I have no idea what I'm doing

He doesn’t need to ask why they’re all feeling quite so vitriolic; it’s seven PM and none of them seem to have anywhere better to be. 

The only person with the night off is Benton. How they ended up here, Carter will never be sure. 

He’s chewing on the end of his pen, watching Maggie and Carol both battle with the vending machine in the waiting room; it’s refusing to dispense the Twix they were planning on sharing. The smell of coconut manages to crest through the saccharine waves and Carter thinks he might have to read the bottle when he gets home lest it drive him insane.

“Boo.”

He jumps, accidentally kicking himself away from the desk he’d been leaning most of his weight and feels the jolt of his stomach falling out his ass as he grabs onto the closest thing to stop himself from falling in his rolly-chair. 

Your skin is soft under his and your laugh is softer. “Are you okay?” You have the decency to look a little embarrassed at his display, letting him dig his nails into your forearm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You said ‘boo’,” he points out dryly. “What are you doing here? I thought you started at ten?”

“What are you doing here?” You reply, kicking over another chair and sitting to face him. “I thought you finished at six.”

His argument is more valid than yours; the number of hours of unpaid overtime the two of you do to finish your charting is astronomical. Him being kept an hour behind to finish up is so common it’s almost expected. You starting three hours early?

“Dr Greene called me in, said you guys were apparently drowning?” You glance around the ED. It’s practically the Sahara. 

“We were,” he agrees. “About an hour ago. Car accident gave us six traumas at once but they all got moved up to the OR.”

“What are you still doing here then?” You scooch closer and Carter realises the coconut smell is coming from you and not him. “Thought you’d be all over that.”

He shrugs. “We had a woman who needed a chest tube, I did that.” After Benton had left he hadn’t felt like fighting to be let into an OR when he could instead be downstairs commiserating about how much he misses you. 

You haul your feet off the ground and bring them so you’re sitting cross-legged in front of him. You opt for scrubs most days while he prefers to wear his white coat, and Carter thinks you’ve never looked quite so lovely as you do now. Your hair is pulled out of your face with a pretty clip, your scrub pants are pulled up and he can see an expanse of your ankle above your white sneakers. Your nails are painted but chipped and your watch’s battery is dead. 

You’re not even his girlfriend yet. 

Lydia comes around the desk, looking wildly unimpressed. “Oh, good, you’re here,” she slaps a stack of envelopes down in front of Carter. “Delivery for you.”

Carter flushes immediately; in the time it takes for you to look to his face to the stack of pink envelopes and then back again, they’re the same colour. “What’s all this then?” You shuffle in your seat, smug smile on your face. 

“Nothing,” he reaches for them and he worries for a second you won’t let him take them. You don’t even move for them. “Uh,” he coughs. “They’re Valentines.”

You watch Carter flounder in front of you. You are not his girlfriend, he is not your boyfriend. The two of you are well aware with where you stand with each other, the last time he’d seen you for a substantial amount of time he’d kissed you right in the middle of you brushing your teeth. You’d gotten toothpaste on his cheek and he’d barely flinched. You’re smiling dangerously at him and Carter knows without you saying anything that he needs to say something else. 

“They’re… stupid,” he laughs, scratching below his ear as a nervous tic. “I get them every year.”

You raise your eyebrows at him, smile widening almost imperceptibly. “Every year?”

This is your first year at Cook County, your first Valentine’s here, and your first time being forced to acknowledge that the annoying, charming boy who sleeps across the hall from you is sometimes perceived as handsome by people that aren’t you.

He flips them over in his hands, refusing to look down at his lap where they’re sitting. His cheeks are burning under your gaze, he knows you’re taking pleasure in his embarrassment and the worst part is that he still likes you enough that he cares about it. Meeting you has kind of ruined his life; Carter has never been quite so depressed to be quite so infatuated.

It had happened while he was getting ready for work that morning, the sun wouldn’t rise for at least another hour, and Carter had stood in the bathroom with one sock on and his tie hanging loose around his shoulders. 

The mirror had fogged up from your post-shift shower and stayed fogged from his pre-shift shower. Your shampoo pervaded his mind, an honest mistake that was trickling down from his freshly cleansed scalp and into his blood stream, pooling behind his eyes and settling on his tongue. 

The smell is so distinctly you that his chest feels tight in that inconvenient way it’s been feeling for months now. He’d leaned against the sink and tried very hard not to smile at nothing. Your toothbrush sat in the ceramic holder beside his own, your fash wash’s green bottle is right beside his razor, and there is a stand of your hair sitting at the bottom of the sink.

It’s normal - you share a bathroom. This is bound to happen. He’s seen plenty of your hair, you’re pretty clean about it but living together there’s only so much you can clean up after a double shift. 

He hadn’t seen you in days, but you’d been here. There’s something glittery on the counter from when you’d done your makeup to go out with some of your med school girlfriends almost two weeks ago. He’d brushed away most of it on instinct and then immediately hated himself for doing it because now there’s less proof that you had been there at all. 

He is twenty six years old. He’s delivered babies. He’s watched people die. He has held a beating human heart in his hands. 

He is undone by the knowledge that you coexist in his space. He misses you. 

And now, for the first time in ages, you’re in his space again and he’s immediately reminded of the fact that he is not yours and you are not his. 

You don’t seem annoyed by the fact that you’re scheduled to work Valentine’s day, no more than you’re annoyed to work any other day. A sick sense of relief snakes out from somewhere in his chest cavity and wraps itself around him like vines. 

Sometimes he’ll catch you watching him in the kitchen, chin on the back of the sofa while he makes you a warm drink under the guise of making one for himself. Sometimes the two of you will be watching a movie and your legs will tangle together.

One night, after a particularly gruelling shift, the two of you had fallen asleep in his bed, your arm thrown over his torso and his palm pressed to your back under your pyjama top. 

Sometimes you look at him with that same look as you did the first night he’d kissed you, barefoot in the kitchen, lights off and still heavy with the weight of the ER. Kissing you might be the real worst thing that’s ever happened to him; if it was just a crush he could shove it down and pretend to be brave about it. 

Because you do all of that, and then you go out with sleazy cardiology nurses and guys you meet at bars. You can sleep with whoever you want but he can’t pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve given him CPR just enough to break his ribs but not restart his heart. 

Carter has never felt more brilliant and more stupid at the same time. 

The vending machine clunks and Maggie cheers as their Twix is released into the tray. You’re looking at him with an appraising look and he feels like there’s no scenario where whatever comes out of his mouth is what you want to hear.

“They’re just from patients,” he says. “Mostly old women. Sometimes their daughters.”

You hum like you don’t care, shifting to come cross your legs on your chair. “You’re a popular guy, Carter. Own your shit.” You sigh, trying to draw it out so it goes from dramatic to dramatised. You know that Carter is kind of an oblivious asshole, you’ve fought over it, you’ve cried over it, but he seems very in tune to all of your negative emotions and the concept of him taking note of how miffed you are is mortifying. “You’re available.”

Available. Carter feels it thunk in his chest. He is available, he’s not your boyfriend, and based off past experiences Carter can guess that there will be a couple of phone numbers included in this years’ stack of love letters. If he really wanted to, he could call up any one of them. 

He opens his mouth to argue and then stops. Because you’re right. He has been. Sulking quietly. Pretending he doesn’t mind. Pretending he doesn’t care who you go home with when he’s on call. Pretending the smell of your conditioner didn’t nearly make him late this morning because he stood in the bathroom like an idiot, breathing it in.

And yet, the world thunks against his chest cavity, falls there heavy and rolls around for a bit, coming to a stop before finally blooming open. He feels warmth spread from his stomach up to his cheeks. 

You’re sitting too still, pretending to look at the chipped polish on your nail. The letters are still sitting on his lap. His cheeks, sunny and lovestruck, twitch and he has to force himself not to smile at you. You’d kill him if he called it adorable, but he’s so endeared by the way that your lips are pressed together as much as you’re trying to seem relaxed.

“You seem enthused,” he says glibly. You roll your eyes and he knows that at the very least in this moment you like him. He’s still really not sure where the jury is sitting on how you feel about him as a whole, but Carter’s pretty sure he’s become winsome enough to you lately that it’s leaning positive. 

“I’m fine,” you say, lips pulled into a pout. You’re wearing lip gloss. Carter feels an ache in his stomach that he knows can only be satiated with the knowledge of what flavour it is. 

“You’re fine,” his mouth drifts open of it’s own accord, a boyish smile taking over the lower half of his face. It, combined with the flush and the pure unfettered affection, makes him look a lot younger than he is. His hair is sticking up at the nape of his neck where he’s been scratching the back of his neck. A nervous tic that only you can bring out of him. “You don’t care.”

He’s making fun of you. You refuse to acknowledge it. “You’re my roommate.”

John has held your face in his hands and kissed you hard enough to knock the air out of you. He’s had to pee while you’re in the shower, separated by the frosted glass of the shower. One time you yawned with food in your mouth and he caught sight of the back of your throat and wasn’t immediately disgusted. He’s fucking gone. 

Carter flips the stack over in his hands, pulling one out from the confine of the string tying them all together. He muses, watching you out the corner of his eye, an air of forced nonchalance that you’re too busy sizzling to notice is intentional. “Guess I should see who they’re from.”

Your head snaps back over to him before you can stop it. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he’s really putting it on now, stressing his vowels and seeing how thick he can lay it on before you realise he’s fucking with you. “Wouldn’t want to ignore someone’s heartfelt confession, that’d be rude.” Your jaw tightens and he commits it to memory. He hasn’t in his life enjoyed something quite as much as he is enjoying winding you up. Your hair is loose in its clip and he knows you’ll tighten it later and you’ll go back to being his coworker and, yes - his roommate, instead of his friend and his love and whatever else it is you are. 

“Are you two done having your lovers’ quarrel?” Mark is back, crabby as only a man who’s just lost the woman he loves can be. “I need you in central twelve,” he’s looking at you. 

You get up and take the case file from Dr Greene with minimal glancing at your fellow intern. You leave the two of them alone together to go take care of a little boy with a forehead lac, and you’re barely out of earshot before Carter is grumbling “We’re not lovers,” to his attending. 

“Sure,” Mark leans against the desk. “Anything good?” He nods down at the stack of letters.

Carter looks at them- really looks at them, for the first time. “No,” he says finally. “None of them are my type.” He tosses them straight into the wastepaper basket at his feet including the one he’d almost opened. 

Mark’s known him for three years now. Sure, Carter’s been a med student and even now he’s a surgical intern so the two of them don’t work together as closely as Greene works with you, but they’re close. Mark doesn’t even need to verbally call bullshit for Carter to know the older man is judging him. 

“I hate this,” he admits. “It’s not funny, before you say that.”

“Oh no,” Mark comes to sit in your previously vacated chair, grabbing one of his charts to scribble some notes down. “I’m John Carter and my parents are loaded and all my patients just fall right on in love with me.”

“Don’t forget that I have a full head of hair,” Carter snips.

Greene almost kicks the chair out from underneath him. 

“She’s not interested in me,” he says finally. Mark is still writing notes; Carter thinks he’d have to tell him he’d gotten you pregnant to get as big of a reaction as he’s hoping for. “At least not as much as I’m interested in her.”

“So you’re keeping your options open.” Mark gestures with the end of his pen to the trashcan on the floor. 

“I don’t want options.” Carter scoots his chair closer to the older man. 

Mark huffs at the intrusion of his space, resting his chart on his lap and pushing his glasses up to properly look at Carter. “Have you told her that?”

He laughs, resting his elbows on his knees and resisting the urge to tug his hair out of the roots. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey I know we’ve had something casual going on for a really long time but I’m one whiff of your deodorant away from proposing’?” He’s not even fantasising about your perfume anymore, he’s moved onto the stick you keep in your locker to stop you sweating through your scrubs. He’d wax poetic about it if you gave him the opportunity. 

“You could start smaller than that.” Mark’s mouth twitches. 

The room you’re in is the closest one, and the door is open. Carter hears your voice, soft and affectionate, and his stomach flips. Your figure is distorted by the frosting on the glass. 

“Look, man,” Mark pushes his chart aside to look Carter right in the face. “By now, if she doesn’t know you’re gone for her, she’s the only one. So at this point, you either gotta keep your options open, or you can grow up.”

“Grow up,” he repeats flatly.

“Yes.” Carter pictures his boss trying to speak to his daughter, to impart any sort of fatherly wisdom onto her. Rachel would be about ten, probably, Carter doesn’t really know how old kids are. The picture makes him sad, and he has to shake his head to stop thinking about it. “Use your words. You’re very good at them when you’re not being a coward.”

Carter watches him finish his chart, dump it back on the desk, and walk away, irritation and reluctant gratitude tangling in his throat. The pink envelopes sit at the top of the bin, cheap. Impersonal. 

The next time Carter catches sight of you it’s with that same cardiology nurse that he’d seen you with a few weeks ago. “You’re working tonight?” He asks you. He’s practically batting his eyes at you while you wait for Wendy to come back with the bloodwork you needed done. 

You look at him blankly. “Well, I’m here.”

“Your roommate home?” The nurse brings his hand to your badge, tracing the sides of the laminate. “We could get together… I know it’s not gonna be Valentine’s day when we get off work but we could still hang out?”

You’re rescued by Wendy before you have to answer but you take the time to anyway. Carter doesn’t hear exactly what you say to the poor guy but it has him scowling as you walk off.

You meet Carter in the break room, peeling off your gloves and flexing your fingers. There’s dried blood on your wrist and he forgets to ask before he’s catching your arm. You’re still as he wipes it off, your pulse fluttering under his touch. Maybe that’s his. Carter knows that sometimes when two people are in love their heartbeats can sync up. He feels too detached to be in sync with you. “Thanks,” you mumble.

He can smell it again now that he’s close to you again. “What flavour is your lip gloss?”

You blink at him and Carter knows that’s probably crossing the threshold for how strange he can be before you tell him to go home. He’s already two hours overtime. A slow smile spreads across your face. “Watermelon.”

“Figures,” he mumbles, thumb stroking your pulse point. It thrums diligently. 

You frown at him. “What’s that mean?”

This is the only modicum of privacy Carter has had with you for almost two weeks. The ER hums outside the door, but in the break room it’s quiet. “It’s February, and you taste like summer.”

You push him off. “Go home, Carter. There are dishes with your name on them.”

Carter doesn’t let go of your wrist, instead pulling you back towards him. You’re so soft under his skin, and you’ve fixed your hair and you’d turned down a date with a nurse. You stumble the half-step easily, sneakers squeaking against the floor and opening your mouth to murmur his name. He doesn’t give you the chance. It doesn’t even feel like a conscious decision, more like impulse, born from the weeks of missed mornings and empty apartments and desperation running so deep Carter can barely sleep knowing you’re not on the other side of the hallway.

He kisses you like he never has before and you kiss him back like it’s all you’ve ever done. 

It’s slow and sweet, and he doesn’t care that you’re both at work. His hands are on your hips over your scrubs, your lips just as soft as he knows. Bright, sweet, unmistakably watermelon. With this, he thinks it might tip him into needing more than two hands to count the number of times you’ve kissed. 

“You should go home and get some rest,” you mumble against his mouth, as if he could. 

He presses a lingering kiss to your jaw as he tries to pull back. “You just want me to do the dishes.” You’re both acutely aware of the fact that anyone could come in at any moment. You beam at him, letting him kiss you again. 

It’s just the two of you in the break room, most of the other doctors either in surgery or in a spare room catching as much sleep as they can while the ED seems somewhat settled.

He has a handful of your white chocolate protein bars in his hand, and you watch him shove them into his very full backpack. You watch him, not quite sure what to. You don’t mind him taking them, but you don’t necessarily want him to be taking them. That feels unfair to ask of him, though, they’re not labelled or anything. You’ve put yourself in this position, and now you have to figure out how to broach the subject with Dr Carter.

He sees you before you manage to find something to say, though, almost jumping out of his skin. “Oh, um, hi. I’m not, like, stealing, they’re… they’re for everybody. I just, uh, am taking mine… in advance.”

He seems to know you don’t believe him. “Are there any left?”

Dr Carter holds out the one in his hand. You step closer to him to take it. The box is empty. They expire in the next few weeks anyway.

You take it from him and you watch Dr Carter squirm. He’s not you to you, in fact, the two of you have been working together for almost a year. You’re a nurse, you work right at his side, you prep his IVs, you order his patients their meds without him asking, and, apparently, you’re about to feed him for the next three weeks. “Thanks.” You have to try really, really hard to not let out an embarrassingly unflattering laugh.

Dr Carter seems to consider how all of this looks. “I didn’t take all of them,” he blurts, which is so untrue it actually does make you laugh.

“It’s o-”

“Okay, I did take all of them but no one even eats them I swear they’ve been sitting in the corner for like six months and-” His ears are turning pink. You didn’t realise that was a thing that happened to people.

“They’ve been there for a while because they’re mine,” your words are semi muffled by the fingers covering your mouth, but you’re worried you’ll start laughing at him. “I buy them so I have a boost during 24s.”

Now he looks horrified.

Dr Carter’s eyes dart between the now empty box and his stuffed-full backpack. “Do not put them back.”

“I’m going to put the-”

“I don’t want your gross bag bars.”

“What does- They’re in wrappers?” He’s laughing now, trying to remain serious, if only so you know he hasn’t let himself off the hook. “It’s not like I have gross germs on them now.”

“I don’t know that,” you muse, crossing your arm, the packaging of the one in your hand crinkling against your arm. “You could have smallpox or something, don’t know what you get up to.”

His jaw drops open, flush extended down to his neck, and you know in that exact moment that when he asks you’re going to let this guy kiss you.

“You went straight to smallpox?” He almost chokes the words up. “Also what do you think I do in my spare time? Walk around with an infection disease that hasn’t been seen in 20 years, and then go to work at the hospital?”

You nod, straight faced.

“I’m almost scared to ask what you do in your spare time.” His eyes are shifty and he almost crushes the protein bar in his hand with his efforts to be casual about the question. You could tell him- should tell him, throw him a bone after spending the entire conversation making fun of him. But, god if he isn’t really pretty looking at you like he knows he’s fucking up. He takes himself so seriously, with his tailored white coats and his hands that still shake when he has to be the one to do the IV. You like seeing him like this.

You shrug. “Oh, you know.”

He looks at you.

“I’m a nursing resident,” you reason. “What spare time?”

He’s still looking at you. John knows you, knows you by your first name even though you still call him Dr Carter. He doesn’t mind it from the other doctors, even the nurses, but over the past few months he’s started aching for a familiarity with you that surprised him. John doesn’t really get crushes, he’s an adult. He shows interest in people, either they reciprocate or they don’t. The idea of you not reciprocating makes him feel so sickly hot inside that he doesn’t even think of it in passing.

“Actually can I have another one?” you ask, rotating the protein bar in your hand. “If you’re gonna eat all my dinner, I’d like a mostly in-tact one.” You toss it back to him. He doesn’t even come close to catching it.

“I can get you dinner?” He stutters it out and that realisation makes the warmth in his face travel down to his chest. He wonders if it’s possible to blush in your feet. You raise an eyebrow at him, seemingly surprised by the audacity. “I- I just mean like. I could buy you dinner.”

You can’t stop the giggle that comes from your chest. Watching Dr Carter seem to go through the five stages of grief in front of you is unfortunately very funny. You only think so because you have such a fondness for him. You stay silent for a moment longer, hoping he’ll keep talking.

“I get off shift in an hour,” he says, fulfilling your wish for more of him without much effort from you. “Uh, and you were here when I got here, so I figure you’re probably off too soon?” He’s taken to your coping mechanism - crushing the deformed protein bar in his hand. “And if you wanted to get dinner… I’d pay for it?”

You kind of want to mess with him a little bit, tell him that you have been here for almost a full twenty-four hours, you just really want to go home and go to sleep.

John knows that all he has done is embarrass himself in front of the pretty nurse who worms her way into his chest and his thoughts and even a dream one time. You’re still giggling, pretty even under the awful hospital lighting, the noise warming his heart and his cheeks.

The clock above the break room door reads 6:52. He only has to hang out for another 8 minutes before he can leave you alone and never bother you again.

You turn your new, pristine, protein bar in your hand. “Well, I mean, you could buy me dinner, but I do have this really nice protein bar-”

He smacks it out of your hand it skitters across the floor, sliding until it hits the wall.

“Well, that solves that.” He feels his heart about to jump out of his throat, about to follow suit to the protein bar. “Suddenly my dinner plans are very free. I finish at seven.”

Dr Carter - John - looks utterly flabbergasted at the fact that you seem to be saying that you’ll go get dinner with him. You don’t even know if you’re going to be able to get through the end of the meal before you’re tugging him forward by that stupid tie.

“There’s more around,” you point to the empty box. “If you’re ever after one. I stash them all over. Most of them are in peds.”

“Why’s that?”

Now it’s your turn to stare blankly at him. “I’m a pediatric nurse.”

“I haven’t ever seen you in peds, you’re lying.”

You laugh. “Ask Dr Ross! I’ve been here for three years. I’m only ever not in peds when there’s a shortage with you guys.”

John has a look on his face that you can’t quite decipher. “Which is always,” he surmises. He cannot believe he didn’t know this about you. He’d thought of himself more perceptive, especially when it comes to you. He’s about to take you on the nicest meal in your life, and by the end of it he’s going to know you so well he could do your taxes for you. “But, hey. You can go ahead and get rid of those. You won’t need ‘em.”

“Oh?” You look like you’re about to laugh again. You’re standing so close to him.

He swallows any semblance of shame he feels. “You’ve got dinner plans every night you work, now.” The two of you do always work companion shifts. On the rare occasion he’ll show up in the morning and you won’t be there. He always tries to swallow the disappointment so it doesn’t come out of his mouth as embarrassingly as words have been since you walked in. “And, you know what, nights you don’t work, too.”

John Carter had never experienced true affection, not even as a young boy. His childhood was overseen primarily by nannies and boarding school dorm parents. His sister was uninterested in him, his brother took out his anger on him, and their family was never the same after his passing. 

The only person he really felt connected to was his Gamma, although she was still a woman of class. She’d hug him stiffly, kiss his cheek in greeting, but that was the extent. She wasn’t overly warm, or snuggly, like some grandmas were. As a kid, he’d see his friends get picked up from school, or at their baseball games with their parents cheering them on in the stands. Forehead smooches were wiped away in disgust, hugs shrugged off in embarrassment. And John couldn’t understand exactly why those sights always left him feeling just a bit hollow.

He’d never had affection, so he didn’t realize how much he missed it.

Until you.

When he met you, it was head over heels. Love at first sight. Ironic, seeing as you didn’t believe in those things, but he did. He knew they did because it had happened to him.

You were a paramedic, newly trained, and brought onto the scene as Riley’s partner when Shep moved out of the county. You knew there was history between Shep and Carol, who you became fast friends with. You didn’t prod. But Carter could feel Carol relax as you proved yourself time and time again to be the opposite of what Shep was. You were kind, steady, and always willing to help. You could take someone down if you needed to, but only then, and you were wonderful at getting through to the patients reluctant to ask for help.

And you were gorgeous. It always baffled Carter how you could look so ethereal after spending hours running around, sweating in the heat. Your uniform was drab, but on you? Carter loved to see it. Though, he’d love to see you in a potato sack, for all he cared. The look of concentration that fell over your face while working drove him nuts, and he’d been distracted by it more than once. Then you’d yell at him to focus up, and he’d get his head together.

See, you were witty and not afraid to make a joke, but when you had a patient in front of you, that was the priority. There was no pulling you from someone in need. While Carter certainly admired you for that, it made it difficult for him to find a natural time to talk to you, get to know you, and ultimately, confess his undying love for you in a relaxed, breezy type of way.

Because Carter was sure about you. You met on one of the first true spring days of the season, with an open ankle fracture and Benton breathing down your neck. Just four or five months of inane stuttering and acute fits of idiocy in your presence, and Carter finally summoned the courage to ask you out on a real date, and the rest was history.

A few months in, Carter was proving to be the sweetest boyfriend you could have hoped for. Attentive, loving, considerate, he regularly went out of his way just to make your life the tiniest bit easier. He saved your favorite recipes to cook, picked up the book you mentioned weeks ago on his day off, brought you little gifts just because they reminded him of you. But you noticed one thing he seemed to struggle with.

Touch.

Now, in the bedroom, all was good and well. In fact, a little better than that. But despite what he did in the sheets, he still asked to hold your hand. Still apologized if your legs brushed sitting next to each other on the couch. Still slid over to his side of the bed when you spent the night, allowing at least a foot of room between you.

The strangest thing was, he seemed to like touch. When you did hold his hand, he lit up like a Christmas tree, and if you scratched his head, he’d close his eyes and lean into you. He just seemed hesitant to initiate it, as if he was afraid of bothering you, or scaring you off. You tried to be patient, let him go at his own pace, but sometimes you just wanted to cuddle your boyfriend after a hard shift.

So one day, you decided to clear the air, for good measure.

“You know,” you said lightly, one night, over chinese takeout and Jeopardy. “You don’t have to ask to hold my hand. You can just hold it.”

He glanced over at you, eyebrows raised.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” you said, setting your chopsticks down, growing smile on your face. “I mean, it’s very polite. I appreciate it. But… I like it when you hold my hand. I’ll never say no.”

He broke into a bashful smile, cheeks tinting pink, and he looked down at his noodles. You scootched over a bit closer to him, and ran a finger over his brow fondly.

“I just don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable,” he said, eyes still down.

“That’s sweet,” you said, heart burning for the softness in his voice. “But consider this a standing acceptance to hand holding. Or anything. If I’m not in the mood, I’ll tell you. Okay?”

He nodded timidly, and you kissed his cheek and picked up your chopsticks again. You let your attention turn back to Alex Trebek. Sometimes the contestants were so stupid, they made you want to try and get on the show. But as you shouted out answers, you felt Carter’s warm, slightly clammy hand inching up under your arm. You let your hand fall away from your box of food and he threaded his fingers through yours.

You didn’t look at each other, just grasped each other's hands tight and watched your show.

That was the start. Hand holding. At first, he was still a little nervous. Still working to accept what you said as true, that you wouldn’t be mad, or annoyed, or disgusted by his spontaneous touch.

After the third or fourth time, it was like a dam broke. At every turn, there he was grabbing your hand. He would wake up early on his days off just so he could hold it as he walked you to work. In bed, on the couch, on dates, even at work sometimes, you could always find his hands linked with yours. Even just pinkies crooked together under a table if there were people around. 

Eventually, as much as you hated it, you couldn’t keep holding things up for it. You couldn’t stop cooking, or reading, or fixing the showerhead to hold hands with him. So he expanded. He started keeping a hand on your lower back, or linking your arm through his, or running his hands up and down your sides. He’d dig his fingers in if he wanted to hear your laugh.

Soon enough, there was a constant point of contact between the two of you. Arms hooked, heads on shoulders, legs wound together. You found yourself with less of a boyfriend, and more of a koala. He’d cling to you like his life depended on it, headbutting you until you ran your hands through his hair.

You complained. But you didn’t mean it.

“John,” you said, as he nuzzled into your neck. “I’m trying — Johnny!”

He just hummed, hands running all along your body, your thighs, your butt, your tummy, your boobs, your armpits — any spot he could find. You couldn’t help but giggle as he pressed lazy kisses to your neck, which really undercut your stern tone.

“I’m trying to read this article!”

“Then read,” he drawled, and you could feel his grin against your skin. “I’m not stopping you.”

You huffed, amused, and playfully pushed his head away. To your surprise, and slight disappointment, it appeared to work, as he pulled back. But as you craned your head to see him at the foot of the bed, he began tugging on the bottom of your hoodie. You squealed as his cool cheeks pressed against your bare stomach, as he shoved his head right underneath the oversized sweater. You let your paper fall to the side as he pulled himself through and rested his head on your chest, eyes just barely peaking out from the collar. His arms followed, and his hands went right to your chest too.

You sighed.

“This is your sweatshirt, you know,” you said, pretending to be indignant. “So if you stretch it out —!”

“Worth it,” he mumbled, nosing your clavicular notch.

You wrapped your arms and legs around his sleepy weight and let yourself relax. He was warm, and soft, and grounding. It didn’t take long for his snores to lull you into a slumber of your own.

It was an amazing thing to Carter that he could feel such comfort whenever he wanted. That not only did he find an amazing woman to fall in love with, she loved him back. And you did. Every time you gave him a scalp massage, or kissed a pout off of his lips, or gave his bum a waggish squeeze as he made dinner, he could feel his heart swell.

Although to date you had never turned down his touch, whether loving, teasing, scandalous, or comforting, there were of course external factors to consider. Too many times would your lovely face distract Carter from work. He’d think about wrapping all his limbs around you, feeling you everywhere, senses completely filled by you. It was an intoxicating daydream.

“Carter!” Benton would yell. “Get your ass up and make yourself useful!”

Carter would mutter an embarrassed apology and rush off, not before catching the mirthful glint in your eye.

Carter spent most of his time at your apartment by the time you reached the six month mark. It wasn’t bigger than his, the heating and air conditioning went out at less than convenient times, and the washer and dryer were five floors down in a creepy basement. But it was homey, with tokens of your treasured memories adorning every possible surface, the fridge plastered with photos under souvenir magnets from all the places you’d visited. Home knit blankets, mismatched mugs, and movie posters painted the dingy apartment into something comforting.

He never wanted to leave. He loved knowing that you were never more than 15 steps away from him. Your sheets smelled like you. He used your lotion just to keep part of you with him throughout the day. You scolded him for it, but after hard days you’d smooth your most expensive face masks on him in the tub, and let him use as much of that lotion as he wanted.

One Saturday, the last free night you had together before some back to back shifts, he was getting ready for bed, and realized — the two of you had built a happy home. It was welcoming, and warm, everything his childhood home wasn’t. Yours was full of love and laughter, dancing in the glow of the refrigerator, and shopping together in pajamas. It was everything he never dared to let himself dream of.

And he didn’t ever want to live without it.

He turned to you, where you sat under the covers, reading an Agatha Christie book you’d read a million times before, eye mask ready on your head, hair up, a spot of zit cream on your face, and he could feel it in his whole body.

His eyes never left you as he crawled under the comforter on his designated side of the bed. He didn’t need to look to know his watch, tattered book, and vitamins were on the nightstand, and he knew his blue toothbrush was sitting next to your green one in the bathroom. As he settled down, you set Agatha aside and grabbed vaseline from your table.

It had become a sort of night time ritual, you moisturizing his hands with vaseline. You knew he never did it himself, just kept using hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap on his poor hands, which were already strained pushing meds, lifting patients, and suturing. You rubbed the vaseline into his cracked skin with such gentle care, and right now, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

Your tired ones met his, and you smiled suspiciously.

“What are you looking at?”

“Just —” he sighed, eyes wide as saucers, in awe of you, of the privilege it was to see you like this. “Let’s live together.”

You froze, mouth parting a bit. “What?”

He scooted closer to you, removing his hands from your grip to cradle your waist. He was nervous, but smiling like an idiot.

“You make me the happiest I’ve ever been,” he said. “And whenever I go back to my place, I — I feel so homesick. I can’t live when you’re not around.”

You just stared at him.

“You’re crazy,” you said, but it came out mushy.

“I don’t care,” he said, pulling you fully into his lap. “I really don’t. I just want you. More than anything.”

You couldn’t control your smile as he kissed your face.

“We’ve only been going out, what — six months?”

“And seventeen days,” he said, playing with the baby hairs at the nape of your neck. “Look, I totally understand if you don’t want to. I just want you to know that I’m ready whenever you are.”

“I’m ready,” you breathed. “But are you sure you want to move in here? I wasn’t sure I was gonna renew the lease, and —”

He didn’t even wait for you to finish before he pulled you into a heated kiss. One hand roved under the almost ten year old high school softball tee you wore, while the other teased the edge of your granny panties, the cute ones with the polka dots. He knew you were always self conscious in them, but he might have preferred them to the white lacy pair you wore on Valentines Day.

He pulled back just to take a breath and pant, “We can move into a new place.”

You were smiling almost as wide as he was.

“With both our salaries combined we could probably get a bigger place,” he said. “Maybe even with a washer and dryer in the apartment.”

You giggled.

“Closer to work, too,” you said, as John began kissing down your neck. “Oh, and pet friendly! I’ve always wanted a cat.”

He resurfaced to raise a brow.

“Can’t we get a dog?”

You scoffed.

“When would we have the time to take care of a dog?” you snorted. “Besides, you’re a cat person, you just don’t know it yet. I had a cat growing up. She was my best friend. And she lived for like twenty years, too!”

“Thelma,” he nodded with a smirk. “I remember.”

You rested your head on his shoulder and he leaned back against the headboard, one hand still exploring under your top, in a domestic, familiar way, somehow.

“I promise you’ll love our cat,” you said, rubbing your nose against his freshly shaven cheek.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, absorbing your touch. “I’ll give you a cat. I’ll give you anything you want.”

Three months later, you sat on the mattress of your partially furnished apartment. It was so close to work you could hear the L echoing in the distance, which Carter was worried about, but you loved. Your “bed” wasn’t really a “bed” yet, as you were still missing a frame. It was flat on the floor for now. 

The couch was up, which Doug and Mark were only too happy to complain about as they helped Carter lug it up the steps. Apparently, according to Carter, you were too pretty to do grunt work on a hot summer day. You were inclined to agree, so you worked on building some shelves for the living room.

There were still pizza boxes on the floor, and clothes in piles in laundry baskets, but you didn’t care. You were tangled up together in bed, compensating for the body heat with three fans pointed at you and no sheets; and between you lay a little sleeping kitten. Louise, Carter had named her.

You watched smugly as your Johnny gently stroked the kitty between the eyes, watching her with pure adoration. You were fairly certain he was minutes away from tears of joy.

“I told you,” you whispered sleepily, but proudly. “You love her.”

Without ceasing his petting, lest Louise protest, he squished his face right next to yours.

“Yeah,” he said. “But I love you more.”

---

There was a Cubs game that night; for some reason you’re always well busier on home game nights. A lot of the time it’s people getting really drunk and deciding they don’t want to go into work the next day and knowing an ER trip will get them out of it. It finally seems to have died down now, it’s Saturday and a surprising amount of people don’t know the ER is even open on weekends. You’ve had a steady flow of patients for the last couple of hours but nothing insane. Greene is passed out in room seven, Carol’s slumped over behind the desk with Jerry keeping watch, and once you get a 19 year old frat boy who “drank something that isn’t usually a drink” discharged home to his very angry parents, you think you might follow suit. 

You’ve been watching Carter stand at central behind Carol’s chair, watching him lift the mug to his lips and then get distracted by something on his clipboard. He’s swaying on his feet and Jerry keeps grabbing him by the shoulder to check on him. 

“Alright, Carter,” you drop your file on the desk at the nurse’s station, fed up with watching him not drink his coffee. You’d made it for him almost three hours ago, pressed the mug into his hand with a gentle ‘you okay?’ that he hadn’t responded to. You take the chart off him and put it down on top of your own pile. You haven’t had a new ambulance drop for almost forty-five minutes; he clearly needs rest and there isn’t a better time for it. The on-call room is free, you shove him inside. 

“What are you-” his words are clumsy, and he has to blink a few times until he realises it’s you and not Benton. “Hey, hey, stop manhandling me!” He pulls his arm free and regrets it almost immediately. Your hands are soft and steady, and he likes being shoved around by you. He’s just so fucking tired, he hasn’t even stopped to think about how good you look tonight. You don’t dress up - you’re an R3 in the ER, there’s no point - but there are some days you do your hair a little different or your lips or eyelids shine under the fluoros. Some shifts he can’t take his eyes off your mouth whenever you’re speaking to him. “Hey, sweeth-”

“Go to bed,” you grab one end of his stethoscope, ignoring the pet name that only ever slips out when he’s tired (that’s just proving your point), and yank it off his neck. You hang it over the overhead. He stands there. “Now.”

He says your name, so soft it’s almost slurred. God, he’s been ignoring you all night, and for what? You’re such a knockout. One of these days he’s finally going to take you out, see you outside of this godforsaken hospital. “I’ve got a CT to schedule-”

“Carter,” you sound angry. He hates when you sound angry; has made it his mission the last three years working together to have it not be directed at him. He’s done a pretty good job, not to toot his own horn. “Go to bed. You haven’t slept since you got here.”

He nods placatingly; he’s almost finished his shift anyway, he can go home and crash in his own bed. Think of you sufficiently before he drifts off, he’s off for four days. He’s got your number - has everyone’s numbers, he has to remind himself, it’s not creepy - might see if he can work up the courage to call you. He’s seen the schedule, he knows after your twenty-four hour shift you have two full days off. 

“I’m at work,” he feels more like he’s reminding himself than you. “I can’t just lay down and sleep, my CT-”

“I ordered it for you,” you soothe him, hands up by his chest. If he steps forward you’ll be touching him; his feet stay rooted on the ground. “For Mr Hill? I ordered it, he’s getting it done now, Lewis has said she can keep an eye on him for a couple of hours while you get some rest. Please?”

He’s busy, he’s working. He doesn’t want to go to sleep because he’ll think of you and that’s embarrassing when you’ll be the one pushing open the door in a few hours to come wake him up. He hasn’t been able to sleep very well lately, and if he’s just going to be laying there and dissociating, he might as well do it standing up. 

“Sweetheart, I’m fine,” the endearment always makes him cringe hours after he says it. It’s a HR violation probably, but he doesn’t mind the way you smile at him when it slips out. “I’m almost done-” you both know damn well that’s a lie. Maybe he doesn’t, with how tired he is, but you certainly do. You both get off at the same time, and you know he was here for twelve hours longer than you’ve been. 

You shove him then, towards the bed. He stumbles back, the backs of his knees hitting the bed and sending him straight to a sitting position. You’re muttering to yourself, and he catches the words ‘stubborn’ and ‘annoying’ and 'do everything myself' as you step forward to close the gap. 

He opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t remember what, but is interrupted by a metal clink noise. Your hands are on his belt, unbuckling it with one hand and using your other hand to brace yourself on the bed beside his thigh. 

Carter says your name again as you tug the leather harshly, undoing it, and you frown. “What happened to sweetheart?” The sound of his zipper coming down bounces off the walls and suddenly things are moving very fast. He’s probably asleep standing up and he’ll wake up with a boner and a cry of your name, standing at the nurse’s station. 

He doesn’t know where to put his hands, so they hover awkwardly in the air. He’s not quite sure what to do with himself, never thought he’d be put in this situation. Don’t get him wrong, he’s imagined this a dozen times. But in his imagination he’s usually a little more in control of the situation. He’s coaxing you into his lap, he’s got his hand down the pants of your scrubs, or maybe you’re wearing that pretty long floral skirt he saw you in downtown once. He’d had to rub one out in a bar bathroom after seeing you from across the street. Not his finest moment. 

Instead, you’re reaching in with your ever-soft hands, tugging down his slacks by the thighs and looking up at him like you love him. Your knees touch the hospital linoleum floor, and you settle on your haunches. “You gonna talk to me, Carter, or are you gonna keep pretending like I’m not here?”

“Still don’t believe you are,” he rasps. Your nails drag down his bare thigh, pants shoved down just enough to show the tent in his boxers. You’re honestly a little disappointed; you’d been hoping you’d get to toy with him a little. Play around, get him hard. He’s already fully erect without you even touching his cock yet. “F-fuck, gonna wake up at home with a hard-on.”

You bite your glossed bottom lip and let out a breathy laugh that causes his cock to twitch. The sight makes you shift on your knees. “You dream about me?”

He nods, trying his best to keep his chin ducked down to make eye contact with you. You have such pretty eyes, he could mix the colour from memory. He’s torn between wanting to pull you up, to kiss you hard and to tell you just how much you populate his thoughts, and just wanting you to fucking touch him already. “Yeah, sweetheart, dream about you.”

You reach for the waistband of his underwear and lean forward, nose pressing against his clothed cock. You press an open-mouthed kiss to his erection through his boxers right before you move the fabric out from underneath your lips. The waistband hangs underneath his heavy length and you have to sit back and admire it for a moment. 

He’s long, pretty and pink like the flush he gets when you call him doctor, and he’s leaking precum already. This is better, you decide resolutely, wrapping your hand around the base - and ignoring how much doesn’t fit in your hand - (you have no idea how you’re eventually going to get that inside you, but that’s a problem for later) sure, you didn’t get to toy with him all soft and willing in your hand; he’s desperate for you. 

Carter feels your breath brush his cock, most likely unintentionally, and lets out a groan. He’s more inclined to believe this is real because if he were dreaming he’s pretty sure he would’ve creamed his pants by now. You’re never usually such a tease in his dreams; he likes this better.

“Please touch me, sweetheart.”

You don’t realise how long you’ve spent admiring his cock until he’s squirming under your hands, aching from how hard he is. You decide to relent and stop teasing him, if only so you can finally get your mouth on him. The sound he makes when you wrap your lips around the tip of his cock is enough to make your panties dampen. 

Carter watches you squirm, blood rushing straight to the head of his cock. You’ve always been perfect, god, look at you, but now? He’s about one second away from ending up on his knees himself. Either to propose or to bury his face between your thighs, he’ll decide in the moment. 

You kiss the tip and all he can focus on is how soft your lips are, sticky with gloss and his arousal, hot and gentle. You lick the precum off and he groans, one hand coming to rest on the curve between your shoulder and your neck and the other grasping onto your hair at the back of your scalp. The pull makes you whine, sending vibrations right up his shaft.

He thinks he might just catch flame from how hot he feels, you holding the rest of his cock in your hands. Carter worries he’s going to have to beg for you to touch him when you finally take him deeper in your mouth.

“Fuck,” it rips low from his throat; he’s very conscious of how sound travels in these rooms. You suck all the spit to the back of your mouth and the sensation makes him whimper. You’d always imagined he would. “Fuck, sweet girl, feels so good.” The hand on your neck is gentle, running lines up your throat with his thumb. The other one less so, grabbing your hair so hard his knuckles are turning white. The praise makes you hum appreciatively. “So fucking good to me, aren’t you?”

You duck your head down, taking him deeper in your mouth and he has to throw his head back so he doesn’t cum down your throat prematurely. You’ve got a rhythm down that draws his mind blank. 

You swallow around his length, pumping the part that doesn’t fit in your mouth in your hand. Your spare hand grasps at his thigh and he lets go of your hair to take it in his own. You’re gonna fucking kill him, you’re so warm, so wet, and this is just your mouth. He’s going to make you cum so fucking hard as soon as he can string a sentence together.

He’s close, embarrassingly so, and he squeezes your hand. He breathes your name, spreading his legs so you can move closer to him. “God, sweetheart, you’re so fucking pretty. Gonna make me cum.” His entire body feels hot, the noises coming out of his mouth are downright embarrassing and it’s taking great effort to not be quiet enough to ensure he still has a job when you’re done. “Fuck, pretty girl.” My pretty girl. 

You pull back, a line of spit connecting you and him, and look up at him through wet lashes. “Are you gonna cum, Carter?” You’re working your hand up and down his cock, running your thumb over his slit and revelling in the way it makes his hips buck. “Close?”

He nods and you suck him back in. Carter squeezes your hand, and you squeeze back. So pretty, his sweet girl, holding his hand while sucking him off. Making him feel so good, you always know exactly what he needs. He’s going to get you a rock the size of the fucking moon, you won’t be able to wear it in the ER in case you blind someone but you’ll show it off to all the other doctors - that you’re his perfect girl. 

It’s a combination of things - the way you move forward and lose yourself, gagging slightly on his length. Your cheeks are wet, you’re not crying but you’re close to it. Your hand is wrapped around him, moving in sync with that insane tongue of yours. He comes with a pant of your name, unable to think of a single other word, a white hot orgasm that hits straight at the back of your throat and still manages to pool at your lips. The sight of his cum on the corner of your mouth almost makes him hard again. Your mouth is still working on him, and when you feel the twitch it spurs you on more.

He hisses through his teeth. “Fuck, fuck, sweet girl, too much. Too much.” He uses the hand on your neck to gently coax you off his cock. You rise on shaky legs and he gets his hands on your waist. Carter kisses you gently, shifting on the bed. “Can I make you feel good, sweetheart?”

You kiss him back, both of you unbothered at the taste of him on your tongue. You’re about to nod, to whine, to hum, to anything. Your pager goes off.

“Fuck,” he groans. 

You let him kiss you for just another second before you pull away to check the page. His hands are still on your waist, thumbs rubbing your hips, desperate to just touch you. “Go to sleep,” is all you say. You straighten yourself for a moment before pulling open the door. 

Carter lays down, shoving himself back into his pants. If anyone other than you came in it’d be rough to explain. He’s warm just at the memory of your touch, and the thin hospital mattress has never felt more comfortable. When you come to check on him five minutes later he’s fully knocked out, sprawled on the mattress with one leg hanging off the bed.

This thing between the two of you is pretty new, only a couple of months old, and John’s managed to get his hands on you a few times. His hand on your thigh while driving, your feet in his lap while watching a movie with his lazy hands on your ankles, his nose pressed to the top of your head while you slept.

He can count on two hands the number of times you’ve let him kiss you longer than a soft press of his lips to yours. He’s tasted your chapstick, knows the taste of your spit mixed with his. 

He’d finally taken you out on a real date. A nice dinner, a bouquet of flowers that you’ve placed in one of your nicest glasses in the kitchen, and a whole evening of John charming the breath out of you. He had driven you home and not even bothered to hide his glee at being invited in. 

“I had a really good time,” you’d admitted, looking down at your shoes. John’s heart has been trying to crawl out of his throat since he came to pick you up. Delicate black shoes, a pair of tights that is hiding a hole in the upper thigh under a pretty red dress the same colour of the blood he’s drawing from biting his tongue all night. 

John had an index finger curled around your middle finger, and he had used it to tug you closer to himself, and this time you let him. Letting him pull you into his lap on your soft couch, halfway through airily suggesting that he find something for you two to watch when he kissed you. 

He keeps you there for almost twenty minutes, pulling those pretty flats off and makes himself dizzy by peeling those ripped tights off your legs. You’re smiley, kissing him back, threading your fingers through his hair with the utmost care and softness. “I had such a good time, baby,” he kisses the fat of your cheek, feeling the way they warm under his touch. “Loved seeing you, look so pretty.” His hand had gone slowly from the back of your knee, up, up, and up, until it was past the hem of your skirt. 

He was being so slow, knowing you’re kind of jumpy and not wanting anything to happen without you having the opportunity to stop him. Hands grabbing at your thighs wherever they could reach, committing every one of your pleased noises to memory. 

You’d pulled away, sounding breathless and looking kissed. “Do you want something to drink? I have tea?”

He had laughed, fully and utterly endeared. “Sure, baby.”

John hadn’t quite thought it through, just wanting to agree with you, feeling his nose against the flat of your jaw. You’d climbed off his lap at that, legs shaky, still giggly, and pranced off to your kitchen, leaving him spread on the couch feeling a little embarrassed and a lot turned on. 

He wants to say he doesn’t care that the two of you haven’t hooked up, but care doesn’t quite feel right. Mind seems too indifferent. It doesn’t bother him, he’d wait forever if he had to. Even if he didn’t have to and you’d just prefer it. A quiet life of the two of you, cohabitating an apartment where he gets to look at you every day. He won’t say he hasn’t thought about it though. Hasn’t collapsed into bed after a twelve hour shift and had his thoughts drift with his hands following suit. 

You’re not quite his girlfriend, but the two of you have been seeing each other for enough time that he doesn’t feel like it’s creepy that he thinks of you that way. As it stands, it’s only on occasion. If it got any further it might be a little creepy. It depends on what you think. The idea of asking you brings a sickly burn to his face - hey, baby, you don’t mind if I touch myself while thinking of you, do you? Don’t worry, it’s only like, half the time. That’s probably worse than if it was every time. 

Fuck, you look pretty. With your dress he can see your upper thighs and your entire upper chest, the top coming to rest just high enough to protect your decency. You kept pulling it up over dinner because you would lean down over your plate and accidentally give him an eyeful. He charitably pretended not to notice. You always look pretty, even when you’re not showing skin. He likes you with your lovely dress, he likes you in the chunky sweater you’d been wearing the first time he met you, he likes you that time he’d accidentally come into your bedroom while you were changing and gotten a glimpse of you pulling your skirt up.

What he had liked even more, though, was the embarrassed smile that had stretched up your face and the quiver of your voice as you’d told him to turn around. 

You’re taking a very long time, turned away from him and fussing with a mug, and he wants to go over to see you. It’s practically been a billion years since he got to see your face. 

“Baby,” he groans, leaning down so the back of his neck is curved with the arm of your sofa.”Where’d you go?”

You cough, startled. “You wanted tea?” Not that bad. 

“You growing the tea leaves over there?” He lilts, voice honeyed and lazy. “I’m forgetting what you look like.”

There’s some twinkling of metal on ceramics, and soon the pad of your feet. You have a mug of tea, slightly misshapen, cream coloured with fruit painted on, and you offer it to him bashfully. “Still like me?”

He takes the mug and puts it down on the floor, hands enveloping yours. “Hmm,” he pretends to think. “Need a closer look,” he presses another kiss to the side of your mouth. “The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Can’t believe you kept me from seeing this for a whole nineteen minutes. Some new kind of torture.” His lips quirk up at the side.

You look down, embarrassed under his intense gaze as he pulls you into his lap again. 

“You couldn’t be a doctor, pretty girl,”’ he says, not unkindly but with a formality that leaves little room to argue. “First rule is do no harm,” he presses a distracted kiss to your temple. “And you’re fucking killing me.” He can feel the plush of your thighs under the pads of his fingers. 

You stutter a laugh and he can feel it against his face. “I’m killing you?”

He looks at you gravely. “To death.”

You giggle and he’s hit right in the gut with a yearning that makes him feel like a high schooler. John feels like his breathing has synced with yours, the two of you drawn together instinctively as he kisses you again. He swallows you sighs, touches your legs, and tries to avoid thinking about the twitchiness of his hardening cock. You accidentally get too close to it and he lets out a deep groan. “Still killing me,” he mutters, not bothering to pull back fully. 

You make a slicing motion across his neck with an index fingernail, teasing. “Don’t think I can stop,” you admit. “You seem kinda weak spirited.”

John laughs, ducking his head to get his mouth on whatever part of your hand is still at his neck, settling on kissing the side of your finger. “Me? Weak spirited?” He laughs. “What gives, babe?”

That makes you smile and he regrets not trying to nip at you, he might have gotten a full laugh. He decides to rectify that, taking his hands and digging his fingers into your sides. He gets something that’s a cross between offense, glee and bewilderment. In your surprise, he bolts up and overshoots, shooting forward to push you on your back. “Woah, officer.” He has each of your wrists in his hands and you squirm under him. “Give a girl some warning.”

“Is that really the path you want to go down?” He kisses you again, perfectly content to keep you smiling up at him, “You want to be a bad girl?” His tone is stilted and awkward, and you’re completely endeared. John’s a flirt, but he doesn’t usually like them as much as he likes you. 

“This is a wrongful arrest,” you insist. “You can check my record, it’s clean.”

He kisses you and you make a happy noise that sends blood straight to the tips of his ears and the pull of his groin. 

John’s grip on you tightens without him meaning it to. He’s trying so hard to keep this light, innocent, plausibly deniable, but you’re looking up at him with those pretty eyes and he can feel his self-control crumbling faster than the arms trying to hold him above you. 

“That’s cute,” he says against your skin. “My girl’s never been arrested before.” His hips shift almost involuntarily against yours, and he knows you can feel he’s half-hard just from kissing you. He doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed, not when he’s trying so hard to behave. The little sigh you let out at the feeling doesn’t help his case. 

“John,” you say his name just to say it, blinking up at him like one time your eyes will open and he’ll be gone. He makes a bit of a face. 

“No one I know really calls me John,” he admits. “Most of the other doctors call me Carter.”

His lips are down at your neck by this point, and he can feel the vibrations of each breath you take. He shoves down the feelings of wanting to swallow them,

“Do you want me to call you Carter?”

He shakes his head, nose brushing your jaw. “No, baby. I like hearing it from you.” You duck your head to try and catch his mouth once he reaches your collarbone and he lets you if only to keep you comfortable.

“Want me to stop?” He asks gently. He pulls back enough to look at your eyes. “Pretty girl, gotta tell me what you want.”

You’re breathless against him. “Want you,” you admit. 

A noise barrels its way from his mouth and dilutes itself against your skin. You’re driving him insane, you’re going to be the fucking death of him. How is he meant to function after you say shit like that?

“Yeah?” he rasps, voice already wrecked. His hips are staying decidedly still, but the way your body arches under him isn’t helping. “You want me?” He swallows against you, mouth suddenly bone dry. 

He lets your hands go, one hand coming to clutch the arm of the sofa behind your head, the other travelling down to rest on the outside of your thigh, teasing the hem of your dress. “What part of me does my girl want, hey?”

He knows, can feel the heat between your legs, wants to push his knee between your thighs and finally feel you. 

“Your fingers…”

Oh, God, you’re going to be his undoing. 

“Yeah, sweet girl?” He’s out of breath and he hasn’t even gotten under your dress yet. He pushes his lips to yours and slides off his position above you, now kneeling at your side. Completely and wholly devoted. “You can have my fingers. Can have anything you want, baby, you just gotta tell me.”

His hands push the skirt of your dress up, bunching it around your waist. His name tumbles from your lips and he feels his cock twitch at the sound. Your upper thighs are printed on the back of his eyelids, he’s never been so hard in his entire fucking life, and if he’s not careful he’s going to admit he loves you. 

“John,” you whimper at the feeling of him rubbing circles into your thighs. “Don’t tease me.”

He plants a kiss to the side of your knee, reaching a hand up to let you thread your fingers through his. His thumb brushes a line up your panties, and he can feel how wet you are already. 

“Fuck, baby,” now he’s started he can’t stop. “All this just for me? You’re so fucking wet.” His thumb finds your clit through your panties and you keen, throwing your head back, already so worked up. His shy girl, out of breath, begging him to make her cum.

“Please,” your voice is uneven. “Don’t- please touch me.”

He can smell you through the saturated fabric and when he slips his hand underneath through the side, pressing his thumb into your folds he groans like he’s the one getting groped under the clothes. 

“Fuck, look at you,” he can’t even get a good view of your pussy with your underwear and his hand in the way, but it’s enough to have him rock fucking hard. “So pretty, all spread out for me? Is this for me?” He knows it is, but he needs to hear you say it. 

Needs to hear you tell him he’s got you dizzy and touched and desperate while his hands is in yours. He knows it, wants to hear you gasp it out. 

“Uh huh,” you nod, eyes clamped shut, vaguely embarrassed at the fact you can’t articulate your feelings. “Just for you.”

He’s rutting against the sofa on his knees on pure instinct, too focused on you to even register. His nose gets up in there to join his fingers, and he’s sure he’s squeezing the life out of your hand. “Fuck, smell so good.” He licks a stripe up your panties and almost cums at the sound that pulls from you.

“Can I take these off?” He looks up at you, eyes wet, one thumb running over your knuckles and the other absently toying with your clit. “Please?”

“Yeah, Johnny,” you breathe. “Yeah, you can take ‘em off.” He lifts your hips enough to tug them down - heart constricting at how pretty they are; pink and lacy and (potentially?) just for your date tonight. They go straight into his back pocket, and he’s distracted briefly at the idea you might forget to ask for them back. 

He doesn’t waste time after that, his face finding purchase at your core as soon as he’s able to. He groans into your pussy at the taste, licking from your hole to your clit. He can vaguely hear you moaning above him, can feel the friction of his cock against the inside of his pants, your nails digging into the back of his hand, but that all falls at the wayside behind the punch-sweet slick coating his chin. 

You can’t recall ever being touched like this, one hand clutching his so tight his knuckles are turning white, the other stroking his hair as softly as you can bear to. “Oh, that’s so nice, can you- oh, just a little up.” He lets you give him direction until an almost violent moan rips itself from your chest and you finally take a good grip on his hair. 

“There?” You can barely hear him because he doesn’t bother to detach himself from your cunt. 

“Uh, huh,” you nod, blissed-out and dazed, hips twitching at the vibration of his voice against your clit. 

John’s eaten pussy before, would consider himself quite good at it, but the way you’re bucking up to meet him, the fluttering of your walls around him, the god-fuckin’-have-him sweetness on his tongue has made every coherent thought fly out the window. “Can I use my fingers, baby?” He gasps out, coming back up for air. “Please? Wanna feel you, wanna feel you so bad I bet you’re so tight, aren’t you, pretty?”

“Yeah, Johnny.” No one calls him John and even fewer have ever called him Johnny. “Please, want your fingers.”

His brain is completely fried as he slips two fingers inside your pulsing hole and feeling the way you completely suck him in. He’s about five seconds from ruining your very nice couch when you clench down on him with an agonising moan.

His fingers are moving so slowly it’s almost torturous, brushing that sweet spot deep inside you that you’ve never been able to reach with your own fingers. John laps at your clit, flat, broad strokes over the swollen nerves as he pushes in deeper with his fingers. 

“So fucking tight,” he groans, barely even talking to you anymore. He feels something drip down his neck and the only thought that goes through his head is a mournful what a waste. All rational thought is gone, he can’t even remember his own name when you’re not crying it, and he doesn’t care to. 

He takes his mouth off your clit - dutifully replacing it with the thumb of the hand that’s inside you - to bring his mouth under his hand. John maneuvers himself so he can lap the drops of your essence where his fingers are fucking you deep enough to make tears prickle at the corners of both your eyes and his. 

John can feel you clenching, so tight he can’t imagine having feeling in the tips of his fingers much longer, and he groans again, pressing his nose to your inner thigh. “You close, baby?” He asks, mouth full. You nod at him, pretty makeup smudged around your eyes, pupils blown and looking somehow impossibly prettier than he’s ever seen you. He’s going to marry you. You’re not even his girlfriend yet. “Gonna make my girl come,” he slurs against your slick.

You make a strangled noise like you can’t breathe, the hand not in his is clenching your skirt so you can see his face. John would let his fingers fall off if it meant you kept panting his name the way you are and getting to feel you grip him the way you are on both of his hands. 

“Can you come for me, sweet girl?” he coaxes, curling his fingers again and moving his mouth back up to wrap his lips around your clit.

“Fuck!” Your hand grips his hair so hard he cries out against your core. “John- Oh!”

He shoves his fingers in further, trying to get as deep as he can to push an orgasm out of you. “There we go, fuck, you look so pretty- taste so good. Need you to come, can you come for me? Please - God - need you to come for me. Please, baby. Fucking- fuck- love-”

You come hard around him, gushing around his fingers with a cry of his name. John’s pressing open mouthed kisses to your core, absolutely no finesse or rhythm, just trying to get as much of you in his mouth as he can. 

“Oh, thank you baby,” he squeezes your hand, trying to stop his eyes from clamping shut so he can see the shine of your lips as your jaw forms the O of his name. 

You jerk, pressing the back of your heel into his back, scrambling to find something to hold in your spare hand that’s gone back and forth between your skirt and his hair, settling on pulling his hair which makes him whine into your thigh. 

You lay them for a moment, still in a daze as you come down from your orgasm, getting hit with an aftershock as he pulls his fingers out of you and presses them right against his tongue. 

John can vaguely feel his heartbeat behind his eyes as he sucks the taste of you off his fingers, revelling in the way his mouth is slick with you. He pulls back on his haunches, squeezing the fingers in his hand gingerly. “You okay, baby?”

You nod, flushed and glowing, smoothing down the hair that’s stuck to his forehead. “Yeah,” you sigh out. “Yeah, John, I’m okay. C’mere,” you tug him off his knees by the collar of his too-fancy shirt and pull him back on top of you. You kiss him firmly, uncaring that the lower half of his face has a sheen of your arousal. 

He lets himself be manhandled, one hand still in yours and the other on your bare thigh. Even though you’ve just had one of the most scathing, white-hot orgasms you’ve ever had, he’s the one who looks completely ruined. 

“You’re crazy, Carter,” your spit mixes with your arousal fluid and he swallows it eagerly. 

He shakes his head against your mouth. “Uh uh, not from you.”

“You don’t like that?” He hums disapprovingly. “John? Johnny? Baby?” He groans and you know you’ve hit the jackpot there. 

John chases your mouth as you pull away. You blink at him through wet lashes and when you speak John feels both his heart and his cock jump. “Can I suck you off, baby?”

He chuckles under his breath, avoiding your eyes and pulling back just enough. “I, uh…” he pulls one of his hands back just to scratch the side of his neck, his skin pink under his palm. He’s suddenly very aware of how sticky his underwear feels. “I kind of already…”

He doesn’t have to say anything, you see the flush of his face and the growing wet patch on the front of his pants. 

“Already?” You seem very excited at the fact that he came in his fucking pants like a virgin. “Just from going down on me?”

He groans. “I- yeah,” he admits, embarrassed. “I was… yeah, just from doing that.” Even the tip of his nose is red. “You’re too pretty, sweet girl, drove me crazy.” He leans in and lets you close the gap - just in case his desperation is too much for you now. 

You kiss him sweetly. “Had a really good time tonight, John,” you can’t quite look him in the eye, like you’re the one who’s embarrassed even though he’s got a sticky mess in his lap. You’re past the point where you have to ask if you’re going to continue seeing each other, but you always try to gauge how he’s feeling after every date. 

And he’ll be damned if he lets you think for even a single second that he’s feeling anything other than completely obsessed with you. “Me too, baby,” he pulls you down, laying back on the sofa and pulling you close.

He’s only half on the couch, one leg hanging off and when he shifts to let you get comfortable there’s a clink of ceramic on wood and you shoot up. “Shit!” You roll off him and scoop up the cup of tea, now mostly cold. 

“Hey, baby?” He lays there, calling out to where you duck off to the kitchen. You hum distractedly to show you’re listening. “Do you mind if I take a shower? Not super stoked at the idea of spending the night covered in jizz.”

You arrive back with paper towels. “Oh you’re staying the night, are you?” He never has before. That’s probably because he’s never had his fingers inside of you before. Your voice is teasing as you get on your knees to clean up the spill. 

“I can’t drive home like this,” he protests. 

You giggle. “Yeah you can shower, you know where it is.” He hauls himself off the sofa, kissing the top of your head as he goes past you. 

“Wanna come with?” he’s not asking you to shower with him and you both know it. You’ve showered with him in the room before, he likes to come sit on the floor and sit with you with you behind the curtain.

You throw a look over your shoulder at him.

At the center of the rowdiness of the Gaang sat Zuko. He looked every bit the Fire Lord—broad-shouldered, regal, and wearing his hair in a topknot secured by the Flame Headpiece—but his posture was relaxed. His arm was draped over the back of the chair occupied by his wife, (Y/N).

(Y/N) was, by all accounts, the "grounding wire" of the group. She was a woman of few words, known for her sharp wit and a impassivity that rivaled Zuko’s own. While Toph and Katara were currently engaged in a loud argument about the best way to steer a sand-sailer, and Aang was trying (and failing) to teach Momo how to juggle berries, (Y/N) usually sat back with a small, knowing smile, sipping her tea.

Usually.

But tonight, the tea had been replaced. Sokka had been "testing" a new batch of fermented plum wine, and (Y/N), being the polite guest she was, had finished three glasses before anyone realized she hadn't eaten dinner.

Zuko felt a soft weight lean against his shoulder. He glanced down, expecting (Y/N) to be tired. Instead, he found her staring at him with wide, glassy eyes, her cheeks flushed a deep, dusty rose.

"Zuko," she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically high-pitched.

"Yes, love?" he asked, his voice softening. He adjusted his arm to pull her closer.

She blinked slowly, her eyelashes fluttering. Then, with a sudden jerk, she pulled away, staring at his hand on her shoulder as if it were a strange spirit. "Oh! Excuse me, sir."

The table went silent. Sokka paused with a chicken skewer halfway to his mouth. Toph turned her head, her milky eyes scanning the room as if she could "see" the shift in the air.

"Sir?" Zuko repeated, a confused smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Is this a joke? Did Sokka put you up to this?"

(Y/N) smoothed out her robes, her movements exaggerated and clumsy. She looked him up and down, her gaze lingering on the gold headpiece and then the golden eyes that usually looked at her with such adoration. She let out a soft, dreamy sigh that made her sway on her stool.

"You’re... you're very handsome," she murmured, leaning back in toward him, but then catching herself and snapping upright. "But I shouldn't be saying that. A man of your... fire-ness... probably has a lot of ladies waiting for him."

Sokka let out a muffled snort. Katara’s eyes widened. "Oh, no. Zuko, how much did she have?"

"Just the plum wine," Zuko said, his brow furrowing in genuine concern. He reached out to touch (Y/N)’s forehead. "Honey, are you feeling okay? You’re acting a little... displaced."

(Y/N) batted his hand away with a pout that could have melted a glacier. "Don't 'honey' me! You don't even know me! We just met... in this very loud building with the blind girl and the bald monk."

"I’m sitting right here, (Y/N)!" Toph cackled, leaning back. "This is gold. Sparky, she’s gone."

Zuko looked back at his wife. She was currently staring at his wedding band—a simple, elegant gold band that matched the one on her own finger. She looked at her own hand, then his, and her lower lip began to tremble.

"Are you..." (Y/N) started, her voice breaking. She looked like she was on the verge of a tragedy. "Are you... married?"

Zuko took a deep breath, trying to suppress the urge to laugh. He knew how sensitive she was, even when she wasn't tipsy. If he laughed now, she’d never let him live it down. "Yes, (Y/N). I am very happily married."

The reaction was instantaneous.

(Y/N) let out a tiny, heartbroken whimper. She slumped forward, burying her face in her hands on the table. "I knew it! All the good ones are taken by some... some Fire Nation duchess with perfect hair and a mean streak!"

"Actually, she’s quite kind," Zuko said, leaning in close to her ear, his voice dropping to a teasing rumble. "She’s a bit of a lightweight, though. And she’s currently crying into a plate of dumplings."

(Y/N) lifted her head, her eyes rimmed with tears. "Is she pretty?"

"The most beautiful woman in all the nations," Zuko said earnestly.

(Y/N) wailed—a soft, pathetic sound. "It should have been me! I saw you first! Well, I mean, I saw you just now, but I felt a connection, you know? Like... like Agni himself told me, 'Hey, look at that guy with the grumpy face, he’s the one!'"

Aang let out a chuckle, "Zuko, I think you should tell her."

Zuko sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He turned back to his distraught wife. "(Y/N), look at me. Look at my face."

She peered at him through her fingers. "I am. It’s a very nice face. Even the part that looks like it had a run-in with a dragon. It adds... character."

Zuko chuckled. "Thank you. Now, look at your left hand."

She lifted her hand, staring at the ring. "I know! I’m married too! That’s the worst part! I’m a married woman pining after a married Fire Lord! We’re both terrible people! We’re... we’re star-crossed! Like that play in Ember Island!"

"Please don't compare us to that play," Zuko groaned. "(Y/N), I am the person you are married to."

(Y/N) paused. She squinted at him, her brain clearly trying to connect the dots through a fog of plum wine. She reached out, her small hand cupping his scarred cheek. Her thumb traced the edge of the burned skin with a familiarity that survived even her intoxication.

"You have a very soft voice for a King," she whispered.

"I’m a Lord, actually," he corrected gently.

"Whatever," she huffed, her pout returning. "If you’re my husband... prove it."

The Gaang leaned in. This was better than any theater performance.

Zuko felt the heat rise to his cheeks. He wasn't one for public displays of affection, usually preferring to keep their romance behind the closed doors of the Caldera palace. But (Y/N) was looking at him with such genuine, drunken suspicion that he had no choice.

He leaned in, closing the gap between them. He kissed her deeply—not a quick peck, but a lingering, sweet kiss that tasted of plums and home. He pulled away just enough to whisper against her lips, "You have a birthmark on your inner ankle shaped like a turtle-duck. And you hate it when I leave my boots in the middle of the room because you trip on them in the dark."

(Y/N) froze. Her eyes cleared for a split second, a spark of recognition lighting up. Then, just as quickly, the fog rolled back in.

She let out a gasp and pushed him back, her face turning a shade of red that rivaled the Fire Nation flag. "You... you scoundrel! You're a mind reader! You've been spying on me and my husband!"

Sokka finally lost it, falling off his chair in a fit of hysterics. Katara was clutching her stomach, laughing so hard no sound was coming out.

"I give up," Zuko muttered, though he couldn't stop smiling. He stood up and scooped (Y/N) into his arms, bridal style.

"Put me down! Unhand me, you handsome tyrant!" she yelled, though she immediately snuggled her head into the crook of his neck. "I’m a married woman! My husband is going to... he’s going to firebend at you! He’s very powerful! And very grumpy! He’s like a big, warm heater with legs!"

"I'll be sure to watch out for him," Zuko said to the group, nodding toward the door. "I think it’s time to take the 'other woman' home."

"Good luck, Sparky!" Toph shouted. "Try not to let her 'husband' catch you!"

As Zuko carried her through the cool night air of Ba Sing Se toward their carriage, (Y/N) continued to grumble.

"You know," she whispered, her voice trailing off as sleep finally began to win the battle against the alcohol. "You smell just like him. Like cinnamon and... and smoke."

"Do I?" Zuko asked softly, stepping into the carriage and settling her onto his lap.

"Mmhmm," she hummed, closing her eyes. She reached up, fumbling for his hand and interlocking their fingers, their matching rings clicking together. "I guess... if I can't have him... you’ll do. But don't tell him. He gets jealous."

Zuko leaned his head back against the carriage wall, watching the moonlit streets pass by. He looked down at the woman in his arms—the fierce, brilliant, reserved woman who usually ran a ministry and advised him on international policy—now fast asleep and convinced she was committing a scandalous act of infidelity with her own husband.

he doesn't answer with words at first, only a guttural sound in his throat that isn't quite a snarl and isn't quite a plea. his face is a mask of tension, that familiar scar—rough and textured like dried parchment—twisting as he grits his teeth. his eyes are amber fire, narrowed and tracking the way your lips curl in defiance. he’s beautiful even when he’s being a stubborn, spoiled brat, his long dark hair falling out of its topknot in messy, silken strands that brush against your collarbone.

you wrap your legs tighter around his waist, pulling him in even as you glare. your heels dig into the small of his back, feeling the ripple of lean muscle beneath his silk robes. "don't you dare shut me out now. look at me. you know i was right about the trade routes. you know it, and you're just too proud to admit your wife has a better head for diplomacy than your entire council of ancient, dusty men."

"it's about... protocol," he pants, the word breaking in the middle as you shift your hips, catching him just right. he mouths the words against the curve of your jaw, his breath smelling of cinnamon and smoke. "you can't just... ungh... you can't just speak over the firelord in front of a foreign delegation. it makes us look fractured. it makes me look weak."

you let out a harsh, mocking laugh, the sound echoing off the high ceilings where the shadows of flickering candles dance like spirits. reach up, you fist your hands into his hair, tugging downward with a sharp, uncompromising jerk. his head snaps back, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat, and a broken, high-pitched moan spills from his lips—a sound so fragile it almost makes you want to soften. but you don't. you squeeze him, your walls clenching around his thick, veiny length, feeling the way he pulses inside you, a frantic heartbeat in a place that shouldn't have one.

"weak? you think i make you look weak?" you tease, your voice dropping to a low murmur.. "you’re the one currently trembling because i pulled your hair, zuko. you’re the one who can’t even finish a sentence because you’re so desperate to stay inside me. is this what a powerful firelord looks like? panting like a stray in the dirt because his wife talked back to him?"

he nips at your neck, a sharp, stinging bite that will definitely leave a mark—a dark purple bruise for the maids to whisper about tomorrow. his teeth are blunt and hot, scraping over your skin until you shiver. "shut up," he hisses, his voice cracking. "just... shut your mouth."

"make me," you challenge, and the air between you literally ignites.

zuko inhales sharply, and you see the orange glow behind his teeth, the heat radiating off him in a sudden, violent wave that makes the sweat on your skin evaporate instantly. he doesn't let go of you; instead, he shifts his grip, his large hands hooking under your thighs to hold you steady as he lunges away from the wall,, carrying your weight with a desperate, clumsy grace. he stumbles into a low table, sending a ceramic basin of water crashing to the floor—the scent of wet stone and copper rising up to join the scent of smokel—before he slams you down onto the sprawling silk mattress of his bed.

the impact jars you, but he’s already hovering over you, his knees pinning your arms down, his chest heaving. this position allows him to sink deeper, bottoming out against your cervix with a blunt force that draws a loud, unbidden moan from your throat.  you try to keep scolding him, try to find the words to tell him he’s a fool, but the way he’s filling you makes your brain feel like it’s melting into honey.

"you... you're still... a stubborn... idiot," you choke out, even as your back arches off the sheets.

he leans down, his hand sliding from your shoulder to your neck, his thumb pressing against your windpipe just enough to make you gasp. his other hand finds your tit, squeezing the soft tissue with a proprietary heat that feels like it’s branding you. he kisses you then—not a sweet kiss, but a frantic, unforgiving hunger, tasting of fury. his cock is thick, the head of it rubbing against your sensitive walls with every frantic, shallow thrust, the texture smooth but the pressure immense.

outside the heavy oak doors, the muffled sound of the palace at night continues—the distant clank of a guard’s spear, the soft chirping of turtleducks in the gardens—but inside the circle of his arms, the world is reduced to the friction of your intoxicating skin.

"my lord?" a voice calls out from the hallway, shrill and intrusive. it’s high sage ukano, his tone brimming with that self-importance zuko usually hates. 

"my lord, i apologize for the late hour, but we have received an urgent scroll from the earth kingdom regarding the borders. we must discuss the response before the morning bells."

zuko freezes, his body still buried deep inside yours, his heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. he breaks the kiss, looking down at you with wide, dark eyes. you start to open your mouth, a smirk forming—ready to call out, ready to ruin his dignity—but his hand is there in an instant, slapping over your lips. his palm is dry and smells of old scrolls and fire, muffling your indignant yelp.

he doesn't pull out. instead, he stays perfectly still, his cock twitching inside you, the sensation so intense it makes your toes curl into the silk. he looks toward the door, his expression shifting from frantic lover to arrogant monarch in a heartbeat, though the flush on his cheeks betrays him.

"not now, ukano," zuko calls out, his voice surprisingly steady, though there’s a smug, sharp edge to it that makes your blood simmer. he looks back down at you, a slow, predatory grin spreading across his face as he begins to move again, slow and agonizingly deep, watching your eyes blow out as you struggle against his hand.

 "the firelord is currently... occupied with matters of state. leave the scroll with the guard. i will deal with you in the morning."

he doesn't look away from you as the advisor’s footsteps fade. he just keeps moving, his eyes burning with a gold that’s finally, finally steady. 

"don't you have something else to say?" he whispers, his breath hot against your ear. "i'm listening."

whoever that 1st zuko anon was... look what you started.