing and the thunder of your pulse. Leon stays crouched in front of you, one arm braced across your chest like a barricade, gun still trained on the corpse in case it decides death is negotiable.

"Hey," he says, voice low, urgent. "Hey. Look at me."

You blink, vision swimming, lungs finally remembering how to work. "I'm... I'm good."

His eyes scan you anyway, fast and thorough, hands already moving, checking arms, shoulders, gear, the way he always does. Routine. Training. Care disguised as procedure. Then his hand stops at your leg.

The fabric of your pants is torn where the creature grabbed you. Dark spreads through the rip, wet and unmistakable even in the dim light. Leon goes very still. Slowly, carefully, he pulls his glove off with his teeth and tosses it aside. His bare hand is warm when it closes around your ankle, steady but not gentle as he angles your leg into the beam of his flashlight.

You follow his gaze. For a second, your brain refuses to interpret what you're seeing. Just shapes. Color. Shine. Then it resolves. Deep teeth marks on your ankle. Blood wells from the punctures, thick and bright, running down into your boot.

"Oh," you say softly.

Leon doesn't speak. His jaw tightens so hard a muscle jumps along his cheek. His thumb presses near the wound, not enough to hurt, just enough to assess depth, damage, and reality.

"How bad?" you ask, because someone has to.

He inhales slowly through his nose, like he's trying to pull the air all the way down to somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.

"...Through the muscle," he says at last, voice roughened at the edges. "No arterial spray."

You almost laugh. Of course, that's what he notices. Of course, he frames it in survivable terms.

"Good news," you murmur.

His eyes snap to yours, sharp, bright, furious at something that isn't you. "Don't."

The word isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. Silence floods back in, thick as the dust hanging in the air. Carefully, he releases your leg only long enough to tear open a pouch on his vest. Gauze. Compression wrap. His hands move with practiced efficiency, but there's a tremor there now, small and stubborn, like a fault line threatening to split.

"This won't stop it," you say quietly.

"I know."

He presses the gauze down anyway, firm, unyielding, as if pressure alone could force time to behave.

"You didn't get grabbed anywhere else?" he asks without looking up.

"No."

"Scratch? Contact with fluid?"

"No, Leon."

He nods once, wrapping the bandage tight enough to hurt. You don't complain. Pain feels reassuringly human. When he finishes, he doesn't pull away. His hands remain braced on your leg, head bowed slightly, shoulders rising and falling with measured breaths. From this angle, you can see the faint silver threaded through his hair, the lines carved deeper by worry than age. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his jaw. He freezes.

"Hey," you say softly.

His eyes close for one heartbeat, leaning just slightly into your touch, like a man starving who just found water. Then he opens them again, focus snapping back into place with visible effort.

"We're moving," he says, voice low and absolute. "There will be another storage area. Another lab. Something."

You nod because you believe him. Because you have to. Because you don't want this to be the end. Because you don't want Leon to have to go through that. Because you want your dessert.

He rises first, then offers you his hand. When you take it, he pulls you up carefully, keeping his other hand hovering at your waist in case you falter. You put weight on the leg. It holds, though pain flares hot and sharp.

"Can you walk?" he asks.

"Yeah." A lie. A manageable one.

He doesn't call you on it. Instead, his arm slides around your back, anchoring you against his side as you take your first step. Protective. Supportive. Refusing to let distance exist.

"Stay with me," he murmurs.

Your head rests briefly against his shoulder, just for a second.

"Always," you whisper.

Adrenaline still burns hot in your veins, dulling the edges, convincing your body it can outrun consequences if it just keeps moving. Leon keeps his arm locked around you, pace adjusted to match yours without comment. Not slow enough to feel patronizing, not fast enough to make you stumble. Perfect. Infuriatingly perfect.

"You don't have to babysit," you murmur.

"Good," he says quietly. "Because I'm not."

His hand shifts slightly at your side, fingers spreading as if to support more of your weight without making a show of it. The corridor slopes downward. Each step sends a dull shock up your leg, deeper now, heavier, like the pain has roots instead of edges. You grit your teeth and keep going. After a dozen paces, something else creeps in. A warmth. Not the healthy kind. Not exertion. This feels wrong, thick and syrupy, pooling under your skin like fever deciding where to settle. You swallow. Your throat feels dry. Too dry.

"Leon," you start, then stop, because you're not sure what you were going to say.

He glances at you immediately. "What?"

"Nothing. Thought I heard something."

He doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't push. Instead, he shifts you a little closer, your hip brushing his with every step now, a steady rhythm of contact that keeps you oriented.

The lights flicker overhead. For a split second, the world tilts. You blink hard, waiting for it to right itself. It does, but not completely. The edges of your vision feel soft, as if someone smeared petroleum jelly across reality.

"Hey," Leon says quietly.

You realize you've slowed. "I'm fine."

He stops anyway.

"No," he says, voice calm and immovable as bedrock. "You're not."

Before you can argue, a shape lurches from a side passage ahead. Its movements are jerky and uneven, its head twitching like a broken marionette. Leon eases you behind him with one hand, weapon already up. He takes it out, waiting a few seconds to make sure it's down. 

When he turns back to you, his focus narrows, shutting out the rest of the world. "Sit," he says.

You shake your head. "We don't have time."

"Sit."

There's no edge in it. No raised volume. Just absolute certainty that this is happening. Your legs decide for you. The moment you stop resisting, they wobble, knees threatening to fold. Leon catches you instantly, one arm wrapping around your back, the other under your uninjured leg, guiding you down against the wall with careful control.

The concrete is cold through your gear. It feels strangely good. He crouches in front of you, close enough that your boots nearly touch his knees. Up close, you can see every tiny tension line in his face, every sleepless hour etched into skin that has forgotten what "rested" means.

His bare hand comes up again, settling against your neck, fingers sliding to your pulse point. You shiver.

His brows draw together. "You're burning up."

"Shock," you say weakly.

"You know that's not true."

His thumb presses lightly, counting. You can feel the rhythm under his skin, your heart hammering like it's trying to break out of your chest.

"Too fast," he murmurs, mostly to himself.

A tremor runs through your hands. Small at first, then stronger, fingers twitching against your thigh as if they belong to someone else and forgot to tell you. You curl them into fists, but it doesn't help. Leon notices. He reaches down slowly, deliberately, and wraps his hand around yours. Not restraining. Anchoring. His grip is warm, solid, impossibly steady compared to the jitter under your skin.

"Look at me," he says softly.

You do. Blue eyes. Tired. Fierce. Terrified in a way he would deny under oath.

"We're going to fix this," he says.

"You don't know that."

"Yes," he says, so simply it almost hurts. "I do."

Your vision blurs. You blink rapidly, trying to clear it, but the edges keep fuzzing out like a badly tuned signal.

"Everything's... weird," you admit. "Like I'm underwater."

His jaw tightens. "Any nausea?"

"No."

"Dizziness?"

"...Maybe."

"Confusion?"

You hesitate.

His expression darkens. "How long?"

"Ten minutes."

He leans forward suddenly, pressing his forehead to yours. The contact is gentle, deliberate, his eyes closing for a brief moment like he's drawing strength from proximity alone.

"You stay with me," he murmurs. "You hear me? No drifting."

"I'm right here."

His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there. Making sure you don't slip away. For a few seconds, neither of you moves. Somewhere far off, metal clatters. A distant echo of something collapsing. The facility settling into deeper ruin. You swallow. Your throat feels raw now, like you've been breathing dry air for hours.

"Leon."

"Yeah."

"If I start to..."

He pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes sharp. "Don't."

"You need to be ready."

"I am ready."

"That's not what I mean."

His hand tightens at the back of your neck, just enough to stop you from looking away.

"I'm not leaving you," he says quietly. "Save it."

Your chest aches, and not from the bite. You nod because you don't trust your voice. He studies you another moment, memorizing something only he can see, then exhales slowly and shifts back into motion.

"Okay," he says, tone sharpening into mission focus again. "We move in short intervals. Next sector should have auxiliary storage or research offices. More supplies. Maybe antivirals."

"Maybe," you echo.

He rises, then hesitates, looking down at you like he's recalculating physics.

Without warning, he slips one arm behind your back and the other under your knees.

You blink. "Leon—"

"Save your strength."

"I can walk."

"I know."

And that's the end of the discussion. He lifts you with controlled ease, settling you against his chest. Your head ends up tucked under his chin, close enough to hear his heartbeat, steady and stubborn as a drum calling soldiers back to formation. You don't argue again. Your hand fumbles for his vest, gripping the fabric as another wave of heat rolls through you, deeper this time, almost nauseating in its intensity.

"Still with me?" he murmurs into your hair.

You nod weakly. "Yeah."

"Good."

He adjusts his hold, one hand splayed protectively across your back, and starts down the corridor again, footsteps measured, unhurried, as if he has decided that time itself can wait its turn. The world sways gently with each step. Your eyelids feel heavy.

Leon's voice cuts through the fog, low and insistent. "Stay awake."

"I'm trying."

"Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything."

You think for a long moment, chasing thoughts that scatter like startled birds.

"...Dessert," you mumble finally.

A soft breath leaves him, almost a laugh, almost something else entirely.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

You clutch his vest a little tighter, grounding yourself in the solid reality of him.

"Don't let me fall asleep," you whisper.

His arms tighten around you, careful but unyielding.

Leon adjusts his grip as you shift in his arms, not because you're heavy, never that, but because your body no longer anticipates his movement the way it usually does. You used to lean into turns before they happened, tighten your hold when he stepped over debris, and match his rhythm without thinking. Now you lag by half a second behind every motion, like your connection to gravity is buffering. He notices. He notices everything.

Your skin is too hot even through layers of fabric. Heat seeps through his sleeves, through his gloves, into his palms like you're burning from the inside out. Your breath ghosts unevenly against his throat, sometimes shallow, sometimes too deep, like your lungs can't agree on a pattern. Fever, he tells himself. Infection. Not the other thing. Not yet. Your fingers twitch where they clutch his vest, loosening, tightening, loosening again.

"Hey," he murmurs quietly. "Still with me?"

A pause. "...Yeah."

The word is slurred at the edges, dragged through molasses. His jaw tightens. He keeps moving.

The corridor stretches ahead in dim amber light, empty except for the occasional smear on the wall or abandoned equipment pushed aside by people who ran out of time. His footsteps are steady, deliberate, conserving energy, minimizing jostling. He's carried wounded before. Teammates. Civilians. Strangers. None of them felt like this. None of them felt like carrying his own heartbeat outside his body.

Your head shifts, cheek pressing against his collarbone. For a moment you go very still, so still that something cold claws down his spine.

"Talk to me," he says, softer now. "You promised."

A long silence. Then, faintly, "Cold."

He stops. A clean halt, like someone pulled a lever inside him. Cold is wrong. You're burning up. He lowers you carefully to one knee without setting you fully down, keeping one arm wrapped around your back so you don't tip sideways. His other hand comes up to your face, bare fingers brushing your cheek. Your skin is blazing. But you're shivering. Small, violent tremors run through you, teeth chattering softly against each other, lashes fluttering as if your body can't decide whether to wake or sleep.

"Hey," he says, sharper now. "Open your eyes."

You do, slowly, unfocused at first. Your pupils look blown wide in the low light, swallowing what little color remains in your irises.

"It's... dark," you mumble.

His chest tightens. The lights are still on.

"I'm right here," he says. "Look at me."

Your gaze drifts, struggles, and finally locks onto his face. Recognition flickers there, fragile but present.

"...Leon."

Relief hits him so hard it almost feels like pain.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah, it's me."

Your brow furrows faintly, confusion knitting your expression into something painfully vulnerable.

"You look... tired."

He almost laughs. "Occupational hazard," he says quietly.

Your hand lifts weakly, fingers brushing his jaw as if you're mapping terrain you've walked a thousand times but suddenly don't trust your memory of.

"You should sleep," you whisper.

The tenderness in it is what breaks him a little.

"Soon, sweetheart," he says.

Your hand slips, falling back against your chest. Silence stretches. Your breathing grows uneven again.

Then you say, very softly, "Did we make it home?"

The words land like a physical blow. For a second, he can't answer. His throat closes around something sharp and unmanageable.

Home. Not the facility. Not the mission. Not the outbreak. Home. He swallows hard, forcing air back into his lungs.

"Not yet," he says, voice low and steady by sheer force of will. "Working on it."

Your eyes drift past him, unfocused, as if you're looking at something over his shoulder that isn't there.

"...Smells like coffee," you murmur. "Burned it again."

His vision blurs. He blinks hard, refocusing on the concrete wall behind you. You're not smelling coffee. There is no coffee. There hasn't been coffee in hours. Just dust and chemicals and rot. Hallucinations, a cold voice in his mind supplies. Neurological involvement. He hates that voice. 

Your lips curve faintly, a sleepy little smile that belongs in a sunlit kitchen, not here. "You always do that," you mumble. "Say you're watching it, then forget..."

Your head tips sideways, resting against his arm. Your eyelids droop. Panic slices through him, clean and immediate.

"Hey," he says sharply, fingers tightening on your shoulder. "No. Stay with me."

You stir weakly. "...'m tired."

"I know."

"So tired."

His thumb presses against your pulse again. Still fast. Too fast.

"You can sleep when we're home," he says, leaning closer, voice dropping to something rough and urgent.

Your eyes open a sliver.

"...Promise?"

The question is so small it barely exists.

He bows his head until his forehead rests against yours, eyes closing for one heartbeat, he allows himself.

"Yeah," he whispers. "I promise."

He doesn't know if he's promising sleep, survival, or something else entirely. It doesn't matter. Your breathing evens out a little, not better, just slower, drifting toward something that looks dangerously like unconsciousness. Not yet, he thinks fiercely.

He slides one arm under your knees again and lifts you back against his chest, more carefully this time, as if you might come apart if handled too roughly. Your head lolls against his shoulder, then settles in the hollow of his neck, breath hot and damp against his skin.

"Stay with me," he murmurs into your hair. "Just a little longer."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his vest, not gripping anymore, just resting there like they forgot their job.

"...Love you," you whisper, so faint he almost thinks he imagined it.

He stops breathing. The entire world narrows to the weight in his arms and the fragile thread of sound still hanging in the air. His hold tightens, protective, desperate, careful all at once.

"I know," he says quietly, voice breaking on the edges despite his best effort. "I know."

He presses his cheek briefly against your hair, eyes closing, grounding himself in the reality of you. The heat. The softness. The terrifying fragility. Then he straightens and starts moving again, steps faster now, less cautious, urgency bleeding through the discipline he's clung to since this began. Somewhere ahead, there has to be another lab. Another storage room. Another chance. There has to be. Because the alternative is unthinkable, and Leon Kennedy has built an entire life on refusing to accept those.

"Hang on," he murmurs. "I've got you."

The corridor opens into what used to be a patient ward, rows of metal-framed beds bolted to the floor, privacy curtains hanging in limp, dusty folds like flags after a lost battle. Most of the mattresses are stripped bare, plastic covers cracked with age, but the room is quiet. No movement. No shuffling breath. Just the low electrical hum that seems to haunt every corner of this place.

Leon slows, scanning automatically, mapping exits, sightlines, choke points. Good visibility. Single main entrance. Minimal clutter. Defensible. More importantly, close.

A reinforced door at the far end bears a faded hazard symbol and the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY stenciled beneath it. The hinges are external. The frame is thicker than standard interior construction. Lab access. Or something close to it.

"Okay," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "This'll do."

He crosses to the nearest intact bed and lowers you with painstaking care, one arm supporting your shoulders, the other guiding your legs so the injured one doesn't twist. The mattress sighs softly under your weight, springs complaining but holding. For a second, he doesn't let go. Your head rolls slightly to one side, hair falling across your face. Your eyes are half-open, unfocused, lashes trembling like you're dreaming with your eyes still in the world.

"Hey," he says quietly, brushing the hair back with fingers that are gentler than anything else he's done today. "Stay with me."

Your gaze struggles to find him. "...Hi," you whisper.

"Hi," he echoes, voice rough.

Your hand lifts weakly, searching. He catches it immediately, folding his larger one around yours, grounding you with solid pressure.

"Where are we?" you murmur.

"Almost there," he says. Not a lie. Not quite the truth. "I need to check something."

Your fingers twitch in his grip, barely there. "...Don't go far."

His throat tightens.

"I won't," he says. "You'll be able to hear me the whole time." That seems to satisfy something in you. Your eyes drift closed, not fully unconscious, just sliding along the edge of it.

He gently lowers your hand to rest against your stomach, then hesitates. After a moment, he reaches up and unzips his jacket, shrugging it off despite the chill. He drapes it over you, tucking it around your shoulders, creating a cocoon of familiar warmth and scent. Leon rests his palm against your cheek one last time, thumb brushing your skin in a soft arc.

He forces himself to stand. Every instinct screams not to leave you. To pick you up and run until the world ends, the cure appears, or both. But the door at the end of the room waits, silent and stubborn, and something in his gut tells him that whatever hope exists is behind it.

He moves. Slow at first, reluctant steps that keep him within arm's reach, then a little farther, turning back every few seconds to make sure you're still breathing, still there, still you. Halfway across the ward, a shape shifts behind a curtain. Leon's weapon is up before the fabric finishes swaying.

A figure stumbles out, skeletal, skin pulled tight over bone, eyes reflecting dull amber in the emergency light. Its mouth opens in a soundless snarl as it lurches toward the nearest movement. Leon intercepts it before it gets anywhere. Two suppressed shots. One to the chest, one to the head. The body collapses in a boneless heap, momentum carrying it forward until it skids to a stop across the tile.

Another groan answers from somewhere deeper in the room. He pivots, firing again, dropping a second infected as it claws its way over a bedframe. Efficient. Controlled. No wasted motion. No unnecessary noise. Three heartbeats of silence. He listens, counting breaths. Nothing else rises. Only then does he glance back. You haven't moved. Relief floods through him so sharply his knees almost unlock.

"Still here," he murmurs under his breath, as if confirming it makes it true.

He reaches the reinforced door and tests the handle. Locked. Of course it is.

Up close, the barricade becomes obvious. Heavy shelving units have been shoved against the interior side, metal edges visible through the narrow seam where the door meets the frame. Whoever sealed this room meant to keep something out. Or in.

Leon leans closer, ear to the cold steel. Nothing. No breathing. No scratching. No shifting weight. He steps back and scans the frame. Electronic panel. Dead. Manual override slot intact. Hope stirs, cautious and unwelcome.

He glances over his shoulder again. From here, he can still see you on the bed, small beneath his jacket, chest rising and falling in shallow motions that make his own lungs ache in sympathy.

"Almost there," he says quietly, whether to you or himself, he doesn't know.

From a pouch on his belt, he pulls a compact breaching tool, the metal catching the light as he slots it into the override housing. The device hums softly, vibration traveling up his wrist.

Behind him, the ward remains still.

Then your voice drifts across the room, thin and fragile. "...Leon?"

He spins instantly. Your head has turned toward him, eyes open again, unfocused but searching, panic flickering in the small movement of your hands against his jacket.

"I'm here," he calls, already crossing back toward you. "Right here."

You stare at him as if trying to memorize his face before it disappears. "...Too many," you whisper. "They're everywhere."

"There's nothing here," he says gently. "You're safe."

Your head sinks back into the thin pillow. Consciousness slips away from you like water through open fingers. Leon stays there a second longer than he should, watching your chest rise, fall, rise again. Then he stands and turns back to the barricaded door, something steely settling over him, heavier than anger, sharper than fear.

The tool in his hand whines as it bites into the locking mechanism, sparks spitting in brief, angry bursts. Metal protests. Screws shear. The smell of hot circuitry fills the air.

"Hold on," he murmurs, not looking back this time because he won't stop if he does. "I'm getting us in."

Behind him, the bed creaks softly as you shift in fevered sleep. Ahead, the door shudders as the final bolt gives way. Leon shoves the door inward, the weight of it grinding against the barricade until the gap is wide enough for him to slip through sideways. Inside, a toppled shelving unit leans against the opposite wall, confirming what he already suspected. Whoever sealed this room did it from within and didn't plan on leaving.

The air is colder here. Cleaner. Sterile in that artificial way that smells faintly of alcohol wipes and plastic, like illness reduced to a controlled environment.

Emergency lights glow a sickly green, illuminating rows of lab benches, overturned stools, racks of glassware frozen mid-experiment. Papers lie scattered across the floor, curling at the edges. A monitor flickers weakly on one station, casting a pulsing rectangle of pale light that feels almost alive in the otherwise stagnant room.

Leon clears the space in seconds, weapon sweeping corners, checking behind doors, under desks, anywhere something could hide. Nothing lunges. Nothing breathes. Just abandonment, sudden and absolute, like the people who worked here evaporated mid-sentence.

He lowers the gun a fraction, chest rising and falling a little too fast to be purely tactical.

"Okay," he murmurs, voice rough in the quiet. "Okay."

He moves to the nearest workstation, scanning labels, cabinets, drawers. Chemical reagents. Disposable supplies. Data drives. Everything except what he needs. Another bench. Same story. He opens a refrigerated unit. Empty trays. Frost buildup. Power too low to maintain temperature.

His pulse hammers harder.

Not here. Not here. Not here.

"Come on," he mutters, rifling through containers faster now, less methodical, more desperate. Glass clinks sharply as he shoves aside vials of things that don't matter, powders with long names, syringes sealed in sterile plastic. Nothing labeled antiviral. Nothing labeled serum. Nothing labeled hope. A cold weight settles in his stomach.

He moves to the flickering computer, fingers flying across the keys, waking it from whatever half-dead state it's been trapped in. The screen brightens sluggishly, revealing a login prompt already bypassed, system hanging on by a thread.

"Don't do this to me," he whispers.

Folders populate slowly. Research logs. Incident reports. Containment protocols. He scans titles with ruthless speed, opening anything that looks remotely relevant, eyes burning as line after line of technical jargon scrolls past.

Mutation rates. Transmission vectors. Failure rates. 

Failure rates.

His jaw tightens.

A crash echoes faintly from the ward beyond the door. His head snaps toward the sound. Silence follows. He waits three seconds. Five. Ten. No approach. No impact against the door. No dragging footsteps. Still there, he tells himself. She's still there.

He turns back to the screen, forcing his focus to narrow again. A document catches his eye.

ANTIVIRAL DISPERSION PROTOCOL – EMERGENCY USE

He opens it. Paragraphs of dense instructions spill across the display. Stabilization procedures. Delivery methods. Storage warnings. STORAGE LOCATION: SECURE BIOCONTAINMENT VAULT B-2. His stomach drops. Not here.

Coordinates blink uselessly on the screen, pointing deeper into the facility, farther than he wants to think about, farther than you may be able to survive the trip.

Something inside him finally gives. He grips the edge of the desk, knuckles whitening, shoulders bowing as if someone just added fifty pounds to his back.

"Damn it," he breathes.

The word fractures on the way out, barely more than air. He squeezes his eyes shut, forehead dropping toward his clenched fists, fighting the surge of helpless fury that threatens to tear through discipline, training, every wall he's built over years of surviving the unsurvivable. Not enough time. Not enough distance. Not enough anything.

Out in the ward, you lie alone on a metal bed, burning up, slipping further away with every second he spends standing here empty-handed. His chest tightens until breathing feels optional.

For one dangerous moment, he imagines walking back out there, picking you up, and never stopping. No cure. No mission. Just distance and denial. Just the selfish hope that if he runs fast enough, the virus won't catch you.

He exhales sharply, dragging himself back from the edge. Running never saved anyone.

"Think," he mutters hoarsely. "Think."

His gaze drifts across the lab again, slower this time, less frantic, searching for patterns instead of miracles. That's when he notices it. A sealed medical kit is mounted on the wall near the exit. Standard emergency issue. Bright white casing. Untouched, pristine compared to the chaos everywhere else. Too pristine. He crosses the room and pops it open. Bandages. Burn gel. Basic trauma supplies. Nothing else.

His shoulders slump. Then his eyes catch a thin seam along the back panel, almost invisible unless you're looking directly at it. Not part of the original design. Too clean. Too deliberate. He taps it with his knuckle. Hollow. Hope flares, sharp and painful.

He wedges a knife into the seam and pries. The panel resists for a second, then snaps free with a brittle crack, revealing a narrow cavity hidden behind the kit.

Inside rests a single reinforced container, matte gray and no bigger than a paperback book, sealed with a biometric latch long since disabled. Not government-issue, but research-grade. Whoever put this here didn't have the chance to get it.

Leon's hands shake as he pulls it free. The lid pops open. Nestled in foam are two glass syringes pre-loaded with clear liquid, labels printed in blocky lab script:

ANTIVIRAL SERUM — FINALIZED STRAIN

For a second, he just stares, brain refusing to trust what his eyes are telling it. Air leaves his lungs in a sound that might be a laugh or might be something closer to a sob strangled before it can exist.

"Okay," he whispers, voice breaking anyway. "Okay. We're good. We're... we're good."

He presses his forehead briefly against the cool plastic case, eyes squeezing shut, letting the relief hit him in one violent wave before he can stop it. Shoulders shake once, twice, a tremor he doesn't bother to control because no one is here to see it. No one except the person who needs him most. He straightens abruptly, wiping a hand across his face, composure snapping back into place like a mask he's worn too long to misplace.

"Hang on," he says, already moving for the door, clutching the case like it's made of glass and prayers. "I'm coming back."

Your skin is still hot. That's the first thing he registers when his palm cups your cheek. Heat floods into his hand, fever-bright, but there's a wrongness to it now, a brittle quality, like warmth without life behind it.

"Hey," he says softly. "I'm back."

No response. Your lashes rest against your cheeks, unmoving. Your mouth is slightly open, breath slipping in shallow threads that barely stir the hair at your temple. The shivering from before has stopped. Your body lies too still beneath his jacket, as if it finally decided movement was optional.

A cold spike of terror drives straight through his chest.

"Hey." Louder this time, but still gentle, still careful, as if volume alone might break you. "Come on. Open your eyes for me."

Nothing. He slides his hand to your neck, fingers pressing to your pulse point. It's there. Fast. Thready. Irregular in a way that makes his own heartbeat stumble trying to match it.

"Okay," he breathes, more to himself than to you. "We're okay."

His other hand trembles as he fumbles the case open, snapping it back with a soft plastic crack. The syringes gleam under the emergency lights, their clear liquid looking impossibly calm compared to the storm in his chest. He sets the case on the bed beside you, movements deliberate, controlled, forcing precision where panic wants chaos.

"You're gonna hate this part," he murmurs, fingers working to clear space at your collar, tugging fabric aside so he can reach skin. "But you can yell at me later. I'm counting on it."

Your head lolls slightly with the movement. No protest. No reflexive tension. He swallows hard.

"Hey," he says again, softer now, thumb brushing your jaw in a slow arc. "Stay with me, okay? You don't get to check out early. We still owe each other dessert."

His voice catches on the last word. He pushes through it.

"Remember that place downtown? The one with the ridiculous chocolate cake you said was worth the calories?" A shaky breath. "I figure we'll go there."

He presses his forehead briefly against yours, eyes squeezing shut for a fraction of a second.

"You hear me? We've got plans."

Your breathing hitches faintly, a tiny irregular stutter that might be a coincidence or might be something else. He latches onto it anyway, desperate for anything that looks like a connection.

"That's it," he murmurs. "Right there. Stay with me."

He lifts the syringe, checks it automatically, habit stronger than fear. No air bubbles. Fluid clear. Needle steady despite the tremor in his hand.

"Okay," he whispers. "Here we go."

He slides his arm behind your shoulders, lifting you just enough to support you against his chest, cradling you there so the injection won't jostle too much. Your head falls against him, cheek resting over his heart, breath warm and frighteningly faint through the fabric of his shirt.

"You're doing great," he says softly, even though you're doing nothing at all. "Almost there."

The needle presses into your skin.

He hesitates.

Not because he doubts the serum. Because once this is done, there's nothing left to do but wait, and waiting is the one thing he has never learned to survive gracefully.

"Don't be mad," he murmurs. "I'm not giving you a choice."

He depresses the plunger slowly, watching the liquid disappear into you, as if he can track hope molecule by molecule. His other arm tightens around your back, holding you upright, holding you together.

"All right," he says, voice barely above a breath. "You did good. See? Easy."

He withdraws the needle and sets it aside with mechanical care, as if any sudden movement might undo what he's just done. Then he just holds you.

Seconds crawl past, each one stretching thin as wire. Nothing happens. Your breathing remains shallow. Your pulse, when he checks again, is still fast, still erratic. His chest starts to feel tight, air coming harder, like the room has quietly stolen oxygen while he wasn't looking.

"Okay," he says hoarsely. "Sometimes these things take a minute."

He shifts you slightly, thumb stroking your arm in absent circles, the same motion he uses when you're half asleep on long flights or bad nights. Comfort muscle memory kicks in even when the situation is far beyond comfort.

"You're not allowed to do this," he whispers. "You hear me? Not now. Not like this."

Your hand slips from where it rested against his vest, sliding down between you, fingers loose and unresponsive. He grabs it instantly, folding it back into his palm, pressing it against his chest.

"Come back," he says, the words fraying at the edges.

Another long stretch of nothing. Fear blooms, cold and suffocating, filling every hollow place in him. Too late, a voice in the back of his mind whispers. Too slow. Too far gone.

He shakes his head sharply, jaw clenching.

"No," he mutters. "No, you don't get to do that."

He bows over you, pressing his forehead to your hair, eyes squeezed shut, breathing you in like oxygen.

"You promised," he says roughly. "You don't break your promises."

Your pulse stutters under his fingers. He freezes.

There it is again. A strange hitch, a pause that stretches too long, then a sudden rush, as if your heart forgot the rhythm and is trying to find it again. His own heart stops in sympathetic terror.

"Come on," he whispers. "Come on..."

Your body jerks. A sharp, involuntary spasm that arches you slightly against him before you go slack again. Leon sucks in a breath, half panic, half hope colliding in his chest.

"That's it," he says urgently. "That's something. That's good. Keep going."

Your brow creases faintly, expression tightening as if pain is finally breaking through the fog. A weak sound escapes you, barely audible, more exhale than voice. His grip on you tightens, careful but fierce.

"I know," he murmurs. "I know, sweetheart. It's okay. You're okay."

Your breathing changes, deepening suddenly, as if you're pulling in air like someone surfacing from underwater. It catches, stutters, then comes again, stronger this time, dragging oxygen into lungs that finally seem interested in using it.

"There you go," he breathes, voice shaking openly now. "That's it. Stay with me."

Your fingers twitch weakly against his chest. He presses his cheek against your hair, eyes closing, holding you like you might still vanish if he loosens his grip.

"I've got you," he whispers. "You're okay. I've got you."

He keeps you cradled against his chest, one arm locked around your back, the other braced across your shoulders, hand splayed as if shielding you from something that no longer exists. His cheek rests against your hair, breath uneven, dragging in through his nose, out through parted lips like he's relearning how to do it.

Your pulse is stronger now beneath his fingers. Still fast, still fragile, but steady enough to count. Steady enough to believe in. Only then does the tension start to bleed out of him. It comes all at once.

His shoulders shudder. Not violently, just a small, contained tremor that he tries to swallow down and can't. A sound escapes him, rough and broken, something halfway between a breath and a sob he never intended to make. He tightens his hold instinctively, pressing his face into your hair as if hiding there makes it less real.

"Okay," he whispers hoarsely. "Okay... you're okay."

Warmth hits your scalp. At first, your fogged mind can't place it. Wetness. A second drop follows, sliding along your temple before disappearing into your hair.

Leon doesn't notice. Or he does and can't stop. He bows over you, forehead pressed to the crown of your head, shoulders shaking in small, uneven pulses he's trying desperately to keep silent. Years of training, years of surviving, years of holding everything inside, finally cracking under the simple fact that you are still here.

"I've got you," he murmurs, voice wrecked, words stumbling over each other. "I've got you, I've got you..."

Your fingers twitch. This time, the movement is stronger, a weak curl against his shirt, fabric bunching slightly in your grasp. The sensation filters through layers of fog, heat, exhaustion, and the lingering echo of pain. Consciousness creeps back in like dawn through heavy curtains.

Your throat burns. Your body feels impossibly heavy, as if gravity doubled while you were away. Every muscle aches with a deep, bone-level fatigue that sleep alone could never fix.

Sound reaches you first. A heartbeat. Loud. Steady. Close enough to be yours, except it isn't. Breath above you, hitching, uneven. Fabric shifting faintly with each inhale.

Someone is holding you. You force your eyes open.

The world swims into view in slow, watery shapes. A blurred patch of green light. A shadow that resolves into the curve of a shoulder. Blond strands of hair brushing your cheek.

Leon.

He doesn't notice you're awake yet. His face is buried against your head, one hand cupping the back of your skull with fierce gentleness, thumb moving in tiny, repetitive strokes like he's soothing a nightmare that hasn't ended for him yet.

Your voice comes out as a rasp. "Leon...?"

He freezes. Absolute stillness, like a statue suddenly unsure whether it's allowed to move. Slowly, he lifts his head. His eyes are red. Not just glassy, not just tired, but openly, unmistakably wet. Tracks of tears cut through the grime on his cheeks, catching the light as he blinks hard, as if blinking might erase evidence before you can register it.

For a second, he just stares at you, something raw and disbelieving cracking across his face, like he expected this moment and still isn't sure it's real.

"You're..." His voice fails. He clears his throat roughly. "Hey."

You try to smile. It feels wobbly, incomplete. "Hi."

Relief hits him so visibly it's almost painful to watch. His shoulders sag, tension draining out of him like someone cut the strings holding him upright.

"Hey," he repeats, softer this time, thumb coming up to brush your cheek in a careful sweep, as if confirming you're solid. "You're back."

"Was I... gone?"

His jaw tightens. "Not allowed."

You attempt a small laugh. It comes out as a weak breath. His hand slides to the side of your neck, fingers resting over your pulse again, counting, grounding, refusing to trust his eyes alone.

"You scared me," he says quietly.

Your gaze drops to his chest, to the wrinkled fabric where you must have been gripping him earlier. "Sorry."

His head snaps slightly. "Don't."

The word is sharp, then softens immediately.

"Don't apologize," he adds, voice rough. "Just... don't."

You nod faintly. Even that feels like work.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there in his arms, breathing the same air, sharing the same small pocket of reality after hours of separation that happened without distance. Then you notice how tightly he's still holding you.

"Leon," you murmur, "I can't breathe."

He releases you instantly, horror flashing across his face. "Sorry. Sorry."

He shifts his grip, supporting you more carefully, one arm still behind your shoulders but no longer crushing you to him. His other hand lingers at your jaw, thumb brushing your skin as if he can't quite stop touching you.

"You're okay?" he asks, scanning your face like he's looking for cracks. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Vision?"

"Everything hurts."

He exhales, something that might be relief ghosting through the pain in his expression. "I'll take it."

Your eyes drift past him, taking in the ward, the beds, the dim light. Memory trickles back in jagged pieces. Teeth. Heat. Falling. Darkness.

"...You found it," you whisper.

He nods once. "Yeah, told you we would.

Your mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "Yeah. You did."

You study him more closely now, the red around his eyes, the dampness he hasn't fully wiped away, the way he keeps blinking as if his vision is unreliable.

"You were crying," you say softly.

Immediate denial rises to his lips. You can see it form. Then he looks at you. And whatever excuse he was about to give dissolves.

"...Yeah," he admits, voice low. "Maybe a little."

A tear slips free anyway, tracking down before he can stop it. He doesn't bother hiding it this time. Doesn't look away. Just lets it exist.

"You weren't waking up," he says, as if that explains everything. It does.

Your chest aches in a different way now. You lift your hand slowly, muscles protesting, and touch his face. Your thumb brushes the damp track on his cheek, wiping it away with clumsy tenderness.

"I'm here," you whisper.

He leans into your hand without thinking, eyes closing briefly, relief and exhaustion and something deeper collapsing together inside him.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "You are."

He covers your hand with his, pressing it lightly to his skin as if anchoring himself. After a moment, his gaze sharpens again, mission awareness bleeding back in. 

"We need to move," he says gently. "Facility's not stable, and we don't know how long before more of them wander in."

You nod, though the idea of standing feels ambitious at best. He notices the hesitation immediately.

"Hey," he says softly. "I've got you."

He shifts, sliding one arm behind your back again, the other under your knees, lifting you with the same careful strength as before, only this time you help a little, arms coming up weakly around his neck. Your head settles against his shoulder.

"Still getting dessert?" you murmur against his collar.

A real smile breaks through at last, small but bright as sunrise after a storm.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "We're still getting that."

He turns toward the exit, steps steady, protective hold unyielding but gentle now that he knows you're truly there.

Three days later, the world smells like coffee and clean laundry instead of antiseptic and decay.

Sunlight spills through half-closed blinds, laying soft gold across the rumpled bedspread and the tangle of blankets around your legs. The air is warm, carrying the faint hum of city life from outside, tires on pavement, a distant horn, someone laughing somewhere far below.

Leon sits beside you, forearms resting on his thighs, watching with that quiet intensity he hasn't quite learned to turn off yet. He looks cleaner than before, shaved, hair damp as if he showered quickly and came right back, but the exhaustion still clings to him in the set of his shoulders.

"You're staring," you murmur.

"Monitoring," he corrects.

"You blink?"

"Sometimes."

You huff a small laugh, the motion tugging at sore muscles that remind you exactly how recently everything went wrong. His gaze sharpens instantly, concern flaring before you even realize you winced.

"I'm okay," you assure him.

He searches your face a moment longer, then nods, not convinced but willing to accept it for now.

"You hungry?" he asks.

"Always."

He disappears into the kitchen and returns with coffee and a plate of pancakes that look slightly uneven but deeply sincere. You eat, he watches, tension slowly unwinding from him with each bite you take.

When you finish, you lean back, warm and heavy with food, eyelids drooping in content exhaustion.

"So when is our dessert date?" you ask softly.

Leon goes still. Then he stands without a word and leaves the room again.

You hear the soft thud of the door opening, the faint clink of something ceramic, the careful movements of someone handling something fragile. When he returns, he's holding a small white bakery box tied with a thin ribbon, the bow slightly crooked as if it had to survive transport in a large, impatient hand. He sets it on the bedside table with surprising delicacy.

"I didn't make this," he says gruffly. "Figured we've both suffered enough."

Suspicion and curiosity spark together. You pull the ribbon loose, lifting the lid. Inside sits a slice of decadent chocolate cake, glossy frosting catching the sunlight, layers dark, dense, and unapologetically indulgent.

Your chest tightens.

"You remembered," you whisper.

He shrugs, looking suddenly very interested in a spot on the wall. "You seemed pretty sure it was worth surviving for."

You lift the cake plate slightly and notice something tucked beneath the ribbon, partially hidden against the cardboard.

An envelope. Your fingers hesitate, then slide it free. Leon doesn't look at you. He's staring out the window now, jaw set, shoulders a little too rigid, like he's bracing for impact.

Inside the envelope are two plane tickets. Beach destination. Departure in two weeks. Round trip. Vacation time from work. A hotel confirmation tucked behind them.

For a long moment, you can't speak.

"You said somewhere boring," he mutters quietly, still not turning around. "Figured that would be perfect."

"Leon..."

He finally looks back, expression carefully neutral, but there's something vulnerable in his eyes, something that says this mattered more than he wants to admit.

"You don't have to go," he adds quickly. "If you're not up for travel yet, we can postpone, or cancel, or—"

You set the tickets down and reach for him. Your fingers curl into his shirt, pulling him closer until he's standing right at the edge of the bed, close enough that you can see the faint pulse at the base of his throat.

"Thank you," you say softly.

Not just for the vacation. Not just for the cake. He understands anyway. His face softens, tension draining into something warm and quiet and deeply relieved.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Anytime."

You pick up the fork, take a small bite of cake, then hold it out to him. He leans in, accepting it, eyes never leaving yours. For a second, neither of you pulls back, the space between you charged with something gentler than urgency, heavier than simple affection.

"Worth it?" he asks.

You nod. "Absolutely."

You set the plate aside, your hand finding his again, fingers threading through his with familiar ease. He squeezes back immediately, grounding, protective, like he did in the hallway, only now there's no fear behind it. You both crave this closeness after it was almost ripped away just days before. 

You tug lightly, coaxing him down to sit beside you on the bed. He goes without resistance, one arm coming around your shoulders automatically, careful of lingering soreness. Your other hand lifts, brushing his cheek where faint redness still lingers if you look closely enough.

"I love you," you whisper.

His eyes close briefly, leaning into your touch in a way he never would in public. Just here, just now, where it's safe to be human.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "I love you too."

Leon leans in first. The kiss is slow, gentle, nothing desperate or urgent, just warm lips and shared breath and the simple reassurance of contact. He stills for half a heartbeat, like he's afraid you might break, then melts into it, one hand cupping the back of your head. When you pull back, his forehead follows yours, resting lightly against it, eyes still closed.

"Careful," he murmurs. "Doctor said no overexertion."

You smile. "Pretty sure that wasn't what they meant."

"Still."

His arm tightens around you, drawing you closer until your head rests against his shoulder, fitting there like it always has. His chin settles lightly against your hair, breath warm, steady.

Outside, the city moves on. Inside, time slows to match the rhythm of two people who fought hard for the right to sit in a quiet room and eat cake.

"Two weeks," you murmur.

"Yeah."

"You think you can handle boring?"

He huffs softly. "I'll manage."

You laugh, the sound light and real and alive. His chest rises under your cheek, its vibration grounding you in the best possible way. For a long moment, neither of you says anything else. You just sit there, sunlight warming your skin, fingers loosely entwined, the promise of salt air and quiet days waiting ahead like a horizon you can finally see. Sharing cake, and kisses, and being alive, and together in your home.

Dividers by @uzmacchiato <3

You tried to get past it, understand the situation you're in, but you can't wrap your head around it. How the hell did Garrett manage to convince seven people to squeeze into his car without holding a gun to their head?

The scene you're greeted with when you make your way downstairs is baffling, suffocating almost. 

Garrett and Hannah sit comfortably in the front, giggling over a stupid joke he made as Hannah presses some random buttons to get the music working. Your eyes drift to the back, and that's when you see the disaster.  

Jesus Christ. 

You can't even tell people apart from how cramped it is inside. Logan's sitting by the window, with Jules on the edge of his lap. Tucker sits next to him, tense and looking very uncomfortable. 

Beau is glued to Tucker's side, with Allie comfortably positioned on his lap. They're giggling together as she shows him something on her phone. It's a very warm sight, they've grown really close after their trip to New York together. 

As if things couldn't get any worse, Dean is here. His side of the car is definitely... emptier. He's positioned in the seat behind Garret with his legs stretched over the rolled down window. The door to his side wide open, letting in much needed air. 

He's busy scrolling on his phone, only noticing your presence when your voice erupts through the chaos. 

"Wow, you should've invited a few more people," your tone fills with sarcasm, statement directed towards your brother. "Too much space." 

An amused chuckle escapes Dean's throat at your snarky comment, legs back on the ground as his attention shifts to Garrett. 

"Haha, very funny, Graham." Garret rolls his eyes, causing Hannah to shove his side. "Get in, you kept us stalling forever." 

"Where am I supposed to sit?" You argue, pointing towards the rammed car. 

Your eyes flicker back to Dean, who adjusts his position at your question. His legs spread apart, fingers lightly patting his lap, the silent gesture an invitation, something he voluntarily did to catch your attention. 

The idea of straddling Dean's lap for the entire car ride makes your heart flutter, cause air to get stuck in your throat. You can barely act normal when he's around, turning into a stuttering mess as soon as he joins any conversation, and now you have to sit on his lap for the next thirty minutes. 

"You're the only one complaining," Garrett interrupts through your thoughts, gesturing for you to get in the car. "Quit being a baby and find yourself a place to sit." 

A sigh dreads past your lips, dragging a deep exhale out as you step towards the vehicle. Dean clears his throat, fumbling around to put his phone away and straighten his back. You almost scoff if not for how nervous you are. 

"Hi," you start, avoiding Dean's gaze. 

"Hi," he repeats, but his tone is teasing, amused by how flustered you seem. You pause for a second, mustering up the courage to ask him to scoot, but Dean beats you to talking. "What are you waiting for?"

"Huh?" You hum, caught off guard. 

"Sit," his voice lowers into a whisper, gesturing you to sit on his lap. Your stomach twists into knots, the demand carrying so much tension, it makes your knees grow weak. "Sit on my lap." 

You fight the choked breath threatening to leave your chest, flashing him a tight-lipped smile, but still doing as you're told. You shuffle around to get in the car, carefully propping yourself across Dean's lap. 

Your whole body's tense, and you're sitting uncomfortably at the edge of his lap, barely providing yourself any space. The length of his legs is of no help, unnecessary long, you're practically holding onto the headrest to keep yourself from falling. 

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, Garrett Graham." You mutter through gritted teeth, causing your brother to freeze in his spot.

"Alright, now that everyone's here," Hannah bursts into laughter at Garrett's change of topic, completely ignoring the threat you threw in his direction. 

Annoyance fades into surprise when Dean slings his arms around your waist, using your astonishment as an opportunity to tug you close. Your back hits his firm chest with a thud, the proximity of the touch overwhelming you in an instant. 

Your body radiates with heat, as Dean's breath fans over your ear, the feather-like sensation causing goosebumps to break out across your back. He's so close, you can smell his stupid cologne, the aroma intoxicating, it almost melts you in your spot. 

You try to shuffle back into your old position, in case you're too heavy or causing Dean any discomfort, but the hand he presses to your hips interrupts those thoughts from rummaging through your head.

"You should get comfortable," he whispers in your ear, drawing circular motions to the sliver of skin just above your skirt. "It's a long ride." 

Fuck. 

Heat travels to in between your legs, gaze lowering to the arms caging you in place. His grip is firm, unwavering even when you move around to adjust yourself into a comfortable position. 

Dean doesn't budge, he pretends you're not even in his lap. He laughs, makes jokes, sings along as Hannah plays music, and it's like you're not even there. Unlike him, you're having a hard time playing this off as casual, nothing about this is normal, you skipped from ground zero to a thousand in the span of minutes. 

You try not to pay him too much attention, or his fingers as they're tracing small patterns to your hips, or his breath gradually blowing over your neck. All of it is so overwhelming, you want nothing more than to break free and breathe. 

This feels intimate, maybe too intimate, even more so because you're aware his touches are for you only, everyone else is doing their thing, and you two are in your own little world. 

After a while of resisting, you eventually settle back and relax against Dean's chest, satisfied by the way he tenses beneath you. His breath grows ragged, but he doesn't let you have it, tightening his arms in response, his hold engulfing most of your frame. 

This is okay, it's totally fine that you're tangled in this position with your brother's best friend, whom you've had a crush on since forever. 

You can get used to it. 

But you can't. Not when he's pulling every string to get your attention and get a reaction out of you. 

A few minutes pass by, and your body feels stiff from maintaining the same stance for too long. You shuffle around to find a comfortable position, hips stuttering when you feel something twitch underneath you. 

You're mistaken, have to be. It's all in your head, there's no way what you felt just now is real. 

"Fuck," Dean grunts, confirming your suspicions. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

He sighs, very shaky, but delibaret, the sound ringing in your ear, and making you pulse in reaction. You can feel hie semi-hard erection growing beneath you, failing to keep it under control. 

Fuck, Dean Di Laurentis is hard. 

You hate how much it's turning you on, your heat heaving with arousal when you feel another pulse through the thin fabric of his sweats. 

You angle your face towards the window, casually, without causing any suspicion, and Dean fights the embarrassment he feels to spare you a glance, regretting it soon as your hips move forward, instantly earning a choked breath out of him. 

It's not on purpose, you only realize what happens after he reacts. 

"Do you want me to–" he gives your hip another squeeze, locking you in place as the words die on your tongue. 

"Don't fuckin' move," he warns, practicing restraint. "Please." 

How can you not when his crotch is practically poking at your entrance, drenching your pussy from how tingly it's making you feel. 

"Dean," you whisper through a breath, causing his cock to twitch with need. The reaction you receive is immediate, anticipated, the only sign you need to grind down against his hardened length. 

His lips part in a hefty moan, barely dismissed by the loud music occupying everyone else. 

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He whispers, toying with the hem of your skirt, as his other hand caresses the exposed flesh around your stomach. 

"Maybe." You coyly offer him a response. 

This is your brother's best friend, someone way out of your orbit. You shouldn't cross the line, and let your lust drive you over the edge when you fought to keep yourself under control. 

Your brain short circuits, and panic rises in your chest before you can even stop it, but the pleasure surging through your body takes over when Dean's hips meet yours halfway, completely dismissing the guilt you're feeling. 

You've avoided Dean just fine till now, so why is it that you're involuntarily rolling your hips down for a mere fraction of his cock? 

Your pedicured nails dig into his arms, the force of the touch forming red marks all over his flesh. Dean smoothes out the fabric of your skirt to hide the circular motion of your hips. You ground him into place, repeatedly rubbing your wet cunt over his crotch. 

Pleasure builds through your insides, and you start to lose control over your grinds, messy and needy. Dean encourages you with a hand to your side, guiding you down to chase his own high, slowly building.

His cock aches, leaking with precum that stains a a patch in his underwear, wet and sticky, but he doesn't feel disgusted from it, but more so turned on because you're the cause of it. You're the reason he's in this mess, risking one of the most precious things to him just to touch you, feel you, even for a little. 

"I'm–" You fight the whimper threatening to leave your lips, leaning your head against the head rest to avoid locking eyes with anyone. 

Your pussy drenches in your arousal, thrusts growing sloppy as you feel your orgasm reaching its peak. Dean can almost tell that you're close, grip tightening around your stomach as he thrusts into you, rolling his hips once more before you came undone. 

Your legs shake from the overstimulation, Dean uses his hands to stabilize you in his lap. You ride him through your orgasm, sensitive, but desperate to please him and make him feel good. 

"You don't have to," he whispers, like he knows exactly what you're thinking. "I can take care of myself, darling."

"I want to," you reply, out of breath, with sweat forming at your forehead. Your face flushes with heat, and your energy goes down the drain in an instant, but you're persistent on making Dean come. 

His breath gets caught in his throat, and he uses your back as a shield to hide his expression as he reaches his own high. It only takes you a few more grinds for him to come undone. 

He releases into his pants, sticky stripes of semen coating a mess in his underwear. He stills your hips as he comes down from his high, a sigh of relief escaping his throat in the process. 

"That was– fuck." He chokes out, "So good for me, baby." 

You almost mewl at the praise but hold it back for the sake of not being caught. 

That was... insane. Probably the best orgasm you've had. 

The rest of the car ride seeps into silence on both your ends, too tired to engage with the rest of the group as they broke into a whole karaoke session.  It's not uncomfortable, nor is it unbearable, just... silence, you almost find it comforting. 

Garrett announces your arrival soon after, wrapping up the karaoke session as everyone engaged in another conversation.

You use their banter as an opportunity to pull at the strings of your thong, wiggling around on Dean's lap in an attempt to get them off. They slide down your thighs, bunching around your knees before eventually falling down your legs.

Dean doesn't do anything, simply sits back and observes you with a hint of confusion, eyebrows pinching as you bent down to grab it into your hold. 

And as everyone's busy getting out, you turn around and hand him the lacy material. 

"Huh?" He questions, taken aback by the sudden offer. 

You get off his lap, and land on the ground, smoothing down your skirt. Your gaze flickers back to him, a teasing grin smeared all over your lips. 

"A gift." You reply, attention shifting down to the mess on his lap. "Good luck cleaning that up." 

And with that, you take off with the rest of the group, barely sparing him a second glance. 

Fuck, now he has to deal with another boner. 

John Tucker, Briar U's laidback forward was the kind of guy who took everything in stride. He had a heart of gold, infinite patience, and a Texas drawl that could melt the panties off a saint. But his life had recently become a massive, tangled wreck. Earlier in the year, a brief hookup with Sabrina James had resulted in an unexpected pregnancy. Tucker, being the thoroughly decent, stand-up guy he was, stepped up immediately, vowing to support Sabrina and the baby every step of the way.

But then, he fell in love with you.

Because of the fragile situation with Sabrina, you and Tucker had decided to keep your relationship off the radar. You didn’t want to add to her panic, nor did you want to deal with the relentless, vicious gossip of the Briar campus. But what started as a temporary protective measure had morphed into a heavy, suffocating weight. You were sick of hiding. Sick of slipping out the back door of the hockey house before his roommates could catch you doing the walk of shame. You were tired of feeling like a dirty little secret, and the brutal strain had caused a constant, underlying friction between you two.

Which led to the explosive argument in his bedroom just hours before the team’s victory party.

You were pacing the length of his floor, your arms crossed tightly over your chest, while he sat on the edge of his neatly made bed. He was watching you with those heavy-lidded, deep brown eyes, his large hands resting loosely on his spread knees. His unnatural stillness only fueled the anxious, clawing fire burning in your chest.

"I can't do this anymore, Tuck," you said, your voice trembling as you snatched your jacket off his desk chair. "I'm fucking done. We're done."

He went utterly, terrifyingly still.

"Come here, darlin'," Tucker commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that usually turned your knees to absolute water.

"No." You zipped up your jacket with shaking fingers, refusing to look at him because you knew if you met his gaze, your resolve would snap in half. "I mean it this time. I am so fucking exhausted. I feel like a ghost in my own relationship."

Tucker pushed himself off the bed. His massive, muscular frame seemed to swallow the small space of the room as he stepped directly in front of his closed door, effectively trapping you inside. His dark auburn hair was a messy halo, and beneath his calm exterior, his warm brown eyes were flashing with a dangerous mix of panic and pure, unadulterated male stubbornness.

"We are not doing this, Y/N," he said slowly, his Texas drawl thick with absolute refusal. "We are not breaking up."

"I am the goddamn side piece in my own relationship!" you yelled, the frustration boiling over as hot tears finally spilled down your cheeks. "I know you have to be there for Sabrina and the baby. I want you to be there for them. You're a good man, Tuck, the best I know. But I can't be your hidden fuck-buddy anymore. I can't watch you rush out of the room to take her calls, or drop my hand the second we step outside because someone might see us. It hurts too much. It's tearing me apart."

A muscle feathered in his tight jaw. Tucker closed the distance between you in two long strides. You tried to step back, but his large, callused hands gripped your shoulders, hauling you gently but firmly against the hard wall of his chest. You were instantly grounded in his signature scent of sandalwood and citrus, a scent that felt so much like home it made a broken sob rip from your throat.

"You listen to me," he rasped, his voice vibrating against your collarbone as he lowered his head to look you dead in the eye. "You are not second place. You are never second place. You are everything to me."

"Tuck, please—"

"No, you're going to let me speak." He brought one of his large hands up to cup your cheek, his rough thumb catching a tear before it could fall. "I know it's hard. I know I'm asking a hell of a lot of you to wait for me to sort this mess out. I hate that I'm the goddamn reason you're crying right now. But I am a patient man, Y/N. I will wait out any storm to keep you."

You squeezed your eyes shut, shaking your head as you pressed your hands against his chest, trying to physically push away the one thing you wanted most in the world. Beneath your palms, his heart was hammering wildly against his ribs.

"You have to," you whispered, your voice cracking. "Go figure out your life. Be a dad. Do what you have to do without worrying about keeping me happy in the shadows."

You pulled out of his grip, intentionally ignoring the raw, devastated look that flashed across his handsome face. You reached around him, your hand wrapping tightly around the cool metal of the doorknob.

"I'm going to be at Malone's tonight," you said, your voice remarkably steady despite the fact that your heart was breaking into a million jagged pieces. "I promised Allie and Hannah I'd celebrate the win with them. But don't look for me, I need space."

You slipped past him, yanking the door open. You left him standing there in the middle of his bedroom, his jaw clenched tight and his broad chest heaving, his heart full of absolute, uncompromising refusal to accept that this was the end.

By the time you pushed your way into Malone's, your hands were still shaking.

And the absolute worst part of being best friends with Allie and Hannah? It meant you were automatically dragged into the Briar hockey team's inner circle.

They had commandeered the massive, wraparound leather booth in the back corner, and you were squished right into the middle of the loud, rowdy chaos. Garrett, Dean, Logan, and Fitzy were practically shouting over the music, toasting their shutout win and passing around pitchers of beer.

And sitting directly across the wooden table from you was John Tucker.

He hadn't said a single word since you sat down. He just sat rigidly on the cracked vinyl cushion, a half-empty bottle of Miller gripped in his large hand. For Tucker, the booming bass of the jukebox and the chaotic crowd seemed to fade entirely into white noise. The only thing in sharp focus was you. Every time you dared to glance up, those heavy-lidded, dark brown eyes were already locked on you, burning with a heavy, volatile intensity that made it impossible for you to draw a full breath.

You felt like you were bleeding out invisibly. You’d done it. You’d looked him in the eye, told him you were done being his dirty little secret, and walked away. Now, forced to sit so close to him, it felt like you’d carved out your own heart with a dull knife.

Hannah nudged your shoulder, shoving a shot of cheap tequila into your hand. "Drink up! You look like you're at a funeral, Y/N/N, not a party."

Allie leaned in over Dean's shoulder, her blonde hair catching the harsh neon light. "Seriously, what's going on with you? You've been miserable all week."

You forced a smile that didn't reach your eyes and downed the shot. The liquor clawed down your throat, "Just tired. Let's go dance."

You dragged them out of the booth and shoved your way onto the small, packed dance floor near the jukebox. The music was deafening, the heavy bass vibrating through the soles of your shoes and rattling your ribs. You squeezed your eyes shut, letting yourself get lost in the chaotic, grinding rhythm of the crowd. You laughed loudly with Allie and Hannah, desperately trying to project the image of a girl having the time of her life. But all you were really doing was trying to ignore the heavy, scorching gaze you could feel burning into your skin from across the room.

Tucker was watching you.

Usually, he was the anchor of his friend group—observant, laidback, the quiet guy who kept his head and his temper when everyone else lost theirs. Tonight, he felt like a coiled spring pulled back so tight it was about to snap.

Every breath he took felt like inhaling broken glass. You’d told him you were done. You’d looked at him with tears in your beautiful eyes and told him you couldn't be his second-place secret anymore. And the worst, most agonizing part? He knew you were absolutely right.

His eyes tracked your every movement through the strobe lights. You looked fucking breathtaking—flushed, wild, and utterly out of his reach—and he wasn't the only one who noticed.

A tall guy from the lacrosse team slid up behind you on the dance floor, his hands hovering dangerously close to your hips. Another guy, some frat bro in a backward cap, was trying to catch your eye, shouting some garbage pickup line over the loud music.

Tucker’s jaw locked so hard his teeth ground together. A dark, ugly possessiveness flared in his chest, incinerating every ounce of his southern patience.

They saw a beautiful, single girl looking to get wrecked and have a good time. They didn't know you belonged to him. They didn't know the soft, needy sounds you made when he sucked marks into your neck, or how perfectly your body bowed up to meet his. And it was his own damn fault they didn't know. He had kept you in the shadows to protect Sabrina's privacy and manage the baby drama, but in doing so, he had left you completely unprotected. He’d made you feel like you didn't matter. He'd practically served you up on a silver platter to every thirsty dirtbag in Malone's.

He watched, every thick muscle in his massive frame going violently tense, as the lacrosse player leaned in, his mouth entirely too close to your ear. Tucker saw you politely step back, your posture stiffening in clear discomfort, but the guy persisted. The asshole actually closed the distance again, flashing a cocky grin and reaching out to boldly wrap a hand around your waist.

That was it. Patience was officially dead.

Tucker’s grip on his beer bottle tightened until his knuckles turned stark white, the thick glass groaning dangerously under the pressure. With a harsh, ragged exhale, he slammed the bottle down on the sticky wooden table so hard the remaining liquid foamed over the top.

"Whoa, Tuck, where are you going?" Garrett asked, looking completely startled by the sudden, aggressive movement from the calmest guy on the roster.

Tucker didn't answer. He didn't even look at his captain. He was already moving, his broad shoulders cutting through the crowded bar, his dark eyes locked dead on the man touching what was his.

He parted the sweaty, grinding crowd like Moses parting the Red Sea, his massive frame shoving through the bodies without a single apology. The rational, endlessly patient part of his brain—the part that always played the long game, the part that had agreed to keep this relationship off the radar to deal with Sabrina's baby drama—was dead and buried.

Fuck the secret. Fuck the gossip. Tucker didn't care about the whispers, the rumors, or the stares that were bound to follow. He only cared about the fact that the woman he was completely, irrevocably in love with was slipping through his fingers, and half the bar was trying to swoop in and take his place.

You spun around, desperate to step away from the persistent lacrosse player whose hands were getting way too bold, but before you could tell the guy to back off, a blur of black and silver stepped into your line of vision.

You gasped as the lacrosse player was suddenly violently ripped away from you.

Tucker’s massive, callused hand was fisted in the collar of the guy’s shirt, lifting him nearly off his feet.

"Hey, what the hell, man?" the lacrosse player sputtered, throwing his hands up. He puffed out his chest, trying to look tough.

The words had barely left the guy's mouth before Tucker’s fist cracked across his jaw.

The sickening thud cut through the immediate vicinity of the dance floor. The lacrosse player stumbled backward, crashing into a nearby table and taking a couple of empty beer bottles down with him. The crowd gasped, forming an immediate, wide circle around you, but Tucker didn't even flinch. He stood over the groaning guy, his broad chest heaving, his fists clenched tight at his sides.

"Stay the fuck away from my girl," Tucker growled, his voice dropping to a low, lethal vibration.

The guy scrambled back, holding his bleeding jaw, and frantically nodded before disappearing into the crowd.

Tucker didn't spare him a second glance. He turned to you, the violence in his frame immediately shifting into a raw, desperate need. Large, familiar hands instantly gripped your hips, hauling you flush against his hard chest.

"Tuck—" you breathed, your heart doing a wild, violent somersault against your ribs.

"Mine," he murmured fiercely.

He pulled you seamlessly into the heavy rhythm of the music. His hands slid from your hips to trail possessively up your spine, sending a shiver of blistering heat straight to your core. He spun you around, pressing your back flat against his broad chest, his thick arms wrapping securely around your waist as he swayed with you.

He could feel you trembling, feel the exact moment the adrenaline bled out of your muscles and you melted against him. This was where you belonged. Not hiding in the shadows. Not sneaking out the back door of the hockey house. It was an undeniably intimate, blatantly sexual claim, loud and clear for the entire fucking bar to see.

Over by the booths, the reaction was instantaneous. Dean’s jaw practically unhinged, his drink freezing halfway to his mouth. Garrett actually choked on his beer, coughing violently while Logan thumped him on the back. Hannah and Allie exchanged wide-eyed, completely stunned looks. John Tucker, the quietest, most reserved guy on the roster, had just knocked a guy out and put on a very public, very unapologetic show.

Tucker spun you back around to face him, completely oblivious to the shocked stares of his teammates. He brought one hand up to cup your cheek, his rough thumb brushing over your trembling bottom lip, parting it slightly.

"I don't care who sees," Tucker said, his voice fierce, unwavering, and laced with absolute certainty. "I don't care how complicated it is. I am not hiding you anymore, Y/N. And I am sure as hell not letting you break up with me."

Before you could formulate a response—before your brain could even process the magnitude of what he had just done—he dipped his head and captured your lips in a searing, breathless kiss.

It wasn't a gentle, hidden kiss in the dark. It was a bold, desperate, world-stopping declaration. He kissed you like a starving man, his tongue parting your lips and claiming your mouth with a consuming, dominant heat that made your knees buckle. He caught your weight effortlessly, pulling your hips flush against the hard ridge of his arousal, showing his teammates, your friends, and everyone else in Malone's exactly who you belonged to.

When he finally pulled back, you were both breathless, your chests heaving together in the smoky air.

Friends with benefits is only good up to a point. It’s only good when there aren’t feelings involved, when feelings are never involved, but the thing is, is that intimacy like that only holds out against feelings for so long. No one is made of steel—everyone has a heart. 

            Although, maybe not Brendan. 

            “You almost decided on what you’re doing after?” he asks you now, his body half-in a tight black shirt and half-out, his back to you, a sliver of that toned back still showing. 

            “Still debating my options,” you tell him, your hands still pressing the covers to your chest, your body naked underneath them from the filthy yet wonderful acts the two of you have just committed, the evidence still leaking from between your thighs onto his sheets. 

            “But surgery for sure, right?” he replies and you sigh, shrugging even though he can’t see you, that same burning and constricting feeling emerging in your chest. 

            “Yeah, I’m thinking of a paediatric surgery fellowship,” you say as he turns around, those perfect ocean eyes locking onto you, one eyebrow arched as he snorts, shaking his head, his finger-mussed hair so different from the way he normally gels it back. 

            “Why would you want to work with kids?” he asks you, his tone harsh and punishing, the meaning cutting you to the quick, the dismissal. 

            “Because I like them,” you counter and he sighs, shrugging and running a hand through his already mussed hair, the hair you mussed pulling on it as he ate you out just moments ago. 

            “Sounds like hell,” he says and the way you press your lips into a thin line is enough to end the conversation. 

            “Did you apply?” are the first words out of your mother’s mouth as you step out onto the floor of the ED, her blond hair coming loose from the chignon she insists is fine for her hair’s health. 

            “Geez, Ma,” you call out, “you couldn’t even ask me how I’m doing first?” Dana simply narrows her eyes at you, jaw flexing as she bites down on her gum, a particularly hard chew, emphasizing her displeasure at your tone.

            “Did you apply, sugar, or not?” her tone leaves no room for argument as you step deeper into the ED, watching as your friends rush past, a Trauma arriving through the ambulance bay, the noise and hum of the place you’ve been raised in sending a form of calm through you. 

            “I did,” you reply, your sardonic enough to match hers, enough to make her smile at you, the one that only you get, the one of the mother not the nurse. “But I’ve also looked into attending positions open here at PTMC.” You can see your mother’s face fall, just slightly, the way it folds in, in the expression you’ve grown up with, the one you see when she disagrees with your choice, your thoughts but she won’t say anything because you’re growing and to grow means to make your own decisions. 

            “Did anyone say anything to you?” She’s too carefully neutral and that’s when you realize what she’s getting at, what she’s saying—what she’s hinting. 

            “Brendan has nothing to with that, Mom,” you tell her as you reach the nurse’s station, leaning on it on your forearms, right hand straying to fiddle with the bracelet your mom got you when you graduated med school, the one with the handmade charm in the shape of a compass, the back inscribed with however far you go, you are the one who will get you where you need to go. 

            Something she’s told you all your life. 

            “I didn’t say anything, sugar,” she says, but the way her lips curve up just slightly on the edges tell you all you need to know. 

            “Uh-huh,” you reply, rolling your eyes as she lifts her hand, fingers closed around the digital pencil, her hand ruffling your hair like she’s done since you were a kid, small enough to tuck up against her side, curled up in one of the chairs at the station, claiming that the daycare was for kids and you were not a kid. 

            Your daycare was the ED; you grew up on Traumas and broken bones and consults. You grew up on adrenaline and flashing lights. You grew up on codes, knowing the order of them before you knew the alphabet. You grew up with your mother and your Uncle Robby and your Uncle Jack, your sisters ensconced at home with your dad while you snuck behind the pillars to make out with med students. 

            It’s not Brendan that you want to stay for as much as you feel for him, for his sardonic nature and easy cruelty that he never even realizes is cruel. You want to stay for this place, this hospital, your home away from home. It’s the place you had your first kiss—a sloppy make-out with an MS3 that Uncle Jack walked in on and dragged the boy from you, swearing that he’d have the kid’s tongue. It’s where you met your first boyfriend—John Shen, now an attending and your closest friend. 

            It’s where your life began, your mother having gone into labour on the job because she refused to take maternity leave when she should have. It’s where everything started for you and you don’t want to leave, don’t want to travel halfway across the country for a pediatric fellowship, yet at the same time you do.

            You want to leave and grow and change in a place that is your own and not the place where you were molded into the person you are now. 

            You want it and you don’t. 

            And maybe Brendan has a bit more to do with it than you care to admit. Maybe you’d miss him a bit too much. 

            Friends with benefits fucking sucks. 

            “Brendan!” you cry out as your back arches, rising at the same time that he thrusts into you, his hand pressing you down onto the mattress, his hands pulling your hips back until he’s completely sheathed inside, his one hand playing with your clit and folds, stroking and twirling, playing at every sensitive part, his fingers working magic, his knowledge of anatomy making it all the smoother. 

            “Shh, baby,” he whispers as he presses down with his thumb on your clit, a pressure building in your body, the kind that hurts while also heals, the kind that has every part of you burning and writhing underneath him. “I got you, sweetheart. I got you.”

            He pulls back, pulls out completely, dragging the head of his cock along your entrance, between your folds to take the place of his thumb, circling it on your clit, the feeling so good that you moan, your hands fisting in the sheets.

            When he called you, telling you he needed release that it was a hard day at work, you expected it to be rough, for him to be angry and needing the harshness and the quick and the rough edges that both of you have—not this. Not him being gentle and sweet and coaxing you through it, praising you. Assuring you that he’s there, that he’s not leaving. 

            The head of his cock is still circling your clit, and he guides it, pressing it just slightly, just enough that the coil snaps and your orgasm rams through you, just as he enters you again, the flutters of your walls, wrapping around his cock as he thrusts in and out, just once before spilling inside of you as your walls clamp down around him and he groans, eyes closing in bliss, his head tipping back.

            “Jesus!” you hiss as he pulls out, guiding you off your stomach, to sit up before him, your body hyper-sensitive, the Greek god of a man before you having coaxed four orgasms out of you, most with his mouth, that tongue of his that bring people to tears from biting words reducing you to whines and mewls, body burning. 

            “That good, huh?” he asks you, with a smirk, guiding you up and to your feet, pulling your body tight against his, his semen and your release dripping down your thighs in a way that tickles and itches at the same time. 

            “Shut up, Park,” you reply, one side of your mouth curving up into a grin as you push him away, one hand connecting with his solid shoulder, already missing his presence against you, the way his body felt when pushed up against yours. 

            “That’s not what you were saying, like, thirty minutes ago,” he counters, his hand twining around your wrist, pulling you back against him, your breasts pressing against his chest. “You were urging me to make noise, if I remember right,” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper as he trails his free hand down the side of your face, your skin lighting up under his touch, the shiver running through your body at his tender touch. 

            “A lot can happen in thirty minutes,” you reply, your lips curving in a sardonic smile, one he kisses off, pressing a quick, open-mouthed kiss against you, his teeth drawing your bottom lip between them, nipping playfully. 

            “I know,” he murmurs, pulling back and placing his forehead against yours, pupil-blown eyes gleaming, “wanna find out just how much?”

            And you say yes, but a twinge in your stomach tells you that something isn’t the same. 

            That maybe nothing will be the same again. 

            “Have you ever wanted kids?” you ask Brendan, leaning back against his counter, your body clad in only his t-shirt, hands twirling a spatula between them as he spins from the fridge, a container of milk in his hand as one eyebrow arches, his hair loose, not slickly gelled back like a Gator Tillman wannabe. 

            “No,” he says, the word abrupt and harsh and stinging even though it was just a question, just…a curiosity. “Told you, kids are little demons. Why the hell would I want my own?”

            “You were a kid once, you dick,” you reply and he glances over his shoulder at you while he pours milk into the bowl, the cookie dough not quite resembling dough. Yet. 

            “That’s how I know if I had one, they’d be a terror,” he says and you roll your eyes at him, shaking your head affectionately while he sets the milk back on the counter and waves his hand, gesturing you over, which you follow, tucking up into his side and pressing a kiss to his cheek. A tender gesture you usually avoid. 

            “Good thing you don’t do relationships then,” you tease him, feeling him stiffen against you before he joins in your slight laughter, the sardonic chuckle. 

            “You’re right, sweetheart.”

            The bile burns in the back of your throat as you race for the bathroom, reaching the toilet in just enough time, your eyes watering and noise stinging as you hurl, coughing, into the porcelain basin. Your eyes are streaming, tears falling from your cheeks into the bowl as you cough and burn, the smell of your own stomach acid permeating everything, sinking into your skin and when you’re done, your body empty, you slump back against the bathroom wall, pressing a hand against your stomach, a small fear creeping into your mind as you take into account that this is the fifth morning you’ve been sick. 

            You might just be pregnant. 

            In front of you sit two things, an acceptance letter for the pediatric surgery fellowship and a white a pink stick with two digital pink lines, six more identical tests sitting in your bathroom garbage. 

            It took six to get the meaning to stick, the idea that you were pregnant to resonate as real and not fake, not some cosmic joke. 

            It took calling your mother, crying that you were stupid, that you messed up and ranting to her about how much of a fuck-up you are for that idea that maybe you didn’t fuck up to stick.

            It took hearing your mother’s soft voice, the encouragement, the facts and the options for you to decide that you don’t want to get rid of it. You want to raise a child like you were raised, with endless opportunity and belief and hope and love. 

            And you don’t want to wait and risk losing that chance. 

            In front of you sit two things, both chances given to you to give you the life you’ve always wanted, the only thing holding you back is Brendan, his part in all of this. Because a part of you wants to tell him, but the other part knows that it wouldn’t go well, that you can’t. You can’t because you don’t want to see how his face twists in anger. 

            You can’t handle that. So, your choice is easy—you make the choice that sets you free, that sets Brendan free. 

            Looks like you’re going to California.

            When Brendan found that you had left, his heart had left him completely. It was like the ground beneath him had cracked and everything had fallen away. He thought things were good, he thought that you liked him—for more than just casual sex. 

            He had thought you understood until that one night that you whispered “good thing you don’t do relationships then” and he realized that you still thought it was FWB, not something real like he did. 

            He had thought that you had noticed the way he started making cookies after sex because you’d once mentioned that you always wanted something sweet after. He thought you had noticed the dinner; the coffees he brought to you on your floor for your break. He thought you had noticed the change in the sex, the way he focused more on you, the way he wanted you and you alone and not for stress relief, simply because he wanted to be close to you, as close as he could get. 

            But apparently, he had thought wrong. Because you were gone—completely and totally absent from his life. 

            And you didn’t even say goodbye, just up and left for California, to the pediatric surgery fellowship. 

            Which was great…he just wished you could have said goodbye. 

            And from then on, life was rote and boring and empty for three long years, the most he would hear of you was the proud bragging of Robby and Abbot when he went for ED consults and they couldn’t not rave about you. 

            Dana remained close-lipped no matter how he pried, no matter how he tried to get any updates about you. She wouldn’t talk. 

            “If she hasn’t reached out then she doesn’t want you knowing. Now go back to your job, Dr. Park.”

            He just hoped, with all his heart that you would come back after the fellowship was done. That you would come back when it was over so he could try and tell you how much he fucked up. How sorry he was. How much he loved you. 

            How he would do anything to have you back. 

            Moving back to Pittsburgh wasn’t really a choice—it was just something you had to do. The pediatric surgeon attending position was open, you needed help looking after your two-year old son and your family was there and, if truth be told, you needed to confront your demons. You needed to be in the same place as your family, the same place you ran from to spare yourself the look in Brendan’s eye when he found out that you were pregnant when he never wanted kids at all.

            Moving back to Pittsburgh was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. You missed your family and you missed the seasons and you missed PTMC, your home away from home. You missed Brendan too. More than you cared to admit. 

            “Look at this little one!” Cassie calls out, striding over to the nurse’s desk, her lips curving up in her characteristic grin as she smiles at your son, bending just a little so her eyes are level with his as he stands on the top of the desk, held up by his grandma’s hands. “How old are you, bud?”

            “Just turned two,” you answer, your lips curved up in that perpetual smile that you have now, the smile that you have at everything your son does, everything he manages to do. He’s the light in your life, the star that guides you back because here is this life that needs you. Needs you not just to give him food and shelter, but love and guidance. He needs all of you and you have to stay to give him that. 

            “You’re gonna miss these years when they’re gone,” she says, straightening up and taking an iPad from the holder, smiling again at your little boy, the smile tinging with sadness as she looks up, her eyes meeting yours. “They go by fast.”

            “That they do,” your mother chimes in, turning back to you, her eyebrows knitting together as she looks at you, her eyes gleaming with sadness and love and loss. “It seems like just yesterday that it was you, I was holdin’ on this desk, missy.”

            “Ah, Ma,” you reply, pressing the heels of your hands against your eyes. “You’re gonna make me cry on my first day.”

            “I’m sorry, sugar,” she says, “but I just miss the times before. You’re my little girl and now…you’re not so little anymore. Now…you’re a mother of your own and I…I’m a little emotional about it, that’s all.”

            “Ma,” you whisper, your voice cracking at the same time your name resounds through the ED, through the walls that have been your home for so long, through the walls where your life began and continues. Your voice resounds in a voice that you had hoped you wouldn’t have to hear again. 

            “Bren,” you breathe out, flicking your eyes up, landing on the man who hasn’t changed, who still wears his hair gelled back like a Gator Tillman wannabe, his face still stern and predatory like the shark he’s nicknamed for, his body still built, large and imposing. He’s still the man who took the word scary and made it a public personality. 

            You wonder if he still melts to soft in private. 

            “You’re back,” he says, the whole ED having fallen silent as he walks to you, every step slow and yet too fast, the world frozen and yet speeding by as your heart tightens in your chest, lungs constricting and burning. 

            “Ma,” you whisper, tearing your eyes from Brendan even when you want to know what will happen if you stay. “Ma, I gotta get Reed to the daycare.” Dana lifts your little boy—a solid two-year old with dark brown hair and ocean blue eyes—pressing a kiss to his chubby cheek and passes him to you, settling him on your hip. 

            “It doesn’t hurt to talk, sweetheart,” she whispers in reply, eyebrows arching in the way that only a mother can have before she turns back to her desk, barking out an order at Whitaker who looks like a startled deer at her voice. And you take off to the elevator, bouncing Reed on your hip while he claps his hands, gurgling happily, murmuring some small words like mama and teddy.

            You tap your foot, impatient for the silver doors to open and let you in, let you run from the man who gave the chance to have a child and yet doesn’t know. 

            You hear him call your name again as the doors slide open and you step in around the crowd of people rushing out, pressing the button for the daycare floor and the button to close the doors, the silver halves sliding to one another as your eyes lock with ocean blue ones, glimmering with hope and love. 

            With knowledge. 

            Brendan knew as soon as he saw you, saw your son that you had been pregnant when you left. Because the boy is old enough to be his and those eyes that he saw in that perfect, chubby face are his, exact. Father to son. His grandfather had them and his dad had them, and if the stories are to be believed, every single man in his family—including his son. 

            He knows you, loves you and he knows that you need time. You need to wrap your head around him being here, being present. 

            Being real. 

            You need to figure out how to tell him and he’s patient. He’s patient because he loves you and he wants whatever you are willing to give him. 

            And as the elevator doors slide closed before him, sealing you and his son away, he’s willing to accept that you just might give him nothing after all. 

            “Reed is my son, isn’t he?” you hear Brendan call out, his voice echoing across the parking lot, reverberating through your body, echoing down your spine. 

            “Yes,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying all the same through the still night air, broken only by the vague sound of sirens, the night sky polluted by streetlights and skyscrapers and emergency lights, the blue and red flashes strobing across and silhouetting Brendan. 

            He stands not far from you, his backpack over his shoulder, normally pulled back shoulders hunched in, rolled close. 

            You’ve been avoiding him for weeks, arriving early and leaving late, taking your lunches in the daycare or the ED, bringing Reed up on those times to join his grandma and hang out in the place you spent your formative years, molded into a person by adrenaline junkies and jaded, near-suicidal doctors. 

            “Do you want me in his life or no? If it’s no, I’ll never bring this up again,” he says, his steps soundless as he steps closer to you, your heart in your throat, pulsing as you feel the sting of tears in your eyes. 

            “You said you didn’t want kids,” you whisper and his hands reach out and cup your cheeks, Reed’s chubby hands slapping up on his forearm and something in you breaks when you see him take in Reed, his expression melting into one of awe and disbelief, one that says I can’t believe this is real. And then, one warm calloused hand leaves your face to cup Reed’s, his touch reverential and gentle, as if Reed is both the strongest and most breakable thing he’s ever seen. 

            “I said that because I didn’t think I deserved them,” you hear him whisper, the words cracking something open inside of you. The idea that this man, this perfect brutal man didn’t think he deserved a family even when he wanted it, destroys you. 

            Especially because you deprived him of a part of that because you didn’t want to risk telling him and seeing him change. 

            “I didn’t…” you pause, swallowing around the lump in your throat as he looks up at you, his eyes reflecting back the question of can I hold him? and you nod, helping Brendan take his son, watching as his face breaks into a smile as he lifts the boy, laughing just slightly, the sound rich and deep and warm as Reed claps his hands on Brendan’s cheek, gurgling happily. 

            “Thank god, he got your nose, sweetheart,” he says and those are the words that undo you, make you fall apart, the tears that were threatening now falling in earnest down your cheeks, searing the skin as your son giggles, one small hand closing around the point of Brendan’s nose. 

            “He…uh, I guess he thinks so too,” you whisper, your throat thick and voice shaking as your one hand goes to stifle the sob that works its way out of your throat, tearing free as you glance away, glance away from Brendan and the way he rests Reed on his hip, his touch gentle and paternal and perfect. 

            “You okay, Evans?” he asks you and you hear the pause and you know he wanted to say your name but he wasn’t sure if he should, or how he should and you give your head one quick shake before back to him, your arms outstretched for your—his—son.

            “I just need to get home,” you say, your voice still cracking, still broken in a way and breaking more. “It’s way past Reed’s bedtime.”

            “Then let’s get him in his seat,” Bren whispers, his eyes soft and worried as he looks at you, waiting while you open the backdoor, Reed’s back-facing car seat right there. It hurts your heart to see the way Bren carefully lifts Reed into the seat, doing the buckles like he’s been doing them forever, his face soft and open and tender. 

            Like scary has never been a part of his persona at all and he’s only ever been this man before you, this soft and sweet man who tweaks your—his—son on the nose, his lips still in that same awed smile. 

            And your heart breaks even more when Reed says, “dada” the sound a question not a statement, his large ocean eyes tired and innocent yet looking at you beseechingly.

            “Yeah, that’s Dada,” you whisper in reply, watching as Reed’s face brightens and he claps his small, frail hands together, letting out a squeak of excitement. “Bren?”

            “What is it, sweetheart?” he asks you, turning, his face shuttering just slightly, worry and fear seeping in and tainting the image of him always being there with reality—a man afraid of what you will say, of what part in the family you are giving him. What role you will relegate him too. 

            “I didn’t not tell you because…” you pause, coughing, trying to dislodge the block in your throat, the crack in your voice, the tears that stopped some time ago that have now started again. “Because I didn’t want you to know, I…I didn’t t-tell you because…I was…I was scared.” You can feel his hands on your arms, his touch soft and gentle and calming. Just there. 

            “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispers, pulling you against him, his one hand smoothing down your hair, the other holding you, palm flat in the middle of your back, his chin on your head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You were under no obligation to tell me…and…I know I didn’t make it easy to believe that I wouldn’t react in anger or…something else. I know, Evans. I know.”

            “But I—” you break off, a sob tearing its way out of your chest again, muffled by him, by his body, his embrace. “I took those early days with Reed away!” He pulls back just enough that you can see him, see his expression, the way his eyes shine with love and pain and hope. 

            “You took nothing from me, sweetheart,” he says, his tone leaving no room for argument, the tone he uses when telling a patient something they can’t ignore. “I am here and will take only what you’re comfortable to give me. If that means I see Reed on week-ends only and I’m not—” here he pauses, swallowing hard and glancing away from you for a second, looking like he’s gathering his composure before continuing, “a part of your life, then I will take that. Whatever you want to give me, Evans because you’re the one driving this boat. You’re in charge—always. I’m just the hopeless idiot in love with you.”

            “You’re not an idiot,” you whisper, a small smile creeping across your tear-stained face, skin drying from the salt tracks. 

            “Then I’m just the one in love with you?” He phrases it like a question, but you know him well enough to know that it’s a statement, that he’s telling you he loves you. 

            “Yeah, I guess so,” you whisper and you watch his arm move, can feel his palm as it presses against your cheek, his thumb moving back and forth across your cheekbone, your skin feeling alive in a way it hasn’t in three years, not since the last time you were with him. “And…I want you in our lives…I just don’t know how, yet.”

            “Take your time, sweetheart,” he whispers, leaning forwards and pressing a kiss against your forehead, one that will linger. “I’m not going anywhere because you don’t have to go it alone anymore.”

            “You need to eat,” calls out Brendan, his voice flat. His work voice, he used to call it, the one he has when at the hospital, when he doesn’t want people to question him, to see him as anything other than Park the Shark. 

            “I’m fine,” you call out, not even lifting your head from the computer where you sit, charting, your watch buzzing against your wrist—texts from your mother, telling you to get your ass down to the ED to have lunch. “I’m heading down to the ED in a couple minutes for my lunch break. I’ll have something to eat with Ma and Reed when I pick him up from the daycare for a bit.”

            “You’ll have something like actual food?” he asks, his body now just in your sight frame, leaning on the table of the nurse’s station where you sit. You have an office; you just don’t like to use it because it makes you inaccessible to patients. 

            “I packed a smoothie,” you tell him, leaning back in your seat, crossing your arms, one eyebrow arching. “Why?”

            “Because, I was wondering, if you wanted to pick up Reed and get lunch with me,” he says, his shark expression faltering, turning to the softer one he has—the one for you, the one for your son. 

            “Yeah,” you say, watching as his expression brightens. “Yeah, I’d love that.”

            “You’re fucking kidding me,” you say, your eyebrows up to your hairline as you look over at Brendan who holds Reed on his hip—Reed whose hair is slicked back just like Brendan’s. “You’ve made our son into a mini you.”

            You look over at Brendan, noticing the way his smile has shifted, brightened and softened, his eyes warm and deep and perfect, reflecting love at you. 

            “What?” you ask him, one hand flying to your face, checking your cheek while you run your tongue over your teeth. “Do I have something on my face?”

            “No, sweetheart,” he says, stepping closer to you, closing the small distance in no time, Reed’s small hands stretching, one landing on Bren’s shoulder and the other clasping around your fingers, “you called him our son.”

            “Because he is, Bren,” you say, stepping closer, your free hand coming to rest on his cheek, his eyes locked on yours, the expression in them so vulnerable that it takes you by surprise for a moment. “He’s our son. And…I was thinking…do you want to give him your last name?” You watch as Bren breaks down for the first time, a strangled noise escaping from his throat as tears slip down his cheeks. Tears you wipe away with one hand, gentle ever so gentle. 

            “Please,” he says when he’s calmed down, when the tears have slowed and he can speak again, his throat no longer strangled. 

            “Reed Flynn Park,” you whisper, delighting in the way that Brendan’s face completely changes with awe and love and hope. “I like the sound of that.”

            “Sweetheart,” Bren calls out and you turn, taking in the sight of him in a plaid overshirt, tight grey tank top underneath and dirt-stained jeans on from the work you two have been doing all day, assembling Reed’s play-structure outside. 

            “What’s wrong? Is Reed okay?” you ask, hands stilling from their task of putting Reed’s toys away, instead helping push you to your feet. 

            “Reed’s fine,” he says, stepping into the room, his eyes steady in a way that you love, have always loved. The Shark steadiness, but the Brendan warmth. “I just have a question.”

            “What is it?” you ask him, tongue darting out to lick your lips, the skin dry from the heat of the summer’s day. It’s been a year of this—of Brendan being present, being a dad, proving that he’s here for Reed, for you. It’s been a year of slowly falling in love. Slowly returning to the man you remember, the man you fell for when you shouldn’t have—yet he fell for you all the same. 

            It’s been a year of waking up in an empty bed, wishing he were there beside you. Wishing the house wasn’t just a home for you and Reed, but you and Reed and Brendan. A family unit. 

            It’s been a year of pining. 

            “You know I love you, right?” he asks and you nod, the movement cautious as your brows knit together. “Well, I loved you even before you left and I’ve fallen even more in love with you this year…this year of raising our son so I was…Well…Will you marry me?” As he speaks, he gets down on one knee in the room of Reed’s playroom, a platinum ring inset with three stones—your birthstone, his and Reed’s. 

            “Yes,” you whisper and then he’s up and sliding the ring on your finger, his hands cupping your face and pulling you to him, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against your lips, one that tastes of passion and hope and love and second chances. One that tastes of family and promises and permanency. One that has the lingering sweetness of raspberries and the sour notes of lemon. 

            Summertime in a kiss; promises in an embrace. 

            And Brendan never goes back on a promise. 

            “ICK! Mama and Daddy, no kiss!” comes the shriek of your son and you pull back from Brendan just slightly woozy as you turn to your son, one eyebrow arching. 

            “Oh no?” you ask him and he shakes his head, violently, his whole little body following on the movement. “While, then we just have to kiss you instead!”

            And in a move so synchronized, you would have thought it was planned, the two of you bend and press kisses against his chubby cheeks, his giggles echoing through the room as Brendan’s hand finds yours, his fingers tangling with yours as if he can’t fathom letting you go for an instant. 

            And in that moment you can hear him, a year ago, telling you “you don’t have to go it alone anymore.” And you realize that you never will go alone again. 

            Because you have Brendan. 

            You have your family. 

You tried to swallow the lump in your throat, but it wouldn’t go down. Your stomach twisted violently, throat raw and burning from throwing up only minutes earlier. You’d suspected for a while now—the nausea, the exhaustion, your period being late—but you’d kept putting it off, too afraid to know for sure.

Until now.

With trembling hands, you stared down at the pregnancy test in your hand.

Positive.

A shaky breath left you as you dragged a hand through your hair, fingers snagging at the roots. Your mind spun so fast it made you dizzy.

Pregnant.

You were pregnant.

The word echoed loudly in your head, almost unreal, like if you thought it enough times it might suddenly stop being true.

Your eyes darted back to the plastic stick as panic clawed its way up your chest. What the hell was Brendon going to think?

The thought hit hard enough to make your stomach lurch again.

Would he be angry? Freaked out? Did he even want kids? You’d only been married a little over a year. A year wasn’t that long. People were often married for years before even talking about children, and meanwhile you were sitting on the cold tile floor of your shared bathroom holding a positive pregnancy test like it was a live grenade.

Bile surged into your throat.

You slapped a hand over your mouth, squeezing your eyes shut as your breathing turned shallow. Your entire body felt hot and cold all at once, anxiety mixing horribly with the nausea already wrecking your body.

“Fuck,” you whispered hoarsely.

The bathroom suddenly felt too small. Too quiet.

Pushing yourself up on unsteady legs, you sniffled hard and tried to force your breathing to slow. Your emotions were spiraling too fast, panic and nausea tangling together until you could barely think straight.

You tossed the pregnancy test into the trash like getting rid of it might somehow undo the last ten minutes, then turned on the sink. Cold water rushed over your trembling hands as you scrubbed at them absently, almost desperately, as if it could wash away the reality settling heavily in your chest.

Pregnant.

The word still didn’t feel real.

You slowly looked up at your reflection and let out a quiet, humorless laugh.

You looked awful.

Your eyes were bloodshot and glossy, tears still clinging stubbornly to your lashes. Sweat dampened the hair near your temples and neck despite how cold the bathroom suddenly felt, and exhaustion sat heavily beneath your eyes like it had carved itself permanently into your face over the past few weeks.

No wonder Brendon had been watching you so closely lately.

You swallowed thickly before splashing cold water onto your face, rubbing your hands over your skin in slow motions. You needed to pull yourself together. Needed to look normal. Functional.

At the very least, less like someone in the middle of a complete breakdown.

Maybe you could blame the red eyes on being tired. Allergies. A headache. Something believable enough to keep Brendon from immediately slipping into doctor mode the second he walked through the door.

Because if he saw you looking like this, he’d know something was wrong instantly.

And Brendon, for all his gruffness and sharp edges, cared deeply when it came to you. Sometimes almost too deeply. Beneath the intimidating exterior and sarcastic comments was someone painfully attentive—the kind of person who noticed every little change in your expression, your posture, your voice.

The kind of person who’d start firing off questions before you even made it halfway through an excuse.

Normally, you loved that about him. Loved the rare softness he only really let himself show around you.

But right now?

Right now you couldn’t handle the questions.

Your stomach churned again, exhaustion dragging at your limbs as you stared at yourself in the mirror.

Maybe a shower would help. Or a bath.

Baths always helped when things got bad. Even if only for a little while.

After drying your face, you made your way into the bedroom on shaky legs. The familiar space should’ve comforted you, but your thoughts were still too loud, your chest still too tight.

You grabbed the first comfortable clothes you could find from the dresser—which, unsurprisingly, ended up being one of Brendon’s old t-shirts, a pair of sleep shorts, and underwear. The shirt was worn soft with age and faintly smelled like him, something warm and clean underneath the lingering scent of hospital sanitizer that always seemed permanently attached to him now.

It helped more than you wanted to admit.

Back in the bathroom, you turned on the faucet and watched steaming water pour into the tub. The sound filled the silence as you slowly undressed, movements sluggish with exhaustion. Every part of your body felt heavy lately, like even simple tasks drained more energy than they should.

You poured some of your favorite soap beneath the running water, watching bubbles gather along the surface before finally shutting the faucet off.

Carefully, you climbed in.

A quiet hum escaped you as the heat soaked into your aching muscles, easing some of the tension wound painfully tight through your body. The warmth wrapped around you like a second skin, grounding you enough to finally unclench your jaw.

For the first time since seeing the positive test, your breathing began to steady.

The scent of the soap helped too—soft, familiar, comforting. Your stomach still rolled unpleasantly, but not nearly as violently as before.

You leaned your head back against the tub and closed your eyes.

Deep down, part of you thought you’d known already.

The nausea hadn’t let up in weeks. Neither had the exhaustion. At first you’d blamed stress, long days, poor diet, bad sleep—anything but this. But eventually the excuses stopped making sense.

And honestly?

Whoever decided to call it morning sickness deserved jail time.

Because there was nothing “morning” about it.

The nausea followed you through the entire day, lingering from the moment you woke up until you finally managed to fall asleep at night. Some days it even woke you up. And the farther along the symptoms seemed to progress, the worse everything became.

Certain foods were impossible now.

Coffee had become unbearable—both the smell and the taste. Which felt almost cruel considering how much Brendon relied on the stuff during long shifts.

Cooking meat was even worse.

The smell alone turned your stomach so violently you couldn’t even stay in the kitchen while it cooked. More than once, Brendon had ended up opening windows and airing the entire apartment out before you could step foot near the kitchen again without gagging.

Eggs were manageable…sometimes. But only in small doses. If they cooked too long or the smell got too strong, you were done for.

You let out a slow, exhausted sigh, staring blankly at the ceiling.

The problem was, most of the foods making you sick were foods Brendon ate constantly.

He was a big guy—broad, muscular, always trying to stay active despite the ridiculous hours he worked. Protein-heavy meals were basically a staple in his diet.

And now even the smell of them made you miserable.

Guilt twisted painfully in your chest.

You already felt like your body had stopped belonging to you. The last thing you wanted was for this pregnancy to start affecting Brendon’s life too.

But if you could barely stomach the smell without throwing up, how were you supposed to make this work without it changing things between you?

Groaning softly, you slid further down into the tub until the warm water swallowed you whole. Your eyes squeezed shut as silence muffled everything for a few brief seconds—no racing thoughts, no panic clawing at your chest, no endless loop of what ifs.

Just warmth.

You stayed under for a moment longer than necessary, letting the heat soak into you, letting yourself pretend—if only briefly—that things weren’t suddenly so complicated.

When you finally resurfaced, you inhaled sharply and pushed your wet hair back from your face, wiping soap and water from your eyes with trembling hands.

A heavy breath left you.

You needed a plan.

The thought settled heavily in your chest as you stared blankly at the opposite wall. You couldn’t just blurt it out the second Brendon walked through the door. Could you? Maybe you should ease into it somehow. Make it gentle. Reassuring.

Your stomach twisted painfully again.

Because despite everything, despite how much Brendon loved you and how safe he usually made you feel, fear still lingered stubbornly beneath your ribs.

You’d never had to carefully rehearse conversations with him before.

Never had to tiptoe around his reactions.

Brendon was blunt, straightforward, sometimes painfully honest, but never cruel with you. He made things feel steady. Certain. Even during arguments, you’d never doubted where you stood with him.

But this?

This was different.

You’d never been pregnant before.

Hell, neither of you had ever even seriously talked about kids beyond the occasional passing comment or teasing joke. Life had always been too busy, too chaotic. Between his exhausting hospital shifts and the constant unpredictability of adulthood, it had always felt like something distant. A someday conversation.

Not a right now one.

Your hand drifted instinctively toward your stomach beneath the water, fingers resting there hesitantly.

Everything after this felt unknown.

Terrifyingly unknown.

And no matter how many times you tried to calm yourself down, one thought kept repeating over and over in the back of your mind:

Please let this be okay.

You let yourself sink beneath the water again, the heat closing over your head as you desperately tried to quiet your thoughts.

But they wouldn’t stop.

Every possible outcome kept crashing into you at once—Brendon being shocked, upset, overwhelmed. Maybe happy. Maybe terrified. Maybe all three.

You needed to think of something. Some kind of plan. Some way to make this easier.

And because your mind was spinning so violently, you never heard the front door unlock downstairs.

You didn’t hear Brendon come inside after his shift, keys hitting the counter or his heavy footsteps crossing the apartment. You missed his voice calling your name the first time. Then the second.

So when you finally resurfaced, pushing wet hair away from your face with a shaky breath, the sudden sound of the bathroom door opening made you jump.

Brendon stood in the doorway.

His brows were already furrowed, concern settling heavily into his features the second his eyes landed on you. He still wore his hospital scrubs beneath his jacket, exhaustion written across his face, but the moment he saw you sitting there—pale, distant, clearly upset—his entire focus shifted.

“Hey,” you blurted, blinking at him through damp lashes. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I was calling your name.”

His voice was calm, but there was an edge beneath it now. Worry.

You swallowed. “Sorry.”

The bathroom suddenly felt too warm.

Brendon stepped closer in a few easy strides before crouching beside the tub, his forearms resting against the edge as he looked at you carefully. Too carefully.

You hated how easily he could read you.

“Are you okay?”

The question was gentle, but it still made panic flare hot in your chest.

“I’m fine,” you answered quickly.

Brendon’s expression didn’t change.

“Baby,” he murmured quietly.

The nickname alone nearly cracked something open inside you.

He reached up, brushing damp hair away from your face before cupping your cheek in his hand. His palm was rough and warm against your skin, grounding in a way that made your eyes sting unexpectedly.

You were so scared.

Not because you thought he’d hurt you or yell or leave—Brendon had never once made you fear him like that—but because this mattered. Because you loved him so much that the thought of this changing things between you made your chest feel unbearably tight.

His thumb brushed lightly beneath your eye. “Talk to me.”

You hesitated.

Your stomach churned violently.

“You can’t freak out,” you whispered finally, leaning instinctively into his touch.

Brendon’s brows pulled together deeper at that. Concern flickered across his face fast enough to make your anxiety spike again, but he gave a small nod anyway.

“Okay.”

You dropped your gaze to the water, fingers twisting together beneath the bubbles as your pulse hammered painfully in your ears.

Then, so quietly it almost didn’t sound real even to you, you said:

“I’m pregnant.”

Silence stretched between you.

It lasted only a few seconds, maybe less, but with the way your heart pounded violently against your ribs, it felt endless.

Your eyes searched Brendon’s face desperately, trying to make sense of the expression staring back at you. For one horrible moment, he was unreadable—completely still, his gaze flicking across your features like he was trying to process what you’d just said.

And in that silence, your anxiety spiraled.

Had you just ruined everything?

Your marriage. The life you’d built together. His career. Your future.

Every worst-case scenario crashed through your mind at once.

“Bren?” Your voice wavered embarrassingly. “I-I’m sorry—”

Brendon kissed you before you could finish.

The suddenness of it made your breath hitch.

One large hand slid up to cradle the side of your face while his lips moved against yours—soft at first, then firmer, grounding. His nose nudged against yours as he kissed you again and again, like he physically couldn’t help himself.

“You’re pregnant?” he murmured against your mouth, voice rough and low.

The sound of it sent heat rushing unexpectedly through your chest.

You nodded wordlessly.

Brendon let out something dangerously close to a laugh—breathless and disbelieving all at once—before pressing another kiss to your lips. His forehead rested briefly against yours, and you felt the deep rumble vibrate through his chest.

“Fuck yeah,” he rasped.

Your eyes widened slightly.

The sheer relief that flooded you hit so hard it almost hurt. Your body sagged instinctively toward him, tension you hadn’t even realized you were holding finally beginning to loosen.

“You’re not mad?” you asked quietly, still sounding unconvinced even to yourself.

Brendon pulled back just enough to look at you fully.

His cheeks were faintly flushed now, eyes fixed on you with an intensity that made your stomach flip for an entirely different reason. There was still surprise there, sure, but beneath it was something warmer. Softer.

Something almost awed.

“You’re having my baby,” he said, voice low and rough around the edges. “Why the fuck would I be mad?”

Emotion clogged painfully in your throat.

“I thought…” You swallowed hard, gaze dropping briefly. “I thought maybe it was too soon. Or you wouldn’t want—”

“Hey.” His hand tightened gently against your cheek until you looked at him again. “Never.”

The certainty in his voice nearly broke you.

Brendon’s eyes flickered over your face slowly before drifting lower, toward where you sat beneath the water. Something shifted in his expression then—warmth mixing with something darker, more possessive, enough that heat crawled up your neck immediately.

A quiet exhale left him, almost disbelieving.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “My wife’s pregnant.”

The way he said it—low, reverent, like he couldn’t quite believe he got to claim that—made your chest ache.

His thumb brushed along your jaw as he looked at you again, softer this time.

“You have any idea how fucking happy that makes me?”

“I think I have an idea,” you said with a breathy little giggle, the sound shaky with leftover emotion.

Brendon’s eyes darkened immediately.

A low, guttural sound rumbled from deep in his chest as he leaned closer to you, forehead nearly touching yours. “Get out of the tub,” he muttered roughly, voice dipping lower, “and you’ll have a much better idea.”

Heat rushed straight to your face.

Even now—after the panic, the tears, the nausea—he still looked at you like that. Like you were something precious. Like finding out you were carrying his child had flipped some switch inside him entirely.

You smirked despite yourself, trying to hide how badly your heart was pounding. “Can I at least dry off first?” you teased softly. “I’m soaked.”

Brendon huffed out a quiet laugh, though it sounded strained around the edges.

His gaze dragged slowly over you where you sat in the water before he stood to his full height. Without wasting another second, he reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one rough motion.

Your breath caught slightly.

There was something almost unfair about how attractive he was—broad shoulders, thick arms, the lingering tension in his muscles from long hospital shifts and years of taking care of himself despite his chaotic schedule. Exhaustion still clung to him from work, but now it mixed with something restless and energized.

Something very, very focused on you.

His clothes hit the floor carelessly one after another until he stood there in only his briefs, the outline of his arousal impossible to miss.

Brendon caught you staring and gave you a look that was equal parts smug and affectionate.

“You’re really surprised?” he asked hoarsely. “You just told me you’re pregnant.” His eyes flicked meaningfully toward your stomach before meeting yours again. “Kinda hard not to lose my mind over that.”

“God, you’re hot,” you murmured weakly, still a little dazed by how quickly your panic had melted into something warm and overwhelming.

Brendon’s mouth twitched upward.

“Yeah?” he asked roughly, climbing carefully into the tub with you despite the cramped space. Water sloshed against the sides as he settled in behind you, large hands immediately finding your waist.

You let out a surprised laugh as he effortlessly maneuvered you onto his lap, his chest warm and solid against your back.

The intimacy of it hit harder than usual now.

Everything felt heightened somehow—the heat of the water, the rough scrape of his hands against your skin, the way he held you like something precious. Like he couldn’t get close enough.

Brendon pressed his face briefly into your neck, inhaling deeply before kissing just beneath your ear.

“My wife’s pregnant,” he muttered, sounding almost dazed by it still.

Your stomach fluttered.

His arousal rested heavily against you beneath the water, impossible to ignore as one hand slid firmly to your hip, anchoring you against him. The look in his eyes when you turned toward him made heat coil low in your stomach—dark and hungry, sure, but softer underneath it. Emotional in a way Brendon rarely let himself be.

“No teasing tonight, sweetheart,” he murmured against your mouth, voice rough with restraint. “Not after dropping that on me.”

You laughed breathlessly, fingers curling against his shoulders as he kissed you again—slower this time, deeper, like he was trying to pour every overwhelming emotion he couldn’t quite put into words into the touch instead.

Relief.

Excitement.

Love.

Your hands slid into his damp hair as your forehead rested against his.

“You really that happy?” you whispered.

Brendon let out a low sound against your lips, almost offended by the question. One hand spread protectively across your stomach beneath the water, thumb brushing lightly there.

“You have no idea,” he admitted quietly.

And suddenly the teasing expression faded just enough for you to see it clearly—the genuine emotion underneath. The awe. The almost disbelieving happiness shining through his exhaustion.

It softened something deep inside your chest.

You kissed him again before he could see how emotional that look alone almost made you.

Brendon’s hands tightened around your hips, holding you firmly against him as the water rocked around the tub. A rough groan left him as he buried his face against your neck, his breathing uneven and hot against your skin.

You whimpered softly, clinging to him instinctively.

“You’re mine,” he rasped, voice rough with emotion more than anything else. His forehead pressed against your shoulder as he held you close, like he couldn’t stand even an inch of distance between you right now. “Say you’re mine.”

The possessiveness in his voice should’ve embarrassed you, but instead it sent warmth flooding through your chest.

“I’m yours,” you breathed immediately, fingers threading through the damp hair at the nape of his neck.

Brendon let out a low, wrecked sound at that, his grip flexing against your waist.

“My wife,” he muttered again, almost disbelieving. “My pregnant wife.”

The words sounded reverent coming from him.

You could feel how overwhelmed he was beneath all the roughness—the excitement, the pride, the almost primal need to hold you close and keep you there. Brendon had never been particularly good at verbal vulnerability, but moments like this made it obvious anyway.

Especially now.

Especially with the way one of his large hands kept drifting back toward your stomach, protective without him even seeming to realize it.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he admitted hoarsely against your skin.

Your heart squeezed painfully.

You pulled back just enough to cup his face, kissing him deeply, slowly, trying to pour every bit of relief and love and lingering fear into it all at once. Brendon answered immediately, almost desperate in the way he held you.

Like he needed the reassurance just as much as you did.

When he finally broke the kiss, his forehead rested against yours as both of you tried to catch your breath.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, thumb brushing along your side.

The question softened you instantly.

Even now—overwhelmed, emotional, clearly losing his mind a little over the idea of you carrying his child—he was still checking on you first.

You nodded, smiling shakily. “Yeah.”

Brendon studied your face for another second before kissing you again, gentler this time.

“You’re stuck with me now,” he murmured against your lips.

You laughed softly. “Pretty sure I already was.”

His mouth curved faintly against yours.

“I’m gonna take care of you now,” Brendon said, voice low and rough as his hands slid slowly along your waist. The look in his eyes made heat curl low in your stomach all over again—darkened with want, yes, but softened by something deeper too. Something protective.

“You always do,” you hummed.

He nipped along your jaw. “You know what I mean.”

You nodded shakily.

Brendon’s gaze lingered on your face for a moment longer, like he was making sure you really meant it, before his mouth curved slightly.

“Good.”

The word rumbled through him.

He kissed you again, slower this time, pouring all that pent-up emotion into it. One hand cradled the back of your head carefully while the other stayed firm on your hip, grounding you against him as warm water lapped around your bodies.

You melted into him immediately.

The anxiety that had consumed you earlier still lingered faintly beneath the surface, but Brendon’s touch made it easier to breathe through it. Easier to believe things were going to be okay.

His kisses drifted from your mouth to your jaw, then lower to your throat, lingering there as he held you close against his chest.

“You scared the shit outta me earlier,” he admitted quietly between kisses.

Your fingers tightened against his shoulders. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” His brows furrowed slightly as he pulled back enough to look at you. “I just hate knowing you were sitting up here alone freaking out.”

Emotion tightened your chest again.

Brendon brushed his thumb beneath your eye gently, catching lingering dampness there before pressing a softer kiss to your forehead.

“You don’t gotta carry this stuff by yourself anymore,” he murmured. “Not ever.”

Your breath caught.

It wasn’t just about the pregnancy. You could hear that much in his voice.

It was a promise. One he meant with everything in him.

You leaned forward and kissed him before the sudden swell of emotion could completely overwhelm you again, and Brendon answered immediately, arms wrapping tighter around you like he never planned on letting go.

The heat in his touch had shifted into something deeper now—still intense, still edged with that possessive excitement that had flared the second you told him you were pregnant, but grounded by overwhelming affection underneath it all.

You could feel it in the way he touched you.

Like he suddenly needed constant reassurance that you were really here. Really his. Really carrying a future the two of you had created together.

“My girl,” he murmured against your mouth, voice rough and reverent all at once.

Your chest tightened painfully.

The water had long since started cooling around you, but neither of you seemed willing to move apart. Brendon’s hands stayed anchored to your body—your waist, your thighs, your stomach—always touching somewhere.

You kissed him again before he could see how emotional the look in his eyes was making you.

That seemed to snap whatever restraint he had left.

Brendon stood carefully from the tub with you still wrapped around him, strong arms securing around your thighs as he carried you out of the bathroom despite your surprised laugh. Water dripped onto the floor behind you while he kissed you breathlessly toward your bedroom.

“Bren—” you giggled weakly.

“Can’t help it,” he muttered against your lips. “Been trying not to lose my mind since you told me.”

The confession made warmth bloom through you instantly.

He laid you down gently against the mattress like you were something precious despite the obvious urgency thrumming through him. The softness only made the possessive edge in his expression stand out more.

Brendon climbed over you, broad frame caging you in comfortably as his forehead rested briefly against yours.

“You okay?” he asked again quietly.

You nodded immediately, fingers brushing through his damp hair. “Yeah.”

His shoulders visibly relaxed at that.

Then he kissed you again—deeper this time, slower, like he wanted to feel every reaction you gave him. Every soft sound. Every shift beneath him.

The intensity of it made your stomach flip.

Brendon had always been affectionate in private, but tonight there was something almost overwhelming about the way he held you. Every touch lingered. Every kiss carried emotion behind it. His hands kept drifting protectively over your stomach like he physically couldn’t stop himself.

“You have any idea how fucking beautiful you are?” he murmured against your skin.

You laughed softly, flushed from head to toe. “You’re biased.”

“Damn right I am.”

The rough honesty in his voice made you smile into the next kiss.

And despite the heat steadily building between you, Brendon never stopped paying attention to you first. Checking your reactions. Slowing when you needed him to. Kissing your forehead when your emotions threatened to overwhelm you again.

By the time the two of you finally settled afterward, the earlier panic in your chest had softened into something gentler.

Safer.

You lay curled against Brendon’s chest beneath the blankets, his arm wrapped securely around you while his fingers lazily traced circles against your side. The room smelled faintly of soap and steam, exhaustion finally beginning to settle into your bones.

Brendon pressed a lingering kiss into your damp hair.

“How you feeling?” he asked quietly.

“Tired,” you admitted.

He huffed a soft laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”

But his hand drifted instinctively toward your stomach again.

The movement was absentminded. Protective.

You looked up at him just in time to catch the expression crossing his face—soft awe mixing with lingering disbelief.

It made your throat tighten.

“You’re really happy?” you whispered.

Brendon looked almost offended by the question.

“Baby,” he murmured, pulling you closer against him. “I’ve never been happier about anything in my life.”

* * *

By the time your first appointment finally rolled around, you were a nervous wreck.

You’d spent most of the morning curled miserably over the toilet again, stomach rebelling against practically everything. Even after getting sick, the nausea never fully faded, lingering heavily enough to leave you shaky and exhausted while you tried to get ready.

Brendon hovered the entire time.

Not obnoxiously—though you were pretty sure he was trying very hard not to be—but close enough that you always knew he was there. He handed you water after you brushed your teeth, packed crackers and ginger chews into his bag “just in case,” and kept watching you with that same quiet concern that hadn’t left his face in days.

By the time the two of you left the apartment, you were already tired again.

The drive to the hospital was calm and quiet, Brendon keeping one hand on the steering wheel while the other rested firmly on your thigh. His thumb stroked absentmindedly against your skin every few seconds, grounding you whenever your thoughts started spiraling too hard.

“Are you excited?” you asked softly after a while, glancing over at him.

Brendon looked over briefly before pulling into the parking garage. His hand squeezed your thigh gently.

“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “Are you?”

You smiled faintly, though nerves still twisted painfully in your stomach. “I’m kinda nervous.”

His expression softened immediately.

“It’ll be okay,” he assured you quietly. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”

“As my husband, right?” you teased lightly, raising a brow at him.

Because you knew Brendon.

And you knew the second anything involving your health came up, some deeply ingrained doctor instinct took over whether he wanted it to or not.

A small huff of amusement left him as he parked the car.

“Yeah,” he muttered, though there was obvious reluctance in it. “You don’t need to worry about me, sweetheart.”

You snorted softly. “That reassuring, huh?”

Brendon leaned over the center console just enough to press a quick kiss against your forehead before unbuckling.

“I’ll behave.”

“You say that now.”

“I mean it.”

You gave him a skeptical look that only made him smirk faintly.

Still, when he reached for your hand as the two of you walked into the hospital together, your nerves eased just a little.

The appointment itself was surprisingly calm.

Most of it consisted of routine questions — how far along you might be, how you’d been feeling, whether you’d had any pain or concerning symptoms. Brendon stayed quiet for the most part, though his grip tightened noticeably when you admitted how often you’d been getting sick.

“How often is ‘often’?”

“Pretty much all day.”

Brendon’s jaw tightened while the provider explained that severe nausea early on could happen, especially in the first trimester, and that they’d keep an eye on it to make sure you stayed hydrated and healthy.

Brendon listened intensely to every word.

You could practically see him shifting into work mode despite his earlier promise.

“You’re doing okay otherwise,” the provider reassured after finishing the exam. “Baby looks good so far.”

The tension in Brendon’s shoulders visibly loosened at that.

And when you glanced over at him, you caught the expression on his face before he could hide it—pure relief mixed with overwhelming emotion.

It hit you harder than expected.

Because this was real now.

Not just a positive test hidden in a bathroom trashcan. Not just fear and nausea and uncertainty.

There was really a baby.

Your baby.

Brendon’s hand found yours again immediately, fingers lacing tightly with yours as he looked over at you.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

Your eyes burned unexpectedly.

You nodded quickly, laughing a little through the sudden emotion. “Yeah.”

Brendon studied your face for another second before bringing your knuckles to his mouth and pressing a lingering kiss there.

The gesture was small.

But it made your chest ache all over again.

* * *

The morning sickness never went away.

If anything, it got worse.

By the time you entered your second trimester, both you and Brendon had hoped things would finally ease up a little. Everyone said the second trimester was supposed to be better—less nausea, more energy, easier overall.

Instead, your body seemed determined to do the exact opposite.

Most days, the nausea clung to you from the moment you opened your eyes until you finally fell asleep again. Some mornings you couldn’t even make it out of bed before getting sick. Other days, just sitting upright for too long made your stomach churn violently enough that you had to lie back down again.

It was exhausting.

And terrifying.

Especially for Brendon.

He tried not to let you see just how worried he was getting, but you knew him too well by now. You saw it in the way he watched you constantly, like he was mentally tracking every time you got sick. In how quickly he appeared beside you anytime you disappeared into the bathroom for too long. In the way his jaw tightened whenever you admitted you still felt awful.

He hated feeling helpless.

Dana had tried reassuring him during one particularly rough shift after he’d apparently spent most of the day distracted.

“Morning sickness can last longer for some people,” she’d told him casually while charting. “When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I was sick for six months.”

Apparently, that information had done absolutely nothing to calm him down.

Though you knew he appreciated hearing it anyway, even if he’d rather die than openly admit that.

Because from Brendon’s perspective, things looked bad.

Too bad.

He came home every day to find you either curled up in bed or kneeling over the toilet, pale and exhausted in a way that made his chest ache. The spark in you seemed dimmed lately, buried beneath constant nausea and fatigue.

And it scared the shit out of him.

One evening after you’d gotten sick again for what felt like the hundredth time that day, Brendon finally snapped.

Not at you.

At the situation.

You’d barely finished rinsing your mouth before he was already standing in the hallway with his phone pressed to his ear, brows drawn together so tightly they almost touched.

“Yes, but she can barely keep anything down,” he argued quietly, pacing the bedroom while trying not to let you hear the panic creeping into his voice. “She’s throwing up constantly. She’s exhausted all the time.”

You leaned weakly against the bathroom counter, guilt twisting in your stomach.

Brendon had already contacted your doctor twice before this.

Now he was doing it again.

You watched him drag a tired hand down his face while listening to the response on the other end.

“Okay,” he muttered finally, though he sounded unconvinced. “Yeah. Thank you.”

The second he hung up, his eyes were back on you immediately.

Concern flooded his features so openly it made your chest hurt.

“Bren,” you said softly, “I’m okay.”

His expression tightened.

“No, you’re not.”

The honesty of it knocked the breath from your lungs.

Brendon crossed the room quickly before gently guiding you back toward the bed like he was afraid you might collapse if he let go of you for too long.

“You shouldn’t have to feel this sick all the time,” he muttered, helping you sit down carefully.

You leaned back against the pillows with a tired sigh. “Apparently some people just do.”

“Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”

A weak laugh escaped you despite yourself.

Brendon sat beside you immediately, one hand settling against your thigh while the other brushed loose hair away from your damp forehead.

“You scared me earlier,” he admitted quietly after a moment.

Your chest tightened.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.” His voice softened instantly at the guilty look on your face. “This isn’t your fault.”

You looked down at your hands. “I know. I just…” Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “I feel useless lately.”

Brendon’s expression shifted immediately.

“Hey.” He hooked a finger beneath your chin until you looked at him again. “Don’t do that.”

Tears burned suddenly behind your eyes.

“You’re growing our baby,” he said firmly, thumb brushing gently across your skin. “You’re sick because your body’s working overtime right now. That doesn’t make you useless.”

The conviction in his voice nearly undid you.

Brendon leaned forward, pressing a lingering kiss against your forehead before resting his own there for a moment.

“I just need you okay,” he murmured quietly. “That’s all I care about.”

* * *

As the months passed, pregnancy settled into something that almost felt manageable.

Not easy.

Never easy.

But manageable.

Your nausea had finally started easing up sometime after the halfway point, much to both yours and Brendon’s relief. You still got sick occasionally, especially in the mornings, but it was nothing compared to the constant misery of the first several months.

And because you could finally keep food down more consistently, some of the exhaustion faded too.

Brendon relaxed a little after that.

Not much—he was still painfully attentive, still hovering anytime you looked even remotely uncomfortable—but enough that the permanent tension in his shoulders eased.

Of course, new symptoms quickly replaced the old ones.

Your feet swelled if you stood too long. You got dizzy frighteningly easily. Sometimes simply getting out of bed too fast made your vision blur at the edges long enough that Brendon would immediately appear beside you with that worried crease between his brows.

But overall?

Things seemed okay.

Until six and a half months.

Brendon was at work when it started.

You’d just finished a small load of laundry and settled onto the couch afterward, one hand absentmindedly rubbing over your stomach while trying to relax. The baby had been unusually active all day—constant kicking and rolling that was equal parts reassuring and uncomfortable.

You’d been smiling about it only minutes earlier.

Then the cramp hit.

Sharp.

Violent.

A sudden bolt of pain tore through your abdomen hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs.

You gasped, immediately curling forward with a grimace, one hand gripping the couch cushion while the other flew protectively to your belly.

“Fuck,” you whimpered.

The pain eased slightly after a few seconds, but it never fully disappeared. Instead it lingered deep inside you, throbbing uncomfortably before another sharper wave rolled through your body again.

Panic prickled immediately along the back of your neck.

No.

No, no, no.

Your breathing quickened as another cramp hit harder this time, sending a sickening jolt through your entire body.

Something felt wrong.

Terribly wrong.

You shifted shakily against the couch cushions, trying to steady your breathing—and that’s when you felt it.

Warmth.

Wetness.

Your heart dropped straight into your stomach.

Slowly, almost afraid to look, your trembling hand moved downward.

When you pulled it back, your breath caught painfully in your throat.

Blood.

“Oh my God.”

The words came out barely above a whisper.

Suddenly your thoughts were moving too fast to keep up with.

The cramps.

The bleeding.

The baby.

Tears sprang instantly to your eyes as panic crashed through you hard enough to make your hands shake violently.

“No, no, no—”

Your phone.

You needed your phone.

You nearly stumbled trying to stand, another sharp pain making you cry out as you reached shakily for the coffee table. Your fingers fumbled badly against the screen before you finally managed to dial 911.

The dispatcher’s voice barely registered through the roaring panic in your ears.

“I-I’m pregnant,” you choked out, tears spilling freely now. “I’m bleeding—there’s blood and cramps and—I’m six months—”

Your voice broke completely.

The dispatcher immediately shifted into calm reassurance, asking questions you answered through uneven breaths and mounting terror while trying not to completely fall apart.

An ambulance was already on the way.

But all you could think was:

Please let my baby be okay.

* * *

Brendon was halfway through a consult when the call came through the Pitt.

At first, he barely paid attention.

Then he heard your name.

“Pregnant female, approximately six and a half months,” she called. “Heavy cramping and vaginal bleeding. EMS is bringing her in now.”

Everything inside him went cold.

His head snapped up instantly, looking up so fast he nearly stumbled backward.

Brendon felt the blood drain completely from his face.

For one horrible second, he couldn’t move.

Couldn’t think.

Then panic hit him all at once.

“Fuck.”

The word came out ragged as he was already moving, heartbeat slamming violently against his ribs while dread clawed up his throat hard enough to choke him.

You.

Something was wrong with you.

And suddenly all the worst fears he’d spent months trying to bury came rushing violently to the surface.

* * *

The ride to the hospital blurred together in fragments of pain and panic.

Every cramp that tore through your abdomen made your breathing hitch harder, your trembling hands clutching helplessly around your stomach while the EMT beside you tried to keep you calm.

“You’re doing great,” she reassured gently. “Just keep breathing for me, okay?”

But it was hard to focus on anything except the blood.

And the fear.

By the time the ambulance doors burst open at the Pitt, tears were streaming steadily down your face.

The EMTs moved quickly, wheeling you through the emergency department while calling out information you could barely process through the ringing panic in your ears.

“Twenty-six weeks pregnant—”

“Cramping and vaginal bleeding—”

“Vitals stable—”

“My husband,” you choked out suddenly, voice cracking badly. “H-He’s a doctor here. Brendon Park—”

Someone nodded while helping transfer you onto a hospital bed. The sudden movement jolted another sharp cramp through your body hard enough that you cried out.

“—orthopedics,” you continued shakily, desperation making your words tumble over each other. “Please—I need my husband—”

You were cut off by the sound of Brendon’s voice.

Sharp.

Terrified.

“Where is she?”

The room shifted instantly the second he stormed in.

You’d never heard him sound like that before—not truly. Not with that jagged edge of panic barely restrained beneath the surface. His eyes found you immediately, and whatever composure he’d been trying to hold onto visibly cracked.

“Bren—”

You broke down sobbing the second he reached the bedside.

Brendon grabbed your hand immediately, dropping beside the bed without caring who was watching. His fingers tightened around yours hard enough to ground you while his other hand moved instinctively toward your stomach.

“I-I don’t know what happened,” you cried. “I was fine and then—”

“You’re okay,” he said quickly, voice softer now despite the panic flooding his expression. “Hey. Look at me.”

Your tear-filled eyes locked onto his.

“You’re okay,” he repeated firmly, though his own eyes looked dangerously glassy now. “You hear me? We’re gonna figure this out. You’ll both be okay.”

You nodded shakily because you wanted to believe him.

God, you wanted to.

But the fear in his face terrified you almost as much as the pain did.

Within minutes, OB was downstairs.

The room became a blur of movement around you—nurses adjusting monitors, questions being asked, someone checking the bleeding while another prepared the ultrasound machine.

Brendon never let go of your hand once.

Not once.

Even when he looked seconds away from falling apart himself.

“You’re doing good,” he murmured quietly near your ear while the OB spread cool gel across your stomach. “Just breathe for me.”

Your chest rose unevenly as you stared at the ceiling, tears slipping silently into your hairline while the doctor moved the probe carefully across your abdomen.

The room fell quiet.

Too quiet.

The OB’s brows furrowed slightly.

Brendon noticed immediately.

“What is it?” he asked, too quickly. Too sharply.

The doctor didn’t answer right away.

Your heart stopped.

The silence stretched another horrible second as the probe shifted again.

Then another.

Brendon’s grip on your hand became almost painful.

“Come on,” he muttered under his breath.

You could hear the panic creeping into his voice now.

And then—

A heartbeat filled the room.

Fast.

Strong.

Alive.

You sobbed outright at the sound.

Brendon sucked in a sharp breath beside you, his head dropping immediately as relief slammed through him so hard his shoulders physically sagged. One shaky hand came up to cover his mouth briefly before he leaned forward against the bed, eyes squeezed shut.

“Okay,” the OB said gently, visibly relaxing too. “Baby’s heartbeat looks good.”

You cried harder.

Brendon let out a broken exhale that sounded dangerously close to a laugh before pressing his forehead against your hand.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered hoarsely.

The OB continued the exam carefully, explaining that the bleeding appeared controlled for now and that they’d need to monitor you closely for the next several hours—possibly longer depending on whether the cramping settled.

“You’ll be admitted for observation,” she explained calmly. “We want to make sure both you and baby stay stable.”

You nodded weakly, exhaustion beginning to crash into you now that the initial terror was fading slightly.

Beside you, Brendon finally looked up.

His eyes were red-rimmed.

Terrified.

But softer now that he’d heard the heartbeat.

When your gaze met his, he immediately leaned down and pressed a trembling kiss against your forehead.

“You scared the fucking life outta me,” he whispered.

Fresh tears burned behind your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered back automatically.

Brendon’s expression crumpled for half a second.

“Don’t,” he said quietly, voice thick with emotion. “Don’t apologize for this.”

Brendon pressed a trembling kiss against your lips, lingering there for a moment like he needed the contact as much as you did.

“We’ll get through this,” he murmured softly, resting his forehead against yours. His voice was rough around the edges now, worn thin by fear and adrenaline and the effort it was taking to keep himself together for you. “You, me, and baby. We’ll get through it.”

Your breath shook on the exhale.

The monitors around you beeped steadily now, the earlier chaos finally settling into something quieter, but your body still wouldn’t stop trembling. Every cramp, every lingering ache sent another spike of fear through you.

“I don’t know what happened,” you whispered hoarsely. “I was fine, and then it just…” Your voice cracked badly. “It happened out of nowhere.”

Brendon’s expression tightened immediately.

One of his hands remained wrapped securely around yours while the other rested protectively against the swell of your stomach, his thumb moving in slow strokes over the fabric of the hospital blanket.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said firmly.

Fresh tears burned behind your eyes.

“But what if—”

“No.” The word came out sharper than he intended.

You flinched slightly, and Brendon’s entire face softened instantly with guilt.

“Hey,” he murmured quickly, brushing damp hair away from your forehead. “Baby, look at me.”

Your watery eyes met his.

“This is not your fault,” he said again, slower this time. Softer. “You hear me?”

Your chest ached.

Because despite how calm he was trying to sound, you could still see it—the fear lingering beneath the surface. The panic he was forcing down every second he sat beside you.

Brendon looked exhausted already.

His scrubs were wrinkled from the shift he’d abandoned midway through, his hair messy from repeatedly dragging his hands through it, dark circles beneath his eyes more pronounced than usual. But none of that compared to the expression in his eyes.

You’d never seen him look so scared before.

Not even close.

“I thought…” Your voice wavered. “I thought we lost the baby.”

Brendon visibly broke at that.

His eyes squeezed shut briefly before he leaned forward, pressing another kiss against your forehead while tightening his grip on your hand.

“We didn’t,” he whispered.

The emotion in his voice nearly undid you completely.

“We didn’t,” he repeated, like maybe he was reassuring himself too.

A sob caught painfully in your throat.

Brendon immediately shifted closer, one arm carefully wrapping around your shoulders despite the hospital bed and monitors crowding the space between you. He pulled you against his chest gently, like you were something fragile.

“I got both of you,” he murmured into your hair. “I got both of you.”

You cried quietly against him, exhausted beyond words now that the adrenaline was finally fading.

For a long time, Brendon just held you.

His hand never left your stomach once. Even absentmindedly, his fingers kept stroking over the curve protectively, like he needed the constant reminder that both of you were still here.

Still okay.

Eventually, you felt his lips brush against the top of your head again.

“You know what the worst part was?” he admitted quietly.

You pulled back slightly, looking up at him.

Brendon swallowed hard before answering.

“Hearing your name.” His jaw tightened painfully. “I’ve never been that scared in my life.”

Your eyes immediately filled again.

“Bren…”

“I thought I was gonna lose both of you,” he whispered.

The raw honesty of it shattered something inside your chest.

You reached up shakily, cupping the side of his face. Brendon leaned into your touch instantly, eyes closing briefly.

“I’m still here,” you whispered. “We’re still here.”

His eyes opened again, glassy with emotion.

“Yeah,” he breathed, voice cracking slightly. “You are.”

Taglist:

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——

Red flags didn’t exist for you when it came to John Logan.

Part of you knew that the Logan you’d believed your boyfriend to be and the Logan that your boyfriend actually was were different. You never argued. You never even had a disagreement. And that, you told yourself, was because the stars had aligned to bring you together. A perfect fit.

You, Hannah, and the other hockey girlfriends are waiting outside the locker room for the boys. Your hands were itching to get hold of Logan. You can hear the muffled voice of Garrett Graham, the team captain, giving a rousing speech to his team. Every so often, you hear the wild cheers inside.

The door swings open and Coach Jensen comes strolling out. “They’re all yours,” he tells you all.

You run in and crash right into Logan’s arms. “You were amazing out there,” you tell him, burying your face in his chest.

You hate coming into the locker room, it smells of stale sweat. You’re sure the room could be classified as a bio-hazard, the sweat that had seeped into the clothes a perfect breeding ground for fungus. You bury your face deeper into him, at least he’s showered and smells like fresh cotton.

He rests his chin on top of your head, looking over you. You pull back to look at him, and he’s still looking past you above your head.

You follow his line of sight to see he’s staring at Hannah and Garrett; the only other people left in the room. Your brows furrow and your chest tightens, but you push it down and paste a smile on your face. You start to smooth the creases on his shirt, “I heard them say the scouts are coming to your game on Friday, how are you feeling?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

Your hand stills on his chest, “Logan? You haven’t looked at me since like this morning and you’re barely following along with this conversation.”

Logan blinks and looks down at you, a familiar soft smile replacing his concentrated expression. “Hey, yes. Sorry, my head’s still on the ice. Tough win. Come here.”

He pulls you in and places a quick kiss to your forehead.

“What do you want to eat?” you say into his chest, “I fancy some dumplings.”

“Hannah loves those.”

The response makes you jerk back out of his arms. “I’m sorry, what?”

You try to calm your heart, it was a harmless comment, you tell yourself, he’s just being thoughtful, he cares about his friends. It’s sweet.

“I just meant that maybe Hannah would want- Garrett and Hannah would want to join us.” His explanation does nothing to calm you, and the way he’s awkwardly shifting on his feet has your mind racing.   

“Sure,” you say, lips pressed in a tight line.

Half an hour later, the four of you are sitting in the restaurant shovelling down dumplings. Logan can barely string together more than a couple of words at a time to say to you. It wasn’t always like this; he showered you with adoration and praise in the beginning. The air begins to feel sparse the more you think about how things have been lately.

You jump up, causing the table to shake and everyone to look at you. “I just need a minute,” you say.

Logan’s hot on your heels as you burst through the door and lean against the wall. The first gulp of fresh air hits you like a truck.

He doesn’t say anything as he watches you steady your breathing.

“Logan.” Your voice is barely a whisper but he still jumps. “Where’s your mind been lately?”

He looks away, suddenly finding the tree very interesting. “It’s here, with you.”

“No, it’s not.” Your voice rises. You don’t mean for the frustration to come out like this, especially not here, but you can’t take it anymore. “Your mind hasn’t been ‘with me’ for weeks now. Please, just tell me what I did so I can fix it.”

You hate the desperation in your voice, but you don’t want to lose this. Don’t want to lose him. Relationships had their ups and downs, and the current state of yours was just one of the downs that you had to get through. He just had to talk to you.

Logan’s eyes snap to yours. They’re dark, swimming with a mixture of guilt and pure exhaustion.

“Sweetheart.” The nickname sounds cold on his lips. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He takes a deep breath as he runs his hand through his hair. You reach out and take his hands into yours.

“Talk to me, Logan. Please,” you plead, your eyes searching his for any hints.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he repeats, “you’re perfect. You’ve been everything I could have asked for and more than I deserve. Can we just drop it?”

“What does that mean, Logan? What do you mean I’m more than you deserve.” Your chest tightens again, another wave of panic hitting your throat.

You watch as Logan takes a deep breath, his jaw clenching so tight you can see the muscle tick. He closes his eyes, taking another deep breath before looking at you. There are tears welling in his eyes. “I do… I do love you. It’s just… I’m not in love with you.”

“Oh,” you breathe a sigh of relief, it hurt but you could work through that. “Okay, well, we’ll get there eventually.”

“No, you’re not understanding.” It sounds like it pains him to utter these words. “Maybe we shouldn’t be having this conversation here. Let me take you home and-”

“Logan,” you interrupt, irritation evident, “I’m really trying here but you’re not being straight with me. Whatever it is, just come out and say it.”

He pulls you away from the restaurant, around the corner and into a little alleyway.

“Don’t make me do this,” Logan pleads. A fire ignites in you, what are you making him do?

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I swear, you’ve been off ever since Garrett and Hannah got together, it’s almost like… Oh.” The puzzle pieces click together so fast it leaves you dizzy, the way he’d watch Hannah when she smiled or laughed, the longing in his eyes when she entered the room, the way his hand would hover over the screen when the group chat would talk about Hannah. It all made sense.

You think back to the night where you were all sitting around the dinner table, bellies full of Tucker’s cooking, Hannah had made a simple, offhanded, comment about how cereal was always better with warm milk. You watched as Logan’s eyes lit up, engaged in a spirited debate. You told yourself you were being silly, how wrong you were.

“Is this because of Hannah?” you whisper. Logan looks at you then, the pity in his eyes makes you want to throw up.

“Oh my god, how long?”

Logan lets out a broken, breathless sound, burying his face in his hands again. “I tried to get over it,” his words come out muffled. “I tried so hard, I swear to you. Garrett is my best friend. But I can’t move past her. Since they started dating, I couldn’t... We need to- I think we should break up.”

He has the audacity to look up at you in shock, as if he didn’t expect those words to come out of his mouth.

Despite being in open air, you feel like all the oxygen has been sucked up. You try to walk away but your legs fall from under you, you hadn’t realised how much you were shaking. Logan reaches out, trying to steady you.

Tears begin welling in your eyes, he goes to wipe them from your cheek, to comfort you out of conditioned habit. “I’m so sorry, I’m so fucking sorry-”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” you spit, flinching away from him.

“Please, just let me… this is not your fault.” His words do nothing to soothe you. His bottom lip is quivering and his body shaking with tiny sobs.

“You don’t get to make yourself feel better here. Fuck off.”

“Just let me go get our stuff and then I’ll drive you home.”

You nod your head in response, scared if you open your mouth, you’d do nothing but sob.

With one last look at you, he turns towards the restaurant.

You don’t wait for him to return; you simply turn on your heels and sprint down the road. Your shaky legs carrying you faster than you thought possible.

You can’t see anything, the tears that had built up in your eyes but haven’t yet flowed blocking your vision. You can’t hear anything, the words of your boyfriend, no ex-boyfriend, are ringing in your ears.

You know you can’t return home; that’s the first place Logan would check for you. And he would check for you.

Your body moves on its own volition, taking you to the next most familiar place in the area.

You wipe the tears from your face as you strut into Malone’s. You’re not here to be pitied.

The bar is loud, sticky, and smells of cheap beer and fried food. It’s disgusting, but it’s like home. You think back to all the great nights spent here. It’s giving you the much-needed comfort you desire.

You slide into the booth at the back of the bar. Closing your eyes, you immerse yourself into the music played by the band on stage. It’s not really your style, but it’s loud enough to distract you from any thoughts.

Songs blend into each other and only the occasional tear falls down your face. You know holding it in would make it worse for you later, but you just need to be allowed to avoid this.

Sometime later, you hear the sound of glasses being set on the table, and someone sliding into the booth in front of you. You look over, vision blurred with leftover tears. It’s Dean Di Laurentis, your former crush and Logan’s good friend.  

“Hey,” he says. His voice is unusually rough, completely stripped of his usual teasing.

“Hey,” you say back. You look down at what he had placed in front of you. He had brought your favourite cocktail and a glass of water.

“I wasn’t sure which one you needed most at the minute, so I brought both.”

“That’s…thoughtful,” you sigh. “How did you know I was here?”

“Logan texted the group chat asking if anybody had heard from you. Then Hannah texted me saying that she was worried about you. She said you seemed upset and I know you like to come here when you’re upset.”

“Oh my God,” you choke out, the tears come flooding back. So much for being able to avoid this shit.

Dean doesn’t hesitate, he immediately gets up and slides into the booth next to you. He’s so close you can feel the warmth of his thigh against yours. You can smell the expensive cologne he likes to wear.

He reaches out with both hands to gently wipe at the tears running down your cheeks, his calloused thumbs feeling rough against your skin in a way that makes you swoon.

“Do you want me to call Logan? I think he’d want to be here for you.”

That brings out another sob from you, “Turns out, I’m not the one that Logan wants to be there for.”

You’re being unnecessarily cryptic, but you don’t want to say anything that could end up getting back to Garrett and Hannah, they deserve to be happy.

Dean’s hand pauses on your cheek for a second before he continues wiping at the dampness. You don’t see the flash of anger that crosses his face at your words. How stupid was Logan to lose you?

“Anything you want to talk about?” He asks through tight lips.

“No.”

Dean wraps his arm around you and pulls you tightly into his side. You bury your face in his chest, fingers clutching at the front of his shirt as you gently cry. He runs his hand along your arm.

You’re grateful he doesn’t spend any time defending Logan. He just gives you the time that you need. You alternate between wet, silent, sobs and loud hiccupped cries. It’s hard not to think about the situation when you’re being comforted over it.

“It hurts so much,” you whisper, “why wasn’t I enough?” You break down completely now, body convulsing as you cry heavily. There’s a wet patch where your tears are staining his shirt and your nose is running wildly, but he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t let you go.

“You are enough. You’re more than enough, you’re everything,” Dean says, each word heavy and deliberate.

You wipe your nose before looking up at him, you take him in for what feels like the first time. You never noticed how kind his eyes are. You avoided looking at him too much whilst you were with Logan. Loyalty meant everything to you.

He takes you in too. Your eyes are red and puffy. Your lips raw and swollen where you’ve been chewing on them. He looks down at your lips, then up to your puffy eyes, then back down again. It’s selfish of him to think about you in the way he is right now. He didn’t come to your aid in an attempt to win you whilst you were at your lowest. And he shouldn’t mistake your heart-break now for an invitation.

When Hannah had texted him, he dropped everything to be there for you. He wants to be here for you in the purest way possible but, looking at you now, the boundary he had spent months building is beginning to fall. Dean forces himself to look away from your lips.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to put you in this position, I know Logan’s your friend.”

“Anyone who treats you in this way is an idiot. Anyone. I’m happy to throw a punch if you need me to.”

You laugh between sobs.

“I’m serious,” he mumbles, “tell me what you need from me and I’ll give it to you. Anything.”

“I just need you to hold me.” Your words are vulnerable and shaky, scared you’ll be rejected for a second time tonight.

“Come here.” As he pulls you onto his lap, you swing your legs over his. He guides your head back down into him. Dean wraps his arms around you tightly, shielding you from the neon-lit chaos of the bar.

“Just breathe, I’ve got you.”

Dean rubs circles into your back; his other hand comes to your thigh. His thumb moves back and forth, giving you a physical comfort that you haven’t felt in months.

You finally feel like the tears no longer need to fall. Partly as you’re all cried out but partly because Dean’s soothed something into you. You’re content.  

The band starts a new song; the loud crash of the drums makes you flinch. You appreciated the way the loudness hid your sobs before, but now you have a pounding headache.

Dean notices instantly, he pulls you back enough to be able to look down at you. “Let’s go.”

“I can’t go back to my room yet,” you choke out, wiping your nose with the back of your hand, “and I don’t want to go to the hockey house.”

“That’s fine,” Dean says flatly. “We’ll just drive around.” He lifts you out of the booth before sliding out. He puts some money down for the untouched drinks and guides you through the crowded bar, his massive frame cutting a path through the drunk partygoers.

The cold night air hits your face; it feels good after the warmth of the bar. He immediately guides you to his car, unlocking it, and opening the passenger door for you.

“In,” he commands softly.

You slide in, completely exhausted from the day. Dean closes the door, jogs around the hood, and climbs into the driver’s side. The engine purrs to life and he takes off. You don’t know where you’ll be going, but you know you’ll be safe wherever he takes you.

He doesn’t turn on the radio, you watch out of the passenger window in silence as streets pass you by. The reality of what’s happened is setting in, leaving a hollow, cold ache in your chest. You feel like you’re about to cry again.

Dean drives with one hand on the wheel. He wordlessly extends his right hand across the console, palm up, a silent invitation.

You look at it for a long second before placing your hand in his. His large fingers instantly fold over yours, squeezing tightly.

The car’s dashboard screen lights up with a text notification, cutting through the darkness.

Logan (00:18): Dean, are you with her? I need to know she’s ok. I fucked up. She-

You can’t read the rest of the message. Your breath catches in your throat, suddenly very aware of your surroundings and the man you’re holding. You try to pull your hand back, a sudden surge of guilt hitting you, but Dean’s grip tightens. He doesn’t let you go.  

━━━RIDDLE FAMILY MASTERLIST ⭑ my masterlist full of fics about the adorably chaotic riddle family featuring: Tom riddle, Y/N, and their equally dramatic children Mattheo, Delphini, Marvolo and the twins..

───WEDDING!FICS MASTERLIST ⭑ a masterlist celebrating the wild, tender, and unforgettable moments leading up to and including the wedding of tom riddle and y/n

Darklord!Husband Tom

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 - During a tense Death Eater meeting, Y/N’s unexpected appearance throws the room into disarray, but Tom Riddle’s response is unexpectedly gentle.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚 - For the first time in his life, Tom Riddle is powerless—not against an enemy, but against the loss of the woman he loves.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐖𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 - Y/N knows exactly how to get under Tom Riddle's skin, and it’s not with fear it's with humor, wit, and a little reminder of who has the upper hand behind closed doors.

𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - Tom Riddle orders Y/N to stay behind for her safety during a dangerous mission, locking her in their bedroom as she protests.

𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥 - Y/N sits surrounded by Death Eaters at a ball while Tom Riddle, her husband, makes a commanding speech, warding off unwanted attention from an oblivious suitor.

𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 -Tom Riddle and Y/N hide from Aurors in the crowded streets, staying calm despite constant magical warnings. Tom confidently leads Y/N to a quiet café, where he charms a surprised toddler, revealing a rare, softer side.

𝐀 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 - In a moment of rage, Tom confronts a follower after Y/N is injured, but her soothing voice brings him back from the brink.

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐲𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 - Tom’s return from a mission turns a quiet evening into a tender reunion. With their children away, he relishes the opportunity to have Y/N all to himself, their bond strengthening in the peaceful silence.

𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐦? - Albus asks Y/N how she got over his biological father so easily and if Tom used an Obliviate spell on her to move on from Harry.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐥𝐬𝐞? - After Harry’s attempt to fix the past, the boys brace for fallout. Albus and Marvolo rush home expecting everything to be different. Instead, they find their family exactly as it was.

𝐈𝐭 𝐃𝐢𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Tom shows no regret for what he’s done, even when Harry confronts him and tries to fix it. Harry restores Y/N’s memories, expecting everything to change but nothing does.

𝐌𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐞 - During an execution, Tom stops mid-killing curse to answer Y/N’s phone call. The Death Eaters witness that even fear and death come second to his wife.

𝐓𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐈𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 - Tom casually admits he once considered using a soul-linking spell so Y/N would die with him because he couldn’t bear the thought of her loving someone else