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burnedbyshoto · 3 years

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a nurses job

— Bakugou breaks his arms and as a nurse, you have the responsibility to make sure that he is comfortable, even when he needs to use the bathroom.

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pairing: pro hero!bakugou katsuki x nurse fem!reader

warnings: smut, 18+, prohero!bakugou, golden showers/water sports/piss kink, degradation (giving), dirty talk, lusting/pining, handjobs

word count: 5,050

a/n: so, I was going to make this a piss in ur mouth and pussy type of fic, but I kept seeing all those beautiful bakugou piss arts where he’s with a nurse.... so this is inspired and brought upon by all the water sports bakugou x nurse art ive seen for three months.

kinktober day 21 main kink: piss | kinktober masterlist

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You’re not quite sure what persuaded you into wanting to become a nurse as a child.

Maybe it was because your quirk (when you hum at an A flat, everyone within 5 meters experiences accelerated healing properties) was useless for Pro Hero work, so you realized early on that being a Pro Hero was a distant dream. Maybe it was because medical staff were still hailed as everyday heroes despite being in a world with people who could perform extraordinary achievements. It started as a small obsession to prove to the soon to be jobless, dream broken, and graduated failures of the hero course high schools that you had done more than them. That you, unlike them, were recognized as a hero.

You were decent with math and science, so you strove for medical school. But with the horrendous costs of schooling, your then living situation, and your dislike of unneeded and unwanted competitive stress, you deterred toward the nursing pathway. It was a pathway where you really found yourself, or at least, you thought so.

Empathy, emotion, and the need to see people come out of a hospital better than when they entered was something that grew on you quickly and obviously. Your earliest clinical rounds often left you with swollen, tired feet from walking around for restless hours, but with a smile on your face that was irreplicable. With every semester in school, you got better, connected better with your patients. Your feet still ache after long shifts, and sometimes your smile is hollow and broken, and if you look closely, you could see dried tears and puffy eyelids, but you wouldn’t ever regret this decision to become a nurse.

At twenty-five, newly graduated from nursing school, already working full time at the best hospital in Japan, while studying for your degree to eventually become a nurse practitioner. You loved your job quite a lot. They had placed you immediately within their Post-OP, ICU, and recovery wings, and even though you were somewhat new, you were celebrating a year of working in a few weeks, you already had some… more than familiar faces.

“Well, Ground Zero-san, I guess you owe me a drink because unless my eyes are deceiving me, it looks like both your arms are broken, no?” you hum, your grin bright and wide, not even attempting to hide it’s glee as your high profile patient sat seething on the hospital bed. “It’s been, what? Two weeks since you last showed up here? You getting old?”

“Oh, would you shut the fuck up, you shitty ass nurse?!” Bakugou snarled, his arms obviously trying to tense and move against the large casts that envelope him. “The fuck would you expect to happen when facing off with a quirk that’s specifically meant to break people’s arms?!”

“Deku didn’t break any arms,” you point out with a soft laugh, eyes still scanning and reading through his charts to check his medical needs and medicine prescribed by the attending and when he should be taking them. “A bit weird that only half of the Wonder Duo was indescribably injured, no?”

A loud snarl ripped from Bakugou’s throat, and you stifled your own laughter as you raised your eyesight to look him straight in his raging eyes.

“I took that damn nerds hits because he’s broken his arms so many fucking times he’ll be forced to amputate them if he breaks them again!” Bakugou’s eyes were near white in his anger, but the intensity of his emotions was heavily diminished by the fact that his arms were strapped to his chest in thick, round bandages.

“You can admit you care for him,” you chide, ignoring his ‘like hell I do!’ Placing the chart down and walking to his IV drip, you checked to see if anything he was hooked to required any changes or whatnot. “Besides, this is not the first time I’ve seen you in here! It was quite surprising to see Ground Zero on bedrest on my first ever shift here.”

That much was true.

You had been working at Tokyo Hospital for nearly nine months now. Within the nine months, you saw a lot of heroes; that much was true. Your quirk was versatile as a nurse, and you were bright, young, very good at your job, and definitely a beautiful individual. So, when you were assigned to be working most of your days healing heroes because they were the backbone of the country, it didn’t quite catch you by surprise. It was a common assignment you had as a nursing student too.

You just didn’t expect the head nurse of the floor to assign one of your five rooms to be holding none other than Ground Zero, a.k.a Bakugou Katsuki.

Of course, you weren’t an idiot. You had known about the explosion hero since high school! You had sat in front of your TV in high school, attempting to do your homework while watching the rather intensive first-year battles. He had done well in every stage, placing within the top three each time and even winning the game! You had cringed at the awards ceremony but had been horrified at the news of his kidnapping.

But after that, with the rising tensions of the villain world upon the dying world left behind by All Might, you had forgotten him for a moment. As time went on, and finally, a new support system was brought forth, Ground Zero, much like his quirk entailed, exploded onto the scene alongside Deku and a few other young heroes.

So, sure, you expected to maybe one day run into the ash-blond hero, but you didn’t expect it to happen on day one.

All things considered, the two of you got along rather well.

His... strong personality did make you wary of him at first, taking his near verbal barrage until you, very flusteredly he will argue, told him to ‘shut up, you butthole!’

You were horrified at your lack of professionalism, and Bakugou had gone silent as he stared at you in silence.

“Did you just call me a butthole?” he echoed, his face full of emotions you could not read. You felt on the verge of panicking, unsure if he was going to potentially tell on you! The sounds of a barking laughter rang in your ear, and you looked up to see his grinning, much more relaxed form. “Are you some shitty preschooler?!”

Thus began a working relationship of sorts between you and Bakugou.

He was an asshole, and you tried your best to not let him talk you off a cliff. It didn’t take very long for you to find out what made him tick surprisingly enough, and you used that to your advantage. The best way to tease him right now was by reminding him that he had been hospitalized more times than Deku, who apparently had held the record for the number of hospitalizations between him and his friends.

“Are you going to mention that shit first meeting every time we talk?!” Bakugou barked, his eyes narrowed as he turned his head away from you.

“After you admit you care deeply for all your friends!” you chirp back, stepping away from his IV drip, satisfied by what you saw. “Well, you look good for now. I’ll be checking up on you every ten to fifteen minutes since you can’t press the button until we can get those casts off! Did ya need anything before I go check on my other patients?”

“Open the damn window; it’s stuffy in here,” Bakugou grumbled, his face finally facing you again.

“Of course,” you smile cheekily, your eyes squinting with your broad grin. “It’s a nurse's job to make their patients comfortable and happy!”

Standing at the side of the bed, you stretched over Bakugou to grab the edge of the window and slide it open. Through your stance, you were entirely aware of how this looked, how this felt. Your breasts centimeters from Bakugou’s face, your eyes never once breaking from the window to feign your innocence as you finally pull away. Even with scrubs on, you could feel his hot, sharp breathes expelling through your clothes, his ears tinging just the smallest bit red as you smile.

“Anything else?” you asked sweetly, failing to hide your impish grin.

“Put the water cup close by,” he grunted, eyes staring at the liter of water at his side table. Well, he wouldn’t be able to use his arms until just before he was set to be discharged, so moving the water closer was a good idea.

Nodding, you grabbed a nearby cup, filling it three-quarters of a way full before placing it onto the feeding table and dragging it near his mouth, a bendy straw already secured into the cup. You watched as he shot forward, putting the plastic straw into his mouth and beginning to drink the cold water. His eyes were back on yours, deceivingly cold had you already not been an expert on his personality.

With one final soft chuckle, you waved at Bakugou as you headed out, a cheerful smile on your face as he continued to drink his water.

“See ya in a few!”

Well, you guess there was one more important detail about your relationship with Bakugou Katsuki. For the past five months, you have been doing everything in your power to seduce him — to get him to admit that he wanted you too.

You knew the ethics and the morals behind falling for a patient of yours, much less a high profile patient at that. You knew that if your little crush was ever found out, you would most definitely be moved from his room. You were also damningly aware that you should have brought up your initial feelings for the explosion hero to your admin the moment it arose. But the thought and the way you were always so happy to be around him eventually overruled your logic. Five months ago, you had stayed at the hospital until nearly three am, talking with a severely concussed Bakugou. You were stationed for an overnight round with the task of making sure that he didn’t fall asleep. And for the first time in your time knowing Bakugou, the two of you somehow clicked into place, and when he was discharged the next morning — the nurse who had a quirk to rid of concussions finally arriving — he had thanked you.

It was so benign, so incredibly simple, yet the way the golden sunshine illuminated his blond hair and made his red eyes shine like a ruby, you found your own tired body feeling heated and warm. He wasn’t such a lousy conversationalist, and you had already enjoyed all your interactions together, yet it still caught you off guard to feel your heart pounding in your throat as he pulled on his jacket and left.

So after coming to terms with your sudden infatuation for the stubborn hero, you began to express your desires and feelings for him without having to say it. For all that he was worth and all that he expressed himself to be extremely observant, Bakugou Katsuki still had no idea that you liked him.

Unfortunately, your scrub nurse uniform wasn’t precisely seductive. The light blue of the breathable, sterile uniform was about as unsexy as uniforms got. But that never stopped you from leaning in too close when doing what Bakugou demanded of you. It didn’t prevent you from accidentally dropping papers in front of him and bending over to show off the curves of your ass.

There had never been a time such as this one where you hated that the old, ‘sexy’ nurse outfits were no longer up to standard and banned from use. How you would have loved to be wearing gartered held stockings just to accidentally flash to Bakugou. But, you suppose that it’s alright. Even though your feelings and ambitions to get the Pro Hero to like you as much as you did him, you never tried to push it.

For now, you were just an asshole tease.

You carried out the rest of your rounds in peace, your pager sitting comfortably in your pocket, unused, unneeded for now. The rest of your four patients were doing well for now.

One was asleep, most likely due to the medicine coursing through his veins, but his vitals remained unchanged.

Another was in the process of getting ready to be discharged, her family there to help her in leaving.

The third was eating his dinner, eyes concentrated on a poker game on the TV as he asked you to help fluff his pillow.

The last was busy with a physical therapist, her forehead slick with sweat as she attempted to sit up from her chair.

All in all, they were all doing fine, and you were back to the beginning, back to Bakugou’s room.

You entered his closed room door to be greeted by an empty bed. Your eyes widened immediately, the initial wave of pure horror flashing through you that by some freak accident, some murderous villain had kidnapped the injured hero straight from the hospital bed.

“Ground Zero-san?!” you called out, a pitched voice of concern frilling your voice as you stumbled through the room. Your eyes were frantically searching the room, fingers feeling the lingering warmth of his body on the bed and your eyes noticing the empty water cup on his table still. The sheets of his bed haphazardly thrown off as if in a struggle.

Your fingers wound around the panic button, your ears straining to hear any sort of sign of Bakugou still being here.

A gritted teeth snarl was muffled from the attached bathroom, and you froze, unable to move as you felt the untouched button in your hands turn as light as a feather. You approached the bathroom door with soft footsteps, the smile on your face, unable to be stopped as you pulled the door open.

The sight you happened upon was something that made your lips curl into a wider smirk as the hospital clothed-clad hero absolutely struggled with his lack of functioning hands and arms to pull down his pants. Something he couldn’t do himself because the socks and slippers on his feet kept him from even attempting to tug his pants off with his toes.

In his struggle, undoubtedly miserable attempt to get his pants and underwear off his waist, Bakugou seemed ignorant to your arrival. His back still towards you, his head tilted down in his struggle as he twisted and pulled at practically nothing.

And as you watched him struggle, you couldn’t help but let your eyes drink in his form that stood tall before you. Most occurrences where you found yourself face to face with Bakugou, he was always tucked in a bed (except that time you realized your feeling for him), whether it was because he needed to be or because he was forced to be. So seeing him in his full height, seeing how despite your size, you were still only at his shoulder, made your eyelashes flutter.

He was tall, so deliciously tall, you wanted to climb onto a chair to see if he would be taller even with that added height. And oh how the flimsy material of his hospital outfit was stretched then against the taut muscles of his back. They flexed and shifted with his aggravation, and the only thought on your mind was to rake your fingers against the tempting muscle and skin.

“Shitty. fucking. villain!” he hissed angrily, sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he still struggled to do what nature called him for.

But you couldn’t help it; the flexing muscles of his back, the lower tenor of his voice, and the way he seemed ridiculously larger than life at the moment tipped your restraint over. Your ability to hold back crashing through you like a tsunami wave, drowning you until you found your hand tethered to the tight spot at the center of his spine, your hushed words drifting to his ear like sweet, warm honey.

“You need any help here, Ground Zero-san?” you asked, your voice just loud enough to have your hot breath fanning against his sweaty exposed neck. You could feel him twitch in your hold, his body stiffening as he whipped his head around to look at you, red eyes wild, wide, and dark.

“Don’t ya know how to fucking knock?!” he snapped, his body flushed at being caught in the bathroom, unable to shed his clothes. He doesn’t move from your touch, and that small detail makes you warm, knowing that he wasn’t entirely repulsed by your touch.

“You were missing from your bed, and I called your name,” you smile despite his angry glare. “I know you are susceptible to hear loss, but I thought you were still in the clear.”

“I ain’t fucking deaf,” Bakugou growled, his face twisted with a frown. “And that still doesn’t explain why the hell you’re here!”

“Oh, were you not just completely struggling earlier?” you feign shock, the grin on your face unstoppable at the embarrassed scowl that sets on his face. You step even closer to him so that your torso is perpendicular to his side. Your hand still gently touching his muscled back, and your free hand gently pressing to his own abdomen, the feeling of his flexed muscles, making you dizzy as you peer down at the white toilet. “Is there a villain in the toilet? I didn’t think that was possible!”

“Of fucking course not, there’s not a shitty villain in the toilet.” Bakugou flushed, his body entirely trapped by you, but he made no play to escape.

“Oh, so did you need help?”

Bakugou stares at you, his mind whirling a kilometer a second as he contemplates his next course of action. The both of you know he needs help, and still, the both of you are aware that his ability to ask of that from you is slim to none given he couldn’t even wait for you to return to his room.

“Tch,” he clicks his tongue angrily, annoyed, completely fed up. His eyes rolling to the ceiling, refusing to acknowledge you as his head nods once. “Help me, shitass nurse.”

“Of course!” you chirp, your eyes finding his hooded ones.

You give him one last warm, sweet smile before the hand on his torso lightly drags down his stomach, soft in its unashamed way of feeling him up. Your head tilted as your fingers hooked into the tight waistband of his pants and pulled it down, the heat of your palm accidentally dragging itself over the imprint of his cock behind his boxers.

The slight, flustered choking noise at the back of his throat didn’t go ignored by you, but rather but aside for later. Your eyes flashing up to see his red eyes wide, his cheeks so lightly dusted with pink as you managed to pull down his boxers too.

“There!” you exclaim, your eyes closing in your grin before you turn your attention back down to his exposed dick.

Immediately, you had to hold back a noise of pure want and lust at the sight of him. He was long, undoubtedly eight inches, definitely more. Although you couldn’t tell how thick, you knew his dick would fill your palm without a struggle. The trimmed, dark blond pubes and the protruding veins are what did it for you, your tongue poking out for a millisecond to wet your lips as you stared at his dark pink head.

“Stop staring at it!” Bakugou hissed, clearly embarrassed if the slight voice crack said anything about it.

You looked back up at him, fake confusion swimming in your eyes as you tilted your head. “It’s only a penis. I see millions of these all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s fucking weird!”

A soft laugh escaped your lips, your eyes rolling softly as you sighed in retreat, “Fine, fine, let's pee big boy and get you in bed.”

With your dominant hand, you grabbed his dick with a soft grip, pleasure simmering through you at the confirmation of the thick dick in your palm. But it seemed you weren’t the only one who thought that for the moment you tried to steer his dick toward the toilet to assist in aim, Bakugou hissed loudly. His flesh twitching to life in your warm, soft hand as it began to grow upward.

You didn’t say anything; your jaw remained as tight and closed as your vocal box despite the egging need to tease him and celebrate his apparent approval of your touch. So, eventually, in a voice that defied the nervous energy coursing through your veins, you asked: “Didn’t you need to pee?”

Bakugou let out a throaty, guttural groan, his anger hissing between his teeth as his dick twitched again in your hold, growing longer and harder still.

“I can’t take a damn piss with a hard-on, you idiot!” he roared despite the strawberry red blush on his cheeks. You admired the way he was still fighting for control of an upper hand here despite — clearly — not having any.

“Oh, haha! Silly me!” you laugh, your hand shifting against his length, your warm palm getting closer to the base of his cock.

“W-What are you doing?!” Bakugou spluttered, your soft butterfly touches sending him through a loop he clearly wasn’t expecting. “You could just wait for it to die!”

“It’s a nurse's job to make their patients comfortable and happy,” you repeat your words, your hold on his dick growing firmer and harder just as his cock continued to do. “You clearly need to pee, and there’s no telling when your cock will go down.”

“I’LL MAKE IT GO DOWN!” Bakugou yells, but the usual sharpness to his tone has deflated, diminished to nothing but whining embarrassed yell. You look up at his clenched jaw and how a pretty pink glows on his cheeks, and you’re mesmerized.

Looking back down at his growing cock that warms your hand immensely, you hum, slightly twisting your hand around his length. Bakugou shudders, a whine hidden in his throat as you open your own mouth.

“Do you want me to stop?” you question, your eyes fluttering up to look at his clouded red ones. “Do you not need or want me?”

That was a double-headed question if Bakugou ever heard one. He looked at your glossy lips, the way they were pouted, so ready to be kissed, to be claimed, and that delirious look of want and need in your eyes. And he knows better; he knows that this is not the place, not the time to act on emotions like this. The need to pee sits heavily on his lower belly, just like the need to cum makes him twitch and pace uncomfortably. God fucking damn his broken to smithereens arms.

But you already know this, of course, you do. But you also know how stubborn he can be, how anal he can be about the littlest thing. So with no answer, you weaken your grip, making him think that you’re ready to leave, and he falls right into the trap.

“Make it fucking q-quick,” his voice cracks, the embarrassment nearly tangible as you nod your head firmly, your fist tightening around his cock.

Your warm fingers pressed onto his length, beginning at a slow leisurely pace, your eyes glued onto his face, detailing how he reacts to every small flick of your wrist, every little difference of grip in his hands. Your strokes began to grow larger, your fingertips tracing the bulging veins on his cock, your eyes hypnotized by the way his face pinches in his pleasure, the blush on his cheeks, the way the hot pants expelling from his mouth curl warmly in your lower belly.

“Y-You do this with all your shitty patients?” Bakugou growls, but it sounds weak, too blurred and slurred with his increasing pleasure.

Your fingernails drag against the underneath of his cock, tracing the incredibly sensitive skin until he’s slowly thrusting his hips into your fist. “Only the hot ones,” you tease, your thumb pressing against the tip of his beading tip, the warm pre-cum slick and spreading quickly against his flushed tip.

“You’re fucking disgusting,” Bakugou continues, his head tipping backward, exposing the slenderness of his neck that begs for your teeth to sink into. “Just needed to take a fucking piss.”

“Nervous, you’ll pee all over me, and I won’t want to suck your dick?” you ask, your fingers brushing near his scrotum, eyes blazing dangerously at the sight of his gasping, jaw-dropping face. His hips rut forward, leaking cock dripping with his pre-cum, and you giggle softly, fisting him faster, spreading the pre-cum against his heated sex.

Your fingers run against his throbbing length, your palm tight and hot against his cock, the veins you drag across searing against your flesh, ingraining itself onto your skin and memory forever. Despite it all, the obvious near tangible horror Bakugou has on the thought of pissing on you, he continues to fuck into your fist.

“Damn bitch like you would probably l-like it if I pissed on you,” Bakugou pants, his casted arms twitching at his chest. His head tilted away from you, but his eyes burning into you, the red eyes hot as fire against your skin. “You want me to piss on you? Make you my bitch.”

The words burn against your skin, your teeth biting onto your lower lip as you meet his gaze. You’ve never considered it before, never thought you’d be into it. As a nurse, you’ve been around piss, shit, and vomit, and while you had grown unfazed by it, you never considered the prospect of a man pissing on you. But you thought of it, of Bakugou standing above you, free from his casts, hands on his cock as he smirks down at you with golden liquid spraying from his cock, soaking you where you lay.

You shudder, pleasant chills running down your spine as you stare into his eyes yet again.

“And if I do?” you ask, fingers rolling the head of his cock between your forefinger and thumb, relishing in the way that he snarls low in his throat. “What’re you gonna do about that, Ground Zero-san? You gonna piss all over your bitch after you get out of here.”

“You want me to piss on you here?” he asks, his voice snappish, strained, his hips drilling harder into your hand that was quickly speeding up. A battle of power and speed between the both of you as he looms over you, face flushed, pink, and lips demanding to be kissed. “Wouldn’t be surprised if you do.”

“Why’s that?” you breathe, his lips tantalizingly close to yours, a breath away as your hand grips and tightens even more around the base of his cock, causing a pained-pleasured hiss to rip from behind his teeth as he looks at you.

“Don’t act like your shitty ass hasn’t been trying to seduce me every time I show up,” Bakugou gruffs, his hips continuing a drilling rhythm into your fist, his body no longer shy or embarrassed.

“So you noticed but never said anything?” you counter, your fingers shifting over to his swollen, hot balls. You fondle them, tugging at their weight gently, taking in the way his eyes roll to the back of his head and the way his teeth tear into his lip. “Coward.”

“Hah?! Who the fuck—”

You can’t help yourself anymore, your mouth coming to slam against his in a piercing, searing kiss. He moans into the kiss, and you gasp back, tongues clashing together, teeth knocking into each other as awkward, nearing uncomfortable kisses are exchanged. His sweet scent of caramel wafts into your nose, and his grunts and groans are addicting, entirely enthusiastic noises that send your own thighs clenching shut to quiet the heated need in between your thighs.

Your hand increases in its speed, his whines and groans so pretty and piercing into you.

“How fucking gross,” you laugh into his mouth, the slicked heat of his precum lathering your palm until soft noises of your fisting hand begin to fill the sterile bathroom. “You’re a child, wanting to piss on things that you shouldn’t. You came to the bathroom and got a hard-on instead of pissing, Bakugou, aren’t you embarrassed.”

“Y-Y/l/n,” he hissed, his jaw falling slack against your mouth. His hips are drilling into you faster and faster, the throbbing of his cock, the growing, thick scent of his caramel sweat filling the room and your senses. “F-Fuck!”

“Such a dirty, childish pro hero,” you smile your tongue curling into his mouth and dragging against the roof of his mouth as he shudders helplessly against you. “Cum already, Bakugou, cum and piss over yourself like some small brat.”

He shudders, and you find your mouth leaving his own as you stare down, spurting white ropes of cum pour from his tip, completely covering the toilet seat with his sticky white cum. And you watch as soon as his body collapses onto you, entirely spent from the orgasm, yellow piss streaming from his tip.

The toilet fills with his cum and piss, and you grin once his balls and bladder are completely drained. His cock limp and weak in your hand as you hum, your quirk activating and causing the exhausted Pro Hero to recompose himself so that he wasn’t entirely weak against you.

“Such a good patient,” you coo, pulling up Bakugou’s boxers and hospital pants without a second's thought. Patting his butt gently, you watched as his still exhausted red eyes stared at you. You walked over to the sink, washing your hands so that you could continue to finish the rest of your shift.

“Don’t think this is over, shitty nurse.”

You look at him over your shoulder, your fingers curling under the warm water as you grin.

“I expect to be fucked and pissed on next time,” you counter, your smirk devastating and sending a fire right back to Bakugou’s groin. “No freebies anymore.”

#bakugou x reader #bakugou smut #bnha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bbs kinktober 2020 #tw: water sports

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 3 years

Text

All Men Have Limits - IV

Character: Dick Grayson x Reader x Bruce Wayne

Summary: A certain bat believes that Y/N is in way over her head, that she’s too naive to act in her best interest. So, whether she wants it or not, the vigilante family is going to help and protect her before she gets herself killed.

Word Count: 3,800+

Previously on…

As Y/N packed her bags, she was also brainstorming her route once she got to her safe house. She’s just stay there for a couple of nights. Then she’d leave town. Gotham wasn’t safe for her right now. And if she was out of city limits, The Court of Owls had less influence. Though she didn’t doubt they’d send an assassin to the other side of the world to hunt her down.

Y/N looked around her extravagant room.

She doubted she’d ever be back here.

Things were getting…complicated.

It was a cruel reminder for why she kept to herself. People meant drama. Drama meant distractions. And distractions meant she wasn’t focused on the task at hand – which was bringing down the corrupt.

Y/N was just zipping up her duffle when there was a knock on her door.

“Come in!” She turned to see Dick walking in.

He eyed her bag. “What are you doing?”

“I was just about to go pack up my equipment in the cave.”

“No, you’re not. You’re staying here,” he confirmed.

She gave him a repulsed look. “Uhh…No, I am not. This mansion is about to be flooded with unidentified members of The Court.”

“Sure is,” Dick smirked. “But I have a solution.”

He held out his hand to show a bracelet. It looked expensive. The band was gold but there was a giant garnet gemstone at the center of it.

Dick handed it to Y/N.

“You shouldn’t have?” Y/N asked with confusion.

“I called in a favor with an old friend. She’s a magician.”

Y/N tried not to laugh, “A magician?”

Dick gave her a playful glare. “Yeah, a magician. But it’s not tricks and gimmicks. She knows actual magic.” He tapped the gemstone. “When you wear this, you’ll look like a different person. It’s a cloaking spell.”

“Why didn’t you guys suggest this right away?”

Dick sighed. “Bruce isn’t fond of metas and…magic.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just leave?”

“I would rather have you in disguise with our eyes on you, than have you out of reach,” he explained softly. “When you’re wearing this, all of us will still be able to see the real you. But not anyone else.”

“I don’t want to go to this stupid gala. I’ll just wear this and stay in my room or the cave.”

“Well…that’s the other part,” Dick cleared his throat awkwardly. “You’re gonna be my date.”

Y/N blinked in surprise. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone asked her on any kind of date. Not that Dick even asked. He more so told her.

“That wasn’t exactly a request, Dick.”

“Everyone knows everyone. If you’re by yourself, people will ask too many questions. But if you’re my date, no one will think twice why you’re there.”

“I-I don’t have anything to wear…”

Dick laughed lightly. “Alfred already sent out for a dress and shoes for you.”

“…why do I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman?”

“Come on, Y/N. You know it’s not like that.”

Y/N remained annoyed.

“I’ll be here at your door around 8 tonight, k?” Dick gave her a soft smirk.

“Fine.”

———————

This was just another night for Dick. He’d been dragged to enough of these stupid galas to know the drill: wide smiles, forced laughter, and lay the charm on real thick. With the way this family handled their identities, they could’ve been a family of actors instead of vigilantes.

Dick straightened his cufflinks as he made his way to Y/N’s room.

He could hear the murmur’s of the guest from the ballroom, proving just how many people were attending for the sound to reach him in such a giant manor.

There was a part of Dick that half expected Y/N to be in her usual baggy sweaters and leggings when he opened the door. A silent protest that she wasn’t going to be anyone’s arm candy tonight.

Dick knew he didn’t give her much choice.

When his family had been discussing the situation, Dick tried to off to stay hidden out of sight with Y/N. But Alfred was having none of it. They all knew he took these events rather seriously. Especially one that was started and named after Bruce’s mother.

Dick knocked and turned his back to the door, he double checked there were no guests exploring where they shouldn’t be.

When the door opened, Dick turned around and was stunned to silence.

“Is this bracelet working on you or do I really look that bad?”

Y/N shifted as he stared at her like she’d cast a spell on him.

Dick was seeing Y/N. That was for sure.

“I see the dress fit,” he finally spoke.

What the hell was the matter with him? That’s really what he chose to say?

Though Y/N couldn’t help but laugh at the comment. “That it does.”

Dick woke up a bit and cleared his throat. “You look…beautiful.”

He never had a problem charming women. So why is he suddenly talking like a total cave man?

“Don’t look so surprised,” Y/N call him out teasingly. “Just because I dress like a scrub every day doesn’t mean I don’t know how to clean up.”

His brow furrowed at the first comment. “You’ve never looked like a scrub, Y/N.”

OK. OK. He was getting back to his normal self.

“Well…” Y/N broke eye contact from her bashfulness. “Thank you.”

Dick held out the hook of his arm. “Shall we?”

Y/N inhaled, “Right.”

As soon as she hooked her hand onto Dick’s bicep, a wave of relief washed over her. She wasn’t doing this alone; she was doing this with him at her side.

“So, what’s the the plan here?” Y/N asked nervously.

“The plan is to blend in. Don’t talk to any press. And…” He smirked. “It wouldn’t hurt to try and have a good time.”

“Right. I’ll try to do that while I’m in a room possibly filled with people who want me dead…” Y/N sighed.

“Not ‘possibly.’ There will be.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes at him. “Way to make me feel better, Dick.”

He laughed. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be with you the whole time. Damian, Tim, and Bruce will be there, too. And somehow Alfred convinced Jason to even make an appearance. You’re not in this alone, Y/N.”

“Mhmm,” Y/N answered as they arrived to the party. She didn’t bother hiding that she was still extremely nervous and on edge.

“I did really mean it,” Dick told her quietly.

His tone made Y/N tear her eyes away from the party to look at him. “Really mean what?”

“You look beautiful.”

His words didn’t fumble this time. He was confident and clear, leaving no room for doubt or insincerity.

Y/N gave him a shy smile.

“I’m guessing a drink would make this a bit easier, huh?” Dick offered.

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

Dick guided her to the nearest bar.

All the staff knew what the Wayne family looked like. Which meant the bartended skipped over all other guests and b-lined for Dick when he requested a drink, and then looked to Y/N to order what she wanted.

There was loud laughter from a group of people near them. Followed by a voice that Y/N thought she knew, but still sounded a bit off.

When Y/N looked over, she realized it was Bruce talking to a group of guests, who were absolutely fawning over him. He was smiling and laughing, and taking very frequent sips of his drink.

This was Bruce Wayne: the character. Charming playboy, debatable narcissist, and spoiled brat. But in the eyes of Gotham’s elite, he could do no wrong.

Y/N wondered if Bruce had ever considered bringing her as his date. ‘Don’t you start,’ said a voice inside her head.

Dick followed her eye line.

“Doesn’t it make you nauseous watching him like this?” Y/N mumbled.

“Not Dick. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Jason answered.

Dick and Y/N turned to see Jason and Damian.

Yes, Dick adopted Bruce’s charm. But he didn’t rip himself into pieces, building characters that were unrecognizable to the people who actually knew him. Dick’s charm was a part of his personality. His flirtations came naturally. But he only used them on people he intended on building a genuine connection with. (Though Nightwing was guilty of using said charm on targets during missions a few times.)

Y/N looked around for Tim and saw him talking to what appeared to be serious businessman. He was the only one carrying on the legacy at Wayne Enterprises. If any of the boys needed to be here, it was Tim.

“Shouldn’t you guys be making rounds or something?” Y/N asked.

Jason shrugged. “People only cared about us when we were cute kids. Now we’re just spoiled adults who are the product of nepotism.” He smirked down at Damian. “But this one isn’t out of the clear yet.”

“Don’t remind me,” Damian groaned. “At the last one, a woman pinched my cheeks as if I was some toddler.”

“I thought I was about to watch him murder someone,” Dick added.

“I wanted to,” Damian clarified.

Dick started talking to Jason about something.

It provided Y/N the perfect window with the youngest Wayne.

“I’ll sneak you alcohol if you do a mercy killing for me,” she offered Damian.

The boy looked amused but gave no indication that a deal was made.

“Your date that awful?” Jason teased as he smirked at Dick, who ignored him.

“Do you have the hearing of a dog? Fuckin’ Christ.”

The four of them stuck together for most of the night. Tim would touch base with them every so often. But he kept getting dragged away by board members or partners or anyone that wanted to kiss the ass of the future head of Wayne Enterprises.

Dick and Y/N were laughing at Jason about something when Dick’s face suddenly fell as he spotted something on the other side of the room.

“God damn it, Damian.” Dick hissed as he put his drink down on the nearest counter. He turned to Y/N. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

Y/N just nodded.

But then Jason seemed to spot the youngest brother as well.

“I should probably help him and do some damage control,” Jason sighed.

Y/N laughed and nodded for him to go ahead.

“Now you can see why I avoid these shit shows.”

She laughed but pushed him away, “Go help Dick.”

Now that Y/N was alone, her senses was hyper focused on the party around her.

As she reached for her drink, she noticed that her surrounding area had gone eerily quiet. And she felt far too many eyes on her. There were hushed whispers and even gasps.

“Would you care to dance?” A voice asked from behind her.

Y/N’s entire body tensed.

She turned to see Bruce waiting patiently for her response.

But the look on his face was that of a man she didn’t know.

Bruce had a charming glitter in his eyes and his smirk was arrogant.

Y/N looked around at their audience, then at the dance floor. She was desperately trying to remember the last time she danced with someone.

“Umm…I don’t really know how–” her words came out so slowly.

“How to dance?” Bruce offered.

Y/N nodded.

“You just need a good partner,” he reassured her as he held out a hand.

‘What a fucking line,’ Y/N thought as she tried not to roll her eyes. She half expected him to add a wink.

Bruce guided her to the center of the dance floor and then pulled her closer with his right hand while his left wrapped around her hand.

Y/N wasn’t expecting him to pull her so close, but their body’s were now pressed together.

Bruce moved his mouth to her ear. “Relax,” he murmured.

“It’s hard to relax when you’re using me to set up your new flavor of the week,” she criticized. “Everyone is watching us.”

Bruce may be used to such scrutiny, but Y/N had zero experience with it. And it was safe to say she hated it.

“They’re not looking at me. They’re looking at you,” Bruce corrected.

“A woman who’s not even me. It’s just the dress.”

“I’m happy you like it, seeing as I picked it out,” he commented smugly.

Y/N’s chest tightened at the revelation.

“I see the real you right now, and that’s who I asked to dance.”

Y/N wanted to make a run for it. She didn’t want Bruce with an audience. She just wanted him to herself and she wanted him as he really was.

But her brain shut down for just this song and she followed her heart.

If Y/N concentrated hard enough, she could ignore all the invasive gawking. If she closed her eyes, it was just her and Bruce. So, Y/N tucked her head into his shoulder and let Bruce glide them across the floor.

Somehow she felt that Bruce was allowing himself this as well.

One song was not enough for what they both needed and wanted.

But Y/N would take what she could.

Though what she did not expect was to finally pull away to see Bruce looking utterly heartbroken. As if pulling away from her was the hardest thing he’d ever have to do. And for the first time, Y/N legitimately considered that Bruce might want the same thing as she did.

He’ll just never act on his feelings.

If Y/N had blinked, she could’ve missed the moment of honesty and vulnerability Bruce had colored all across his face – bleeding from his eyes.

Because, the next moment, the character was back.

As the party clapped for the band, someone called Bruce’s name. And their locked stare was broken.

And just like that, Y/N was snapped back to reality as if someone threw a bucket of freezing water over her.

Now that Bruce had moved on, no one bothered to keep their voices down. And the upperclass women of Gotham made it loud and clear that they were not pleased with Y/N’s presence.

“Seems he’s found his next prey.”

“She looks half his age, of course he would go for her. Typical man.”

“She’ll eventually learn like we all did.”

“I still say he was the best lay I ever had.”

“Remember when we both slept with him in the same week?”

Now Y/N wasn’t just brought back to reality – she was put in her place.

Before she could even realize what was happening to stop it, her eyes were filled with tears. She had to get out of there.

“Excuse me,” Y/N whispered desperately and she tried to push her way through the crowd.

As soon as she made it outside, she let out a gasp. The fresh air helped, but it wasn’t enough.

There wasn’t any guests outside, but Y/N didn’t feel a safe enough distance from the party. The gardens and maze were in her peripheral and it took her all of two seconds to decide that would be her safe haven.

She hurried through the maze and prayed that no drunken couples had tried to also sneak away from prying eyes.

But when Y/N reached the center of the maze, she was alone.

A fountain sat in the middle and the sound of its moving water calmed Y/N down a bit. But even that couldn’t stop her tears from finally escaping.

Y/N sat on the edge of the fountain as she tried to get a hold of herself. She could only imagine what this was doing her makeup that she spent an hour doing.

‘What a waste,’ she thought.

Her escape was short lived.

Dick called her name repeatedly from a distance.

Y/N panicked at the idea of him catching her crying. She quickly tried to hide any evidence of tears and pull herself together.

Dick finally caught up and let out a sigh of relief from behind her.

“Y/N, you can’t run off like that,” he tried to tell her.

He opened his mouth to lecture her further, but when he finally made it around the fountain and was facing her, his concern shifted.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Nothing,” Y/N struggled to speak without sounding nasally. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You were crying.”

“I’m fine,” she tried to laugh. “Seriously, Dick.”

But he wasn’t having any of it. He moved to sit next to her on the edge of the fountain. Without hesitating, he wrapped an around her shoulder and pulled her into him.

“Come here,” he muttered softly.

Why did it feel so natural for him to do that? Like he’d done it a million times before?

He rubbed her arms. “Jesus. You’re freezing.”

Then he was taking off his suit jacket and putting it over her shoulders. But he didn’t miss a beat, quickly bringing her back into his arms again.

“Wanna tell me what’s got you so upset?” Dick asked after a few minutes of silently comforting her.

“It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid to me if it made you cry.”

Y/N took in a shaky breath, feeling like she was on the cusp of crying again. “I’m just like the rest of them.”

Dick waited, feeling like she needed to say more before he spoke.

“They were whispering terrible things. But it was everything I already knew. I’m just another stupid girl that managed to convince herself that she was different.”

Dick was silent as he processed his words. It wasn’t hard for him to know Y/N was talking about Bruce, even thought she never uttered his name.

“I’ve got an idea,” Dick announced. “Let’s ditch this stupid gala. Get out of these clothes. Put on some sweatpants. And I’ll have Alfred order us as much pizza and wings as you want.”

Now Y/N wanted to cry for a completely different reason.

Dick was the sweetest man she’d ever met.

“Sound like a plan?” He asked her when she didn’t respond and instead just stared into his blue eyes.

Y/N nodded.

“We can even invite my good-for-nothing brothers if that’ll make you happy.”

Her first instinct was to say yes. They all amused her beyond belief. Watching the way they all interacted with each other was like watching a reality show. And it was always obvious how much they loved each other deep down – even with Damian, who would rather die than admit such a thing.

But if all of them were included, who knew when Bruce would eventually make an appearance. And Y/N just didn’t think she could be in a room with him again tonight.

“Just you and me,” she clarified.

That seemed to please Dick and he nodded.

“Just you and me,” he confirmed as he offered her a hand up.

When they started walking back to the manor, Dick wrapped an arm around her shoulder, keeping her close to his side.

“I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to be completely honest with me,” but she said it through a smile.

Dick looked a bit nervous, but nodded. “Alright.”

“Do you know how to order takeout on your own?”

Dick threw his head back and laughed. “How dare you!”

He pinched her waist, making her yelp. But he didn’t let her escape his hold. “Yes, I do. In fact, when I’m at my own place, I live off takeout. And let me tell you, no one can order food quite like I can. Thank you very much.”

Once they reached the second floor of the manor, the two of them parted ways to changed out of their fancy clothes.

Y/N washed her face, scrubbing the layers of makeup off. But before she could rid herself of the evidence, she noticed the smeared mascara and eyeliner.

Words could not describe the relief of putting on baggy sweatpants and a hoodie and fluffy socks after wearing a fitted gown and high heels.

30 minutes later, just as promised, Dick was bringing up a huge pizza and a box of wings to Y/N’s bedroom.

They ate on the floor. Dick managed to light the fireplace that was in there, because Y/N didn’t know what to do with the thing. The television was on, but neither of them were watching it. It was simply white noise.

Two hours later, Y/N was laughing so hard at a story Dick was telling her that she had tears in her eyes and her stomach hurt.

“I don’t believe you!”

“I’m not kidding. Ask Jason. He took my clothes and I was ass naked, running through the streets of Gotham. I wanted to kill him.”

Y/N grabbed another wing and got sauce all over her face.

“What?” She asked when Dick was watching her with adoration. “Do I have sauce on my face?”

He tried to hide his smile. “Nope.”

She knew he was lying and then purposely smeared more sauce around her lips. “How about now? Do I have anything now?”

“No. Nothing.”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how attractive am I right now?” Y/N laughed as she wiped the sauce off her face with napkins.

“11,” Dick responded without hesitating.

The playfulness was sucked out of the room when they both heard how serious his tone was.

Y/N’s face went somber as she looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry I didn’t dance with you.” She laughed lightly, “I’m a lousy date, huh?”

“That’s not true,” he immediately shot down. “This is the most fun I’ve had…” His words died out when he realized he couldn’t even remember. “Well, it’s the most fun I’ve had in awhile.”

“Me too,” she replied with a quiet sweetness.

Through her full-body laughter, she had moved closer to Dick without realizing it.

He glanced at her lips. He just couldn’t help himself.

The thing about Dick wearing his heart on his sleeve was that it was nearly impossible for him to hide his feelings, his desires. It was all in those blue eyes of his, waiting to easily be read by someone.

And while Y/N looked at him looking at her, she felt beautiful. Because that was all Dick could possibly think as he stared at her.

Neither knew who leaned in first. Perhaps this was their dance that they weren’t able to have earlier.

But they made up for it by sharing an impassioned kiss now.

Dick’s lips were softer than Y/N expected. His hands gripped her waist possessively, making it very clear what he wanted – but still being ever so gentle and soft with his touches.

One of Dick’s hands moved from her waist up her back to tangle his fingers in her hair. He tugged on the strands and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss.

They both could slightly taste the pizza and wings on each other’s lips, but neither of them cared at all.

The kiss didn’t last long enough for either of their liking.

But Y/N pulled away anyways, gasping for air a bit.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he whispered through hooded eyes as he brushed some hair away from her face. “I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile,” he added with a smirk.

But Y/N wasn’t really sorry about the kiss.

She was sorry because she knew that things were far more complicated than ever.

-----------------------------------------------------

Part V

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Please, please, please write me a book report of what he thought of this chapter. It will be your VDay gift to me 😘

#all men have limits part 4 #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne reader insert #bruce wayne x reader x dick grayson #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson reader insert #batfam #dick grayson x reader x bruce wayne #batman x reader #nightwing x reader #batboys #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing

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yonkimint · 3 years

Text

So Show Me, I’ll Show You

Part 28.1

This part has written parts with pictures in between.

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When the door to your hospital room swings open, you groan in relief. Finally Jimin was here to jailbreak you. It was great having Lauren, Heeji, and Luna here but they are dutiful bulldogs and you can’t blame them. Your last visit to the hospital had left them pretty traumatized.

Your hopes fall when a man in scrubs steps into the room instead. You had seen him once or twice but you had never exchanged words. In fact, the only reason you remember him at all is because he is white and you thought that was odd, considering you were in a Korean hospital.

“Oh hi,” you say, uncomfortable, when he just stands at the foot of your bed. His head is bowed so you can’t study his face too closely but his presence puts you on edge. He doesn’t respond to your greeting so you push on, trying to keep your tone nonchalant, “The nurses just did their rotations and I’m doing fine. Did you need to check something?”

He laughs. A low throaty laugh that has haunted all of your nightmares. Your hands fist around hospital sheets as a cold chill runs up your spine. Swallowing around the lump rising in your throat, you peer closer at him.Mark’s hair is black. This orderly’s is ash blonde. But everything else… you suck in a sharp breath.

“Hello, y/n, did you get my flowers?”

He lifts his head and all his sharp features suddenly come into focus. He has been here the whole time watching you try to recover from injuries that he perpetuated. He looks pleased. And his pleasure makes you want to claw his face off.

“Go to hell, asshole.” You try to sound menacing, to hiss these words like poison, but they only come out a weak, fearful wheeze. Mark clucks his tongue at you.

“Look at you, y/n, trying to be brave when you’re really nothing but a weakling. A cowardly little girl. You would be nothing without me and you know it. You don’t really think you’re going to fight me, do you?”

There’s a glimmer in his eye and it makes you so angry. But the part of you that has endured his abuse for years is still the stronger part and you feel your anger give way to hopelessness. Mark is right. You won’t fight him.

“Good girl. Now, we are going to go on a little field trip, okay?”

You shudder as he steps around the bed and traces the IV still in your arm. You had been waiting until the last second to remove it so the nurses wouldn’t suspect anything if they walked in but now you regret that choice. Mark has no intentions of being gentle with you.

He presses a palm against your mouth, smiling vindictively as the fingers of his other hand loop around the tubes that have been delivering your medicine and fluid for the last few days and yanks the whole thing loose. You whimper into his skin as blood splashes from your open vein.

“How are we supposed to go on a field trip when any camera is going to catch you dragging me out of this room?” you ask him, hoping fleetingly that he hasn’t thought of this. But he’s been here for who knows how long.

“My little writer,” he coos, snatching your phone from your lap and slipping it into his scrubs pocket, “You really do try to think of everything that can happen, don’t you?”

You glare at him. You have taken abuse from him all these years and still, it’s the patronizing that sets you off every time. And he knows he’s pushed the right button too because he laughs and pats your cheek gently.

“Oh my sweet little y/n, the field trip is right here in the hospital. I’m going to roll you out of here in that wheelchair,” he says, pausing to point to the wheelchair that sits in the corner of your room, “and we’re going to go down the hall. And you’ll do exactly what I tell you to because you know that I have your phone which means I can either let you say goodbye to your friends or make them think that you never want to see them again. Your choice!”

This is so cliche, you think, hobbling out of bed when he gestures for you to get up, like something out of a stupid soap opera. Disguises himself as an orderly and kidnaps me right under everyone’s noses. God damnit.

Your field trip brings you to a supply closet on the third floor of the hospital which, conveniently, is under renovation. You can’t help but think that Mark is following this cliched script just to piss off the writer in you.

Now that you’re out of sight of the cameras, he has tied your limbs to the chair so you can’t run away. A gag sits roughly in your mouth and cuts against the corners of your lips. Mark is circling you as if deciding where he should start.

Lauren told you that he threatened to do so much worse than put you in the hospital next time he found you and you let your eyes flutter shut in defeat.

You choose not to think about that. Instead, you let your memories play like old movie reels on the backs of your eyelids. Heeji’s art galleries. Lauren’s photo shoots. And Luna’s ridiculous seances every full moon.

You stifle a chuckle. No need to bring on Mark’s wrath any sooner than necessary.

And then, newer memories begin to play and a lump rises in your throat. These ones aren’t supposed to be tinged with melancholy. These are supposed to be the memories of starting over. The memories from after you are safe.

You swallow hard.

The flight had already taken a lot out of you. This was just the cherry on top of a totally stressful, life changing ice cream sundae. At least this coffee shop seemed safe and warm while you tried to figure out if you were going to be homeless or not.

Seoyun, the barista, had been kind enough to give you the WiFi password so looking up your address shouldn’t be too difficult. Still, you lowered your head down on the table with a sigh of defeat. Seoul was so confusing.

“Oh, I know that look,” a voice sounds above you. Your head snaps up, eyes narrowing, already distrustful of a friendly stranger in the heart of South Korea. He smiles at you and his perfect rows of white teeth are so familiar, you already feel your tense muscles uncoiling. He presses on, “it’s not your first day in Seoul, is it?”

You glance at your luggage and back at him, remembering Lauren’s texts to go find BTS. As if the butt of some cosmic joke, it seems that they have found you instead.

You roll your eyes at him, “what gave it away?”

He glances down at your luggage too and laughs. You study his face carefully so you see the exact moment he makes a decision that will alter the course of both your lives.

His hands are full with two trays of coffee and he shoves them down on your table without asking. You raise an eyebrow at him, not really surprised by his boldness but somehow taken aback all the same, but he only flashes his brilliant smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the force of it. He sits down.

“You look like you don’t trust yourself to breathe. Like you’re trapped in your own brain or something,” he comments.

You lean forward, reminding yourself to calm the flare of annoyance rising in your chest before you speak. “Jimin,” you say evenly, “do you think you can just sit here with a complete stranger, flirt with her a little bit, and she’ll open up with her whole life story?”

“It’s always worked before,” he chirps back, batting his eyes, that same heart melting grin never wavering. But you see it there behind his gaze. No one has ever called him out on this before and you smile.

“I sincerely doubt that…” you say, trailing off as his hand darts out for the phone you’ve left on the table. You gasp, your reflexes too slow to catch him now, and he giggles swiping through as many un-password protected screens as he can.

“Well, I sincerely doubt that you know where you’re going since you’re sitting in a random coffee shop with all your luggage so, out of the kindness of my heart, I’ve decided to help you find your way,” he says, handing the phone back and gesturing for you to unlock it for him.

Your insides are screaming not to do it. You have to keep a low profile or starting over is going to fail but the earnest look in his eye has you wavering. With a sigh, you unlock the phone and you feel it deep in your gut, everything is over before it’s even begun.

It didn’t really matter what Mark was doing to torture you, just that he was and the pain was excruciating. You had heard a rumor once that after a certain point, the body would stop responding to pain but you were sure now that that was a lie. This was endless.

Your eyes start to roll back when Mark claps in front of your face again. You blink back into focus and your whole body is screaming for relief. He’s looking at you like you should say something to him but you can’t speak, the gag still firmly in your mouth, muffling all your screams.

“Can’t have you dozing off, my favorite little writer, you’ll miss the best part!”

You quirk an eyebrow, inviting him to give his little villain’s speech. He obviously wants to follow the soap opera script so you might as well let him follow it to its natural conclusion. He grins, tracing your jaw line with something icy cold. A knife?

No, you tell yourself, don’t think about that.

“You’re probably thinking how cliche this all must be. The hospital disguise. The hiding in plain sight. You’re probably even thinking that since we stayed in the hospital, it’s inevitable that I will get caught. Which is true. The question is if it will happen before or after I kill you,” he says, “And maybe the more important question is this: why did Mark do this to the thing that makes him all his money?”

The thing? You would spit on him if there weren’t a gag in your mouth.

He leans close, his eyes boring into yours. “And the answer is really quite simple. You disgust me. You think you’re so talented and so clever. Everyone adores you and bends over backwards to care for you and what do you really need protection from? Your big, bad manager and publisher?”

He’s going to keep ranting, you know it, and you don’t want the short time you have left to be spent listening to this tirade. They say it’s normal to disassociate under trauma and so you do, falling into your memories again.

Namjoon had warned you about Yoongi before you even stepped foot in the studio. It still wasn’t enough to stop the way your heart dropped down into your stomach when you caught a glimpse of him in the hallway.

You had told him after the fact that you didn’t remember this moment but the truth of the matter was, it was impossible to erase this memory from your mind. With all the steel you could muster, you met his gaze. Dark, critical eyes stared back at you, soft pink lips pressed into a thin, annoyed line.

You offered a gentle smile like it was an olive branch, your knees wobbling while you waited for him to roll his eyes or storm away. But his eyes only widened, those annoyed lips parting in a small ‘o’, color rushing up to dust his round cheeks.

It made your knees knock together and you ducked your head. What was that? Forget it. If he was going to refuse to meet you, you weren’t going to waste feelings over it.

The next memory spills into recollection almost on top of this one.

Would it be okay if I came and listened to what you’re working on? you texted Namjoon.

Jungkook and Hobi were arguing about who got to be Luigi in the next race. You chuckled to yourself, amazed for the billionth time that you had somehow been invited to hang out with these boys again. You had already known they were incredible but actually interacting with them was overwhelming. They were as wonderful as they had always seemed from afar.

Even, you thought, Yoongi. He had extended a truce but he was still frustrating to no end. What did he mean you could never be friends? He was obviously capable of being friendly and you knew the way he cared for and protected his group members. It shouldn’t sting so much that he didn’t want to be YOUR friend but what could you do?

“Y/n, I curated a meme just for you,” Tae whispers from his place beside you on the couch and you startle when he pushes his phone into your hands.

“What the hell, Tae?” you burst out laughing, trying to make sense of the chaotic picture before you. He starts laughing too, satisfied by your reaction and takes his phone back. You punch his arm lightly and mutter, “you’re so weird.”

Let me ask Yoongi, your phone chimes. Your stomach surges with some feeling you don’t understand. You remind yourself that you’re just going to hang out with Joon. This has nothing to do with Yoongi and yet…

How is he supposed to become your friend if you let him keep avoiding you?

He says you can’t talk but you can come in.

You’re out of your seat before you have time to think about it more. The boys look up at you in surprise and you announce that you’re gonna hang out with Namjoon a bit before you challenge them to Mario Kart. The look of fear in Jungkook’s eyes sends you into another fit of laughter and you pat his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Kookie, winning isn’t everything!”

“Yes it is!” he groans as you walk away.

In the studio, your stomach starts to dance again. Yoongi doesn’t look up from the scratch paper he’s scribbling on but you can see the way his fingers tighten around his pen. He is as aware of your presence as you are of his. When Namjoon points to the spot on the couch beside him, it takes all your concentration not to trip over your own feet.

You scold yourself for this silly behavior. There are more adoring members of this kpop group to be mooning over. Mooning over? You are NOT mooning over Yoongi. Who said that? Not you.

Anyway, whatever it is you’re feeling, Yoongi has done nothing to deserve it. So why do your eyes keep landing on him as you survey the room?

“I don’t like that lyric there,” Namjoon says, “maybe we should move it down into the second verse.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes but it’s softened by the small smile playing at his lips. He and Namjoon must have been going back and forth over these lines for quite some time. You watch as he scribbles out the words and moves them lower down the page.

His eyes meet yours and the hairs rise on the back of your arms. He doesn’t look upset that you’re there and that’s almost more unsettling than him insulting you. You press your lips together and search for anywhere in the room to look but him.

The phone in your lap will have to provide distraction enough. You pick it up and fiddle around between home screens but there’s nothing as interesting there as what’s happening before you so you listen in on the lyrics they’re crafting while you pretend to text the girls.

Of course, when you find out the song is for E.L. Penn, you spiral. You knew your worlds were going to collide if you stuck around long enough. It’s never been a secret to you that Namjoon was a fan of her work — your work — or that they would have worked with her on the movie if she hadn’t gone on hiatus.

But you are just an English teacher in Seoul and not the recipient of this song that is making your heart hurt. You can’t believe Mark would hack into your Twitter account just to set this in motion without you. He’s trying to push your buttons and it’s working.

So you do the only thing you can. You call Lauren.

When you return to the studio, Namjoon is gone. You knew he would be since he passed you in the hall while you were still on the phone. Yoongi looks up at you in surprise but you only offer a curt nod before beelining for your spot on the couch.

The tears spill out before you can help it and your phone buzzes with a text from Yoongi. You feel stupid as you read his stupid question through blurred vision. You respond sardonically and toss your phone onto the couch.

When he tells you you’re killing the vibe, you almost launch to your feet and run out of the room but Yoongi stops you. You stare at him, mouth gaping open like a fish.

“You want to what?” you ask, wondering if he’ll scold you for talking out loud to him.

He reaches for his guitar instead, a sleek, black stained acoustic that you’ve seen in several lives from before you actually knew him. He strums the chords lightly, the sweet sounds discordant in the small space. You blink at him.

“It’s something I’ve been working on,” he says vaguely, “I’m just curious what you think.”

“Why me?” you ask, confused. He frowns at you, his lips puckering and little dimples appearing in the corners of his cheeks.

“Just be quiet and listen, okay?” he asks it like a question but you know he’s giving a command.

You smile at him a little too sweetly and then settle back into the couch, pulling your legs up to your chest, so you can rest your chin on your knees as he starts to strum. He rolls his eyes at you but there’s a smile in them that you’ve never seen directed at you before.

Your stomach makes that weird lurch again and you finally resign yourself to what you are feeling. Butterflies. Min Yoongi is giving you butterflies.

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olivetreehugger · 3 years

Text

SnK Scouts/Veterans as Health Care Workers

Note: features Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Levi, Erwin and Hange. A part two to my “SnK Warriors as HCWs” post found here. warning: mentions of blood, trauma, gore (it’s healthcare). Also, I know Hange is nb, I headcanon them as female, so I will be using she/her pronouns.

Eren: this boy is definitely too involved in everything and has too many people depending on him at once to not be a nurse. The kid barely passed the NCLEX but that didn’t stop him from applying to every trauma center within a 25 mile radius of him. He got hired as a night shift trauma ICU nurse and he frequently picks up shifts in the ER. He wears the cheapest scrubs he can find, often stained with ink in the pockets area. He isn’t a shitty nurse per se but there are tasks that still need to be done at the end of his shift and he gives a crappy report that’s missing too many details. Nurses hate picking up his patients, it’s always a mess. His charting is really spotty and he gets called into the manager’s office all the time to fix it.

Still, he tries really hard to improve his time management and skills. He wants to be like his friends Mikasa and Reiner, who are the best nurses he knows. He wants to be involved in the traumatic cases and emergencies because he wants to learn as much as he possibly can. He’s really good at wound care, for some reason (hint hint). He’s kinda cocky sometimes too, which can be troublesome when Dr. Galliard is working. People know to steer clear of those two when they’re both in the ER. Also, Eren always has a black cloud around him; whenever he works it’s gonna be a hella busy day in the hospital. Lots of emergency surgeries, intubations, codes and deaths. He’ll always jump in to help you if your patient is crashing, though, no matter how busy he is.

Mikasa: she’s a prodigy. She was a straight ‘A’ student in nursing school, got a perfect 75 on the NCLEX and was immediately hired to the trauma ICU after doing a short internship there. She worked night shift for a year but her sleep schedule was so so fucked she started having night terrors, so she switched to day shift. Eren still calls her a traitor for it :/. She keeps trying to get him to switch over but he just hisses at her and threatens to chug a case of Monster energy drinks. She hasn’t given upon him yet, though.

This girl’s work ethic is beyond measure. She comes in exactly at 6:30 am, looks up her patients, takes report, gives a great update to the doctors when they round, and provides impeccable care to her patients. She knows exactly which treatments the doctors will order before they even speak. She’s incredible at inserting IVs--everyone in the hospital knows Mikasa Ackerman can put an 18g in a 90 yr old lady’s arm AND get blood return (just trust me, it’s flipping impossible). She has great skill when it comes to emergency situations and is a big believer in team work. If she notices your patient’s crashing and you don’t know what to do, she’ll calmly coach you and save your patient, too. All before lunch time.

It doesn’t take Mikasa long to be promoted to charge nurse. When she’s in charge all the reports, paperwork and audits are completed before shift change. She divides the patient assignments really well and is very fair to the new grads. All around she’s an incredible nurse and leader on her unit, but don’t be fooled. If it’s been a rough day, Mikasa will get in her car and sob so loud her throat goes raw. A lot of people depend on her and working in a trauma ICU is really, really demanding. A lot of patients are demanding, rude and busy. She has a lot of trouble with stress management and is thinking of cutting her hours down so she can catch a break. Someone please hug her <3

Armin: for some reason my brain is just SCREAMING respiratory therapist. Like, I imagine this beautiful blond boy in gray scrubs (the color for RT’s in my hospital) going around helping intubate patients, giving nebulizer treatments and doing blood gases. I can just see him huffing and puffing when the attending doctor is overzealous about weaning vent support. -“Why are we changing the patient to pressure support? do you see how tachypneic he is on volume control?”

-“are you gonna put in the order? if not, your patient’s gonna be on PRVC all day, I’m not changing it without an order”

-“Doc, the patient looks like crap and their blood gas looks like death...oh, you still wanna extubate? ok, well I’m gonna leave the ventilator in here just in case. better yet, let me call a pastor in here, too.”

This kid is sassy af and he knows it. He’s smart af too, knows everything there is to know about the lungs and respiratory care. Knows every ventilator mode better than most doctors. Will certainly tell a resident off for ordering the wrong type of inhaler for a patient. He’s so damn intelligent that he even made the ice queen Annie melt like a popsicle.

He has no chill when it comes to his patients and even less chill (like -4078875874670) when a doctor gets in his way. For this reason, Armin has recently been toying with the idea of going to PA school so he can have a little more autonomy. He works al over the hospital, usually frequenting the trauma, CV, and medical ICU. The nurses there love him.

Jean: Jeannie boy. Baby. Sweetie. He’s also a nurse. He is strictly dayshift and trauma. When he first started, he thought he’d do a year in the ICU and then go to CRNA school. He didn’t want to be around sickly patients with hopes and dreams and fears--it was too icky for him. But, over time, he learned that he LOVED trauma. Jean loves the controlled chaos that comes with the ugly, bloody messes that roll in through the ICU’s doors. He always gears up for trauma season (summer time) by bringing Dunkin Donuts iced coffee for everyone on the unit (day and night shift because he’s a supportive king). He gets really good at dealing with arrogant trauma residents and ortho docs who think they’re hot shit. When Jean sees a resident yelling at a nurse, he jumps in and threatens to have their license revoked. He will dig under their skin and page them incessantly throughout the day, too, just to get back at them. Jean is not a fan of lateral violence in the workplace, no sir.

He always, always makes sure every room is stocked and new bags are hanging for the next shift. He has a thing where if things aren’t properly organized on the unit his brain just spazzes. He’s on the unit council and education committee because he also loves to teach the new grads. He also doubles as charge nurse, when management can’t be there (there can be one or more charge nurses amongst the staff, they usually work different days, though) He and Mikasa work so well together, teaming up to get tasks done, coding patients, running them down to get scanned, etc. People joke they’re the mom and dad of the unit. It makes them both blush <3 (Eren doesn’t like it, lol)

Jean loves to see patients healing from horrendous injuries, he’s constantly cracking jokes with the awake patients to try to make them feel better, and he’s really good at calming anxious family members down. Our boy just makes such good connections with people. He’s the guy you call when your confused patient is one second away from ripping his breathing tube out. He can convince the most restless, agitated patient to chill out. He’s got the voice for it. Also people love his mullet. It looks great.

Connie: I really didn’t know at first but I feel like Connie would make a great physical therapist. He’s got great energy, he’s funny and I could see him dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire in front of his patients to hype them up for therapy. He’d be very sweet with them

Sasha: I’m sick and tired of the food jokes, quite honestly. She’s more than that. In my mind, she’s an occupational therapist, helping disabled patients learn to feed, dress and clean themselves again. She works directly with Connie as they round on all their patients in the hospital, they make a great team! She’s extremely patient and would make a very good nurse, but is unsure of where life is taking her. That is until she meets Niccolo the dietician in the cafeteria, and she falls hard. He encourages her to follow her heart and she does!

Levi: Hm. This one stumped me. Levi is a bit...cold. It’s not like he has incredible social skills. He’s meticulous and focused and kinda mean? He reminds me of an anesthesiologist, tbh. Like he’ll sedate the shit outta you for surgery, makes sure you don’t die on the table, and then drops you off to the unit as fast as he can. He never takes off his mask while in the hospital and he scrubs maybe four times before surgery. He is very good at medication calculations and knows everything about nerve blocks, intubation, pain medication and sedation. He can look at a person and just KNOW what kind of sedative to give and how much. Your blood pressure will never bottom out while he’s there, he’ll warn the surgeon and immediately get that norepinephrine started.

If Zeke is the one operating, Levi is on his ass to finish up the surgery ASAP and to not linger, because Zeke takes his time and ignores the tele monitor alarming in the background. After surgery, this 5′2 demon will scream at the 6′ resident about the importance of blood pressure management and sedation in neurosurgical patients. Levi plays no games and he also just really hates Zeke lol

He seems like a jerk but genuinely cares about getting his peeps through surgery. His favorite surgeon to work with is Hange Zoe, because she’s brilliant and fast, but also cognizant of her patient’s hemodynamics. Levi likes taking trauma cases as long as it’s with her. When he drops a patient off to the trauma ICU or goes there to intubate, he makes sure Jean or Mikasa are there because he knows everything is gonna go smoothly. He trusts them a lot. He likes Armin, too and even let him intubate a few times. On his breaks, he’s drinking tea and reading a Williams & Sonoma catalog or scrolling through cleaning Tik Tok lol.

Erwin: This man. This beautiful and hunky beefcake. Omg. I HC him as someone who went to nursing school, became a charge nurse on the trauma unit back in the early 2000′s and fell in love with it. Erwin would eventually fall in love with leadership and educating, too. He went back to school and earned his Doctorate of Nursing Practice (a practice doctorate). He managed the trauma unit for ten years before his brilliant leadership skills and wicked smart brain got him elected as the Director of Trauma Surgery recently. He is the first person with a nursing degree and DNP to ever accomplish this, so it’s very controversial. A lot of toxic doctors threaten to leave the hospital for this (because they’re assholes), but Erwin threatens to fire them in response and it usually shuts them up.

He often holds lectures in the hospital auditorium. With a mind and voice like his, people are so drawn in by him. He advocates for nursing staff, for reimbursement when continuing their education, better staffing, parking, etc. He makes nice with doctors and gets them to sign petitions for the nurses to get these things. He’s a bit manipulative He’s also a fantastic manager and director, he’s really good at negotiating things. The nurses and residents all love him because he rounds on every ICU frequently, brings food, and asks them how he can help. He can be a bit daunting because of his height and deep voice but once he starts talking to you, you just get sucked in. All around an absolute king.

Hange: This character reminds me of a trauma surgeon and intensivist (ICU doctor) we have, Dr. Omi. A great surgeon, really really smart, but takes absolutely NO bullshit. She will yell at you if you freeze during intubating. She wants you to recite every step before you take it, otherwise she’ll take the tube from you and do it herself. In surgery, she’s the same way. She wants you to learn, but by her standards. If she asks a question, you better know the answer or fess up right away, she doesn’t like the “uhms” of uncertainty as you try to search for a shitty response. Either you know it or you don’t. And if you don’t, she’ll teach you. Yeah she can be rough around the edges, but she’s got a big heart. She loves her trauma team. She buys them breakfast and gives them funny personalized gifts. One time, she bought an apply tree for Mikasa and brought it to her car at the end of a shift. Mikasa forgot to plant it and it died in her backseat. Hange will sometimes ask, “Mikasa, how’s your apple tree growing?” and Mikasa will lie through her teeth. “It’s growing!” Fess up, Mikasa. Those google search apple trees are starting to look familiar.

All around Hange loves to work and teach. She is a wonderful trauma surgeon and has saved tons of lives.

#snk headcanons #attack on titan #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #armin arlert #jean kirstein #connie springer #sasha braus #levi ackerman #erwin smith #hange zoe #lama writes

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thegreatobsesso · 3 years

Text

A longer bit feat.: Callie and Simon angst. :)

Talking with @drippingmoon got me thinking of some cornerstone scenes in the enemies-to-friends slow-burn I do with these two idiots and this one, I think, stands out as the dead-center point, so I’m gonna not second-guess myself and just post it. 🥴

Tagging @thelaughingstag too! (I remembered!)

Context: Callie broke into Delaney to steal an ancient magical artifact and, believing she meant nothing but harm, Simon stopped her. But while waiting for the cops to come and drag her back to prison, Simon asks her to just tell him the truth, once and for all. Callie agrees to let him read her mind all the way back to the beginning, thinking she’s got nothing left to live for. Simon gets hit with a truckload of tragic backstory he wasn’t prepared for and is asked to follow them back to Downing Bay, the prison she’s being held in.

They’re still mentally connected, even after Simon has let go. He can hear her, and she can hear him too, which definitely isn’t normal.

Word count: 3,200

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failure. failure. failure

She wasn’t even doing this on purpose and it wasn’t just the word reverberating through his skull.

More like a full-bodied feeling flooding his consciousness as he left Delaney, a steady stream of self-hatred punctuated only by expletives.

Stop, he begged her.

i can’t, you stop listening

I can’t.

She laughed, out loud in her cell. He heard it and felt it, over the miles that separated them, the ocean and metal and glass.

He’d overextended; that’s what caused this. It took him awhile to put it together because he’d been so upset - maybe even been in a mild state of shock, in retrospect - and he spent a lifetime being so careful with his powers that he’d never done it before to know what it was like.

And so that was bad, yes, but come on. How much longer could it last?

He was stepping onto the boat to Downing Bay when the pain started - hers, and not the torrent of existential agony he was struggling to adjust to but pain, physical and substantial.

What’s happening? he tried to ask, but it got lost - she could barely think, suddenly, let alone focus on sending him mental telegrams.

The cluster of metal buildings hovered threateningly on the horizon, and as they got closer, minds inside got louder, almost drowning Callie out. He wanted to tell them to turn around and take him away; the claustrophobia was overwhelming, the collective sense of being trapped.

The boat brought them underneath the smallest building; a scorched sign read Diagnostics in block letters with an arrow pointing up. What might’ve once been a loading dock was sectioned off with caution tape and hanging sadly down into the water, barely still attached to the rest of the infrastructure. They laid a make-shift bridge between the boat and platform to walk across.

Once inside, they asked him to empty his pockets and leave all his belongings in a small box.

“This stays with me,” he said, holding his Headmaster’s key, bronze and solid, in the palm of his hand.

“No, sir,” said the tired corrections officer, unaware of who he was. “All belongings.” She shook the plastic container for emphasis, rattling the rest of his stuff around.

“I’m the headmaster of Delaney of School for Magicians,” he said. “This is a master key and it doesn’t leave my neck. If you need to call your superiors about it, please do it, but I won’t leave it here.”

A few minutes later, he put the chain back around his neck, dropped the key down inside his shirt, and was escorted inside.

“No one’s suppressed me yet,” he said to one of prison officers. He waited until the last second; surely they knew their own duties better than he did. He didn’t wanna insult anyone, but they hadn’t done it and they were bringing him though thick, reinforced doors to the warden’s office and if not now, when?

“We’ve not been asked to, sir. This way.”

The warden smiled when Simon entered his office, waved everyone else away. He introduced himself as Warden Prescott and extended his hand - it was thin and cold when Simon shook it, despite the muggy warmth.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said. “How fares your school?”

“It’s seen worse. It looks like she hit this place harder, to be honest.”

The warden smiled, and Simon caught an image of a collection, varying people with differing characteristics on display in tiny boxes, one of them out of place. “Yes, she put on quite a show on her way out. Destroyed all our boats and did a significant amount of superficial damage, but nothing structural, thankfully.”

Of course not - living her memories alongside her showed him she made sure she didn’t hurt anyone, only crippled their ability to pursue her.

It was too warm in here and he wondered how the warden could be so buttoned up in thick polyester when he had to unbutton his own light jacket.

“A hearing will take place tomorrow morning and your presence will be required,” he began. “I suspect I know at least part of the reason why. News reached my ears that you behaved quite badly.” He made a tsk-tsk sound and shook his head at Simon like he was a naughty child.

“I did what I did,” he said flatly. “I shouldn’t have read her mind, and I accept the consequences for it, whatever they’ll be.”

“Oh, I meant absolutely no disrespect,” the warden said. “The opposite, in fact. I daresay if I had your powers, I’d like nothing more than to take a stroll through that mind of hers. She’s an interesting one. The fact that you did so might work to our advantage, in fact. You see, we’re in a bit of a bind with all this. May I speak plainly?”

“I wish you would,” he said. The warden was carrying his collection of dolls in his mind, all unique and valuable and distinctly dehumanized, and Callie’s thoughts were still flowing like a steady IV drip, making him feel irritable and short.

“Well, Mister Bennett, the facts are as such: we��ve got a limited testimony from you that the authorities will need expanded upon, that says you’ve seen the original crime in the first person, and your account differs wildly from the one she’s given. There are additional crimes stacked up past that - her escape from prison and attempted theft of an undisclosed item from your school. And the world wants to know how an infamous killer managed to become the first person in history to escape Downing Bay.”

“It’s a valid question for them to ask.”

“With an undesirable answer. But I think you’re in pain, Mister Bennett. Do you need a doctor?”

He was, but it wasn’t his own injuries that made wince.

“It’s her,” he groaned. “You’re hurting her, what are you doing?”

The warden sighed. “Come,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

He took Simon down the hall, into a sterile room filled with recording equipment and a solid wall of glass. On the other side of the it, Callie. She sat a bare table in prison scrubs, hands cuffed to its surface. IVs were inserted in both her arms, the needles taped down, liquid flowing from bags hanging behind her. The metal collar around her neck flashed blips of red, yellow and green, reminding him absurdly of a Christmas tree.

She bit her lip and shuffled restlessly, an involuntary response to the pain she was trying to ignore.

“You’ve got to stop this,” he said.

“To be fair, this isn’t what diagnostics usually looks like,” the warden said while he swallowed down a wave of sickness. “Typically, we focus on finding a long-term suppressive solution that both nullifies abilities and has minimal side effects for the prisoner. We are, unfortunately, in disaster minimization mode rather than long-term maintenance with your friend here.”

This was the strain being put on her body - the combination of every drug known to medicine that could hold back the expression of magic for any amount of time at all. “She’s not my friend,” he muttered. “Isn’t this unethical?”

“Should we allow all her power to rush back in so she can kill my people and escape again?”

“She’s not killing anyone,” Simon said with certainty.

“That’s not what she said a few hours ago,” the warden recalled. “We had no less than five guards trying to process her and she threatened their lives.”

Dammit. “What we you doing to her?”

“Attempting to place her segregation.”

He resisted the urge to groan in frustration, to punch the glass in front of him. “She didn’t mean it,” he muttered, not relishing the job of being her translator. “She’s terrified of solitary confinement, she just didn’t wanna go.”

“That’s unfortunate, given that we can’t very well place her back into general population. This is all that’s left, a quarantine unit, meant for contagious disease.”

On the other side of the glass, Callie squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head. A fresh wave of pain ran over him too.

how much longer, how much more?

“How long can you keep this up, these stop-gap measures? Surely they won’t work forever.”

Warden Prescott raised his eyebrows. “These measures aren’t even working very well, Mister Bennett. I daresay if she wanted to, she could be gone before nightfall. I’m afraid she’s only here at her pleasure.”

Pleasure? He looked back at her in the next room, her face contorted. “You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I was,” Warden Prescott said, with a small smile. “We’re in the dark here, fumbling through uncharted territory without a map. She’s got my best techs feeling like children when they try to interpret the results of all this treatment. She’s a thing that isn’t supposed to exist: a hybrid. Focused magic and Eclectic, all at once.”

The implications of the warden’s words began to stack up in his already overtaxed mind and part of him thought, ridiculously, of a vacation. Of sitting on a beach with a book getting a suntan, drinking something with a slice of pineapple on the rim, smoking a cigarette or two or fifty - of not having a care in the world, for just a little while.

A hybrid, then. Focused and Eclectic.

He’d walked through her life with her and even she didn’t understand that, not really, not in such terms. She, and everyone else who knew what she’d done to Peter, had thought of it like an acquisition of new powers; not a fundamental genetic change.

Did Riley know this? Riley, who gathered Callie’s DNA and did extensive testing on it, who still had it?

“Has anybody been in touch with the family?” he asked, unwilling to explain why he was asking.

“I know someone’s reached out,” the warden said. “I don’t believe there was any reply.”

No, he supposed not. Riley would want nothing to do with any of this. Still, she had to be sweating, didn’t she? How could she know Callie still held up her end of their deal?

“I wonder,” Warden Prescott drawled, “if your trip through her mind was quite so extensive that if she were back inside your school, right now, you’d trust her not to hurt anyone.”

“It was,” he said. “And I would.”

He couldn’t imagine this would be easy for anyone else to swallow. He certainly wouldn’t believe it himself without first-hand insight. “I want to talk to her.”

The warden nodded his assent at the guards lining the wall.

“As I said, everyone wants to know how she managed to escape,” he said, walking Simon around to the entrance of the adjacent room that held Callie. “The thing I’m most curious about it why she even waited so long to do it. Is that something you know, from your jaunt through her mind?”

“Yes.”

“Are you inclined to share?”

He decided earlier, definitively, that he didn’t like the warden: the way he looked at his inmates like specimens, pinned inside a case. “No,” he said.

“Fair enough,” he agreed. “Although you might be asked tomorrow, by someone more powerful than me, in a much more formal capacity. We’ll be leaning on your expertise considerably to entangle that mind of hers.” He shook his head in admiration. “The unsuppressable Callie Ray.”

“I wouldn’t toss that around,” he muttered.

“Why not?”

The guard undid a stack of locks on the quarantine room door. “I don’t want her hearing it,” he said as they pushed the door open. “She’ll like it too much.”

—

Little black cameras dotted the corners of the room; he knew the warden would be listening on the other side of the glass where’d they’d just come from, and he was certain they were being recorded too.

She lifted her head, smirked at the sight of him. “I’d say hello,” she said, her voice scratchy. “But it’s like I never left you, isn’t it?”

She looked awful. Her red-rimmed eyes matched her hair; one was still swollen, decorated in bruises. “I am sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for this.” He gestured between his head and hers.

he just says it, just like that

“Did you get a good spanking for it? I’m sure nobody expected that from their golden boy.”

Her words were hollow to him now; they washed over him uselessly and left him thoroughly unimpressed. He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her at the steel table, mirroring her position with his hands folded in front of him, except for the absence of cuffs, obviously.

We could talk like this, he said, if you don’t want them to listen.

A jumbled negative reply came across their connection. He nodded.

“There’s a whole team of people on the other side of the door, trying to figure out the best ways to keep your magic suppressed on a minute-to-minute basis,” he said.

“Can you believe it?” She tried for a smile, but it was poorly constructed. “All this for little old me.”

“Well, you’ve convinced the world you’re a dangerous monster and now you’re being treated like one. You did this to yourself.”

“Did you hear me complaining?”

Another wave of gnawing pain; she was sweating, her jumpsuit damp in the armpits. It hit him too, surely just a fraction of what it felt like for her, and he’d already had enough.

“Just tell them,” he said. “Tell them what I know, that it was an accident from the start and you don’t wanna hurt anyone else, and they might let up.”

“I don’t want them to,” she said, voice strained, hanging onto composure by a thread. “I like the pain.”

if I’m in pain I’m getting what I deserve I don’t have to feel guilty

He’d never felt a mind twisted up into knots like this, how did it get this way?

“Is that why you’re still here?” he asked. He looked toward the glass where he knew Warden Prescott was still standing, watching and listening. “They know you’re letting this happen. That if you wanted to, you could stop it.”

She blinked; a powerful emptiness surged up inside her. “Where else am I supposed to go?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question - she was interested in an answer if he had one, but he didn’t. He lived her life alongside her in a compressed whirlwind of tightly-packed failures and she had no family to take her in, Delaney certainly wouldn’t have her, there were no relationships, no friends…

He pulled back; it hurt to be near.

“Just because you say you’re not gonna try to escape again…” He fumbled, trying to lay out the mess. “They still can’t hold you on your word, Callie. You’ve got the public frightened that Downing Bay can’t hold you and the authorities are scared you’re gonna prove it.”

She nodded and winced; something crossed her mind too quickly for him to get a good look. “What are they gonna do to me?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think they do either.”

“Why don’t they just kill me?”

The way she said these things - it was infuriating. “They can’t just execute someone because they don’t know what else to do with them.” He narrowed his eyes like it might help him see her clearer. “Is that what you want? To die?”

She rolled it around in her head. “Not really,” she shrugged. “But I don’t really wanna live either.”

Hopelessness emanated from her; he felt her future the way she saw it, a vast, meaningless chasm of nothing. It made him want to scream.

“Don’t,” she snarled, her awareness of their connection snapping to life. “Don’t you feel sorry for me, you jackass. I don’t want your pity, I’d rather you spit in my eye.”

“I can’t help it,” he groaned. “You sit there acting like this while… it’s, it’s like two different radio stations blasting into each of my ears, I can’t think.”

She swallowed thickly, like she was nauseous. “Do you wanna know exactly how much sympathy I have for you right now?”

“No.”

“Zero,” she said anyway. “Nobody made you drill yourself your own personal pipeline into my brain.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Oh, so sad,” she pouted, turning her bottom lip out. “You made your first mistake. Feels like shit, doesn’t it?”

he’ll tell everybody, then everyone will know how stupid, how useless, how embarrassing, and he’s listening to you RIGHT NOW, he knows it all, i wish i WAS dead so i didn’t have to, would be easier than this-

“You let me think you did it on purpose,” he bit out, too overwhelmed to hold it back. “You let me think the absolute worst of you.”

“The worst of me is the truth, the shit you know now.”

“No, it’s not. What you are is not worse than a cold-blooded killer, a, a liar, somebody I could spend the rest of my life feeling like a fool for letting in, how do you justify doing that to me?”

She shrugged, blinked slowly, helplessly, like she couldn’t believe she had to put words to something so simple. “I… the damage was done.”

He scoffed - he couldn’t help it. “It wasn’t. There was a lot more damage left to do, and you did it. You did it all.”

Anger, fresh and bitter, burned through their connection.

i was trying to fix it if you would’ve just walked away none of this would be happening i could have made it go away-

“At what cost?” he asked. It would sound like a non sequitur to everyone listening but he didn’t care. “Even if the orblex could do what you were planning, you can’t possibly predict how it would’ve worked. Did you think it would just drop you off on Christmas twelve years ago and let you start again? No one knows how Time magic works and you wanted to just unleash it. For all you know you could have ripped the world apart.”

Disbelief. how could he say something like that?

“Wouldn’t you?” she asked. A crack in her voice - a tear springing from her eye that hadn’t been there a moment before, rolling down her cheek. “You wouldn’t take that risk, Bennett? To bring him back?”

He wanted to say no, but it got stuck in his throat. She still grieved for him, as hard as he ever did, and it annihilated the space between them, blurred the final lines.

He pushed his chair back and got up - he needed a second. Not to be looking at her, not to be sharing feelings.

“Where are you going?”

are you leaving? don’t leave

He clasped his hands behind his head, breathed in and out, shut his eyes.

say something say something say something say something-

“There’s gonna be a hearing tomorrow,” he said, cutting off the flood of her thoughts she couldn’t control. “Or, not a hearing. A discussion, I guess.”

He turned to face her again; she was listening with rapt attention. She hadn’t been told yet.

“They’re gonna talk about whether there’s any kind of precedent they can fall back on for this, anything at all. I don’t know if they want me there as a witness or a human lie detector, but they asked me to stay for it and I’m staying. After that, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll see you again, maybe I won’t. I have to think this-”

He gestured to the space between their heads again, at a loss for what to call it. “This’ll fade with time and distance. It’ll have to. It can’t stay forever.”

It couldn’t, could it?

#tw: suicidal ideation #tw: swears #tw: prison #writing #writing snippet #writing excerpt #original novel #my wip #oc: callie #oc: simon

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moonknightly · 4 years

Text

Could Feel You Surrounding Me : Santiago “Pope” Garcia x Reader

Word Count: 3.1k

Excerpt: “Thinking about the aftermath almost felt like giving yourself false hope. You didn’t want to think about the future until you knew for certain that Santi was in the clear.”

Warnings: Uhh mentions of injury, blood, cursing. That’s it I think? This one has a happy ending fellas!

The first emotion you experience is shock. It’s unfathomable, how someone you love and care for so deeply, with every inch of your being, could be at the forefront of a situation you thought only existed in dramatized TV shows — under harsh lights, covered in bandages that turn from white to red and only do so much to hide the cuts and the bruises that mark their skin. Attached to various tubes, drains, and IV lines. So many different wires.

The sight is near unbearable, and it doesn’t get any easier, no matter how many hours or even days pass by in a blur of fast-moving staff wearing stethoscopes and scrubs. And everytime you close your eyes, you tell yourself that once you open them again, you’ll finally be used to it. You tell yourself it’s not gonna hurt as bad this time, but it’s even harder than it was before.

And the sounds. God, the sounds. The unfamiliar, almost haunting beeps and buzzes that start to become a comfort because they serve as the only reminder that they’re still there. The excruciating and traumatic cries of a family’s hearts breaking from down the hall mixed with rare periods of somber silence. The rapid-fire exchange of incomprehensible medical terminology, so many different medications and diagnoses and explanations that you just can’t wrap your head around.

It starts with the shock, because while you knew that this reality existed outside of those damned TV shows, and while you were aware of the possibility of having to live it yourself, given his line of work, you never thought you would actually have to face seeing Santi lying in the ICU like this.

Because he promised. Each and every single time he went out on a mission, he promised you that he’d come home to you, safe and sound and in one piece. And Santiago never broke his promises. Not a damn one.

But it had been a freak accident, and he hadn’t even been on a mission, and that was probably what freaked you out the most. The new realization that it could happen at any given moment, at any given time in any given circumstance.

All of the sleepless nights spent in your empty bed, praying to any divine being that would listen, worrying over his safety and just wishing him home, and he’d managed to land himself in this position during a boy’s trip into the mountains for a little leisurely camping.

They’d been rock climbing, something they were all five well-trained in, but the rope had been settled against a rock with a rather sharp edge, and the constant pulling of his weight had cut straight through it. It was a fall that he was lucky to survive. The paramedics who arrived on scene hadn’t expected to find him alive, and definitely hadn’t expected him to come back once he needed to be resuscitated.

His neglect to check the ridge was something that seemed so out of character for both him and the other boys. No detail was ever overlooked. It was hard for you to believe that he hadn’t noticed how sharp the edge of the rock had been, but you also knew Santi — he never would have thought it would happen to him

There were several things the nurses told you that you didn’t quite understand, and honestly, you couldn’t find it in yourself to ask them to clarify, or put it into words that actually made sense. As ignorant as it was, you almost didn’t want to understand. You didn’t want to focus on all of his injuries and the no doubt long recovery ahead until he opened those big brown eyes of his that you so adored and kept them open.

Thinking about the aftermath almost felt like giving yourself false hope. You didn’t want to think about the future until you knew for certain that Santi was in the clear.

What you did understand was that he had several broken ribs, some injuries to his spinal cord, and a moderate traumatic brain injury amongst other things blunt force trauma to his abdomen and chest caused. He’d needed a blood transfusion down in the ER, and he was on so many different medications, you couldn’t keep up.

They’d sedated him after a mild seizure, keeping him in a medically induced coma for the first two days before waking him again. He hadn’t been able to stay awake for long though, and while your eyes had briefly met, you don’t think he really registered who you were or what was going on.

It was day four now, and he was breathing on his own. He was waking up unprompted more and more, usually to vomit, but would fall back asleep after only a minute or two. Sometimes he would glance towards you as if to make sure that someone was still with him, sometimes he would only blink at the ceiling. He’d move, but only if a nurse asked him to touch his nose or wiggle his toes, and he hadn’t said a word.

But neither had you. Each time he looked at you, you could only stare back, blinking away your tears until you were sure he was asleep again. Only then would you let yourself cry, and fuck, did you cry. You were sure you had cried more in the last four days than you ever had before.

Only one person was allowed in the room at a time, and the only time you left his side was to let one of the boys visit. Frankie usually sat with you in the cafeteria while the other three took their turns, trying to get you to eat something, but he’d convinced you to use the time that day to run home and get a shower in, and grab yourself some clothes and other things you’d need since it was apparent you wouldn’t be leaving. He knew no one other than Santiago could convince you to stay the night in your own home rather than in the recliner by his bedside.

Frankie also knew that as brave as Pope was, he’d want you next to him through it all. He’d be heartbroken if he woke up and you weren’t there.

You’d be just as torn up over it.

A nurse checked on him every hour, and it was this particular nurse’s last round before shift change. You liked her. Her name was Casey, and she was always so gentle with him. It was obvious that she actually cared about her patients, not just for them, and you appreciated it to no end, words failing every time you tried to properly thank her. You knew the comfort was something he needed, something you were still too scared to give him. You were afraid to touch him, so terrified that you’d hurt him or cause him even an ounce of discomfort. You hadn’t even touched his hand.

But, it was something you needed to get over. You both needed it.

You watched as she worked around him, checking to make sure everything was still in place, double checking it even after she was sure nothing had wiggled its way loose. She peeked over her shoulder towards you. “The doctors are bringing in an occupational therapist tomorrow.”

“For what?” you asked, shifting in your chair, eyes flickering between her and Santi.

“We’re hoping to keep him awake long enough to get him to write a few things down. See if communicating that way is a possibility. And if not that, maybe we can get him to point at a chart with different letters to spell things out.”

You shifted again. “Is he ready for that?”

“The doctors seem to think so. The longer he stays awake, the better we can gauge where he’s at cognitively.”

You stayed silent at that, your stomach flipping as another bout of fear moved through you.

Casey seemed to know exactly where your head was at though, and she stopped momentarily to reach back and set a reassuring hand on your shoulder.

“He’s expected to make a full recovery sweetheart. I’m not the type to believe in miracles and things like that, but given what he’s already pulled himself through, he’s one lucky man.”

You smiled gently, putting your hand over hers, but a frown quickly worked its way back onto your face. “I’m just scared he doesn’t recognize me. Every time he looks at me, it’s almost like he’s looking through me.”

“And does that make you love him any less?”

You were taken aback by her words, completely shocked. But you immediately shook your head, eyebrows furrowing. “Of course not.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because it’s not his fault.” Your answer was again immediate. “Because he just went through some shit and it’s not his fault at all. I vowed to love him for better or for worse, and that wasn’t a promise either of us took lightly.”

“Exactly,” she shrugged, pointing to him. “Because that’s still your husband. He’s still your Santiago. There’s just a few kinks to work out, and even if those kinks did become permanent, you’d still love him, right?.”

“Absolutely.”

“Then there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

You knew she was right. You knew that even if he didn’t recognize you at first, the doctors were near positive that he would eventually. And even if he didn’t, and he had to relearn you completely, it’d be worth it. Because at least he was still alive, still breathing. You still had him.

“Thank you.”

Casey smiled, smiling and squeezing your shoulder gently before turning her attention back to Santiago.

Once she was finished, she turned towards you again, tilting her head to the side. “You know, he could really use a bath. And I think he’d appreciate it if you were the one to do it instead of me.”

The smirk on her face was entirely noticeable, and you knew exactly what she was doing, but you still nodded your head, suddenly craving the physical contact, that connection.

“Great,” she hummed, leaving the room to grab the supplies you would need in order to give him a sponge bath.

She returned a moment letter with a cloth, some soap and deodorant, and a basin of water, instructing you to stay clear of any bandages, and to not worry about his hair. If he woke up, you could try to wash his back, but otherwise she didn’t want you to worry about that either. You nodded your head, listening intently even though it was all pretty straightforward. She turned off the bed alarm, showing you which button to press once you got up again, and left the room.

Once Casey was gone, you took a moment to just stare at him, even though you hadn’t truly looked at anything else in the last four days. He looked better than he had when you first saw him, really. He had some color back in his cheeks, and the lines on his forehead had smoothed out. He looked almost peaceful.

You sighed gently, giving yourself one final push before stepping forward, carefully peeling the blanket and the sheet away from his body.

Should you try to wake him? Or would it be better for you to just go for it? You decided on the latter, thinking it would be better if he woke up on his own accord. If he stayed asleep, then it was obvious his body needed it.

“Hey, sweet boy,” you whispered as you sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing a few sweat soaked curls away from his forehead. “I’d ask how you’re doing but that seems a little redundant right now.”

You chuckled to yourself, shaking your head as you reached for the cloth, wetting it and applying a little bit of soap. You started on his arms, staying away from his IV and the bandage near his elbow. Your touch was gentle, slow, but the feeling of his skin under your fingertips after not feeling it for days set both your body and soul ablaze, chest so full of love and something else that you couldn’t quite place. Relief, maybe? You didn’t know.

“The boys have been in and out,” you continued, even though he couldn’t hear you. You just wanted to talk to him. “Frankie told me you woke up for a second the last time he was in here. He cried a little bit, but he’s never gonna admit it.”

You hesitated, moving to untie the hospital gown as much as you could, pulling it down just enough to reveal his chest, being extremely careful not to accidentally disconnect a wire for the heart monitor. You started on his upper arms.

“The boys feel like shit. They all think there was something they could’ve done to prevent it, even though everyone knows it was just a stupid accident. Benny’s taking it really hard.”

You brought your free hand to his lower stomach, your fingertips tracing random shapes and patterns into his skin as you moved the cloth over his right shoulder, your eyes glued to your movements.

“I miss you so much,” you sighed, shaking your head slowly. “I mean, I know you’re right fucking here, but you know what I mean. I miss your hugs, your kisses. Your voice. Those beautiful, beautiful eyes of yours.”

The tears started before you even had a chance to realize. You could feel them trailing down your cheeks, falling onto the sheets below.

“I just really need you to be okay, you hear me baby? I need you.”

Your voice cracked, and you felt yourself begin to shake, the sobs moving through your body with relentless force. You made yourself stay quiet though, not wanting to scare a nurse or a family down the hall, or even Santi himself.

Nothing had ever been so hard. This entire experience had been more than difficult, but as you sat there, thinking about how things could have gone in an entirely different direction, and how you could have walked away a widow instead of a wife, you realized exactly how true Casey’s words had been. Santi really was lucky, and so were you.

And if this was hard for you, you couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard it would be for him once he was fully conscious again, and able to make sense of everything that he’d been through. The doctors were still unsure of just how far his brain injury ran, but they were sure there were things that would take time to come back to him — like his ability to speak, possibly his ability to walk. They predicted that he’d have migraines for months. Light sensitivity, some dizziness and confusion that could last just as long. Fatigue, general weakness. Pain. His recovery was going to be hell, and there you were, having sat by his bedside for four days feeling sorry for yourself.

How could you have been so selfish? In a time where your husband needed you most?

You felt selfish even crying, but you couldn’t stop. The tears just kept pouring, and the hole in your chest grew and grew as you continued to spiral deeper and deeper into your thoughts.

You were only pulled from them when you felt a set of knuckles gently brush against your cheek, and for a moment, you thought one of the boys had managed to sneak their way in, or maybe it was even Casey coming to check in one last time before heading home for the night.

The last thing you expected to see when you blinked your eyes open was a familiar pair of warm brown ones staring right back at you.

Brown eyes full of recognition and worry.

You gasped, not able to stop the sound before it left your lips, but you did refrain from throwing your arms around him, knowing the action would probably hurt him or knock something loose. Instead, you reached up, taking his hand and intertwining your fingers with his.

“Santi?”

He blinked a couple of times, looking as if he wanted to say something in response, but he could only frown, and you knew him well enough to notice that his inability to speak was already frustrating him.

But you almost took that as a good thing, because it showed that he remembered waking up before, and how he hadn’t been able to speak any of those times either. The fact that he remembered was good, right?

And he might not have been able to verbally speak, but there were still so many things he could say without words. You felt him squeeze your hand, three times — a silent “I love you”, something he had started doing not long after saying it to you for the first time.

“I love you too, baby. I love you so much.”

He pulled on your hand, trying to bring you closer to him, and you started to shake your head, still worried about hurting him.

“Santi, no-”

This time he gently smacked your hand, effectively silencing you as he pointed to his shoulder, and you knew what he was trying to tell you — you wouldn’t hurt him if you were only lying against his shoulder.

He knew exactly what you were thinking without you needing to speak, too.

And you couldn’t deny him, not when he was looking at you with those puppy dog eyes he knew would get him anything he wanted.

You tossed the washcloth back into the water, and pulled his gown back up, redoing the ties before scooting further up the bed. You made sure that everything was out of the way before leaning back against him, keeping your eyes trained on his face the entire time. Only when he didn’t flinch did you finally relax.

And you both simply laid there, staring at one another, letting your eyes do all of the talking. Neither of you looked away, not even once. Not until Santi’s eyes started to close again, his exhaustion taking over once more. You kissed the corner of his mouth, and you watched as his lips twitched upwards into a small smile before he gave into unconsciousness.

He’d managed to stay awake for over half an hour this go around, and for twenty minutes the next time he woke up, and another twenty after that.

And when morning came and Casey walked into the room for the first round of her shift, all she could do was smile.

Santiago was awake again, and you were the one asleep, lightly snoring from your place on his shoulder, looking so completely at peace.

And he was looking at you like he was the luckiest man alive.

#santiago pope garcia #santiago pope garcia x reader #triple frontier #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier imagine

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amelialincoln · 3 years

Text

Good Days pt 3

“Link.” Amelia’s voice was thick with exhaustion and pain. He glanced over at her, temporarily ignoring the nurse who was talking to him about Amelia’s post birth care and placed a hand over her trembling one. This seemed like her millionth contraction and Link didn’t know if he could handle even one more. Amelia’s eyes squeezed shut and she let out the pathetic moan that he’d begun so used to hearing. Link hadn’t really processed the idea that Amelia was going to give birth without any pain meds. The couple hadn’t really taken the time to go over the birth plan together and Link had completely forgotten that Amelia didn’t want to be given an epidural. He hadn’t helped with a whole lot of births in his career without one and almost wished he’d had the preparation. “Where’s Addie?” She forced out.

“She’s coming,” he promised her, moving so that she could lay her head on his chest for support. “Her cab is just in traffic.”

“She’s six centimeters,” the nurse announced, as if it was good news. Amelia burst into tears and covered her face in her shaky hands. Link sighed, wiping the small beads of sweat that had formed at her hairline. He tied her hair back with a claw clip and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. He’d run out of ways to comfort her and it was infuriating him that there was nothing he could do.

“I just wanna go home,” Amelia sobbed. “I want to hold Ellie and play cars with Bailey and sleep. I don’t want to have this baby.” That last part made him flinch. Did she not want to have a baby with him? Was she regretting her...their choice? “Link, stop,” she exclaimed and he realized that he’d been squeezing her too hard while deep in thought.

“I’m--” his apology was cut off by the opening of the patient room’s door.

“Addie,” Amelia breathed a sigh of relief. Link felt some of the tension melt away from her shoulders. He wished he could understand Amelia’s attachment to this woman he’d never met. He didn’t see why, if all else had failed, it was such an issue for Carina to be Amelia’s OB.

“I’d apologize for being late but I think you're the one who owes me one,” the redhead’s voice was strict but full of affection. She tied her hair back swiftly and gave Amelia a gleaming smile. “Hey, little sis.” Link had started to wonder why Amelia needed so many sisters despite having three of her own. He felt her begin to shake and he looked down to find her tearing up again.

“Mia?” He was reaching a whole new level of helplessness. Amelia refused to tear her eyes away from her old friend.

“I missed you,” she choked out. “This isn’t a unicorn baby, Addie.”

“I know.” The way Addison smiled made Link feel comforted and he didn’t even have any idea what was going on. “From your chart it seems like he’s been stirring up all kinds of trouble.”

“He’s a kicker,” Link offered. He was relieved when Amelia nodded. The small gesture that confirmed that he’d said something right made him want to wrap her up into a hug and never let go. Jesus this woman had him hooked.

“It’s really nice to finally meet you.” Addison turned to him. “I’ve heard great things.” She winked at Amelia. “But it’s not like you have a whole lot to live up to.” Her expression darkened so momentarily that Link questioned if it had even happened. Something was telling him that she’d seen something in Amelia that he’d never experienced. Amelia’s next contraction pulled him out of his thoughts and he shifted into a position that allowed him to press firmly on her lower back. Her contractions had gotten strong enough that the pressure point had started to provide little relief but he decided to try it anyways. She relaxed momentarily before tensing up again and letting out a heartbreaking cry of pain. “Amelia, breath,” Addison ordered, her eyes flicked to the monitor and she frowned. “Your BP is low, have you eaten?”

“Not for awhile. She threw up the last time she tried,” Link answered when his girlfriend couldn’t. He stared down at her and took in her clammy skin and pale complexion. Filled with guilt he realized she’d been looking like she was about to pass out for probably an hour now.

“Let’s push fluids in her IV,” Addison barely acknowledged the nurse as she typed notes quickly into her Ipad. “Go get her soup or a smoothie or something from the cafeteria.” It took Link a moment to realize she was talking to him and the idea of leaving, despite Addison being here for him now, terrified him.

“I can grab that,” Maggie’s voice interrupted his thoughts from the doorway and Link said a silent prayer. She gave Amelia her famous sister comforting smile and introduced herself to Addison. Link pulled his girlfriend into his chest tightly.

“I’m okay,” the lack of pain in her voice was almost too comforting. “You’re going to have to get used to this if we end up having the four kids I always planned on,” she teased.

“Four?” Link gawked. One birth seemed like enough for a lifetime and he wasn’t even the one experiencing it.

“Your mind blocks out the memory of the pain once you give birth. I’ll be ready in no time,” she winked.

“Well guess who won’t forget.” Link’s smile masked his complaining tone and Amelia couldn’t help but grin back.

“I’m going to go put on scrubs and let Chief Bailey know I’m here.” Addison interrupted the couple’s momentary look of content and smiled to herself. “Man, I could get used to saying that. Chief Bailey,” she tried out the words again as she walked out of the room.

[][][]

“Okay, Amelia,” Addison’s gloves snapped as she pulled them on, “time to push.”

“I can’t,” Amelia was drenched in sweat. She’d contracted all night and hadn’t slept in what felt like days. Link hadn’t slept either. Whenever he would close his eyes he’d be immediately awoken by Amelia crying out in pain and would feel guilty for even trying to nap. “Addie, I can’t.”

“Yes you can, Amelia.” Addison probed the underside of her belly softly and moved Amelia’s legs into a bent position. “You’ve been through worse.” Link wasn’t sure whether that was aimed at his girlfriend or if Addison was simply murmuring it to herself. “Next contraction, just like last time.” Amelia gave no response, instead she leaned her head back with exhaustion and squeezed her eyes shut, Link could feel the tension rolling off her in waves. “Amy, this is not the time to give up.” There was a hint of panic in Addison’s voice and it scared him. Link menuevered his way behind his limp girlfriend’s body until he was sitting directly behind her with her leaning on his chest. Her skin was practically burning against his cold touch. Amelia had cranked the thermostat down hours ago and the inside of the room was freezing.

“I’m here for you,” he pushed sweaty pieces of hair aside and mumbled into her ear so quickly he began to doubt if she heard him.

“I need something,” her head swooned and she practically fell back into his chest, “for the pain.” That made Addison shift uncomfortably at her place between Amelia’s legs.

“Are you sure?” Link wasn’t sure how to reply.

“It hurts,” her voice was as delicate as a china doll and was beginning to break. “I can’t I-” The next contraction hit her like a ton of bricks and she wailed in a way that made Link want to run out of the room.

“Push, Amelia,” Addison ordered. “I’ll take you up to an OR now if you don’t.”

“Come on, babe.” Link was surprised by the urgency in his own voice, he caressed her tight abdomen gently and prayed that he wouldn’t have to sit beside her in an operating room.

The next half hour was painful. Link could tell she was doing her best but as every contraction came and went he felt Amelia grow weaker in his arms. Which is why when Addison announced that the head was cleared, Link could barely suppress his surprise. He found his eyes searching for Addison’s and she gave him a nod of confirmation.

“Couple more now,” Addison patted Amelia’s thigh affectionately. Link coaxed Amelia through two more pushes until he felt her body give up.

“I can’t--” she started.

“You don’t have to,” Addison grinned and at that very moment the couple heard the sounds of their baby boy’s cries for the very first time. Amelia erupted into sobs and Link could feel himself melt inside just a tiny bit. He didn’t say a word as Addison passed the wiggling infant into Amelia’s shaky arms and counted each finger and toe silently. The baby’s cries ceased the moment he was placed on Amelia’s chest and cuddled up soundlessly into his mother.

“He’s perfect,” Amelia squeaked, looking up at Link to confirm, who nodded. He looked so much like his father already and reminded her so clearly of someone else. The realization hit her so hard she had to gasp. The baby in her arms looked remarkably like Derek did as a baby. Although, she’d only ever seen photos there was no denying it.

“Derek,” Addison murmured. Amelia looked up in shock and her eye’s met her brother’s first wife’s teary ones. “The resemblance…”

“I mean he’s so young but it’s,” Amelia paused in disbelief, “his nose and,” she searched her peaceful son’s face, “those eyes.” She looked up at Link with delight. “He’s got your bone structure, look at that little jawline.”

“Good to know there’s a little bit of me in there,” Link teased, holding back tears. It was true, the baby was Shepherd through and through. From the dark features to the piercing blue eyes but Link could see pieces of himself scattered in there as well. The couple could’ve spent hours marvelling him while Amelia got stitched up but eventually Addison had to take their boy away for some tests and they both tried to ignore how much it hurt them to hear his cries as she lifted him out of his mother’s grasp. “Are you comfortable? Hurting at all? I can--”

“Just hold me,” Amelia chuckled. “I just need a nap.”

“Okay,” Link finally let himself relax knowing that she was alright and that everyone and everything he cared about was going to be just fine.

this is the final bit of this fic. I've written tons of post birth fics so plz don't ask for a continuation without reading those haha :)

#amelink #amelia shepherd #AmeliaShepherd #amelinkfanfiction #amelink fanfiction #Atticus Lincoln #atticus link #atticuslincoln #domesticbabies #linkbeingflusteredasalways #ameliacalminghimdownasalways #addison montgomery #addisonbeingICONICasalways #maggiebeinghelpfulasalways #babyamelinkbeingcuteasalways

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mostlycompetentwriter · 4 years

Text

Domesticated

M/F Pairing: Y/N x Bang Chan (Stray Kids)

Genre: Married Life AU

Warnings: Smut, language, some mentions of cheating (but not with the main pairing)

Word Count: 19,922 (I might break this up later on)

Summary: Marriage was something Y/N had been dreaming about since she was a little girl. But now, ten years later, she’s married to her college sweetheart, but their relationship isn’t entirely perfect. There’s the issue of her new boss, aka her ex-boyfriend Seo Changbin, and Chan’s younger brother Felix who insists on calling her Medusa. Yet, through it all, Y/N is positive she wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Notes: Y'all are really out here sleeping on husband Bang Chan and I won’t allow it anymore. Because Chan is 100% husband goals.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

I slowly exhaled after disregarding my somewhat passable resume, courtesy of one of those sketchy website builders, to look at the interviewer who waited for my response, pen poised over his expensive notebook. I swallowed hard as I struggled to compose myself under pressure. Because there was a professional answer somewhere in the back of my useless brain, but a dozen other responses, far more honest than his expectations, were waiting on the tip of my tongue.

Such as:

Waiting at home for my husband because all I do is stare at the clock, counting down the minutes until he walks through the door. I kinda miss when we were in college and could see each other sporadically between long lectures, grabbing lunch at the Wendy’s on South Campus. Now, the most exciting thing that happens is the occasional blow job before we pass out on the worn mattress in our master bedroom.

Sometimes Chan will host dinner parties at the house for his expensive doctor friends. He won’t spare me a single glance while I rush to fill glasses with rich-tasting wine, keeping an eye on Han Jisung because he can’t take more than three refills before he’s trying to dismantle the house. I’ll also have to ignore the really old surgeon who Chan admires because he likes to touch my ass when I pass through the living room. Maybe I was suited to be a sugar baby in another life.

On the rare occasion when Chan actually uses his cock, he’ll pant in my ear the entire time because he’s worn out from long hours at the hospital. Chan will cum before me most of the time and I’m lucky if he’s cognizant enough to eat me out so that I can finally fall asleep from my post-orgasmic haze. Heck, I’ll even take his fingers on my clit if it means an assured eight hours of sleep.

Shit, I miss being young.

I cleared my throat, deciding on the professional answer because I highly doubt Seo Enterprises wanted to hire a desperate housewife.

I was sprawled out on the couch in our living room when Chan came home that evening. I barely acknowledged his rushed greeting, watching through narrowed eyes as he ran into the kitchen. “Babe,” came his anticipated whine. “There’s no leftovers?”

“I didn’t feel like cooking,” I said, turning over to bury my face in the throw pillows decorating the cushions. It really wasn’t that comfortable since Chan insisted we get the stiff, fancy leather futon as opposed to the appealing sectional that could actually recline.

“You didn’t cook?”

Chan’s voice was closer this time but I still ignored him, sensing an impending headache. “I had an interview.”

“That was hours ago,” Chan pouted.

I sighed loudly. “The interview went great, honey, thanks for asking.”

“I’ve been at the hospital since 5 this morning,” Chan went on, weight dipping beneath the couch at the opposite end. “I didn’t even have time for lunch because Jisung almost fucked up a patient’s IV.”

“Remind me again why he still has a job.”

“Because he somehow graduated from nursing school and has a license claiming he’s qualified,” Chan said. “Plus, he’s my friend.”

“You have shit taste in friends,” I said, protesting when his hand landed a firm smack against my ass.

“Minho tried to wreck the Corvette when he ran out of cigarettes.”

“Minho is loyal.”

“He still wants to fuck you,” Chan grumped. “Ten years after college and he’s trailing after your ass.”

“Darling, you don’t have to be jealous when I’m wearing your ugly ring on my finger 24/7.”

“It was my mother’s!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bang Chan,” I snapped while grabbing one of my support pillows from beneath my weight, launching it at my husband’s head. Sadly, Chan dodged at the last minute, much to my chagrin, smirking as he dug his fingers into my sides, forcing loud, high-pitched giggles as we both unceremoniously fell into the spotlessly clean floor. “Channie,” I groaned as he rolled on top of me, pinning my hands above my head before deciding to offer me a sloppy kiss with far too much tongue. “You’re fucking gross,” I said, biting at his lower lip in revenge.

“Yeah? Well, you’re fucking sexy,” Chan purred, nuzzling his head between my breasts.

“Stop it, you oaf!” I grumbled. “My period starts tomorrow. My tits have been sore all day.”

“Maybe I should have a look,” Chan teased, a free hand working loose one of the buttons on my shirt.

“And what good will that do?”

“Well, I am a doctor.”

“You just want to see my tits so you have something to jerk off to in the shower tonight.”

“Shower with me then,” Chan suggested. “I’ll fuck you against the wall.”

“Will you have the stamina?” I questioned. “You poor thing, how can you get it up when you haven’t eaten all day?”

Chan frowned at my mocking tone. “Are you turning down my cock?”

“You’re only half-hard,” I said, lifting my thigh against the tight bulge of his scrubs.

Chan let out a sigh, but his smile was endearing. “What if I order takeout? Then we can fuck in the shower.”

“Channie,” I cooed. “You always know how to talk dirty to me.”

I stand by my belief that email was now an archaic form of communication, but the number of big businesses that forced their employees to make an account @ their company name was ridiculous. But if I wanted to find a job in this big ass city, then I needed to play by the rules. Surprisingly, my most recent application was progressing with far more success than I could have anticipated, and I had read over the new email from Seo Enterprises at least half a dozen times:

Dear Mrs. Bang,

Thank you for taking the time to interview with our staff yesterday afternoon. After carefully reviewing your file with our CEO, he has asked us to schedule one last consultation. Please let us know your earliest convenience.

“That must be a good thing,” Minho remarked, digging his spoon into my ice cream since his bowl was empty and I wasn’t in the mood to argue with him.

“I guess,” I said, formulating a quick reply because I really wanted this fancy, high-paying Secretary job. I mean, sitting at home all day was definitely not high on my list of accomplishments.

“What’s the hurry anyway?” Minho asked as he licked his spoon clean. “Bang has enough money that you could just smooch off him for the rest of your life.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “I want us to be equals.”

“Wasn’t that the point of marrying a doctor, Y/N?” Minho asked. “Otherwise, you could still be screwing around with me.”

“Except we aren’t 18 anymore,” I pointed out, frowning in his direction. “And says the guy who works part-time at his sister’s pet shop.”

“Hey!” Minho protested, shoving his spoon in my face. “I’m helping the strays. Population control and shit.”

“So what? You’re snipping some dog penises, good for you.”

Minho sat back with a disgruntled sigh. “What do you want to do after this?”

“I’ll bring Chan some lunch since he didn’t get a chance to eat yesterday,” I said. “Interested in accompanying an old friend?”

“Not really,” Minho said. “But I don’t have anything better to do.”

I maintained a long list of places that I truly despised and the hospital was number one. I always tried desperately not to let it show when I visited Chan because it wasn’t really his fault. I had a bad history when it came to hospitals and the memories lingered like the permanent smell of alcohol that Chan brought home with him on his scrubs.

“Did you see that guy in the waiting room?” Minho asked after I checked us in at the front desk. “He was seconds away from bleeding out on the floor.”

“Don’t talk about blood,” I shivered, hurrying to the elevator while frantically hitting the corresponding floor number.

“This reminding you of Freshman year?” Minho asked since he was a total airhead and missed out on the memo where I specifically told him to keep his mouth shut about that stupid Frat Party.

“There are five reasons why I hate hospitals,” I said, holding up my hand in front of his stupid face. “Don’t make me spell it out for you.”

“Is Freshman year one of them?”

“Shut the hell up, Minho.”

A quiet chuckle resounded through the empty elevator while I impatiently waited for our stop. “You’re feisty today,” Minho remarked once the doors reopened.

I ignored the nasty linoleum floors, heels clicking with every step I took in the direction of Chan’s office. “I’m eating with Chan and then we’re never coming here again.”

“Agreed,” Minho said, keeping pace with me while cringing at the gurneys being pushed through the hallways at an alarming rate.

We had almost made it to the end of the floor when I heard a lazy voice call out my name from one of the surrounding rooms. I closed my eyes because I could recognize that voice anywhere since it basically haunted my worst nightmares. He might not know it yet, but Han Jisung was the last person I wanted to run into because maybe, just maybe, he was one of the five reasons why I hated this place.

“Guys!” Jisung gushed, smiling brilliantly. “I’d hug you but I just finished cleaning piss off the floor.”

“Jesus, Han,” I said, wrinkling my nose against the overpowering smell of ammonia. “Is Chan in his office?”

“He was supposed to meet with our new superintendent,” Jisung said, grinning like a complete idiot when he shoved his gloved hands towards Minho who now looked a few beats away from losing his ice cream.

“You’re really pushing your luck today,” Minho growled at him.

“The meeting room is the last room on the right,” Jisung said, finally proving to be useful for once in his life.

I grabbed Minho’s arm because he was close to decking Jisung in the face and I didn’t need the security guards to tell Chan that I let my best friend attack one of his nurses. “Come on,” I said, urging him away from the potential crime scene.

“He’s this close to finding himself with a bloody nose,” Minho complained. “You know what’s funny? I’m pretty sure Han Jisung wouldn’t even know how to help himself.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed, straightening the collar of my blouse as I peeked in through the tight blinds obscuring the glass wall of the room Jisung had indicated. “There’s Chan...” I started, trailing off when I noticed that he was engrossed in deep conversation with an unfamiliar woman.

“Oh, she’s really hot,” Minho remarked, wincing when I shoved my elbow into his chest.

“Commentary is not necessary,” I said, folding my arms across my chest as I tapped my foot against the floor. Who the hell did this bitch think she was?

“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you,” Minho teased and I swallowed my pride, trying to ignore the way she reached out to touch Chan’s arm.

Thankfully, Chan finally noticed me outside, offering me a cheesy wave which I refused to reciprocate as he said something to the woman. I waited outside the door, attempting my best stern expression even if Chan completely ignored my efforts, encasing me in his powerful arms. “Y/N,” he cooed.

“Chan,” I choked out, struggling against his strength.

Minho snorted at the display. “I’m going to find the cafeteria. Text me when you wanna leave, Y/N.”

I waved him off once Chan eventually released me. I sucked in a few grateful breaths while holding up the takeout bag I had brought. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

Chan nodded, reaching for my hand. “Sorry I took so long, I was meeting with the new superintendent.”

I pursed my lips at that revelation. “She doesn’t look old enough to be a superintendent.”

“She’s around my age,” Chan said and I frowned because that just made everything worse.

The hospital’s staff room was small, the smell of coffee heavy in the air as Chan closed the door behind us. “Nobody should come in.”

“Good,” I said, choosing the only table that looked halfway clean before sitting down with a sigh. “I brought you lunch.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” Chan said, gratefully accepting the bag from me while he sat down on the remaining chair. I glared at him from across the table, watching as he dug into the cheap Japanese like it was his last meal on earth. “Is something wrong?” he asked over a mouthful of noodles. Something college Chan would have never done when we first started dating, but I suppose that’s what you get with marriage.

“I saw you were pretty close with your new superintendent,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” Chan replied cheerfully, stuffing even more food into his impossibly wide mouth. “She’s super smart. Like, Harvard graduate smart.”

“Of course she is,” I murmured. “Do you like her?”

“As a boss I guess,” Chan said, still horribly naive to the real problem. I cathartically drummed my fingernails against the surface of the table.

“Are you coming home early tonight?” I asked him. “I’ll fix your favorite.”

Chan’s eyes lit up because, despite the food sitting right in front of him, he always got excited at the prospect of another meal. “Really?”

I nodded. “I’ll put the good whiskey on ice.”

Chan sat back with a dramatic groan. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Where is all this coming from?”

“I’m just being a good wife,” I said, taking on a dismissive tone.

Chan grinned. “Do you want something, sweetheart? You know I’ll buy you anything.”

“No reason,” I chirped. “I just want you to remember how good am I to you.”

“Of course I know that,” Chan said, reaching across the table to squeeze one of my hands. “I didn’t just marry you for your beautiful face.”

“That’s not what you said when we first met,” I reminded him cheekily, enjoying the way his ears grew red. “Should I do a reenactment?”

“That’s not necessary,” Chan said, quickly dismissing the topic. “Did you hear back from your interview?”

“Oh I did,” I said. “They want me to come in and meet the CEO.”

“What for?” Chan scoffed, returning back to his meal.

“Well, I am taking on the secretary position,�� I said. “Maybe he wants to make sure I have good phone etiquette.”

“Yeah?” Chan grumbled. “Or, he wants to make sure you look pretty for him so he has something nice to look at all day.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” I asked him because I loved it when Chan got possessive.

“I don’t want some rich bastard drooling over my wife,” Chan said, chopsticks clenched tightly between his fingers.

“Yeah? Well, it works both ways, you know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on, Chan,” I sighed. “Your superintendent was totally flirting with you.”

Chan put down his chopsticks, eyeing me cluelessly. “No, she wasn’t.”

“Yes, she was,” I immediately countered, reaching down for my purse. “I watched her the entire time.”

“Were you spying on me?” Chan asked with a smirk.

“Minho’s probably waiting for me,” I replied instead, smoothing down my skirt as I stood up from the table.

“Don’t you think that’s too short?” Chan asked, pointing at my lower section as if personally offended.

“Work hard, honey,” I grinned, leaning over the table to peck him once on the lips, offering a cheeky wave on my way out the door.

My palms were sweaty and, despite my repeated attempts to wipe off the nasty residue on my skirt, the condition persisted. Hyperhidrosis, Chan might tell me, nerdy glasses falling down his nose. I grinned at a distant memory, one of the first dates I ever had with Chan. A younger, less confident version of my husband, frantically peeling his suit jacket from his body, complaining about the heat in the restaurant, only to cower moments later when he realized his armpits were totally drenched.

“Mrs. Bang?”

I looked up at the young man bowing in front of me. “Mr. Seo will see you now.”

I nodded, holding my tongue before I let the intern know that he sounded just like a passage from Fifty Shades of Gray. Oh, shit, what if I was about to meet Christian Gray in the flesh? Some sort of young, hot billionaire with the world at his feet, buying up other companies like they meant absolutely nothing.

It was a believable scenario, and I don’t know how I managed to get my feet to work, but I followed the intern with exaggerated steps. “The boss has been looking forward to this,” the intern told me, pausing outside the office door.

“He has?” I wondered, glancing around the grandiose lobby. Did I really make that much of an impression?

“You can go in now,” the intern smiled, politely holding the door for me as I wordlessly walked inside.

Of course, I was expecting something extravagant, considering the layout of the lobby, but I was still deeply impressed by the spacious, but oddly cozy interior. Could you really call this room an office? Considering how massive it was in size. I mean, was it really necessary to basically live in an apartment when you arrived to work every day? Complete with stylish hardwood floors that looked like something out of an edition of House and Home magazine. I’d bet my entire life’s savings that the CEO hired some kind of fancy architect to design the place because those engravings on the mahogany walls were quite difficult to achieve. “It’s nice isn’t it?” a disarmingly familiar voice asked, and I found the dark figure leaning against the desk in the center of the room, sleeves rolled up to show off his impressive arms. “I was surprised to see your application, Y/N.”

Fuck, Christian Grey would have been way better.

“Changbin?”

He met me halfway across the room, now completely visible beneath the low hanging lights, tan skin washed with a comfortable glow. “Shocked?”

“You could say that,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was 18 again in college, lusting after the object of my affections.

“Have a seat,” Changbin offered kindly, extending his arm towards the matching armchairs neatly tucked around the electric fireplace.

“Okay,” I nodded, unable to take my eyes off Seo Changbin as I stumbled over my heels like a complete lovestruck teenager meeting her musician idol for the very first time.

But, holy fuck, Changbin looked good. Why the hell did he not age or turn prematurely gray? I held back a whimper, eyes looking everywhere around the room except at Seo Changbin. How did I not put two and two together when I first got the notification for the Secretary position at Seo Enterprises? I mean, what are the chances that this Seo is my Seo...Or, at least, he used to be my Seo.

“Y/N,” Changbin said, flipping through my file with lazy movements. Where did he get those pants from? They fit him sinfully good, hugging his thighs and if I look close enough, the outline of his...“How are you?”

I startled at the question, drawing my eyes up to meet Changbin’s familiar gaze. “Oh, I’m uh..” I trailed off anxiously, trying to put meaningful words together because he was making the English language harder than it needed to be. “I’ve been alright.”

Changbin smiled and I crossed my legs because that kind of smile could literally drench a girl if he wasn’t careful. “I was really happy to see your name on my list.”

“Were you?” I asked, fingers digging into the cushion of my chair.

“I’m always happy to see a familiar face,” Changbin said. “It’s been a while.”

“College,” I choked out, completely out of mind with anxiety, like the time Minho stole my phone and made me think someone had stolen it, even encouraging me to call the number only for him to hang up every time.

“You’re still beautiful.”

“Changbin...”

“I know,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s all in the past.”

“That’s right,” I said, wondering if now would be an appropriate time to snatch my resume out of Changbin’s veiny hands and flee the premises.

“And you’ve married Bang,” Changbin said, pointing to my wedding band. “Which isn’t surprising.”

“Five years,” I said, trying my best to think about Chan and only Chan despite the literal embodiment of my every erotic high school fantasy sitting right in front of me.

“This would be strictly professional,” Changbin said, holding up my resume. “You were our best applicant, but I thought you should know everything about this place before taking the position. Including me.”

“Is that so?” was all I could think to say in return to his unexpectedly thoughtful comment.

Changbin lowered my resume slowly. “The job is yours, Y/N.”

“I’d still have to talk to Chan first,” I said because there’s no way I could just start working for Changbin without Chan knowing everything about the situation. Unfortunately, I could just about anticipate Chan’s response.

“That’s fine,” Changbin agreed. “You can call us tomorrow.”

I allowed a shaky nod, wondering if Changbin knew how much of an effect he still had on me all these years later.

Chan might be one of the smartest men I know, but he was, at his core, just a man who was quite whipped for his wife. Like all men, he was a sucker for lingerie, which is why I slipped on my best matching set, squeezing myself in the little black dress that I knew he really loved.

The hem barely touched the middle of my thighs.

I was also cooking his favorite meal, the smell filling the kitchen pleasantly as I stood at the stove. My plan was quite simple: dress pretty for Chan and surprise him with his favorite food to soften him up. Maybe then he wouldn’t have a complete meltdown when I broke the news to him about my newest employer.

But I still shivered when I heard the door open. “Y/N!”

“I’m in the kitchen,” I called back to him, attempting several meditative breaths to try and keep myself together.

“Holy shit,” he cursed, freezing in the doorway as he undoubtedly took in the sight of his wife wrapped in a tight black number.

“I’m making dinner,” I said, flashing him an arrogant smile, amused by the way he openly gaped at me while still wearing his oversized doctor’s coat. A result of an excited, freshly employed Chan filling out his form request with sloppy handwriting.

“You look hot,” Chan told me bluntly, eyes glued to my body as he eliminated the space between us with a few quick-paced steps.

“I got the job,” I said, letting out a nervous giggle as I continued to push around the searing bulgogi with a shaky hand. “Consider this a celebration.”

“That’s great, sweetie,” Chan said, standing behind me to wrap his arms around my middle, pressing soft kisses to the back of my neck, roaming hands feeling my body. “I guess the CEO liked you.”

A hellish double entendre. “Yeah, he was really nice.”

“I’m glad it worked out,” Chan said, voice next to my ear. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured to get a job or anything. I’m proud of you no matter what.”

Was it his intention to make me feel guilty? “Channie,” I sighed, turning around in his arms. “I have to tell you something.”

Chan cocked a brow. “What is it?”

“The company I’m working for...”

“Yeah?”

“The CEO is someone we know.”

“Is that it?” Chan chuckled, accent thick as those adorable dimples filled out his smile. “Who is it, babe?”

“He used to go to school with us,” I tried, hoping that maybe Chan could just learn how to read my mind and save me the effort of mustering some kind of courage.

“Minho?” Chan teased.

“We’re not exactly friendly with him,” I said.

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but I’m not exactly friendly with Minho.”

“You jerk,” I huffed, half-heartedly pushing against his chest. “You really, really don’t like this person.”

“There aren’t many people I really, really don’t like,” Chan said. “Come on, Y/N, just tell me who it is. Are you afraid I’ll be upset with you?”

I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

Chan’s smile vanished in a minute. “Y/N.”

“Seo Enterprises,” I said. “The company name.”

Realization dawned across Chan’s face. “Are you saying...”

“Changbin,” I murmured, looking down at my feet. “He’s my new boss.”

Chan let out a rough exhale because he knew exactly who Seo Changbin was and I’m pretty sure he associated the name with deep hatred. “Are you fucking serious?”

I winced at Chan’s tone because he had quickly shifted from sweet, caring husband to angry, sinister Mr. Bang in the blink of an eye. “Yes?”

“The Seo Changbin,” Chan reiterated. “The guy you fucked for like six months Freshman year?”

“That would be the one,” I said, forcing myself to meet his gaze before immediately regretting the decision.

“Why the hell would you take a job as his Secretary?” Chan demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. Normally, I would admire the sight of Chan’s arms stretching the thin fabric of his t-shirt, but now I was just intimidated.

“Because I really wanted the job,” I said. “And I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“Oh, it’s a huge fucking deal,” Chan said, glaring down at me. “You think I’m okay with the idea of you working for someone you once told me you were, and I quote, definitely gonna marry?”

“But I’m married to you,” I tried, attempting a sugary-sweet tone that usually broke Chan’s resolve.

Except for tonight.

“Yeah,” Chan nodded, “You are, and I told you I would take care of you. I have enough money to support both of us, you don’t need to work at all.”

“Chan, you know I’m not comfortable sitting at home,” I said.

“I get that, Y/N, but Seo Changbin? I could get you a Secretary job at the hospital.”

“Channie, this is a position at Seo Enterprises. One of their biggest assets is New York Publishers! It’s like the perfect opportunity to get my foot in the door.”

“Y/N,” Chan groaned. “I can’t stand the thought of you working for Changbin under any circumstances.”

“I get it, Chan,” I said. “But it’s different than college. I’m married now, and Changbin is nothing more than my boss.”

“Does he really get that?” Chan asked. “I’m putting my foot down, Y/N. I don’t want you working for him, okay? You can call them tomorrow and say you’ve got something better.”

“But Channie!”

“No, Y/N,” Chan growled. “You can look for something else.”

I frowned once I realized Chan wasn’t going to back down. It didn’t matter that I wanted the job or that I had dressed up and cooked for him. For the first time since we met, Chan was refusing to give me what I wanted. “Chan, you really don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”

“I’m your husband,” Chan said, justifying his unfair demands with such patriarchal reasoning.

“Fine,” I muttered darkly, ignoring the way his hand reached out for mine.

“Don’t be this way,” Chan said, following me as I marched to our bedroom, slamming the door closed behind me. “Y/N!” Chan shouted against the door, knocking loudly on the wood. “This is my room too!”

“Not tonight,” I informed him tersely, opening the door only to harshly shove a spare blanket and pillow at his chest. “Goodnight, darling.”

“This is Y/N,” I said into the phone. “I’m calling about-”

“One moment, Mrs. Bang, we can transfer you to Mr. Seo right away.”

“But you don’t understand...”

“Hello?”

“Changbin!” I squealed loudly into the phone, wincing at my shrill tone.

“Y/N,” Changbin said pleasantly, voice as deep and gravelly as I remembered. “Is this the phone call I’ve been waiting for?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, making myself comfortable at the kitchen counter since I was a notorious pacer when it came to difficult conversations. “It depends on what you’re expecting.”

“I’m expecting to hear a confirmation,” Changbin said. “This is a perfect position for someone with your qualifications.”

“I know,” I groaned. “But I’m calling because I can’t take the job.”

“Really?” Changbin asked. “Can I ask why?”

“Chan isn’t comfortable with the idea,” I said.

“Is that so?” Changbin inquired, innocently enough. “I hope it isn’t because of college.”

“T-that’s not entirely why,” I stuttered because Changbin was apparently intuitive now that he owned some big, fancy company.

“I hope not,” Changbin said. “It wouldn’t be fair of Chan to keep you from a potential opportunity because of something like that.”

“It’s just a lot right now,” I said. “I haven’t had a job in a year. My last position was really good, but the company went bankrupt and I was laid off, so I’m just trying to be careful.”

“You wouldn’t have to worry about anything like that here, Y/N,” Changbin said. “This is a great opportunity for someone looking for a fresh start.”

Did he read my Facebook bio?

“I’m sure it is, Changbin, but I can’t do something that would make Chan uncomfortable.”

“But he’s not the one taking the position,” Changbin pointed out. “I can assure you, Y/N, you won’t find another position like this.”

“God, you’re good at negotiating.”

“Take the job, Y/N. I promise you won’t regret it.”

I could blame it on my desperation later, but I actually really liked the position. It promised a lot, especially considering the publishing company attached to Seo Enterprises. That would be my ultimate goal, to spend my days reading promising manuscripts while sipping expensive Starbucks coffee.

“I guess I can’t say no.”

“Then I’ll see you on Monday.”

Message to Channie

I took the job. I’m sorry but the opportunity was hard to pass up.

It only took a few seconds for Chan’s contact name to flash across my screen with an incoming call. I muted the sound like a coward, ignoring him completely while I started the ignition to the Corvette. A one-year anniversary present from Chan who was somehow more excited than I was when he first handed me the car key.

I drove to Minho’s apartment because I didn’t want to go home and I really had nowhere else to go. Plus, at least Minho was a reliable friend who really didn’t care if I crashed on his couch while he shoved cheap wine down my throat. In fact, Minho might be glad to see me since he was constantly complaining about his new hours at the shop.

“You look like shit,” Minho commented when he answered the door, standing aside to invite me inside. I shrugged off my coat, tossing it against the wall before slumping down onto the cheap sofa in Minho’s living room. The only piece of furniture he could afford in his ridiculously small New York apartment. “What happened?”

“I took the job with Changbin.”

Minho’s eyes widened in surprise. “You did? I can only assume Chan is lying somewhere on his deathbed.”

“No,” I snorted. “I took the job even though Chan asked me not to.”

“Savage,” Minho exhaled and I rolled my eyes at him.

“It’s a great opportunity!”

“When do you start?” Minho asked, feet propped up in my lap as he made himself more than comfortable next to me.

“Monday morning,” I said, mindlessly taking the remote to scroll through his limited TV channels.

“And Chan is mad?” Minho repeated, glancing at me for confirmation. “Can you really blame him though?”

“Why?” I frowned.

“I mean, Chan’s been in love with you since high school. He used to trail after you all the time, but you only talked about Seo Changbin.”

“You’re not being a good friend right now,” I said, remembering with perfect clarity the image of a sixteen-year-old Chan, hair untamed and clothes mismatched. Chan was a constant presence in my life, even if I preened after another boy who certainly had no intention of remaining faithful.

“Go home to him, Y/N,” Minho said with far more seriousness than I was used to hearing from my still immature best friend. The same Minho who couldn’t find work for an entire year after graduation because he was too busy sleeping with any woman that walked on two legs, living with various girlfriends while slowly draining his savings account.

“Since when are you the voice of reason?” I grumbled.

“Well, we all have to grow up one day.”

I hated the rare occasions when he was right.

The house was eerily silent when I unlocked the door, spotlessly clean just as I had left it which made me feel bad because it meant Chan didn’t even try to eat anything. “You always make me worry,” I muttered, toeing off my shoes as I decided to check the bedroom.

When Chan had first bought the house, he wanted it to look as close as possible to the random design I had pointed out at the local fair when we were Sophomore students. The plaque had deemed it the “house of the future” and I was enamored with the idea of the future back when my whole life was waiting right in front of me. A big dreamer who was already making wedding plans the moment Chan got down on one knee and proposed with his mother’s wedding ring.

“Channie,” I whispered into the darkness, cautiously tiptoeing my way to the side of the bed where Chan was facing away from me, sheets tucked in around his waist to leave his chest exposed. “I’m sorry.”

Chan let out a sigh. “What are you sorry for, Y/N?”

“I hurt you,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I took the job with Changbin and I didn’t think about how it would affect you.”

“I fucking hate him,” Chan said, tone bitter and laced with venom. “I hate what he did to you Freshman year and I hate that he was the first person you loved.”

“Chan,” I sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “I was really young and stupid back then. I should have never slept with Changbin. But he was just a fantasy, even when we were together, and I certainly never really loved him.” I leaned in closer, brushing his hair away from his forehead. “I’ve always loved you first. You mean the world to me and I’m sorry that I went behind your back to work for Changbin. But he’s definitely nothing more than a mistake from a past full of them. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Chan shifted from next to me, rolling onto his back. His eyes were looking at me like I was literally his entire world. “I’ll always worry, sweetie. You drive me insane these days.”

I grinned at the use of his pet name for me, reaching out to run a soothing hand along the defined lines of his stomach. “Don’t worry about me, darling, when you’re the one with a supermodel for a boss.”

“Fuck, we’re both screwed,” Chan said. “Does she drive you mad with jealousy?”

“Of course she does,” I said. “She has bigger tits than me.”

“Well, I like your tits,” Chan insisted. “Don’t even think about bringing up plastic surgery again.”

“It would be to your benefit,” I pointed out.

“And the detriment to my savings account. Plus, I don’t want some old bastard fondling your tits while he pumps silicone in your chest.”

“Of all the things to worry about,” I sighed. “Does this mean we’re okay again?”

“You could probably step on me and I would still thank you for it, sweetie.”

“What if I sit on it instead?” I asked, moving my hand down to squeeze his flaccid cock.

“Makeup sex?” Chan gasped. “You don’t have to sell yourself out like this, babe.”

“Yeah? Well, I want to,” I said while proceeding to straddle his waist, smirking when Chan’s hands instantly moved to my hips. It was almost like a magnet, the reaction automatic after years of marriage. “You’re already hard,” I teased, reaching back to palm him over the sheets.

Chan always slept in boxers which I certainly appreciated because it made the rare nights of our passionate lovemaking even more accessible. Chan lifted my shirt, groaning low when he saw that I was wearing nothing but a pair of satin panties. “This is why I’m already hard.”

“You don’t see me walking around the house in underwear,” I quipped playfully.

“It’s comfortable,” Chan whimpered, moaning when my hand found the smooth velvety head of his cock.

“Something you never did when we were dating,” I said. “I spent weekends with you in the apartment.”

“Wanted to make a good impression,” Chan grumbled, eyes closed as he rolled his hips in time with my careful strokes.

“So you don’t have to impress me anymore,” I said, glancing back at his cock, hot and heavy in my hand. “But I guess you still do.”

Chan moaned even louder at my words, fingers tightening in my wrinkled shirt. “Don’t make me cum yet.”

“Why not, darling?” I asked him cheekily, twisting my wrist just right, watching as a stuttered gasp fell from between his gorgeous pout.

“Wanna cum inside,” he said, biceps straining as he pulled me closer, kissing me with a desperation that only demonstrated just how gone he really was.

“Yeah?” I smirked, tongue tracing the ridges of his full lips. “I guess you deserve it after putting up with my bullshit all day.”

Chan nodded fervently and the sight was oddly endearing. It reminded me of when Chan and I first met in high school, a nerdy sixteen-year-old boy who had just transferred schools all the way from Australia. He had a thick accent, foreign and rich, just like the untamed mass of curls covering his deep brown eyes. Chan wore thick-rimmed glasses and he had a light dusting of freckles like the main character from Freckle Juice, one of my favorite childhood novels. He was nerdy and shy, sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch and walking between classes with his shoulders hunched like he was afraid one of those horrible jocks would try to steal his bag again.

“Y/N!” he whined loudly, forcing me out of the memory.

“Alright, Channie, you want inside?”

I sat up on my knees to work down my panties, ignoring the way Chan’s fingers tried to interfere, pulling at the fabric like he could possibly make them disappear any faster. I grabbed the hem of his boxer shorts, teasingly pulling them down his thighs before brushing a kiss across the weeping tip of his cock, precum bitter on my tongue. For a moment, I admired his thick erection, remembering how nervous Chan was the very first time we had sex back before we were even old enough to drink alcohol.

I held his cock as I positioned myself over his lap. “I’ll do all the work tonight,” I said, listening to Chan’s sweet moans the entire time I slowly lowered myself onto his cock, enjoying the way he always filled me so deeply.

“Oh yeah, sweetie,” Chan grunted, hips moving messily as he tried to find a rhythm. “I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

“Really?” I asked, swallowing down a moan when Chan hit just right, movements growing more and more confident as I returned every thrust. “I thought I was in charge tonight.”

Chan’s hands gripped my waist firmly, eyes wide open as he focused on where we were connected. “I’m always in charge.”

“Definitely,” I said, bracing my hands against his firm chest for balance because I was weak for this version of Chan. A complete contradiction to the one I first started dating, sweetly doting as he did everything in his power to make me happy. An image of a beautifully innocent Chan looking up from his position between my thighs. “It’s good?”

“So good,” I whispered aloud, peppering kisses across the pale expanse of Chan’s creamy skin, laving my tongue against a sensitive nipple which forced a temporary break from his regular tempo.

“Don’t play dirty, sweetie,” Chan said, giving me no warning before he was pushing me onto my back, hovering over me with his irresistible bedroom eyes. His hands spread my thighs wide, giving himself more room to fuck inside, movements growing faster with every step closer to what was beginning to feel like an intense orgasm. I’m talking about the kind that I could feel between my legs for days after I tried to walk straight again. “Do I need to touch you?”

“Fuck, I think you’re doing just fine,” I said. “Where the hell did this come from?”

“You woke up my competitive side,” Chan said, hitting deep like we were suddenly 20-years-old again sneaking quickies between lectures. Back then, Chan could literally fuck me against a wall, my legs wrapped around his gorgeous hips while he knocked the breath out of my lungs. Thank god, Chan decided that college would be his glory years, working out aggressively in the gym until he had muscles filling out the places where he had previously been soft. But I would always miss his pudgy stomach, even if his ass was now something out of a porn magazine.

“Well fuck,” I moaned. “I’ll have to do this more often.”

“I’d do it all the time if I wasn’t working until 3 in the morning at the hospital,” Chan said.

“Good point, should I come in at lunch then? You can lock us in one of the empty rooms.”

“Oh shit, sweetie, you shouldn’t talk that way,” Chan growled and it was one of the sexiest sounds I had ever heard.

“I’m close,” I warned him, digging my fingers in his scalp as his teeth teased against my collarbone.

“Me too,” he said, breaths uneven as he punctuated his words with a series of harsh ruts that sent my eyes rolling into the back of my skull. His fingers found my clit, thumb pressing down hard enough to trigger one of the best orgasms I had experienced in a long time.

I tightened around his stuttering cock, moaning when I could feel his cum deep inside, warm and wet. “Shit, you’re so good at that.”

Chan pulled out slowly, eyes growing wide at the sight of his cum leaking down my ass. “Left a fucking mess though.”

“We can shower later,” I said, grabbing his arm to encourage him to lie down next to me, burying my face against his chest, scarlet-red from the exertion.

“Was the dick that good?” Chan teased, running his fingers soothingly along my spine.

“Your dick is that good,” I replied. “The genetics are strong.”

“I’ll be sure to tell my parents,” Chan said, giggling as I shot him a warning glare. “I love you, sweetie.”

“Mmm, I love you more.”

1 Week Later

Lee Felix is the spawn of the devil and nobody could convince me otherwise. Because ever since we first met, when Chan invited me over to his house for a project, Felix had decided that I was his number one enemy, deeming me “Medusa” because he was enamored with Greek Mythology. But the unfortunate nickname had stuck throughout the years, even when Felix visited our college between breaks, forcing me to sleep on the couch while he shared the bed with his step-brother.

Recently, Felix had just finished his Master’s program for some kind of fancy Philosophy degree that would probably do him absolutely no good in the real world. But Chan was proud of his baby brother, inviting him to stay with us after graduation until Felix could stand on his own two feet. The decision was met by my instantaneous protest leading to an argument that I inevitably lost because Chan was still using Changbin as a winning point. However, even before my employment with Seo Enterprises, Felix was the cause of at least 95% of our arguments and I was not exaggerating in the slightest.

The sound of the doorbell ringing was suddenly a lot louder than I remember. “Death is here,” I said solemnly, ignoring the way Chan scoffed at my claim. I followed behind him somberly as he opened the door, letting out an excited cheer when he saw Felix waiting on the other side. Felix dropped his bag and practically screamed, which would likely wake up the entire neighborhood, jumping into his brother’s arm as the two embraced right in the middle of my foyer.

“Could you be any louder?” I snarled at the younger Bang.

“Maybe I could, Medusa,” Felix shot back, eyes narrowed as he picked up his bag.

“Come on, Felix,” Chan said, nodding at the kitchen. “I bet you’re hungry.”

Felix nodded, putting on his best smile for his ignorant brother, shoving his bag harshly at my chest as he walked by. “You can take care of that for me, right Medusa?”

“You little bitch,” I muttered, meeting his glare with one of my own.

The only thing worse than going out with Felix was including Han Jisung in the equation. For whatever reason, Jisung and Felix always riled each other up, chugging down alcohol like it was fucking water or something. However, Felix wanted to see Jisung again and Chan never said no to his little brother. This is why I was currently seated next to Chan at a cheesy bar in downtown Harlem, listening to Felix and Jisung try to talk over one another as Chan looked on with fond eyes. The only good part of the night was the fact that even Chan had allowed himself to get a little tipsy which meant he was doing his absolute best to feel me up in public. I always found it amusing, knocking his hand away when his eager fingers started to trail up my skirt.

“Felix,” Jisung whined. “How can you say that?”

“Oi, there’s no way you can put Nickleback and Green Day in the same fucking category.”

I rolled my eyes at the stupid argument, smacking Chan’s hand when he started to finger the waistband of my skirt. “Chan!” Jisung pouted. “Tell him that he’s wrong.”

“Tell the philosophy major that he’s wrong?” Chan asked, accent on full display as he reached out to playfully ruffle Felix’s hair. “You can’t even answer the phone at the receptionist’s desk.”

Felix loved the attention and I hated it when he came over only to occupy Chan’s every waking hour with his never-ending thirst for affection. But I wasn’t going to let him get away with it tonight. I cleared my throat, stretching my arms back behind my head because I knew how good it would make my breasts look in the rather low-cut shirt I had chosen for tonight’s affair. I glanced over at Chan, smiling victoriously when I saw the way his eyes had glued themselves to my chest. Even Han Jisung was looking, which would normally annoy me to no end, but I was putting on my best behavior tonight. “Chan!” Felix shouted, trying to regain his brother’s attention. “Did you hear that I scored the highest honors on my research project?”

And just like that, Chan’s attention was redirected to Satan, eyes glowing with pride. “That’s amazing, Felix!”

“I can tell you all about it,” Felix said arrogantly, tossing me a cocky smile which left me absolutely incensed. “The board was so impressed, they offered to publish my results in the University’s magazine.”

“Are you serious, Felix?” Jisung asked which was an even bigger blow because the only two things occupying Jisung’s thoughts were women and alcohol.

So I decided to push my luck, tugging down my skirt before shifting over in the booth to plant myself directly on Chan’s lap, wrapping my arms around his neck before nuzzling into his warm chest. “Channie,” I cooed while glaring at Felix from the corner of my eye.

“Do you want something, sweetie?” Chan asked, smile blinding as one hand wrapped around my waist, leaving the other to tease the bare skin of my thighs.

I reached for Chan’s beer, shoving the glass at him because nothing made Chan hornier than thighs and alcohol. “Should I come to see you at work tomorrow? Like we talked about before?”

Chan’s eyes lit with recognition and I smirked victoriously when I felt him grow hard in his tight jeans. “I’d really like that.”

And to seal my victory, I leaned forward to kiss my intoxicated husband, ignoring the sloppy way he reciprocated, breath musty with the taste of beer. Felix growled lowly from across the booth and Jisung let out a wolf whistle at our blatant display. But I was on cloud nine, satisfied to have won Chan’s attention because it meant Felix was going to be quite unhappy for the rest of the night.

“Medusa, aren’t you going to make me breakfast?”

I groaned as I glanced over at the alarm clock which informed me that it was only 9:00 AM. “Fuck, Felix, go back to sleep.”

“But I’m hungry,” he whined, reaching across the bed to tug on my arm.

“It’s Saturday,” I hissed, barely clinging to the wonderful promise of more sleep which would do wonders for my hungover state.

“Chan wouldn’t be happy with you,” Felix reminded me. “Should I call him at work?”

“Get out of here you little maggot,” I snapped. “I’ll fix you some damn breakfast.”

“Now!” Felix ordered like he had every right to make demands of me, but I didn’t want Felix to say anything to Chan because that would only lead to another needless argument.

“You’re a fucking menace,” I said, throwing off my bedsheets while briefly mourning the loss of my precious sleep. But I don’t want anyone to ever say that I was a bad wife, especially when I put up with Lee Felix just to make Chan happy.

Felix was already seated at the counter when I finally drug myself out of my bedroom, groggily reaching for a clean pan from the cabinet. “You get eggs and bacon,” I told him. “I’m not a gourmet chef.”

“Whatever,” Felix said, ignoring me completely in exchange for his cell phone. Which Chan was now paying for to help “lessen Felix’s financial burden.”

“Chan,” I remember telling him. “You’ll spoil him if you keep doing things like that. He’ll never want to leave!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chan had shot back as if the idea of living with his younger brother for the rest of our married life was perfectly acceptable.

“A million things,” I muttered now, cracking one of the eggs against the side of the pan.

“I hear you’re working for Seo Changbin,” Felix abruptly spoke up, and I could practically feel his eyes on me. “He cheated on you, right?”

“It’s really none of your business,” I informed him brusquely, grabbing a spatula while wondering if I could teach Felix a lesson if I hit him a few times.

“My brother isn’t happy,” Felix continued as if my warning meant nothing to him. Probably because it didn’t. “I think it’s a bad idea, but your satisfaction always comes first, right?”

“Why the fuck did Chan tell you this?” I gritted out while aggressively slamming the fridge closed, pack of bacon gripped tightly in my hand.

“He tells me everything,” Felix said smartly. “Because he trusts me.”

“Good for you,” I huffed over my shoulder. “I’m glad you have such a close relationship with your brother.”

“Jealous?” Felix taunted, expression smug when I roughly placed down a glass in front of him.

“Is orange juice, okay?” I asked him in a faux sweet voice.

“It’s fine,” Felix shrugged. “But whatever is most inconvenient for you.”

“What a sweet little boy you are,” I said, pouring him a generous amount. “How long do you plan on staying here?”

“Chan says I can stay for as long as I want,” Felix said, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“Of course not,” I muttered. “Two Bangs are better than one.”

“That’s right,” Felix said brightly, taking a sip from his glass. “Ugh, does this have pulp in it?”

“Drink your fucking orange juice, Felix!”

The invention of video games was a godsend because they could occupy Felix’s attention for hours, leaving me in relative peace as I tried not to let him destroy every last bit of my resolve. I was currently having a bath alone in the sanctity of my bathroom, shoulder-deep in soothing bath salts which I kept well-stocked in the cabinet underneath the sink. The aroma was pleasant, sending me to a place somewhere far away to where Felix’s were strictly prohibited.

For the entirety of the day, Felix had been doing his best to get on my nerves. I cooked him breakfast and lunch, cleaned his disgusting laundry, and even held my tongue when he requested I drive him to the mattress store because the guest bedroom was unsatisfactory. But it had always been like this between us, ever since the day I first met Felix and tried my best to make a good impression. Unfortunately, Felix idolized his older brother, deeming any girl unworthy of his time and efforts, including myself. Of course, above anyone else, Felix thought I was the worst possible choice, reminding me every second that his brother deserved someone smarter, richer, and prettier.

Suddenly, my phone vibrated loudly on the edge of the bathtub and I hesitantly glanced at the screen, half-expecting to see Felix’s name displayed like a caution sign. Surprisingly, it was Chan who had sent me a message to ask where I was, which meant Felix had lied through his teeth and said I’d gone somewhere.

To Channie

Bathroom.

It was only a moment or two later when the door opened and Chan stuck his head inside, offering me a pleasant smile as he locked the door behind him. “You’re home early,” I remarked, vacantly staring up at the ceiling.

“It’s Saturday night,” Chan reminded me. “I thought the three of us could go out to eat.”

I groaned in protest. “What about takeout?”

“You love going out,” Chan said. “I’ll even let you pick the restaurant.”

“I have way too many problems right now,” I said. “I’m avoiding them by staying in the water for as long as I can.”

“Sweetie,” Chan said, taking a step closer. “You should’ve waited for me.”

“Why?” I asked him airily. “You’re one of those problems.”

“Me?” Chan asked, choosing to sit down on the edge of the tub. “What did I do wrong?”

“No arguments tonight,” I said, letting out a deep sigh. “This is the most relaxed I’ve been all day.”

“Aren’t you being overdramatic?” Chan asked, reaching down to flick a trail of water in my direction. “I was in surgery for 6 hours today.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve dealt with Felix since 9 this morning.”

“Ah,” Chan sighed. “I figured it had something to do with my brother.”

“Just forget it,” I whined. “You know we don’t get along.”

“I do know that,” Chan said. “But I wish you both made a better effort. We’re family after all.”

I shivered at the idea of Felix belonging to any family of mine. “You can keep him on your side, then. I grew up as an only child, look at how much better I turned out for it.”

“You told me you had imaginary friends growing up because you were so lonely,” Chan teased.

“Asshole,” I muttered. “That’s sensitive information that I told you in confidentiality. You should know all about patient-doctor confidentiality. Didn’t you have a whole lecture on it?”

“Y/N,” Chan lightly chastised, reaching for a towel on the rack next to the counter. “Get dressed, we’re leaving in an hour.”

“You’ve condemned me to death,” I complained, watching through lidded eyes as he stretched out his arms.

“I’m serious, Y/N, at least try to get along for my sake.”

“That’s all I ever do,” I muttered to his retreating form.

Hwang Hyunjin is a willing accomplice to the devil himself who never misses an opportunity to throw out some lascivious comments about my appearance. He was Felix’s best friend and partner in crime, sharing his goal of making my life as miserable as possible. He was also coming out to eat with us tonight and no matter how much I whined to Chan, he remained adamant that Felix should spend some time with his friends. “He’s only young once,” Chan told me, ignoring the way I glared at him with every ounce of hostility that I could muster.

“Did you paint those pants on, Y/N?” Hyunjin asked the minute he sat down in the backseat next to Felix.

“I did, actually, thanks for the unnecessary observation,” I told him shortly, still focused on the staring contest I was having with Felix in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t mind her, she’s probably on her period,” Felix said and I took in a deep breath because I was very close to turning around in my seat to choke the life out of Felix’s pencil neck.

“How have you been, Hyunjin?” Chan asked, one hand on the steering wheel as he calmly navigated us through the permanent traffic of New York.

“I applied for a job with Amazon,” Hyunjin replied. “I don’t wanna brag, but I definitely nailed the interview.”

“Yeah right,” I muttered under my breath. Hyunjin had the worst people skills in the history of mankind. He was almost as incompetent as Han Jisung, but ten times worse because of his sarcastic attitude.

“You’ll get me Amazon Prime for free, right bro?” Felix giggled and I resisted the urge to mock the sound.

“I’m proud of you, Hyunjin,” Chan said. “I know you worked hard.”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Hyunjin said. “But the chick who interviewed me was really hot and I think I appropriately swept her off her feet.”

“Big tits?” Felix asked because that’s all those stupid boys cared about.

“Of course,” Hyunjin said. “But I’m still waiting for you, Y/N, whenever you’re ready.”

Felix scoffed. “You could do better than Medusa.”

“How about some music?” I snapped loudly, reaching down for the radio knob to block out the sounds of Felix and Hyunjin’s voices.

Monday mornings were the worst thing to ever happen to mankind next to Lee Felix. I was sipping at my morning coffee, cold now because Felix had spent way too much time ordering me around the kitchen before I left home. But it was better than nothing and I desperately needed caffeine to get through the day. “Morning, Y/N,” Changbin greeted me smoothly, suit well-pressed and fitted to hug his arms and thighs just right.

“Sure,” I said in reply, trudging to my chair in slow motion.

“Are you always this lively in the mornings?” Changbin remarked, leaning against my desk as he looked through his mail.

“Just on Mondays,” I said, booting up my computer so that I could answer the dozens of emails likely waiting for me, most of which would come from annoying sponsors who wanted Changbin to be on their dumb podcast.

“Well, you still look gorgeous,” Changbin said.

My cheeks flushed at his comment. “You still need to call Mr. Kim back, he’s left another voicemail.”

“Just one call?” Changbin smirked, eyes dancing dangerously. “Have you been scaring everyone off, Y/N?”

“I did just as you asked, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir,” Changbin chuckled, carefully engrossed in his cell phone now as he graciously returned to his own office.

I shivered as I glanced at my computer screen. Changbin was still as notoriously flirtatious as he had been when we were younger. In fact, it might be worse now that he had finally grown into his sharper features which made him look ridiculously attractive. “I love Chan, I love Chan,” I quietly repeated to myself, even as a distant memory suddenly forced itself back into consciousness.

An 18-year-old Seo Changbin walking inside my lecture hall wearing a dark button-up tucked into the tightest pair of skinny jeans he probably owned. Every eye in that lecture room had suddenly turned to him because he was an irresistible force, impossible to ignore. “Y/N?”

Be cool Y/N, I softly chastised myself as I offered him a friendly smile. “Hi, Changbin.”

It was purely coincidental that Changbin had ended up at the same University as me, but that didn’t stop my fragile teenage heart from declaring it as something akin to fate. “It’s been a while,” Changbin said, pulling out the chair next to mine.

I swallowed hard because my mouth was as dry as a desert. “I didn’t know you were enrolled here.”

“It was my first pick,” Changbin said. “My father is an alumnus.”

“Really?” I asked, ignoring the arrival of the professor in exchange for mapping out every single one of Changbin’s gorgeous features.

“This class is just for gen ed,” Changbin said, pushing a hand through his neatly styled black hair.

“Oh, same for me,” I nodded. “I heard it was pretty easy.”

“Is that right?” Changbin asked while flashing me an award-winning smile. Roll out the red carpets because this boy was cool enough to be in an action film co-starring Tom Holland and Ancel Elgort.

But what were we talking about? “I’m majoring in English.”

“Political Science,” Changbin returned. “And Business.”

I deflated a little because, in comparison to my lousy arts degree, Changbin seemed like a certified genius. He would be educated in the art of entrepreneurship and big money while I struggled to comprehend the meaning of Great Expectations. “Have you met anyone else from high school?”

“Not yet,” Changbin said. “What about you?”

“Well, Bang Chan’s enrolled here too...” I started, only to trail off when I realized that Changbin probably had no idea who Chan was since he never paid attention to him in high school. Actually, Changbin would have been more likely to join the football jocks who liked to steal Chan’s stuff only to tie his underwear to the flagpole outside the gym.

“The nerdy Australian kid?” Changbin chuckled. “That sucks.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage since Changbin obviously didn’t know that Chan and I were friends.

“You don’t hang out with him, do you?” Changbin asked, peering at me closely like I was seconds away from losing the honor of his company.

“We have lunch sometimes,” I said, which was only partially true since I did like to meet up with Chan in the dining hall around 2:00 because it was never crowded. But Changbin didn’t need to know that I had spent the night in Chan’s apartment listening to him record one of his mixtapes because Chan had a newfound interest in music.

“You could do better,” Changbin sighed. “Hang out with me instead. I’ll treat you to the nicest fast food joint on campus.”

My heart was racing, palms clammy as I nodded my head rapidly. “Lunch?”

“Whatever you want, love,” Changbin said, close proximity knocking every rational thought clean out of my head.

It was like my best fantasy coming to life right before my very eyes, and after our lecture ended I asked Changbin to wait for me while I made a phone call to Chan. “Y/N!” came his cheerful voice from the other end. “Guess who got to dissect a liver today?”

I wrinkled my nose at the nasty image. Chan was studying to enter the medical program which meant a lot of his daily life centered around the human body and all sorts of things that could go wrong with it. “Chan,” I whined. “You’re talking to someone who can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“I know,” Chan sniggered. “Does this mean you’re not gonna want to eat lunch with me today? You know I’ll pay, of course, I got a raise at the cafe.”

“Well,” I started, desperately searching for the right words. “I actually have to meet with my professor for this essay I’ve been having trouble with.”

“No problem,” Chan said. “I’ll bring you takeout for dinner. Doesn’t your roommate have practice tonight?”

I glanced back at Changbin with a guilty conscience. Why did Chan have to be so sweet all the time? “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“No liver talk, I promise,” Chan giggled and I hung up the phone before he could make me feel even worse than I already did.

“You want to get some lunch?” Changbin asked with his hands dug inside his pockets as he stood in front of my desk.

“Like, with me?” I asked warily because I wasn’t sure where the line stood on professionalism when it involves eating with an ex-boyfriend.

“Who else?” Changbin said. “I figured we could use a break from the phone calls.”

“I don’t know...” I answered hesitantly because Chan would probably lose his shit if he discovered I went out anywhere with Changbin.

“It’s not a big deal, Y/N,” Changbin said. “My job is to make sure my employees are well taken care of.”

“I guess,” I sighed, reaching down for my purse on the floor. “One lunch together won’t hurt anything.”

But Changbin seemed awfully smug, patiently waiting for me to gather my belongings, stuffing my phone with an unanswered text from Chan inside my side pocket. It’s almost like the universe was conspiring against me, doing its very best to try and force me into the worst situations possible. Here’s an irrational thought: what if Chan happened to decide to go out for lunch today? He might find me with Changbin and I couldn’t think of a worse scenario. Of course, I suppose it doesn’t necessarily have to be Chan who finds us. For example, if his younger step-brother was to suddenly wander in the building at this very moment...

“Medusa!”

Curse you, universe!

“Felix?”

“I brought us lunch!” Felix chirped brightly, holding up a picnic basket as he waltzed right up to my desk with far more confidence than necessary.

I blinked my eyes rapidly, unable to process the idea that Felix was standing in the middle of the company’s lobby. “Is it poisoned?” I asked, trying not to alert him to any possible wrongdoing.

Felix ignored me, turning around to face Changbin with a critical gaze. “Seo? Is that you?”

“Felix,” Changbin acknowledged, frowning as if he was the last person on earth he wanted to see, and I could share the sentiment.

“Fuck,” Felix cursed, taking a step back. “You still look really young. I was surprised when Y/N told me you were her new boss.”

“I didn’t tell you that,” I said, opening the flaps of the basket only to let out a disgruntled sigh when I realized he had only brought a bag of chips and a tray of cookies.

“And what are you doing these days?” Changbin asked.

“Freelance work, mostly,” Felix replied as if he really needed to lie to Changbin about his lack of a suitable occupation.

“I forgot what you majored in,” Changbin said. “It was hard to keep up since you changed your concentration like a dozen times.”

I couldn’t hold back my laugh, even when Felix sneered in my direction. “Philosophy.”

“Interesting,” Changbin said, nodding his head. “I’m actually surprised to hear that. You never settled on anything.”

Seo Changbin needed to be careful because his charm points were dramatically increasing the more he mocked my husband’s step-brother. “I actually just finished my Masters.”

“Really?” Changbin said. “This coming from the same boy who used to party with Hwang Hyunjin at all the Fraternities, even if they were on a different campus.”

“It was just Freshman year,” Felix defended himself.

“Well,” Changbin started, “I’m glad to hear about your graduation. Y/N and I were actually just about to head out to lunch.”

I winced at his words, withering under Felix’s accusing watch. “Is that so?”

Changbin carefully studied the two of us. “I’ll be waiting in my car, Y/N.”

I grabbed my bag while pushing the picnic basket back in Felix’s direction. “I swear to god if you tell Chan about this, I’ll castrate you in your sleep.”

“We’ll see about that,” Felix growled, and that was the moment I realized that I was treading very dangerous waters.

Changbin drove us to a charming restaurant about two blocks away from the main company building. He pulled right up to the sidewalk, handing his keys to the waiting carhop as if he had done this about a thousand times. But I guess that was pretty likely considering just how well-off he was ten years later. “Impressive,” I remarked to him, reluctantly accepting his outstretched hand as he helped me out of his car.

“Yeah?” Changbin said, offering me a wink. “Maybe I’m trying to impress you.”

“You’re a dangerous man, Seo Changbin,” I told him, bowing slightly to the waiting doorman who kindly ushered us inside.

This was why the pretty girls always lusted after Changbin. When we were both still in high school, Changbin epitomized the phrase #BoyfriendGoals because he was super attractive, incredibly smart, and athletic enough to earn himself a shining record after an impressive baseball season. And I was just as mindless as the rest of the zombies chasing him down in the parking lot at school or squealing his name in the hallways between classes.

“I eat here all the time,” Changbin assured me, flashing the hostess a dazzling smile while handing her his card.

“Right this way, Mr. Seo,” the hostess curtsied, ignoring the long line of waiting patrons who apparently didn’t matter as much as my new boss as she led us to a private table. “Your waitress will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said politely, eyes wide as I took in the gorgeous chandelier dropping from the high-domed ceiling.

“Close your mouth, Y/N,” Changbin said. “You act like you’ve never been somewhere like this before.”

“Not exactly,” I said because the nicest place Chan had ever taken me was an Olive Garden and that had ended poorly after Chan accidentally knocked his shoulder against a poor server on his way back to the table causing an avalanche of salad and breadsticks.

“Bang should be taking you to places like this all the time,” Changbin commented, perhaps a casual observation to anyone else.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Chan and I prefer to keep things low-key.”

“Should I have taken you to Applebees instead?”

“How funny.”

“I’m kidding, Y/N,” Changbin said, reaching down to adjust the buttons on his coat sleeve. “You’ve changed a lot since college.”

“Since we dated you mean?” I asked with an arched brow.

“Well,” Changbin started, “if you want to think of it like that.”

“Hmmm,” I briefly meditated, studying Changbin’s expression carefully. “How else should I think about it.”

Changbin tsked, raising a hand to signal for a nearby waiter. “I don’t mean to suggest anything.”

The waiter approached our table with purposed steps. “How may I help you, sir?”

“A wine menu?” Changbin asked, nodding generously when the waiter returned with his requested selection.

“You make a beautiful couple,” the waiter gushed while he pulled out a thick leather wallet, flipping to a fresh page.

“Oh! We’re not-”

“-A bottle of pinot noir, please,” Changbin said, returning the menu without bothering to correct the waiter’s observation.

“Right away, sir,” the waiter agreed.

I held my tongue until he was further away, bothering an older couple who were probably complaining about something to do with their food. “Changbin,” I warned him. “You should be careful.”

“It was a harmless mistake,” Changbin said. “How can I possibly come between you and Bang?”

I worried my bottom lip between my teeth because it sounded less like a dismissal and more like a challenge.

The sun was already setting by the time I returned home thanks to one of Changbin’s business partners who refused to leave the office building until they had a chance to speak to him. I was low on patience, tired from an exhausting day of dealing with telemarketers insisting our company needed the latest software for our clientele. There was only a limited number of times I could tell somebody to fuck off before inevitably shouting into the other end that I was in no way interested in whatever useless product they were trying to shove down my throat, complete with some kind of scammy discount and an opportunity to be represented on their website.

To make matters worse, my feet were blistered from wearing heels all day and my shoulders ached from slouching over my computer to answer emails and monitor the progress of Changbin’s latest project. My only saving grace was the message Chan had sent me earlier telling me that he had already clocked out at work, which meant I could probably guilt him into giving me one of his trademarked messages. I mean, all I wanted to do was curl up next to Chan in bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

But it looked like my desires would have to wait because as soon as I unlocked the door to the house, I could immediately sense that something was wrong. Taking a deep breath, I cautiously walked into the living room to find Chan and Felix busy with some kind of video game on our HD TV, volume high until I walked in the room. Chan waited until I called his name, reaching for the remote to mute the TV before tossing his controller onto the coffee table. From across the room, Felix’s eyes were alight with mischief.

“How was work today?” Chan asked with a tone that I only ever heard when my husband was feeling particularly pissed off about something, and I had a sneaking suspicion it involved me in some capacity.

“It was fine,” I said, deciding to play it safe while I kept my complaints to myself.

Felix smirked in my direction, whistling to himself as he reached for his game controller. “Felix told me something interesting today.”

“Oh did he?” I asked, wondering just how much pain Felix could tolerate if I marched over to him right now and hit him with an umbrella.

“He said he tried to have lunch with you.”

“I was busy.”

“With Seo Changbin?”

Felix was definitely going to die tonight. That little snitch deserved every ounce of punishment I was starting to formulate inside my head. “He invited me out instead.”

“I got that,” Chan snapped and I knew my husband was in a foul mood. I’m talking about the kind of mood that usually sent me scampering for the safety of the bunkers. Like the time some drunk asshole rear-ended Chan’s precious convertible while we were sitting in downtown traffic. Or the time when we were Freshmen in college and Chan confronted Changbin after finding out that he had been cheating on me.

But this time the problem was me which meant I couldn’t just hide from Chan and wait for things to go back to normal. “Honey,” I attempted to reassure him. “It was just lunch.”

“Yeah? But that doesn’t seem like keeping things strictly professional to me, Y/N.”

“He’s my boss now, I can’t just tell him no.”

“Actually, you can,” Chan disagreed, now refusing to look at me. “How would you like it if I ate with my new superintendent?”

“Depends on if she offered to pay or not.”

“Y/N.”

“Chan,” I pouted. “I’m really sorry! He just surprised me.”

“It makes me wonder what else you might be doing with him,” Chan snarked.

Meanwhile, Felix calmly continued to play his video game while wearing the biggest shit-eating grin. “Are you accusing me of having an affair?”

“Why not?” Chan shrugged. “Since we’re keeping secrets from each other.”

“It was just one lunch,” I shouted. “He’s never done anything like this before. Most of the time I’m alone in the lobby taking his stupid phone calls.”

“And that’s all I should ever hear about,” Chan growled.

“You’re making this into a bigger deal than it needs to be,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes before remembering just how much Chan hated it when I did that to him.

“Y/N,” Chan addressed me sternly, deciding to abandon his seat on the couch to crowd me in the foyer. “If this was anyone else, I wouldn’t make it into a bigger deal, but this is someone you used to fuck while running around campus bragging about it to everyone who would listen...which was usually me!”

“He doesn’t mean anything to me,” I said. “I already told you that!”

“You’ve said a lot of things recently,” Chan said. “I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s your brother’s fault since he’s always looking to cause a fight between us,” I said, glaring at Felix while he continued to play the part of the perfect little angel that Chan always considered him.

“Don’t drag Felix into this, he has nothing to do with anything!”

“Oh, don’t be stupid, Chan,” I huffed. “We fight more about Felix than we do about Changbin.”

“Stupid?!”

Oh, Jesus, Y/N, when are you going to learn to watch your big mouth? “Channie, I’m tired of fighting all the time. I feel like we’re always fighting.”

“Yeah? Well, you give me a lot of reasons to stay mad at you.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I groaned. “We never fought this much when we were dating.”

“Is that so? You think our marriage is the problem?”

I froze at his implications. At this point, Felix might as well drag out a bucket of popcorn because this was probably the most interesting drama he had watched all year. “Chan, you can’t honestly believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Chan said, shaking his head. “But maybe I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

“Chan!” I whined, fighting back tears as I watched him turn his back on me. For the first time since we had met, Chan was leaving an argument unresolved, choosing to lock himself away in our bedroom while I struggled to keep myself together in the middle of our foyer.

“Goodbye, Y/N,” Felix whispered into the silent room, waving his fingers at me because he had gotten exactly what he wanted.

Felix’s birthday often turned into a multiple-day affair because he always wanted the best that money could buy. Since Chan and I still weren’t speaking to one another, Chan was taking the brunt of party preparations which meant Felix was practically over the moon with excitement. And why shouldn’t he be? He hit the metaphorical jackpot because he somehow got me in the doghouse while he soaked up all of Chan’s attention.

“Y/N,” Felix whined. “My toast is burnt!”

“Sorry,” I murmured softly, taking his plate even though the bread looked perfectly fine. Meanwhile, Chan chose not to say a word, heavily engrossed in his laptop and doing his absolute best to pretend I was invisible.

“What about this, Felix?” he asked, tilting his laptop screen so that his brother could see whatever it was that probably cost hundreds of dollars. On the other hand, I couldn’t even find the courage to ask Chan for his credit card so that I could replace the broken stool at our counter.

“That’s perfect, Channie!” Felix grinned, hanging off his brother’s shoulder like the little pest he was.

Our Amazon shopping cart was steadily filling with Felix’s party supplies. But I guess it was just Chan’s account now since he had changed the password without telling me. I tried to order a new curtain for the bathroom, only to repeatedly watch the warning screen pop-up with every refresh of the page. “Who do you want at your party?” Chan asked Felix.

“Hyunjin, Jisung...” Felix started, listing out each name while I winced every time because our house would probably end up completely trashed at this rate.

“Whatever you want,” Chan said, apparently forgetting the last time Jisung came over only to break one of my grandmother’s expensive vases. Since it was my stuff, he probably didn’t care. “I have to leave soon,” Chan said, wordlessly clicking on the ‘place your order ’ button before logging off.

“Will you be gone all day again?” Felix pouted, jutting out his bottom lip and offering his very best puppy dog eyes.

23-years-old my ass.

“I’ll do my best,” Chan promised his brother. “Do you need anything while I’m out.”

“More chocolate cereal?”

10-years-old more likely.

“I’ll see you tonight,” Chan cooed to Felix, ruffling his hair before snatching his coat from my outstretched hand, refusing to even acknowledge my existence.

Felix waited until Chan was gone to lean in across the counter. “You two are so cute, Medusa.”

“I fucking hate you,” I said, aggressively attacking the grease stain on the stainless steel pot I was currently washing.

“Whatever,” Felix shrugged. “Will you ask Minho to come to my birthday party?”

“There’s not a fucking chance in hell that I’m asking him,” I snapped.

“Why?” Felix posed the question as if he felt absolutely no shame. “I like Minho and I want him to be there.”

“Fuck off,” I retorted, drying my hands against the rough texture of the dishtowel.

Felix sniffled, reaching for his phone and holding it up to his ear. “Channie? Yeah, Y/N was being really mean to me-”

“-Jesus, fine, I’ll ask him,” I quickly interrupted the little Devil. “How old are you turning again?”

“24!” Felix grinned.

“Then act like it,” I muttered while dialing Minho’s number.

There were only two rings before he answered. “It’s too early on Saturday for this bullshit, Y/N,” came Minho’s pleasant voice from the other end.

“You sleep too much anyway,” I returned. “I have something to ask you.”

“It better be pretty fucking important.”

“Will you come to Felix’s stupid birthday party this Friday?” I asked him, ignoring Felix’s bright smile as he tried to listen in on our conversation.

“Did you buy booze?”

“I’m sure Chan will buy the little bastard all the booze he wants,” I said, pushing Felix out of the way.

“What time?” Minho asked. “I’m a very busy man, Y/N.”

“The hell you are,” I snorted. “9:00 PM. Don’t be late! I’ll be the pathetic piece of trash sitting on the couch alone.”

“It’s about time you learn, Y/N,” Felix remarked, giggling when I threw the dishtowel at him.

“Still in trouble with hubby?” Minho asked. “I hear you have to stay separated for a year before the courts grant divorces these days.”

“You’re an asshole,” I said. “Should I put you down on the guest list?”

“Of course,” Minho said. “Underlined because I’m a VIP”

I hung up on him before he could dig his grave any deeper.

“Don’t burn that,” Felix scolded me, hovering by my side to play the part of Gordon Ramsay while I sweated my ass off to cook everything on his stupid party menu.

“It’s not burnt,” I grumbled.

“I hope you’re not wearing that to my party,” Felix said, casting a critical eye over my outfit.

I reached down to adjust the waistband of my skirt. “What’s wrong with it?”

“This is a classy party, Y/N, and you look like a hooker.”

“Go help your brother or something,” I said, doing my best to be nice since it was Felix’s birthday. I could manage some form of kindness even if he didn’t deserve it.

“Chan’s fine,” Felix waved me off even though I was certain I saw Chan struggling to hang up lights on the balcony just moments ago when I went to change my clothes.

I glanced at the clock above the stove. “Your fellow party animals will be here soon.”

“You’re not cool enough for those references,” Felix told me as he straightened his tie.

“I wasn’t trying to be,” I said, wiping my forehead with a nearby towel. My makeup was probably smeared but I didn’t care. Who was I hoping to impress anyway? The only person I dressed up for was Chan and he could care less about my appearance.

And it was only a few minutes later when the doorbell started to ring. I took a deep breath to try and reassure myself that I could make it through tonight without another Advil. “Someone’s here!” Felix squeaked, knocking his shoulder against mine in his haste to answer the door.

“No matter who it is, I’ll still be in hell,” I muttered, closing my eyes when I recognized Hyunjin’s voice mixing with Felix’s.

“Y/N!” Hyunjin sang, poking his head in the kitchen as if he owned the place. “There you are! Looking all pretty for us.”

“That was the goal,” I half-heartedly quipped back, turning off the stove once I declared Felix’s stupid Tteok-bokki cooked enough.

“Your legs look good,” Hyunjin said, abruptly leaning in closer. “Are you even wearing anything under that skirt?”

“Hyunjin!” Felix shouted his friend’s name from the living room. “Come check out the decorations.”

Hyujin blew a kiss in my direction, tossing me a poor excuse for a wink. “Bye, Y/N!”

Maybe one more Advil wouldn’t hurt.

The party was in full swing by the time Minho finally arrived, greeting Felix with some kind of cheesy handshake. It was too late for me and I had already resigned myself to the futon of isolation in the living room, mourning the loss of one of my good dishes thanks to Han Jisung deciding to request something fancier than our regular set. “Sorry, Y/N,” Jisung had apologized. “I’m sure you can easily replace it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure my dead grandmother has another lying around somewhere,” I snarled in his direction, ignoring his wide-eyed look of disbelief as I searched for the broom.

Minho eventually finished his conversation with Felix, offering me a sympathetic look while occupying the last remaining chair. “Y/N?”

“Oh, I’m doing just fine,” I told him.

“You look miserable,” Minho informed me, throwing up his feet on my glass coffee table even though I had told him countless times before to keep his dirty socks on the floor.

“Chan hates me,” I said. “Felix is happy.”

“Ah,” Minho nodded. “Trouble in paradise?”

“It’s all Felix’s fault,” I sniped. “He found out I went to lunch with Changbin and told Chan because he knew it would lead to an argument.”

“He still doesn’t like you?” Minho snorted as if the idea were amusing.

“Felix has hated me since the beginning of time. He was brought to this Earth to cause me misery.”

“I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” Minho said. “Where is Chan, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “If he wasn’t with Felix, then you might want to check the balcony. I think I saw him sneaking the Advil bottle out there earlier.”

Minho snickered. “You don’t even realize it, but you two are grossly similar. I’m sure Chan would have preferred a quiet dinner out somewhere.”

“Well, Felix always gets what he wants,” I said. “It’s been this way since high school.”

Minho considered me for a moment. “In his defense, Chan has always been Felix’s best friend. They’ve been attached at the hip since they were kids, but then you came into the picture. Suddenly, Chan isn’t as interested in spending all his time with Felix any more.”

“Are you saying I need to find Felix a girlfriend?”

“Y/N,” Minho said softly. “I’m just saying, maybe you need to think about things from Felix’s perspective for once. You were an only child, so you can’t understand what it means to share a close relationship with a brother.”

“Hmm, well you’re like a brother to me,” I teased him.

“Ugh,” Minho gagged. “You’ve had my dick in your mouth before, Y/N, please never say that again.”

“I was trying to be sweet,” I said. “But you ruined it.”

“Did I?” Minho smirked, glancing up at something behind me. “Are you having a good time, Felix?”

“We’re out of beer,” Felix interrupted, face suddenly mere inches from mine.

“You shouldn’t drink like a fish.”

“Medusa,” Felix tried again, holding out a ring of car keys. “Make yourself useful and buy us some more beer.”

I rolled my eyes but acquiesced. “Whatever you want, your majesty.”

I hated winter in New York City because the sidewalks were icy all the time and I was constantly in danger of rolling my ankle. Nevertheless, I tolerated the snow and wind by trading my heels for rain boots and wrapping my body in the thickest coat I owned. Normally, I might consider walking to the convenience store, but tonight I knew my fingers would be nothing but frozen icicles if I attempted that perilous journey.

Thankfully, the traffic was fairly light this late at night which allowed a relatively quick drive to the store, parking my corvette at the sidewalk. I walked inside with a muffled greeting to the store attendant, searching down the aisle to where the beer was stocked in the freezers. “He didn’t even tell me what he wanted,” I scoffed, deciding on the expensive Corona from the bottom shelf since Felix always liked things more when they cost a lot of money.

“Having a party?” the store attendant joked, accepting my debit card after ringing up the cases.

“Something like that,” I said, wondering if that was always his assumption if someone bought more than one bottle of the nasty smelling beverage.

Meanwhile, it had started snowing again when I walked back outside, popping the trunk to store the beer until I finally returned home. I switched on the ignition and turned on the heat to its fullest setting before sitting back in my seat to wrap my arms around myself, fighting off a series of chills. The action reminded me of Junior Year when Chan and I used to make late-night trips to the gas station near his apartment complex. We’d buy all sorts of unnecessary snacks, driving back together because we had planned a movie marathon of Harry Potter. Chan always complained about the films I liked, but he watched them anyway because he knew I enjoyed them.

I came to a stop at a red light, frowning when I noticed that nobody was coming in either direction. “Change already,” I ordered the traffic light as if it could possibly accommodate my request.

“I’ll teach you patience, Y/N,” Chan once told me after we waited nearly an hour in a heavy downpour outside the comic book shop because he just had to have some kind of rare edition figurine.

The traffic light eventually turned green and I rolled out into the intersection, never noticing the reckless SUV until mere seconds before it crashed into the side of my car.

I had the worst luck in the world when it came to relationships. First, there was my tired rendezvous with Minho in high school, blowing my best friend in the bathroom because he’d always fuck me with his fingers afterward. Then, there was that slimy bastard Seo Changbin who I willingly gave my virginity to, thinking he was the love of my life. That was before I found out he was cheating on me with some sleazy cheerleader thanks to a couple of photos surfacing on Facebook. My heart was instantly broken, pride in shambles as I spent an entire week hiding out in my dormitory ignoring all phone calls and text messages as I cried over a boy who never deserved my attention in the first place.

I plucked a few strands of grass from the ground next to my feet, savoring the first taste of sunlight I had allowed myself since that unfortunate discovery. Who the hell did Seo Changbin think he was anyway? Playing with my heart like that as if it meant absolutely nothing to him.

At least I wasn’t sad anymore, having spent enough time crying over the destructive boy. Now, all I could think about was smacking that stupid smug grin off his face while thoroughly purging my built-up frustrations...“Y/N?”

I turned around quickly at the sound of Chan’s voice, rising to my feet to brush the loose grass and dirt from my jeans. “Channie,” I said, nervously wringing my hands in front of me. Chan was probably mad at me since I had been ignoring him all week.

“Are you okay?” he asked instead, tone surprisingly gentle as he stopped in front of me.

“Not really,” I told him honestly.

“I didn’t think so,” Chan said, features hardening. “I’ll beat the shit out of Seo for you.”

I shook my head. “That won’t do any good.”

“But if it makes you feel better,” Chan said, reaching out to delicately swipe his thumb under my eyes. “You aren’t sleeping.”

It was more of a statement rather than a question, but I still felt the need to reassure him. “I promise that I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Chan said, offering me a kind smile. “I can tell, you know?”

“Yeah you’re good at that,” I groused.

“I’m pretty good at a lot of things when it comes to you,” Chan admitted, eyes holding a pure kind of affection as they appraised me.

“I’m glad I have you,” I said, letting out a sigh as I allowed my head to rest against the center of his chest. “You don’t think I’m stupid for trying things out with Changbin?”

“You’ve always liked him,” Chan said with a bitter tone that sounded more like a jealous lover rather than a friend.

I chose not to say anything. “I hope the two of them make each other miserable.”

Chan chuckled. “Is this your form of revenge?”

“I don’t think it’ll work out in my favor,” I said, pressing myself even closer to Chan, pausing when my hand drug across his stomach. “Holy shit, Channie, you weren’t kidding about the gym.”

“Did you not believe me?”

“Who are you trying to impress?” I grinned, propping my chin against his sternum to make it easier to look into his eyes.

“It’s always been the same person,” Chan said vaguely, dimples on display as he considered me. “I hope Seo didn’t destroy your faith in relationships.”

“It wouldn’t be entirely his fault,” I sighed. “All my relationships have been complete failures.

“Y/N,” Chan whispered, brushing a light kiss across my forehead. “Maybe it’s because you’ve never tried the right guy.”

The memory was laced with something warm, an association that stood in stark contradiction to my current condition, slowly opening my eyes to a pulsing room, somehow much too bright for my pupils to adjust. Was I alive? I wondered because I couldn’t really feel anything which was certainly disarming. But then there was a familiar smell, rancid and burning, and it made me feel like I was definitely not in any sort of happy afterlife. There was also the problem of the blurry figure slowly coming into focus next to me, fiddling with an array of wires twisting together with the sounds of a machine distantly clicking in the background. I watched through hooded eyes as the now perceivable person in question handled an impressively large needle, pinching my skin painfully at the juncture of my elbow.

“Han Jisung,” I began, startling him from where he was checking the IV. “Just put a fucking needle into my arm. What hellish realm have I descended into?”

“Y/N!” Jisung squealed loudly, leaning down to press a sloppy kiss against my forehead.

“What the hell was that for?”

“For not dying,” Jisung sighed in relief. “When you came in, there was nothing but blood and glass everywhere!... Oh, and Chan may or may not have a fine against him for beating the living shit out of the asshole that hit you.”

“Why are you so loud?” I groaned, palming my forehead because the room was still swimming into focus. “What happened?”

“You probably don’t remember,” Jisung said. “It was a pretty bad concussion, but you were in a car accident.”

“I was?” I questioned, struggling to recall anything past a few minutes ago when I first realized that incompetent Han Jisung was sticking pointy objects into my veins.

“Chan was so upset,” Jisung said. “He wanted to do the surgery, but the superintendent wouldn’t let him.”

“Surgery?” I repeated. “I had surgery?”

“Cuz’ of your ribs,” Jisung said quietly as if finally realizing that he probably shouldn’t be saying all this to me at once, especially if the persistent beeping of the heart monitor was something to be concerned about.

“What’s wrong with my ribs?” I asked, somewhat panicking as I felt down my chest, noticing the thick bandage wrapped around my upper body.

“Chill, Y/N,” Jisung placated, reaching around me to adjust the monitor. “Now I can’t get an accurate reading!”

“So sorry to inconvenience you,” I said with a hoarse voice, reaching up to quickly wrap my hand around my throat. “Is there something wrong with my voice?”

“Well, you’ve been out for three days so...”

“Three days!”

Now I was definitely panicking, full-on hysteria as the heart monitor loudly detected the irregular contraction of the muscle thundering aggressively against my chest. It was enough to alert the doctor on duty, walking into my room to check on his patient, scolding Jisung harshly as he filled a syringe with a clear liquid. “Don’t worry, Y/N,” he said kindly, injecting the fluid into my IV. “Just relax.”

My eyelids fluttered closed, overwhelmed by a disjointed sense of calm that gradually pulled me back under the current of drug-induced bliss.

“Sweetie.”

My eyes flew open at the sound of his voice, the best wake-up call in the whole world. I slowly turned my head to the side, taking in the sight of my disheveled husband, eyes blood-shot with heavy dark bags haunting tight circles against his pale skin. “Channie?”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Chan sniffled, fresh tears swelling his cheeks as he leaned in closer to grip tightly to my hand. “It’s all my fault.”

I considered him closely, wondering what he could possibly mean by accepting blame for whatever was causing him obvious pain. I faintly remember Jisung telling me about am accident, but it was difficult to really think back any further, like a wall had enclosed around my brain, refusing to allow anything else to come into consciousness. But Chan didn’t need to cry, he was usually the best part of my life, waking up in bed together to share sweet kisses or eagerly waiting for him to come home and swoon over my newest K-Drama obsession. “Why are you sad?” I asked him, reaching out to do my best and wipe away those nasty tears.

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Chan cried, heart-wrenching sobs that broke my heart with every heavy inhale. “I didn’t know where you were.”

“Is that why you’re upset?” I asked, wiping away a few mischievous curls that had wandered into his eyes.

“I found you in the intersection,” Chan whispered. “And the car...” he trailed off with a choking gasp as if the details were too horrific to describe.

“I’m here now, Channie,” I said, desperate to relieve his sadness. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

Chan nodded furiously, pressing a wet kiss to the back of my hand. “I can’t lose you like that, sweetie.”

“Well, I plan to stick around for a while,” I said, earning me a half-smile in return. “Channie,” I whispered, glancing around the room conspiratorially. “Is there anything good to eat in this place?”

This time Chan did laugh and it was the best medicine I could possibly have.

“Vitals?” Chan asked, lingering around the poor nurse who clearly wasn’t expecting this much attention over one patient when she clocked in this morning.

“I already checked them,” the nurse informed him, writing down something on the chart clipped to the edge of my bed. I sipped my water as I watched the two of them, wondering if Chan had been this overbearing the entire time.

“Temperature?”

“98 degrees.”

“Blood pressure?”

“122/75”

“Respiration?”

“Chan,” I whispered softly, immediately drawing my husband’s attention who was at my side in an instant. “I think the nurse knows how to do her job.”

The poor woman shot me a grateful smile as she re-clipped my chart, hurrying out of the room as if she couldn’t possibly escape fast enough. “Sorry,” Chan said, taking his seat next to me. “I’m just worried.”

“I get discharged tomorrow,” I told him. “Pretty sure that means I’m just fine.”

“But your leg,” Chan whined, fussily messing with the large cast, tucking the blankets in securely.

“It’ll heal,” I said, frowning as I picked at the squishy jello the nursing staff had brought in earlier. “Isn’t there anything else to eat?”

Chan tsked. “That’s good for you, Y/N. It’s full of necessary vitamins.”

I should have known better than to ask my doctor husband if I could possibly have something that actually had flavor to eat. No matter how much I begged and pleaded, Chan refused to waver from the nasty daily meals I was brought, much to my disappointment. “I’d kill for a burger.”

“Too much fat,” Chan said, turning down the idea before I could possibly try to negotiate.

“It physically hurts me to eat,” I tried. “I think they’re secretly plotting my death.”

“Y/N,” Chan scolded lightly. “There’s a reason why we serve this to patients, alright?”

I frowned at him but shoved a spoonful of the nasty substance in my mouth, earning me a pleased smile in response. “Happy?”

“You can have better food tomorrow,” Chan said, pausing as he reached down to check his phone notifications. “Minho is here,” he grumbled. “I guess I’ll go get him from the lobby before he gets lost.”

“Thank you, darling,” I chirped, accepting his brief kiss.

“I’ve seen worse,” Minho declared, ignoring Chan’s disbelieving scoff.

“You obviously weren’t here when she was first brought in,” Chan growled to him.

“How are you feeling, Y/N?” Minho asked, disregarding Chan who had gone back to check the dozens of machines somehow monitoring my every possible bodily function.

“Hungry,” I grimaced, pointing to my discarded container.

Minho lifted it curiously, bringing it his nose before he let out an unattractive grunt. “Is this garbage?”

“Don’t encourage her,” Chan said, reaching for my chart for the millionth time that day. “I’ll be right back, Y/N.”

“Okay,” I said, rolling my eyes once his back was turned.

I waited until Chan was gone before desperately reaching out for Minho. “You’ve got to help me, Minho! I can’t stand another day of jello and mashed potatoes. Get me a Big Mac and I’ll give you the number of one of my work acquaintances.”

Minho raised an interested brow. “Scale?”

“Oh, she’s definitely an 8...please!”

“That’s impossible to turn down, Y/N,” Minho grinned. “Give me ten minutes.”

I snatched his sleeve before he could walk away. “Make sure Chan doesn’t see.”

“So ask Han Jisung to fuck something up, got it.”

“You’re my best friend in the entire world. The rest of my life will be spent in your servitude.”

Minho offered me a brief salute and I solemnly nodded my head while ignoring the way my stomach growled.

It was growing dark outside and I’m pretty sure Jisung had accidentally given me too much of whatever pain medicine I had been prescribed. I could barely keep my eyes open as Chan settled next to me on his chair. “Y/N,” he said softly, picking at an invisible string on his suit pants. “I want to talk to you about the fight we had.”

My exhaustion vanished in a flash. “Okay,” I said, even though I had been hoping Chan would just forget that the fight even happened.

“I owe you an apology,” Chan said. “For acting like a jealous prick. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

“It’s my fault too,” I said. “I know how you feel about him, but I still went out anyway.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Chan said, swallowing down the lie even though I could always read him like a book. “But every time I think about Seo Changbin, I can’t help but remember Freshman year.”

“You act like he broke your heart instead,” I tried to joke, but Chan was everything but amused.

“Yeah, he did break your heart, Y/N, and I’ll never forgive him for it. He was an arrogant bastard back then, and I’m sure that hasn’t changed much.”

“Not really,” I agreed, recalling our prior lunch arrangement.

“And I’ll never be okay with the fact that you work with your ex-boyfriend, but since you love the job so much, I can’t possibly fight with you anymore,” Chan said. “I should trust you as my wife.”

“I’m not remotely interested in Changbin,” I said. “It just sucks that he’s got good connections.”

“But if he tries anything on you...”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I would never do anything to hurt you, even if his thighs look super good these days.”

“Y/N.”

“I know, Channie,” I giggled, reaching for his hand. “Trust me, alright? I don’t plan to work there forever. Fingers crossed for a promotion to the publisher.”

“I’ll pray every night if I have to,” Chan said. “As for Felix...”

“Don’t worry about him,” I said. “I know that I should try harder to get along with Felix.”

“It’s a two-way street,” Chan countered. “I’ve spoken to him about everything.”

“You have?” I wavered. “What did he say?”

“Well, he feels really bad about the accident,” Chan said. “I think he realizes how much better things would be if you guys were on friendlier terms.”

“He really looks up to you,” I said, recalling Minho’s words from before. “I hope he doesn’t feel like I’m trying to steal you away.”

“Felix and I have always been close,” Chan said. “We both had a hard time moving here from Australia. But at the end of the day, we could rely on each other..”

“High school wasn’t very good to either of you,” I said.

“Well, except for you of course,” Chan said, attempting a smile.

“They were mean to you, Channie,” I said, “and you didn’t deserve any of it.”

“I’ve gotten over that,” Chan insisted. “But Felix always took everything harder than me. He wasn’t very social until college.”

“He should have stuck to being an introvert,” I said. “Look at the kind of friends he ended up with.”

“Are you saying Hyunjin is a bad influence?”

“Have you been around for our interactions?

“I’ve definitely noticed, Y/N. Remember what happened that one time when we went camping-”

“Anyways,” I loudly interrupted. “It seems like we both have a lot of things to work on.”

“But that’s why we talk about it,” Chan said, pressing a soothing kiss to the wrinkled crease of my forehead. “That’s what married couples do, right?”

“Ah, Channie, when did you become a walking cliche?”

“Should I be more serious, then?”

“You’re getting there with the doctor’s jacket.”

“Really?” Chan asked, sitting back in his chair. “Is this your way of asking us to try some kind of kinky roleplay?”

“I don’t know, but it might be interesting. Can I call you Dr. Bang?”

Chan was positively beaming. “You can always call me Daddy instead.”

“Darling, I think they accidentally gave you my prescription of morphine.”

If anyone were to ever ask me, then I’d tell them that signing hospital discharge papers was about as difficult as applying for a loan. “How many more are there?” I wondered, scribbling a messy signature at the bottom of the last sheet Jisung had brought for me to sign.

“I think that’s it.”

“You think?” I snorted, watching Jisung sort through each page carefully like he really had no idea what he was holding.

“Each year they add more shit for the patients,” Jisung explained. “I’m pretty sure they do it just to confuse me.”

“Everything confuses you, Jisung,” I said, patting his arm sympathetically. “Has Chan come in yet?”

“He’s on his way with Felix.”

“Goodie,” I grumbled. “Are you working late today?”

“Someone has to help since Chan insists on taking the day off,” Jisung said.

“I hope they aren’t planning on letting you do the surgeries.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?”

I kept my mouth shut, deciding to let Jisung live in his deluded fantasy world where he could somehow manage to cure patients of their ailments as opposed to causing them. Unsurprisingly, since the moment I had first met him, Jisung had always been completely sure of himself even if he was whole-heartedly wrong. For example, when we were all seniors in college, Chan refused to speak to Jisung for an entire week after the two of them received an F on their group project. Apparently, Jisung forgot to submit the lab report on time and waited an additional week before approaching the professor to politely ask if he could still bring it to her after class.

“Channie,” I tried to console him. “You know Jisung didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Yeah, but my GPA will still suffer the consequences,” Chan had sulked, whining about how difficult it was to maintain a friendship with Han Jisung.

Yet, when Chan was first hired by the hospital, Chan sent in a very persuasive reference for Jisung, encouraging the higher-ups to offer him a nursing position. The three of us went out to celebrate Jisung’s new job offer, nursing shots of bad vodka while eating rather terrible sushi. “Chan,” a very tipsy Jisung had said. “I love you so much, man.”

“Oi, keep your hands to yourself,” Chan had grouched despite wearing the biggest grin on his face...

“Y/N,” Jisung interrupted my recollection. “I think Chan just got here.”

“Finally,” I sighed. “I thought I would never be able to get the smell of alcohol out of my nose.”

“Thank God you’re here,” I said the moment Chan and Felix walked into my hospital room. “I’m pretty sure I had to sign my life away to leave this place, but it’s totally worth it.”

Chan rolled his eyes playfully. “I see you’re feeling better this morning.”

“I’ve been better for days,” I said. “But my doctor wouldn’t allow me to so much as breathe the wrong way.”

“Is that so?” Chan asked, reaching down for my discarded bag. “Your doctor sounds like a real asshole.”

“Yeah, but he’s pretty hot. I’d totally fuck him if I wasn’t already married.”

“It sounds like you have a thing for doctors?” Chan asked. “Does this husband of yours know that?”

“He probably does,” I said. “But I feel like he’ll probably leave me to masturbate on my own for months because of this dumb cast.”

“Y/N,” Chan scoffed. “It’s important for you to heal properly.”

I groaned loudly. “Why are you so responsible?”

Chan carefully handed me my bag. “Make sure you have everything. I’m going to talk to your surgeon one more time before we leave.”

It was difficult to prevent myself from protesting, finally realizing just how quiet it was with just me and Felix in the room. “Hi, Felix,” I said, awkwardly adjusting my blankets once Chan had disappeared from sight.

“Y/N,” Felix said, gaze focused on some unidentifiable point on the floor.

“What have you been up to?” I asked, trying to sound cheery because I didn’t like the look of despondence on Felix’s normally bright visage.

“I owe you an apology, Y/N,” Felix said with a vulnerable tone I had never heard from him before. “It’s because of me that you got hurt.”

“Felix,” I hesitated because this was uncharted territory for the both of us, a distant cry from our usual taunting banter. “You don’t need to do that. Everything’s fine now.”

“Your leg,” Felix whispered as an unexpected tear slid down the side of his face.

“It’s just a fracture,” I shrugged. “I’ll be just fine in a few months.”

“Just a fracture,” Felix parroted back, voice thick with emotion. “Why aren’t you mad at me? Because you should be. I’m always getting in your way.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked, surprised to hear Felix’s true feelings. “Felix, you aren’t in anybody’s way. You know I don’t really care that you’re staying with us, especially after you just graduated. I just wish you’d be a little bit more respectful.”

“Because I’ve always been jealous of you, Y/N,” Felix said. “Especially since Chan likes you more than me.”

“Felix, you know that Chan loves you. He would do anything in the world to make you happy.”

“He’s always chosen you over me,” Felix said. “He stopped hanging out with me on weekends in high school, and he even went to the same college as you even though he was accepted into Harvard and Yale.”

I was shocked by Felix’s true feelings, a rare moment of vulnerability that he was choosing to share with me. “Lixie,” I said. “Why have you never said anything before?”

Felix shivered at my use of his nickname. “I didn’t want to. You guys are so happy together and I didn’t want to hurt Chan.”

“Ya! Felix,” I frowned, “your feelings matter too. And if you really feel that way, then we need to talk about it together.”

“I’m just a burden,” Felix gruffed.

“No, you aren’t,” I insisted. “You’re part of our family, and if you’re ever feeling uncomfortable, then you deserve to be heard.”

“You don’t really mean that do you, Y/N?” Felix asked with glistening eyes. “I don’t want you to say these things just to make me feel better.”

“Felix, when have you ever seen me lying to someone just to protect their feelings?” I asked. “I always speak my mind, and this time I’m putting my foot down. When we get home, we’re having a movie marathon, just the three of us. And this weekend, you and Chan can go somewhere together out of town. I’ll have Minho stay with me instead.”

“Really?” Felix asked, swiping a sleeve under his bright red nose.

“We’re in-laws you know,” I said. “That means we look out for one another.”

“Y/N,” Felix giggled and, for once, I didn’t feel the slightest bit annoyed.

“Lee Felix, don’t you ever let me catch you crying like this again, understand?”

Felix nodded, smiling so brilliantly that I was reminded of when we were much younger and he was just an innocent little boy who idolized his older brother.

“Careful,” Chan said, holding the door wide with one hand while keeping a firm grip around my waist.

“I’m not gonna break,” I grumbled, pausing in the doorway as I let out a grateful sigh. It was a huge relief to be back at home and not stuck in that hospital room surrounded by questionable smells.

Chan carefully led me into the living room and I gave him my crutches before collapsing on the futon, ignoring the rigid fabric because I had never been happier to hug one of the matching throw pillows. “Comfortable?” Chan asked, helping me prop my leg up on the coffee table. Meanwhile, Felix lingered in the doorway, grasping my bag tightly between his hands.

“Come join us, Felix,” I said. “You’ll let out all the heat.”

Felix nodded, eyes wide as he locked the door behind him. Chan sent me a curious look as if he wasn’t sure what I was hoping to accomplish by inviting his younger brother into the same room. “I have something for you.”

I clapped my hands together eagerly. “Is it something loaded with carbohydrates and fat?”

“Not quite,” he said, handing me my cell phone. “Seo Enterprises called earlier today. I already contacted them about the accident, but I guess they need to hear from you.”

“Great,” I grimaced, dialing the number from memory. It rang for a few moments, and Chan and Felix were both messing around with the TV, probably trying to figure out what to watch. Because the only thing the two brothers argued about was whether action movies were better than romance.

“Seo Enterprises, this is Eliza speaking how can I help you today?”

“Hi,” I immediately cringed, wondering how many cool points I could possibly lose in one day. “This is Y/N, can I speak to Mr. Seo please?”

“I can transfer you right away,” Eliza spoke promptly as if she had already been prepared to receive my call.

“Y/N!” Changbin’s voice now answered. “I’m glad to hear from you.”

“Yeah, I’ve been having a lot of bad luck recently,” I said. “I guess you know about the accident.”

“I heard,” Changbin said. “How are you?”

“I’m alright,” I said. “But I might need some time away from the company. Apparently, a broken leg is a pretty big deal.”

“Take as much time as you need, Y/N,” Changbin said. “I’ve hired a temporary secretary until you’re ready to come back.”

“I don’t know, Changbin,” I said. “It might take several weeks. Maybe you should just hire a replacement.”

“There’s no need for that, Y/N,” Changbin countered. “I still believe you’re the best person for the job.”

“Well, if you’re sure...” I trailed off, shaking my head furiously at Chan when he held up our used copy of The Notebook.

“I’m definitely sure,” Changbin said. “Call me when you want to come back. We still have a lot of things I want to do together in the future.”

“You’re too indecisive,” Chan said, finally taking a well-deserved seat next to me on the futon.

“And you have terrible taste in cinema,” Felix retorted.

“Yeah? Well maybe we should just let Y/N pick,” Chan suggested, mouthing a sweet kiss against my temple.

“I think Felix should decide,” I said, cuddling up closer to Chan’s side.

“Really?” Felix asked, appearing entirely surprised that I would allow him such freedom.

“Why not?” I sighed happily. “I’ll even watch that weird anime movie if you want.”

Felix scoffed but a faint smile remained as he grabbed the remote. Chan chuckled and leaned down to press another kiss to the top of my forehead. “I’m proud of you, sweetie,” he whispered.

“It’s only because I love you so much,” I said while shrugging indifferently, but Chan could always read through me.

“Hmm, well I love you more,” he said, brushing his fingers through my hair as the opening credits rolled across the screen.

#stray kids #stray kids fanfic #bang chan #chan #chan fanfic #bang chan fanfic #chris bang #chan smut #bang chan smut

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sxvxrxssnape · 4 years

Text

Small Mercies In Poisoned Teacups

Snapetober 2020: Day 3 - Torture a much softer take at the prompt

"Explain yourself."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

Severus closed his eyes. He dug two fingers into his temple, trying to ward off the headache that was sure to come if he had to continue this conversation for any longer. He took a quiet deep breath and reminded himself that he couldn't accuse Potter of stealing from him without any real proof.

"You were the last one out of the classroom." Severus finally spoke, opening his eyes and staring at the green-eyed Gryffindor in front of him.

"Is that a crime?"

Severus scowled. "Specifically, you were coming out of my potion stores when I reentered my classroom, Potter."

Potter didn't say anything, merely looked defiant. Fifth year potions had just ended and Severus had been distracted at the door by a question from one of his Slytherins and when he'd turned around to ensure the room was empty so he could lock up, he spotted the fifteen year old slipping out of the supply cabinet. He didn't bother to take stock, he knew whatever the brat had taken would be small enough to miss; he wouldn't make the same mistakes he had during second year, when he had stolen a noticeable amount of supplies to brew polyjuice in secret.

Instead, he had cornered the boy before he could leave the dungeons corridor altogether.

"I didn't take anything, if that's what you're accusing me off." Potter muttered, gripping his bag a little too tightly.

"No?" Severus asked gently, completely derailing Potter's defensiveness with his sudden softness. He wanted answers and he knew just how to get them. "Come with me, Potter."

He led the boy back towards the classroom, back into the potions store. He gestured around the shelves lined with unlabeled phials and jars, at the collection of ingredients.

"I suppose I should be impressed if you had managed to steal from me." Severus mused, watching him carefully. "I would be surprised if you paid enough attention to know what half of these potions even are, let alone what they do. I don't label, you see, to dissuade halfwitted children from stealing from me. The half that do understand are usually intelligent enough to just ask. It's a pity you aren't."

"I didn't think you'd have much sympathy for me, sir." Potter muttered darkly, his voice so quiet Severus wasn't sure it was meant to be audible. Harry was staring intently at a small collection of glass bottles with mismatched labels half-scrubbed away.

"What makes you say that?" Severus asked, keeping his voice flat and neutral. He probably wouldn't have much sympathy truthfully, didn't have much to spare with everything he had to take care of this year. Still, as he stared at the bottles filled with Essence of Dittany, a strange sort of cold feeling washed over him. It was probably nothing - children get hurt all the time. It was the preference to steal than go to the hospital wing that forced his uneasiness.

Harry shrugged.

"What, pray tell, do you need the Essence of Dittany for?" Severus finally asked, masking the uneasiness with annoyance. He noticed the boy flinch in response. "Were you so arrogant to think I wouldn't figure it out? Mr. Potter, your tells are so obvious, you wouldn't fool a lemming."

He muttered under his breath.

"Speak up, Potter."

"I cut my hand, is all." Harry repeated and the angry defiance in his tone had returned.

Severus held back a sigh and led them out of the storage room. He pointed to a chair and waited until the boy had sat down until he spoke. "Then why not just go to the infirmary? Surely a boy of your status would prefer to bask in the attention of Madame Pomfrey than myself?"

"It's really not worth going to the infirmary over."

"Then why steal in the first place?"

Harry scowled. "Madame Pomfrey would make too big of a deal out of it and it would only make things worse. I can handle it on my own, thanks."

"Handle what?" Severus was only growing more puzzled, but he wouldn't let that derail him. He could tell something was absolutely wrong with the situation in front of him and he was determined to figure it out before he punished the boy for having the audacity to steal from him yet again.

He remained silent.

"Don't make me threaten you with veritaserum."

"How original." Harry scowled and then paused. He looked up at the potions master with curiosity. "Actually sir, I do have a question: how difficult is it to get your hands on veritaserum?"

"Quite." Severus answered, studying him carefully. "It's regulated by the Ministry. Unless you know how to make it, of course, but it's also difficult to brew."

Harry nodded. "So if a professor were to use it on their students, they would have to get it from the Ministry….or you?"

"What are you getting at, Potter."

"Nothing really."

"The Ministry would never sanction the distribution of veritaserum to a professor. Any potion they are in possession of and wish to use, can only be used within a courtroom." Severus decided to answer, inferencing the reason for the question. "If a wizard - professor or not - wanted it for petty use, they would have to contact a willing potioneer for it."

"I suppose any teacher here could just ask you for it, then.”

"They could. They would also have to trust that the veritaserum they were given wasn't just a phial of distilled water, wouldn't they?" Severus asked indifferently.

Harry's eyes widened the tiniest bit, but he didn't say anything.. Good. There was plausible deniability that way; he had never outright said he'd given Dolores fake veritaserum when she had banged his office door open last week, but who's to say what really happened?

He eyed Harry carefully and figured they had built enough of a rapport to continue. "Essence of Dittany." he reminded the boy.

"I told you, I just cut my hand."

"Let me see, then." Severus directed as snippets of memory from past years rose up. His job of keeping the boy alive was made unnecessarily difficult by his insistence of constantly getting into trouble. At this point, he wouldn't be surprised if "just a cut" meant "I lost a limb" for the boy.

Again, Harry scowled, but this time he pulled back the sleeve of his robe and presented the back of his hand to Severus.

He blinked.

The back of Potter's hand was red and slightly swollen, streaked with wet crimson from where the fabric of his sleeve had been dragged over the still bleeding corners of the words carved into the skin. The cuts were deep and angry-looking and sure to scar over.

I must not tell lies.

He reached a tentative hand, acutely aware of the flinch he received, and studied the wound closer. It was days old, but it was also fresh at the same time.

"Essence of Dittany was a good choice." he finally spoke up.

"It was Hermione's idea."

Severus nodded, trying to keep his composure but he could feel the anger coiling in his stomach. He could also feel the hum of Dark magic radiating from the wound. Simple healing spells would be useless here, but he doubted Miss Granger hadn't already tried that before suggesting the Dittany. "How did this happen?" he asked needlessly.

He knew the work of a blood quill when he saw it.

Harry took his hand back, pulled the sleeve down until the ugly words were hidden from sight again. "Umbridge had me do lines for my detention," he shrugged casually, as if admitting to a professor torturing him was no big deal, "and she insisted I use a special quill of hers."

Severus' lips thinned. "And you told no one."

"I just told you.”

This time, he couldn't hold back the sigh of exasperation. "How long has this been going on?"

"Three days now." Harry answered. "I have her again tonight. I can handle it."

The anger was only increasing. “You shouldn’t have to handle it.” he gritted out. “You understand this is beyond unacceptable? This isn’t punishment, Potter, it’s torture.” He forced a breath. “Go, go to, to wherever you’re supposed to be right now.” He paused. “You have detention with me tonight now, conveniently at the same time you’re supposed to be meeting with Umbridge.”

“Oh, uh, yes sir.”

“Leave.”

He managed to keep himself composed just long enough for the Gryffindor to flee out of the room. He left the classroom as well and entered his private lab, seething. He would have to tell Minerva of this development, Dumbledore as well, but that could wait for a few hours. First, he needed to calm down before they accused him of caring for the brat.

He was only taking his duty at ensuring the safety and wellbeing of his students seriously. It just happened to include Potter directly, this time, but isn’t that what he’s been doing since day one? So maybe he had gotten the brat out of Dolores’ inhumane detention for the night and maybe now he was distraction brewing while he thought all of the deadly potions he wished he could slip into her morning cup of tea.

That didn’t mean anything.

It also didn’t mean anything that he summoned a house elf when he finished the nonlethal amber brew and handed over the indistinct vial. It didn’t mean anything at all if it happened to slip into Dolores’ teapot the next morning.

Besides, it wouldn’t kill her.

Unlike her, he had some sense of ethics. If it kept her too sick to leave the hospital wing for the week that followed, well, what were small mercies for students he didn’t care for.

---

A/N: the original piece for day 3 felt better suited for a different prompt day so i wrote this instead (late yes) and took a lot of creative liberty with the prompt bc i didnt want to write it, i wanted to write snape & harry interacting :(

also trying to fit entire stories in a singular scene is weird and HARD. i need to write the whole thing and thats why every take ive had an these prompts get scrapped bc i realize i cant write it without devoting like a week to it

#snapetober 2020 #severus snape #harry potter #snapedom #severitus #except not really but i take content in any shape or form that involves sev looking out for harry as acceptable

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mylovelies-docx · 3 years

Text

Kid Krow - Comfort Crowd

Part 6!

A/N: We finally find out what promise Y/N made and couldn’t keep.

Chapter warnings: angst (as always), and like one paragraph of very vague smut.

As always, listen to the song here!

And read the story on AO3 here!

Taglist: @maraudersandco @sociallyawkwardcircus-freak-hi @hkmultifandom @spider-starry @ashleykaiba @mayangel19

Word count: 3.2k (a long boy!)

When you stormed out of the cockpit, Mille, Zalos, and Arle refused to look at you. You couldn’t blame them; you looked like hell. Zorii sat sharpening a blade and ticked her head towards the cockpit, asking silently if you wanted her to deal with Poe. You sniffed hard, scrubbed at your eyes, shook your head, and practically ran to your quarters.

You pleaded with the universe to just make Poe sit still and not follow you. You could not handle another moment with him, or else you would explode. Or more specifically, your heart would explode and you would die a slow, agonized death. All because of Poe kriffing Dameron and his stupid, stupid , friendship.

You made your way through the corridors, leaning heavily against the walls in order to not fall over in your pursuit of a private downward spiral.

Eventually you made it to your door and entered your code. The door slid open and you rushed inside, closing it behind you as fast as you could so you could be alone. But going where so many memories of Poe lived had been a mistake. Being alone with your thoughts and emotions was just too much.

It was all too much.

With a shattered scream, you broke down. Every last piece of your heart was wrecked and crushed and ripped apart until it was unrecognizable. And still, this burning, unending pain would not. Go. Away!

Outside, you heard a raised voice. Poe. Saying something about needing to talk, to explain, to apologize. But then muffled, indistinct words of warning from Zorii. You knew that Zorii would not let Poe anywhere near you after what had just happened and how upset she knew you were.

Zorii walked inside, her lithe frame seemed to be held together by rage alone. She hadn’t even bothered to knock or ask if you wanted someone around. But regardless, she was now your best friend, and you just needed company now.

“I will refrain from speaking too much on it, but I do need to emphasize how much I despise that man for everything he’s done to you,” she explained, and settled on your cot.

You wheezed out a humourless laugh. You were numb, through and through, after the havoc that had occurred over your last two encounters with Poe.

Zorii was still angry, but she opened her arms to you for comfort anyway. The look on her face and in her manners spoke of softness in spite of her fury, and it broke whatever respite your breakdown had afforded you. A cry exploded from between your lips, slamming into the walls of your quarters and deafening you. It was the sound of anguish and pain and betrayal that was ripped straight from your heart.

You hadn’t felt so miserable and pitiful in all your life: those stupid kids from back home could never have made you feel as bad as Poe has.

Zorii opened her arms wider and you ran to her. You clutched at her waist, burying your face in her stomach and just sobbed . Sobbed for the best and only friend that you had had for years before Zorii came along. Sobbed for the stupid, love-sick fool that couldn’t take a fucking hint and get over her best friend that never saw anything in her anyway.

Sobbed for yourself. Your pitiful, sad excuse of a self.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” you muttered over and over again in hopes of getting your pain under control. “I don’t really need him. I don’t. I don’t…”

She sighed, rubbing soothing circles into your back. “ You’ve said that lie already . We both know what a load of bantha crap it is.”

You repeat yourself over and over again, trying to drive it through your own skull instead of hers.

“Look,” Zorii sighed once again, “I know you loved him. As more than a best friend.” You cringed against her, ashamed that Zorii had to find out how you felt about the man she had been sleeping with. “And trust me, I understand the appeal all too well. I wouldn’t have started anything up with him if I had known how you felt. And to give credits where credits are due, you hid it really well; I had no idea until last week.”

You still couldn’t believe that Poe had said that to you in front of Zorii, remembering how terrible you had felt about it and how profusely you had apologized to Zorii once she had come to check on you that night.

“I overheard your holo-vid with Kes the other night as well,” Zorii admitted, wincing at her own invasion of your privacy. You were too overwhelmed to tell her you really didn’t mind.

“He mentioned some force tree or something? I don’t really know what you had said before that, but he mentioned that and you went quiet. I’ll admit that I was intrigued and maybe wandered closer to your door than I intended to.”

Her voice went soft after that.

“But then I heard you mention that he knew: what who knew, at that point, I wasn’t sure. But you went on to explain how you had felt so pretty dressed up in Shara Bey’s dress and how you had prepared a whole speech. At that point, I figured you were talking about Poe.”

You closed your eyes against her and tried hard to push the memory away.

***

It was a lovely day on Yavin IV, and the big, gnarly-rooted force tree near the Dameron’s household was a brilliant green in the midday glow. The wind was whispering through the jungle, and all the creatures that made it their home seemed to be singing along to some unspoken melody. Just for you.

And for Poe, whenever he decided to show up.

You were all nerves. Sweat under your arms, a racing heart, and clammy hands: always the best look for confessing your love to someone.

You and Poe had returned home to Yavin last month after being away for a few years. Your group had had a close call on the last run, and you begged Poe to come with you to see Kes and your gran.

Your gran couldn’t care less that you hadn’t been home, but Kes was ecstatic that you guys had come back to see him.

Poe had gone to the market to pick up some snacks for the picnic Kes told him you had planned. Poe just didn’t know that it was supposed to be a date for the two of you, and Kes wasn’t going to spoil the surprise.

You were busy getting ready when Kes presented you with the most beautiful dress you had ever seen from Shara Bey’s closet. He was adamant that you wore that particular dress, since it was the one he loved most on her. Your emotions were already bubbling over from anxiety, but the look on Kes’s face when he looked at the dress broke your heart. You could see that he was reliving a memory of him and Shara Bey, and you just couldn’t break the spell that it had over him, so you sat quietly.

He eventually resurfaced and left you alone to finish your routine, all the while insisting that you’d be his official daughter sooner or later. Your smile was so big that it hurt your cheeks.

You arrived at the tree and started to set up the blanket and pillows that you had brought from the Dameron household. The blanket was spread out in the flattest nook between roots, and the pillows were propped up against the trunk. You took your place among the pillows and waited.

And waited.

Admittedly, Poe was prone to getting carried away with conversations between himself and the vendors, but that particular outing seemed to last forever in your mind. You knew why later, but at that point in time, you were convinced that Poe felt something for you and would return for you soon.

You knew that he felt something for you; on all your spice runs, he begged you to stay inside the ship and be safe, he brought you back pretty trinkets that he said reminded him of you, and he was always flirting.

Always.

The nickname he gave you? Princess? Absolutely flirtatious. The hugs before and after he left the ship? Obviously an excuse to be close to you. The little winks he’d send over the fire at you and all the inside jokes you two had? Come on! It was all right there. And Kes agreed! So, you two devised this little set up so that you could finally confess to Poe.

Even with only the progression of Yavin Prime to get a rough estimate of time’s passage, it still took Poe entirely too long to find you. When he finally showed up, you had fallen into a light sleep.

“Where’s dad?” Poe asked, setting down a basket with absolutely nothing in it. He plopped down right beside it, startling you awake.

“Where are our picnic supplies?” You countered, rubbing your eyes and feeling nauseous and disoriented after your impromptu nap.

He lifted his hands in the air as if to say “what can you do” and grunted. “Everyone had packed up by the time I got there. Why isn’t dad out here with us? Did he go back to the house to grab something?” His nonchalance and lack of apology really ate away at your resolve to profess your love to him. You wanted to know what took him so long before you said anything about your feelings.

“No, no he never came out here,” you explained. “Why did it take you so long to get to the market? You left hours ago -- the sun’s going down.” You were wringing your hands in your lap, nervous about what his answer could be.

“I was just catching up with someone; nothing to worry your beautiful head about.” When he said that, he had smoothed over the top of your head like a cherished and beloved friend. “It’s a good thing for us, I promise,” he winked. You were eating it all up like you were starved for affection.

How tragic.

You quickly grasped his hand before you lost all nerve. You kept it between your palms, drawing patterns on the back of it that kept your eyes down and away from his questioning gaze and adorable, slightly confused smile.

The future opened up bright and wonderful before you: your mutual affections coming out in the open and that long-awaited first kiss. Stars , you had been fantasizing about Poe’s lips for more than half of your life at that point. And his hands. His hands! Maker, if they would just glide over your skin and caress you like you had pictured for years, you would die a happy woman. And you’d thread your hands through those beautiful curls at the nape of his neck and tug just a little bit, until he groaned like you had always heard in your dreams. You would move together, right on that blanket under the force tree you and Poe had always loved. You would come apart in the most delicious way, panting and crying, with his mother’s ring dangling from the chain around his neck and nestling itself into the hollow of your throat. And then he would grind into you one final time and just pour his affections into your neck and mouth for safe keeping.

How goddamn tragic it all turned out to be .

“I need to tell you something,” you whispered, looking up through your eyelashes at him. He grinned, seeming just as excited and nervous as you were.

“Me too. I’ve been dying to tell you something for days now!” He wiggled where he sat next to you, scooting as close as he could and touching your foreheads together, like you were about to share secrets that were only meant for the two of you.

“You first,” you said, breathless. You couldn’t believe it was finally happening.

“No, no. You had something to say first, so you go ahead.” Poe had still been grinning at you, the happiest you had seen him in a while.

“How about we say it together?” You countered, giving his hand a little squeeze in anticipation.

“Okay, on the count of three,” he began.

“One…” you said together.

“Two…” you continued.

“Three!” You shut your eyes.

“I love you,” -- “Zorii and I are together,”

Silence. Your eyes were still shut, but now you were holding them so tightly that shapes were floating behind your eyelids. Poe pulled his hand from yours.

“What?” He asked, sounding confused and slightly wounded. Like he couldn’t believe that you had the nerve to say that out loud and ruin everything .

“Don’t,” you began, turning your head down and willing your heart to stop its frantic pace in your chest. “I – I didn’t know… I thought…” you trailed off, unsure what to say to fix the mess that you had created.

“(Y/N), do—do you love me? As more than a friend?” He grabbed your chin and forced you to meet his baffled gaze. You couldn’t think straight at that point, so you said the first thing that had popped in your mind.

“Yes, of course I do.”

Stupid girl.

“Oh, princess.” He released your chin and sat back, resting against the pillows like he was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to deal with the situation any longer. “I’m sorry if I ever did anything to lead you on; I just thought we were friends. I mean, we both see other people, and I’ve never felt that way about you so I didn’t think you did either.”

He could not have said anything worse to you in that moment, could not have said anything that sucked all the warmth from your body any faster than that had.

Okay, (Y/N), just breathe. Think of a way out of this, you begged your frazzled mind. Anything would be better than the silence stretching between you at that point.

“I guess… I got some things confused. I’m sorry.” And now you were that little girl again, apologizing for things out of your control and no fault of your own.

You felt small again, insignificant and alone. A floating pile of junk in the vacuum of space, with no planet in sight and no answers to your distress calls.

Poe could see you spiraling, he had known you long enough to recognize the signs.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey. It’s okay, princess, we’ll figure this out,” he murmured, coming closer to you once again. He arranged the pillows so that he could lay back with you on his chest. He wrapped his arms around you and muttered soothing words, trying to calm you down and bring you back to him. Like he had done so many times before.

“No, there’s nothin’ to figure out; this is on me. Just give me some time and I’ll get over it.” You hadn’t gotten over it in all the years you had loved him-- truly loved him-- but you had vowed to figure it out, and quickly, so that you could stop feeling like that. “I promise I’ll get over it,” you said into the fist that was curled next to your face on his chest.

You closed your eyes and tried not to focus too hard on how good he felt underneath you like that. How intimate it was, how much it reminded you of the outcome of every daydream you had had.

How you knew that it was probably how he and Zorii spent their nights together now...

***

“Kes didn’t know how that day turned out because Poe and I fell asleep outside. I was too embarrassed to face him that next mornin’, so I sent Poe back to tell him we got an urgent message and had to leave. I don’t know exactly what they said to each other, but Poe looked sad when he came back and I didn’t wanna know.” The confession slipped through your lips, chapped from all the salty tears that you had cried into Zorii’s tunic.

“Oh, (Y/N). I’m so, so sorry. He was on a call with me that evening. I had no idea you were waiting on him; he just mentioned you all were going on a picnic and that his dad could keep you company for a while.” Her hands clenched against your back, as if trying to protect from a hurt that had already passed and done its damage.

“That boy wouldn’t know a Gungan from an Ewok if they were both standing in front of him. The only reason we ever got together was because I made the first move.” Her hands now continued their previous path of soothing circles, hoping to make up for the pain that she unintentionally caused not so long ago.

It amazed you how drastically things could change in such a short amount of time.

“It’s alright, Zorii, I’m not mad at you. I’m just angry at myself. Always at myself. For bein’ too slow, too emotional, too much and never enough at the same time.” You were defeated and exhausted, no longer able to keep even an ember of your earlier fire alive.

“I will not tolerate you speaking about my best friend that way; she is a wonderful person, and the best damn pilot we’ve ever had. She doesn’t deserve to be treated this way,” Zorii chided, having pushed you away from her and giving you a stern look.

You returned something resembling a smile.

You looked back to her lap where you had just spent an indeterminate amount of time; the white fabric covering her stomach was completely transparent.

“Oh Rii, I’m sorry about your clothes,” you mumbled, trying to dry it with the sleeves of your outfit. It did no good.

“I don’t really mind; I like my shirts soggy,” she said, deadpan.

This time, a real laugh bubbled up from your throat. You were immensely grateful you had a friend like her.

______

For months after Poe’s departure, you kept a smile on your shoulders until you were sweaty; begging on your knees for somebody to come and help you when it was too much to carry. Zorii did her best, but no one could replace the comfort and happiness you had once found in Poe. You eventually stopped asking for help and pretended to have moved on.

But time passes, and past hurts are less painful. Especially when you don’t think about them.

You had seen the missed messages from Poe in those early days. Every time your comm buzzed, the despair you felt over your situation returned tenfold, and the only option was to throw the device in a forgotten corner and let it die -- just like your feelings.

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron #poe x reader #poe dameron/reader #poe dameron x you #poe dameron x female reader #star wars #star wars fan fiction #sequel trilogy #Kid Krow (A Poe Dameron Story)

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courtorderedcake · 4 years

Text

Majestically Too Far Beyond, CSSNS 2020

Emma Swan is a Witch who has made (And apparently makes) bad decisions. Helping a desperate Witch out of a weird situation doesn't seem like a bad decision, even against her, runes, a tarot reading and her friend's Snow druid intuition - until it is and the consequences are very real.

Killian is a Demon with a long history of persecution against him, and his denizens are not much better off. His Angelic brother is on a mission to rehab Demonic image to prevent violence on the streets of Hyperion Heights, as some sort of Holy mission deeply rooted in millenia of guilt. Witches and Warlocks use them for parts, Werewolves see them as a threat, Angels mostly still hold on to the ancient feud regardless of their treatise, Fae stay chaotic neutral, Vampires don't care for others affairs - it's a perilous world where hate crimes happen without consequence. After a disastrous meeting, he attempts to drown his frustration with a trip to the bottom of a bottle, but ends up falling in bed with a mysterious Witch in her tower home. Soon he's missing a hand, has only the vaguest idea of what happened from the mess of blood he's woken up to, and a mirror shows that some strange, different, Witch is pregnant with his child.

RATED M for Mature Themes. Written for @cssns 2020 Beta’d by The best team ever ( @jarienn972 @ultraluckycatnd @donteattheappleshook) and Art by @kmomof4

Read on Ao3 HERE. 1 | 2

Chapter 2 - House Evil Spirits to appease of,

Part of Emma was coming to terms with the new fact that she was pregnant, then just as rapidly she reverts back through the cycle of grief, sometimes not in order. The doctor had warned her this would happen when she announced that they would be keeping her for overnight observation as a safety precaution, dropping the news that her new pregnancy hormones would also make her feel even more upside down then she had ever imagined. It was one thing to be told, but feeling it was another thing entirely.

She had gone from laughing at the breakfast menu she was handed to crying over grilled cheese not being an option, to enraged at being brought bright blue jello with her 'breakfast sandwich' made of bologna and eggs. They could not have known the intense reaction the jiggling neon goo would have given her, her magic flaring and sputtering in turn as she launched it away from her. But then again, she doubted any of the staff had spent time in a No-Magic cell. Nausea bloomed as soon as rage subsided, the food on the plastic tray too similar to what had been served to her over those long years locked away.

Now irritation was playing through multiple emotions, a new nurse violently poking her with a needle, and running some sort of IV.

"You're giving me what -"

"A hormone treatment, and a magic suppressant."

"But I need my magic -"

"Would you prefer to shrivel up and die? You'll still have enough to do daily witch activities or whatever. This helps keep the extra at bay, and your baby healthy. It needs your magic."

"Oh. Great." She laughed, half crazed at the news and the nurse's treatment. "Just great."

"Mess with their kind, and well." She shrugged, eyeing Emma's body. "An Angel wouldn't do that to you. A Vampire couldn't, and the rest of 'em could, but you wouldn't have to suffer through all this nasty magic aftermath. You're just early enough for a termination though, thank Merlin."

"I didn't do this to myself on purpose . This was never supposed to happen, at least not like this…"

"Sure." The nurse rolled her eyes as she drew out the word, clearly being condescending. "It's never the Witch’s fault; I hear it every time I'm fixing them for blowing themselves in half for not reading a spell right. You play with dark magic, there's a cost."

Emma scowled, hot tears starting and streaming down her cheeks. Her anger and ferocity that was there just moments before had evaporated without warning into a deep resignation.

"Can my brother come to see me yet?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

"After they question you, sure. He can come pick you up - You're done here." The nurse pulled off the empty bag from the IV stand, throwing it in the trash.

The doctor entered, waving a hello. Emma did not notice her, too busy staring at her bump. She joined the nurse as a machine beeped, helping to take out her IV and the pads on her belly. When that was done, Emma sat up, wobbling from her strange new center of gravity.

The doctor smiled at her kindly. "We'll have your test results in a few days to a week's time. You'll feel strange and sluggish the first few weeks as your body catches up to the rapid growth, your hormones, the magic, so on and so forth. From there, you may actually start to grow as normal until you'll need the next dose of suppression. We'll schedule that out for 4 months from now, checking in monthly, but if you grow suddenly, shrink suddenly, your extremities swell, or you begin to exhibit flu like symptoms, come in immediately. If anything seems off, just give us a call. We have a twenty-four seven nurse line should you have any other questions. Good luck!"

The doctor left without much more than a precursory glance back.

Snapping her gloves, the nurse glared over her glasses at Emma. "Leave when you are ready. We got you a different outfit; it's amongst your personals there."

The nurse left in a hurry, leaving Emma to dress herself in a large pair of green hospital scrubs, her new figure completely foreign as she rubbed her hands across the smooth skin. Her once flat stomach was distended, a slight curve that pushed out stretched skin. Her clothes in the plastic bag they had given her were dirty and looked damp. The clothing she was given would have been a small comfort if the stiff fabric didn't feel so much like her old prison uniform.

"Fuck," Emma choked out, gripping the chair for support. She felt dizzy, absolutely nauseated at the idea of a baby. Her baby. She was pregnant. Something in her felt warmth at the idea, a strange, creeping feeling of rightness mixed with calm. The rest of her wanted to claw at her skin, urging her to wake up from this horrible dream.

Every time she closed her eyes, she fervently wished this wrongness was a hallucination. But it wasn't; she was still swaying on her feet every time she opened her eyes again. This wasn't some sort of nightmare, there was a baby, some creature's inhuman child inside her. "Fuck. Fuck!"

Tears began to prick behind her eyes, her face heating as she sat down on the hospital bed with her head cradled in her hands.

( You can't cry over this. This happened because of your shady dealings.

You got a firstborn child alright. Yours. )

Swallowing hard, Emma tried to banish the thoughts bombarding her.

( A baby. A baby you can love and hold, who you will never abandon. Someone you can raise the way you weren't, a second chance. Put your armor back on - for you and your child. )

Emma bit her lip hard, swiping angrily at her tears. Bottling up the emotions, she took a breath, grabbed her purse, and walked down the hallway. To her great surprise, Elsa was waiting.

"Emma, oh my stars. This is - I have no words. I'm so sorry," Elsa whispered. Emma gave a half hearted shrug, her voice still trembling slightly.

"Yeah. Well. Can I go home yet? That's why you're here right?" Emma hated the anxious, pleading edge of her tone.

"No, not yet. You have to be interviewed by the inspector detective here and then you are free to go." Elsa approached and hugged Emma softly. "I got you a nice one though, he's one of my favorites. Jones. He's an Angel - literally and figuratively. He's saved me on so many cases, I can't help but sing his praise."

"Oh Elsa. Thank you." Emma hugged her friend tightly, both of them trembling. "I don't know what I would do without you."

Elsa scoffed. "I don't know what anyone would do. Joking aside, we are all going to be here for you, no matter what happens. It's not going to be like last time." Elsa pushed back a strand of Emma's hair, looking straight into her eyes. "You won't go through this alone. We're going to fight for you, and figure this out. Luckily, our major project is postponed anyway. Until they find the Demon Prince, the council is on a hiatus."

"I just want to go home. I don't know if I can handle everyone right now." Emma mumbled. "It's bad enough David probably knows, which means Snow and everyone else -"

"Please don't push us away, Emma. We know it's a lot, but going into the unknown like this," Elsa took one of Emma's hands, squeezing it lightly. "Having a family, having faith and love - it's the only way to get through."

"Miss Frost," a low voice called from a room nearby. Elsa led Emma to a small office, smiling at the large Angel who stood on one side of a desk. He returned her smile, until Emma met his eyes. His frown was slow, not suiting his features, even when his blue eyes sharply laser focused on Emma's rotund body. She could see his muscles tense, his golden tinged wings giving the smallest of flutters. "Miss Swan."

"I'll leave you both to it, then." Elsa smiled, inspector Jones weakly returning it as she closed the door to them.

Emma sat in the only chair on her side of the desk, landing with an audible noise in surprise. Her body was heavier now. Of course sitting felt wrong. Jones grunted before sitting in his chair, his presence formidable even with his wings unopened. He began jotting down notes, not looking up at her for a long, stretched pause of silence. Emma fidgeted uncomfortably, one foot bouncing on the floor.

"Stop that at once," Liam growled, his eyes narrowed.

Emma stopped, hissing out a nervous laugh. "Sorry, I just -"

"How did this happen?" Liam interrupted, gesturing at her with clear disgust. "Dr. Mullins indicates it was against your will? You haven't been sexually active to induce conception? Explain."

"Well, I um -"

"And I must remind you Miss Swan," Liam grimaced, marking something on his paper. "Lying to me is a crime itself. Perjury."

"Yes, I uh - I know." Emma nodded with a gulp. She took a breath, centering herself, and began to tell him the entire story of what had taken place with Gothel. He listened in absolute silence, writing the entire time as his frown only deepened. When she had finished, he continued writing in the oppressive silence, until finally flicking his eyes up to glare at her again.

"Is that all, Miss Swan?"

"Yes, then I, um, got the cramps -"

"Spare me the sordid details of the consequences your illegal activity most likely caused," Liam drawled, sarcastically. He leveled his angry, burning gaze at her, and she felt like an animal being cornered by much larger prey. "Now, I have some questions for you. Answer to the best of your ability, but remember -"

"Do not lie, yeah I remember," Emma said softly.

"Who says you Witches can't be taught," Liam sneered, his voice mocking. Emma felt irritation bubble up in her gut, her surprise that Elsa liked this asshole rising. If he was a good inspector, Emma never wanted to meet a bad one. "Now. What exactly did this Gothel ask of you in exchange for her firstborn?"

"Youthful beauty and a long life, I think," Emma stated, thinking hard. "She wanted to be young forever. I told her that it wouldn't be instant or eternal, that she would have to wait. Now I know why it didn't bother her."

"Did she mention any other rituals, Miss Swan?" Liam asked.

"No, but she did say that she was in a time crunch." Emma shrugged slightly. "I don't know if that means anything."

Liam looked at her with more vehemence, still writing furiously. "Did you feel any effects at that time?"

"No, I was surprised I didn't with the amount of magic that detonated. I checked myself twice to make sure, once with a warding bind even." The strangeness of the situation and her clear confusion due to it made her voice sound foreign to Emma's own ears. Did he know how much she didn't want this? "Nothing. Then boom, today I - today this. She showed her true colors at the end, did an evil laugh and everything."

Liam hummed disapprovingly, looking over his notes. Flicking his eyes back to hers, he glared with contempt. "Let me make sure I have this all correct. So, you and this other Witch do a forbidden and illegal ritual -"

"I had no idea it was going to be this illegal, I swear!" Emma began to feel panic, her heart racing. "I thought I was helping -"

"Sure, sure, even though you already have a record -"

"That was - That was different, I was set up and I -"

"It seems like you are awfully good at being set up, Miss Swan. So what did you get out of this?" The inspector looked at her in disgust, folding his arms against his chest. "A Demon child to experiment on? Heightened powers?"

"No! No, I had no idea she would - I didn't know - I thought later on that she'd give me her unwanted child. I didn't want another kid to be unwanted. I didn't know the parentage - "

The inspector interrupted with a loud scoff, leaning forward and leering at her. "Likely bloody story."

"Detective Inspector Jones, I swear to you, I swear it - I had no idea what… I had no idea this would happen. I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to get pregnant, I still don't know what to do."

"If it is a Demonic child, even only a half-breed, the best thing to do is give them up." Something painful twisted in her gut, a deep feeling of dread and wrongness.

"I can't, I want to think about it and wait to look at options -"

"You can . You should . It will get easier the longer you are separated from the leeching thing." Liam's sneer turned into a look of pure disgust. "Don't wait, and get it out of you before it completely ensnares you in its unholy thrall."

"It's a child, sir, and my choice. I'm not making any promises -"

"No Demon has ever been innocent, not even a baby. They are inherently selfish, cruel, and angry. Your mixed breed baby will be the same." Liam looked down at his feet, his fingers interlaced as he rested his elbows on his knees. His voice had lost the cruel edge, and Emma felt her superpower activate. He didn't believe what he was saying, and as she watched him, she noticed how tired he looked.

"Inspector, are... Are you alright?"

"Miss Swan," Liam chuckled darkly, pinching the bridge of his nose before glancing up to look at her. "If I was in your position, I would worry about myself, especially if jail time was on the table."

Emma felt as if he'd slapped her, air rushing from her lungs as her heart beat rapidly.

"Jail time?" She asked in disbelief, "What about Gothel? Why are you demonizing me -"

"That is government business, Miss Swan." Liam stood stiffly, rummaging in his pocket. He fished out a card, carefully sliding it on the table towards her. "If you remember anything, contact us. Otherwise, we will be in touch. I'll have the nurse give you the proper paperwork and instructional pamphlets."

He turned, pushed the curtain aside, and Emma heard a soft whoosh of air indicating his exit. Looking down at her body under the scrubs, she cursed Eloise with every fiber of her being.

ﾟ・. ｡・. *✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ*⛧*.・｡*ﾟ.★.・.・✫*.・。.・゜

The first few nights were a string of blurry, anger, and grief strewn rampages. Elsa has taken her home, Emma unwilling to let David even see her until she had some space to take care of herself. She had sent a text, and after a lot of back and forth arguing surrounding his lengthy replies, David had conceded.

(She just couldn't right now.

Not right now. Not yet.)

A Celestial, or something similar. Most likely Demon, he had said.

Gothel had not only gotten her pregnant, but with some Demon child that could be claimed by its monstrous father for who knew what awful reason. Emma shuddered at the thought, hands protectively resting on her small swell of stomach. Pulling them away as they trembled, she cursed her body and the invader that was making her feel so attached to it. Demons didn't exactly get along with any of the other demographics, but Witches and Demons had the most volatile relations amongst any of them. Her own child might grow to hate her, all because of how much Witches persecuted Demon kind.

She could still… No. She would not terminate the baby this far along. Every part of her vibrated with the wrongness of the very idea, sending her retching into the kitchen sink. She gripped both sides of the basin, crying hot, angry tears as she came to terms with the parasite - the baby, the small baby, the life - occupying her body. As much as she tried to hate it, the only hate she could muster fell on herself and Eloise.

Part of her felt crazed, crying in her bathtub, nauseated and afraid of every implication and outcome. Laying her head back on the tile, she wondered about what she was going to do. Rubbing her new bump slowly, Emma traced the curve. Sixteen months. A doubly long second trimester, and extended third, all while it changed with her body. Mixed children generally presented like their non-Demonic parent, and the pregnancy bond would be fierce regardless of species. Although it was doubtful at this point it was even in effect despite her behavior and thoughts, Emma smiled at the thought that she already felt attached to her baby. Her own family.

Her brother was going to go insane, and her sister-in-law… Snow was always supportive and full of a positive outlook. Emma had teased her that it was an Elf thing, but her pointed ears would twitch as she blushed, and she'd mumble something about her plants helping. Smoking her pungent blends of cannabis could make anyone positive, and Emma was suddenly envious.

Regina and the coven would be on the defensive, taking over everything in Emma's life without quarter. That would be another comfort, their careful planning and patience having gotten her this far through her difficult life.

In the end, the coven, Ruby, and Snow were over shortly after her emergency summons, flying through her doorway. Ruby was a Werewolf Emma had befriended through Snow. While Regina disliked her, Emma didn't think she was any different than most humans other than her keen sense of smell and bluntness. It was these traits that immediately made it clear what was wrong. It would seem not everyone in their circles knew yet. That would take a few more days.

“Emma,” Ruby whispered, horrified, her nose wrinkling as tears filled her eyes. “What did… Who did this to you?”

"They think it is a Demon, but it's almost definitely Celestial, or something with a dynamic gestational period due to magic." Just behind Ruby, the rest of the coven began appearing, all staring on her porch as Emma ushered them in. "Until I find out the father, I don't know, although most likely it's Demonic."

Regina's head snapped up. “A Demon? Emma, what do you mean dynamic -”

The women went quiet when Emma lifted her shirt to show them her bump, explaining everything.

Emma laid her head in Snow’s lap after, feeling numb. Snow stroked her hair gently, looking at the others. Their coven was small, mostly women, but David and two other men were honorary members by means of dating or marriage. Anna picked at her braid, eyes wide, while Belle's mouth was still open from her earlier gasp. Mulan, Regina, and Merida were all business.

“I'll hunt the Witch and her Demon pet down myself, and bring him back here. We can take turns peeling away his skin -”

“Mulan,” Merida hissed, her curls bouncing when she nodded her head at Emma, who's eyes were welling with tears once again.

“I thought… I thought I was doing something good ,” Emma burst into tears, sobbing into Snow, and Belle excused herself to fetch the whistling kettle from the stove. Pouring everyone tea, they tried to figure out what to do.

“Well, you certainly can't go hunting skips,” Regina scoffed. “And this house, I mean, I get that you fixed it up but it's a dump -”

“Oh! David would be happy to have you back on the farm with us!” Snow lit up, but the thought of being around their saccharine relationship and the smell of incense, patchouli, and skunky smelling herb had her running for the toilet. The others talked and sipped tea, planning out things as Emma curled up on her bath mat. Maybe it was better to terminate, if the leap in growth hadn't made it too late. Would it be better to give it up? Her mind filled with swirling ideas, and Emma let herself get lost in her sadness.

Ruby snuck in a moment later, sitting next to Emma quietly.

“So,” she whispered quietly, and Emma cracked open an eye to look at her friend's face.

“So,” Emma rasped back, her throat raw.

“Apparently, you're going to go live with Regina in the Guest ‘Wing’, yes, not room, ‘Wing’, and work at one of Belle’s bookstores. I tried to chime in with what your input might sound like. They looked at me as if I'd eaten Anna's familiar. Not like Elsa would let me snack on knock-off Rudolph anyway. Miss Ice Queen has her fancy new council to lord over, so who knows. We could have some reindeer snacks.”

Emma snorted, a smile breaking across her face.

“Look,” Ruby started, running a hand through her hair to push back her straight brunette style. ”I know how important it was for you to be independent, Emma. I know you really cared about Neal, too. I just… There's something… There's something really off with this situation, and it's not just my nose saying that you smell weird, like dark magic weird, or my gut saying a Witch that makes contracts with Demons for a baby, knocks you up, then just up and vanishes is bad news. I want you to be safe. I called Graham on your telephone, and there's an opening at his precinct I think you might like. It’s mostly paperwork -”

“Rubes!” Emma laughed despite herself. “That's awesome, thank you-”

“Just listen. I want to meet this… Demon. I still have this feeling like something is really off, and you're neck deep in danger. Besides, you know, the Demon part of the situation. Are you sure that you can't remember, er… Well. You know?”

“No, it was literally one minute I was fine, then the next the worst period cramps of my life while I inflated. I was sort of Instant Knocked Up, just add magic or whatever.” Emma rubbed her temples, and Ruby sighed.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, Granny says that's most likely how I was conceived too.” Ruby flashed her a smile, and Emma laughed, hugging her friend tightly.

“I don't know what I would do without you, Rubes.”

“Look, I'm pretty sure Graham isn't into a menage et trois with a preggo, but I'll broach the subject.”

“You're ridiculous,” Emma laughed.

“You wouldn't have it any other way.”

ﾟ・. ｡・. *✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ*⛧*.・｡*ﾟ.★.・.・✫*.・。.・゜

Months passed slowly as Emma waited for the other shoe to drop. Work at the station was easy, filing reports and making coffee not troublesome at all. Liam apparently worked somewhere in the massive complex, but Emma made no moves to seek him out or head to the detective offices.

Her house was almost completely redone and brand new; the floors, walls, ceilings, and everything in between redone with the utmost care.

("I refuse to let you live like this and represent our coven," Regina ran a finger along the mantelpiece, grimacing when it came up dirty. "Are you sure that you have to live here?"

"What Regina means," Elsa shot her a glare as Regina shrugged, rubbing her fingers together, "Is that any of us would love to have you. Don't feel obligated to stay -"

"But don't feel like you have to leave either. David and I would love to help you fix up the place, maybe have you make a few rooms?" Snow encouraged. David nodded, his arms crossed across his chest.

Elsa clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh yes, you could make an apothecary room like the one you talked about, and a potion brewing room, a nice place to grow plants, a library -"

"And we'd all pitch in, if you wanted to make a nursery?" Mary Margaret mumbled, almost shyly. "I wanted to throw a baby shower for you since we found out, but I didn't want to overwhelm you like I feel like I always do -"

"Too late," Emma gritted under her breath, her friends already planning the event for her.)

Emma actually had eased into the idea; at first it seemed absurd that they were planning for this when the whole situation was so strange. The father was still unaccounted for, even as the test results made it clear that the baby was of Demonic parentage. Sometimes Emma thought she could feel something, a little tug, the eerie feeling of being watched, or an emotion that wasn't hers flitting through her mind, but she dismissed them easily. More often, she was fascinated by the lack of information on the bond her and this child were supposed to have.

Pouring over books, it was as if someone had removed or rewritten any passages about Demonic parenting, specifically with a non Demon parent. She had found minor information on the bond in a few books. It was supposed to be fierce, the instinct making women hysterical and unreasonable. It only got more intense when the father was around, cases of actions deemed feral surrounding the mixed couples she had managed to find. All of them had ended in tragedy, and Emma eventually found herself unable to stomach reading about them.

Or anything really, food was enemy number one on baby's list, unless it was deep fried, covered in sugar, or drenched in sweetness. Without shame, Emma had managed to eat and keep down an entire jar of marmalade with crackers.

When Snow, Elsa, and Ruby's grandmother had brought up the food options they would make if Emma would let them throw her a shower, she had caved.

( "I will make you a bear claw cake, mini grilled cheese, and onion rings, amongst other things," Granny grinned. "And I will crochet you the most darling blanket for your little girl."

Emma tried not to drool, or give in. "That's nice, but I don't think I want that many people here, you know? That detective is watching my every move, I feel like a whale, I never know which food will agree with me -"

"And I will make sure I have a never-ending hot chocolate drip for you." Granny's eyes twinkled, full of mischief. "With toppings."

"Including cinnamon?" Emma asked, unable to disguise the longing in her voice. Granny nodded firmly. "How did you know? Wait - did you say a girl -"

"I just know," she shrugged. "Call it a wolf's intuition." )

It was supposed to be small, just a few people and family, but somehow it had turned into a full on social event. Emma was grateful that she had added a few rooms in the days before, the space sorely needed regardless of how drained she felt. Even still, she loved the house. It actually felt like hers, the exposed beams and vintage fixtures mixed with tapestries, framed art, and treasured photos. Her herbs dried above a large sink, food was spread along a long bar and buffet sideboard, and people milled around her living room that she had adjoined to two more exact copies through her doors.

No need to be original there.

( Her private door stayed tucked away in the upstairs hallway, and it was unable to be unlocked by anyone but her.

That was more important than a few extra rooms she could collapse after these people were gone. )

Emma was a good sport for the first couple of hours, playing games, being paraded around to people who apparently were important in the city, and sipping hot cocoa. Elsa, Regina, Mulan, and Snow were putting emphasis on her innocence, and although it was a spectacle, Emma hoped it would work.

Two very terrible things ruined her mood.

At some point, Elsa fell away from Emma's side, returning as cake was being cut. Her face was pinched, irritability written across it as she glared down at the slice she's given.

"You okay?" Emma whispered, and Elsa blinked, looking up in surprise.

"Oh, yeah. I just - I thought my date might show up, but he's working." Elsa gritted out the last word, anger seeping into it. "He's on this case, and it's important to him because it's family related, but I want him to understand that I have family too, and I could help if he just -" Throwing up her hands, Elsa groaned in annoyance.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know anything about -"

"Emma," David pulled her up by her arm, looking around as if checking for something. "Kitchen. Now."

There's no time to protest, his grip strong and firm, dragging her into the kitchen.

"David, what the fu -"

"That detective was here, asking about you," Regina hissed, pointing out towards where guests milled. "We made sure he left, but he was asking questions."

"Questions?" Emma repeated, fear gripping her. Elsa walked in, listening to the conversation beside her.

"Like, if you had a history of criminality, if you knew and associated with undesirable magic users, if you knew who the father was or were protecting who did this to you," David said. The stillness around them seemed to tense just as they were.

"If he questions you, you make sure to tell him that you know nothing," Elsa whispered, trying to hold her hand. "Make sure you proclaim your innocence, and he'll believe you, he has to -"

"You think I haven't tried?" Emma ripped her hand away, looking at all of her friends with annoyance. "I agreed to this not knowing it was going to serve as some bullshit trial ball, where I'd be judged like this. I've searched everywhere for that woman, I have nothing to hide. She's disappeared, and not like a new identity in Guam disappeared, no. Like, off every plane of existence without a trace. It wouldn't matter if I did find her, because this is my kid. The bonds of the spell make her of my blood more and more every day. I can't just go back to the way things were - "

"What about the father?" Regina asked.

"I don't know. I know nothing about him or why he hasn't come. As far as I know, he might not. I don't know how he couldn't feel these binds. I know I feel something, but it could be because I'm practically mooing, I'm so huge, and I have these crazy urges. The hormones alone here are making me feel insane, even before you started in on me. Even before that asshole showed up because we have the entire damn city here!"

"I told you this was a bad idea, Regina," Snow mumbled. Regina glared in return.

"We - I just want you to know that no one will judge you for not wanting this, or for giving up the baby -" David said weakly.

"Shut up David," Emma growled out. Her hands rested against her stomach and she felt like she was going to fall over. "Right now, shut up and do not go down that road."

"Emma, it's making you feel attached," Regina said gently. "And if I'm agreeing with him, you know I - "

"I mean it, not another word. I'm keeping my baby, that's it. End all, be all. Say another word and I will curse your tomatoes," She pointed at David, then rounded on Regina. "And hex your wardrobe with bleach stains that don't come out. Try me."

"Fine!" Regina threw up her hands while David grunted.

The kitchen went silent, the tension palpable.

"We got you a really nice layette," Snow offered, trying to clear the awkwardness while smiling. "Come open gifts, and look at all this cuteness. "

Emma begrudgingly moved forward, her eyes widening at the mountain of gifts in front of her.

"Don't worry," Anna whispered as she pulled Emma down to sit. "I'm writing your thank you cards for you."

The crowd thinned after gifts, the night trickling on as the house emptied. If Emma had felt drained before, now she felt completely devoid of energy. The small crowd that's left hadn't bothered her, so when Snow and Regina asked her to do another walk about with them, it seemed safe enough.

She saw him out of the corner of her eye, his head nodding, laughing at something in his self absorbed sly little chuckle that makes her want to break his nose. She must have tensed because Snow was beside her and sucking in breath harshly through her teeth, the coven turning as if they could all feel the disturbance.

( Maybe they can, maybe the unbridled audacity of this man being here with another woman as he laughs with a martini glass in his hand is enough to share one collective experience of hatred. His eyes meet hers and he gives her a smirk that screams pity and humor at her expense as he lifts his glass toward her, mouthing congrats )

A figure cut in front of her, and her rage that feels like a sickening punch in the gut is coupled by this smack in the face - Neal's father grinned at her, his cane on the ground while both hands rest on its handle.

"My my my, Miss Swan," Gold smirked the same smirk that she wants to rip off his face. "When we heard, we were so surprised to not receive an invitation to this… quaint event of yours. Truly poor manners when our covens are no longer supposed to be at odds."

Regina and Elsa were there in front of her in a flash, Snow pulling her away, words being exchanged in hissed tones. Emma could barely hear over her heartbeat, over the sound of her stomach screaming at her to vomit.

"You can protect her all you want, but we know what she did. We know what it will be," Gold's voice slithered over her skin even in the bathroom. "You can't redeem her, and she will be the reason for all of your downfall. Enjoy your council while it lasts."

David shooed everyone out when Emma hastily retreated, the entirety of her patchwork family pushing inside to comfort her.

ﾟ・. ｡・. *✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ*⛧*.・｡*ﾟ.★.・.・✫*.・。.・゜

After the disaster of her shower, Emma began to feel the strange feeling of being watched even more. It became especially noticeable at night when she rocked in the nursery, sorting out piles of gifts. It felt like a presence sat beside her or hovered over her shoulder, and it began to follow her into her dreams.

They didn’t last after she woke, glimpses of a mirror, of the sound of pounding, a muffled voice that she can't make out.

The tip of the weird iceberg happened when Emma had gotten out of the shower, the steam in the room rising to fog the mirror. Dressing in pj's and heading back in to blow dry her hair, she had been dancing along to some new pop song by the Wolves of London, when her eyes caught the words.

On the fog of the mirror, her name had appeared backwards, joined shortly by the word 'Help' in a curling script that she blinked at in confusion before they disappeared.

( A baby, a Witch, and a Ghost. Just what she needs in the never ending chaos that has become her life )

Luckily, the Coven can save her ass again.

Regina glared at Emma, her judging silence lay heavily over the room. She crossed her arms, eyebrows pinching into further scorn, before asking again.

"You want me to do what?"

"Look, I know it's not your favorite thing to do, but you can and I don't have the gift or a guide like you do -"

"That doesn't make it any easier!" Regina threw up her hands, then gestured to her pantsuit clad form. "It's my body, and my mother is just -"

"I am begging you, Reg. Begging. You." Emma moaned, irritated. "The father is a complete mystery, there's a ghost in my house that I think has to do with him, and I'm scared it could be someone like…" Trailing off, she chewed her lip.

Liam's increasing push for her to choose adoption had thrown her off her game these last few weeks, his phone calls almost non stop. In a way, he was right. She wasn't the only parent, and she certainly wasn't ready to be a mom. She was no one, absolutely nothing. It wasn't as if she could raise a baby.

(Even if she wanted to, and the idea of her baby, her family enveloped in the family she chose and created, it made her feel nothing but happiness)

Regina rolled her eyes with a huff. "Fine. Fine!" she snapped, slamming her hands on the table. "I do this for you, and you owe me. I expect you to be at my whim for this."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"And I'm not doing it for long." She shuddered. "Every time I check out and she checks in, I feel so just -" She shuddered again, making a gagging noise.

(Regina had done it before for David and her, to say goodbye to Ruth. It had hurt, hurt so badly, but not as much as Cora cutting the reunion short to tell her daughter to do more cardio.)

"I promise, we find his grandma or cousin or somebody, maybe whoever wrote that on my mirror, get the lead, and we're done." Emma nodded.

With another sigh, Regina laid her hands over the table, palms up, and Emma laid her own over them. A lavender spark shot from their joined hands to the air above them, Regina's head falling back while purple smoke began to pour around the table, permeating the air. Regina shook slightly, before violently snapping her head forward and blinking.

"Emma Swan, to what do I owe the pleasure of being ripped from my study?" A higher, nasal, woman's voice spoke out from Regina's mouth. "My daughter feels chubbier, and her skin is just -" Regina touched her face, making clucks with her tongue. "Oh, she is a mess! Did she break it off with that awful Warlock? Ugh, is she stress eating? I try not to pry, but I know she ate at least one slice of chocolate cake when she was out this last week -"

"Cora," Emma gritted out, closing her eyes in frustration. "Cora, Regina is fine. If she wants to discuss her love life with you, she'll call you up on the Ouija. I need your help to find someone, and I don't know the someone."

"Well, aren't you in a pickle."

"Please Cora, it's not just for me!"

"Oh, you're not interested in Regina are you? Because you are much too low a class for her breeding -"

"Oh Merlin, no, no!"

"What is it then?" Cora sighed in a bored drawl. "I've told you I can't find your family if they don't want anything to do with you, I -"

"No." Emma let her chest fall, speaking quietly. "No it's not that. I remember from last time and I have a family now." Emma took a deep breath, pushing back against the hurt in her chest. "I need to know… I need to know who the father is, and I'm having trouble. I need you to see if you can reach a relative, or friend, or someone who knows why his offspring is inside me, as well as what it is. I got a visit from a ghost, so here we are."

"Oooooh!" Cora squealed. "An enceinte pregnancy Miss Swan? An illegitimate baby? A haunting? How very risqué and daring on your salary!"

"Cora!"

"Fine, I'll check. I'll want the details of this though, so don't spare any of the juicy bits." Cora winked with Regina's face, before the woman's body went slack. After a minute, her head lifted back up, blinking slightly. "Well, Emma, what a doozy this is. This woman will not stop talking, and it's absolutely ridiculous how impossible she's being, even if she is ancient looking. Yes, I said ancient looking - well don't get mad at me, I tell it how it is - oh, I don't care who your son is, he can't be that grand if he's knocked up this wreck. Sorry Emma dear, I love you, but I mean," Cora shrugged, unabashedly.

"Cora, ask her what her name is!" Emma hissed.

"What's your name then? Oh, that's interesting. Not as good as Cora, or Regina -"

"Cora!"

"It's Milah. And she's not his mum, she's - oh he's an ex lover of yours? Juicy juicy! Sounds like Emma dear might be getting leftovers then? Oh don't be like that -"

"I need a name Cora, this is so -"

"I'm trying Emma dear, the woman won't shut up about her sweetheart. No - Really? The scandal, but - well that is so weird! Milah says that he's been hidden somewhere and no one is haunting you, but… Ugh! She's speaking so rapidly - yes, I get it, but if he wants the kid he would have come to get it, or - I am listening to you, you're not listening to me! A mirror? You should look at one, why do I have to tell her about a mirror? I mean Emma's at most average, and look at her figure now. A child will do that to you." Cora sighed, and Emma stiffened. Cora seemed to nod for a moment, before Regina's face soured further.

"Don't get smart with me, you may be an old soul but you died far younger than I did!" Cora growled, her eyes slitting at some unseen target. She turned with her head cocked, looking at Emma with pity. "I'm sorry Emma, sweet little duckling, but this woman is a nightmare. She keeps screaming at me about how this Killian fellow is the father, but it's impossible for her to see him for whatever reason. Something about a mirror? She's also absolutely ancient, I haven't seen clothing like that outside of - Pre-Babylon? Is that the robe designer or…? Don't look at me like that miss bed sheet toga, I - Emma, this woman, I swear! It's just incessant chattering, really - "

"His name is Killian? Cora, wait, don't you -"

"I understand that you were crazy in love with him, trust me, you seem crazy Milah dear. Yes, Killian is his name. A Demon of lust for vengeance. Wow, Emma, what a winner!" Cora snickered, and Emma resisted the urge to shriek. "Well, I don't care if the beast is misunderstood, he's a Demon. How touching, now please - oh come now, Gothel in the tower with the mirror? Red spire, Troll falls? What is this, Clue? Do I look like a detective?" Regina's eyes rolled, Emma desperately trying to remember the snippets that might make sense. Gothel, tower, mirror, red spire, troll falls. Killian.

Cora grew louder, her voice rising in pitch.

"Oh, how dare you! I'll have you know your cheap robes aren't exactly chic either; you need a wardrobe update, badly! You look like a ten cent frat party attendee!" Cora spat, and Regina's face pinched tight. "Excuse me? More important things, WELL , I never - Oh you rude little tart, I've had enough!"

"Please Cora, no, I -" Emma attempted, but Cora flipped Regina's hair back, sniffing with haughty indignation.

"It'll be alright Emma, duckling. It seems that your little orphan persona is perfect to parent this little babe! Shut up! No, I'm done with you, you crazy broad. Go back to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buy some new linens!" Cora hissed, her mouth curled in an ugly snarl. "Anyways, Emma, just accept that you can't ruin a child to be like you if you're giving them a home, even if their father is some failed Demon. Or something inspirational, I don't know." She shrugged, Regina's shoulders going up in a blasé dismissal. Her eyes snapped to look behind Emma, her face contorted in rage.

"Cora. I am begging you - " Emma tried again, but Cora's focus was elsewhere, on someone unheard and unseen.

"Shut it, shut up thread count Cleopatra!" Turning back to Emma, she smiled serenely. "Tell Regina to summon me later, I need to know how she is. And tell her no more sweets, especially if she ever wants to be a wife. Ta!"

Regina fell forwards, her body shuddering as the lights flickered, purple smoke dissipating into the air. She moaned lowly, cracking her shoulders and neck as she rolled backwards.

"Dammit!" Emma exclaimed, sitting up and violently stalking to the fridge. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

"Ugh, I can taste her perfume. Bring me a beer please," Regina groaned. Emma pulled a beer and a soda out of the fridge, giving the beer to Regina. "Emma, don't you ever say that I don't love you after that." Regina shuddered again, flicking her hand to open the beer and drinking down half of it in one go.

"I know you do. You just have… You're just abrasive with it. Like a big cat, or an alligator."

(Or a wood chipper wearing lipstick)

"Shut up, and tell me how it went. Was it worth it? Mother never is, but -"

"She, uh, well she got me some information to go on. So, that's something." Emma averted her gaze, licking her lips.

"She talked about my weight, didn't she," Regina sighed. When Emma said nothing Regina drank the rest of the beer and walked to the kitchen, depositing it in the trash. Pulling out a wine glass, she reached under her cabinet and produced a bottle of wine. Emma raised an eyebrow. "Don't even start on me."

"I wasn't going to," Emma whispered.

Laying her palms flat on the countertop and bowing her head, Regina looked up after a moment's pause.

"So, what now?" She asked.

Emma chewed on her lip, thinking hard. "I have his name, or at least I think I do. I think all that's left is to, well, summon him."

(Summon him, and say what? 'Hey, Mr. Demon, I'm having your kid and thought you might like to know', as if it would care, or want anything to do with her...)

Regina's eyebrows shot up. "Not alone, surely -"

"No. I would ask Snow, David, and maybe Mulan and Belle. I know Belle would be delighted, and she has the spellbooks."

"That actually sounds like a relatively good plan." Regina nodded, then took a sip of her wine.

"Don't sound so shocked, Regina." Emma grumbled.

"Miss Swan," Regina smirked, swirling the wine in her glass before taking another sip. "If you ever cease to stop shocking me with your antics, I'll assume I have gone to meet my mother and maker."

#Courtorderedcake #September #2020 #September 1st 2020 #cssns #CSSNS 2020 #captain swan au #captain swan #captain swan fanfiction #cs ff au #CS FF #My writing #MTFB #1st

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australiancarisi · 4 years

Text

Sonny Carisi ~Stay

A boring night on shift at the hospital changes when your boyfriend shows up Words: 1992 I’m not a nurse I know nothing besides 15 seasons of greys anatomy so please don’t come at me A part of my Sonny universe

It was a relatively quiet night in the Mercy Hospital ER. Just your usual drunks falling down, some parents overreacting after their kids hurt themselves, the odd accident here or there but for the most part your shift was going easy. And you weren’t complaining.

You sat at the nurse’s desk sipping on your Redbull, scrolling through the patient database putting in all the notes the doctors and other nurses had written over the past few hours.

“Next time a kid comes in here with a lego man’s head stuck in a hole of their body I’m not dealing with it” Nina huffed throwing a plastic bag with the toy in it “That’s the 8th of this week! stop giving stupid kids lego”

“What did you expect when you became a nurse?” you asked, looking down to your phone.

“Prince Charming not texted you in 10 minutes?” Nina gave you a smug look. You and Sonny had been dating for 8 months and it honestly has been amazing since day one. All your other relationships failed when they realised how hectic your schedule, most guys couldn’t work with the shift work. But Sonny got it. He was busier than you, it was rare that he wasn’t working whether actually on the clock or at home but he tried to make as much time as possible for you. He texts you constantly throughout the day and comes over to your apartment or to the hospital to drop off food for you. Because he knows that your diet would otherwise consist of Redbull and skittles from the vending machine. A part of you feels guilty when you see him walk through the ER doors when on shift because it obviously meant someone was hurt, but you got to see your boyfriend.

“It’s actually been a while since I’ve heard from him” you sighed, the two other ER nurses on for the night, Tia and Mel walked up to the desk handed their notes over and putting on new gloves.

“Ambulance 3 minutes out, Police officer, gunshot wound, not sure how bad, there wasn’t much info” Tia said “Been told to take him straight to the surgery 2, it's being set up now”

“I’m sure he’s fine” Nina reassured you, your phone began to buzz and Sonny’s name flashed on the screen “see”

“Hey gorgeous” you smiled into the phone, you really needed to hear his voice right now.

“y/n” your blood ran cold as you heard Sonny’s lieutenant, Olivia Benson voice, not Sonny’s, came through the phone with sirens in the background. “Y/n you there?”

“Please don’t tell me” you stood up, Nina was now by your side

“We’re 2 minutes out from Mercy, Amanda is with him” Olivia didn’t have to tell you the officer shot was Sonny, you knew. You ran towards the doors, you could hear the sirens. Liv and Fin’s car showed up in the ambulance bay first, the ambulance following closely behind.

“two gunshot wounds to the upper left chest” the paramedic yelled as they got Sonny out, Amanda jumped out as well.

“Sonny!” You screamed running towards him. Fin grabbed you pulling you out of the way so Nina, Tia and Mel could work on him. “Let me go! Fin! Fin! Let me go!” You managed to get out of Fin’s grip as they raced Sonny to the operating room. You ran closely behind, no longer listening to what anyone was saying, you just wanted to see Sonny, you needed to be with him. They pushed Sonny through the doors to the operating room, Nina turned around a pushed you away.

“y/n don’t you know you can’t go in there” She said

“I need to be in there! I need to help him!” you cried trying with all your might to get past her.

“And that’s what we are going to do but we can’t give him our full attention if we are worrying about you, please” she begged, you stopped fighting long enough for her to close the door behind herself. You turned around and to see the squad there.

Liv, Mike, Fin, Amanda.....

Amanda.

She was covered in blood.

Sonny’s blood

Tears welled in your and streamed down your cheeks. Your back hit the door behind you as you fell in the ground. Sonny was behind that wall, bleeding, have god knows what happening and you couldn’t help him. You wanted to take care of him, you had to take care of him, that was your job. He looks after everyone so you made it your job to look after him. Liv slowly and quietly made her way over to you and helped you to your feet. As you stood she instinctively wrapped her arms around you. You were so thankful for her right in this moment.

“Here” Mike hummed handing you a bottle of water, breaking your trance. It had been 3 hours since Sonny came in (2 hours since Nina had come out to give you an update) and you just felt empty. Barba had since shown up and Amanda had been given scrubs to change into.

“Please just tell me” you pleaded, not to anyone in general but everyone shared looks. Every time you had asked them to tell you they always changed the subject “I need to know”

“It doesn’t matter y/n-”

“Yes it does” you cut Fin off, before turning to Olivia “Please tell me”

“We have a DV vic, Sonny is the lead on the case, he gave her his card in case something happened” Mike started

“She called said her husband had shown up at her house Sonny and Amanda went over and he was holding her hostage with a gun... Sonny tried to talk him down... he went for the gun and the guy shot him” Liv finished. They all looked at you, waiting for your reaction.

“...is she safe? The victim?” You looked to Amanda

“Uh, yeah yeah, she is. When the husband... when he shot Sonny he went into shock. I went to Sonny and she grabbed the gun and held him up until everyone else got there” Amanda said

“Okay good” you sighed in relief. Some good new “He has to pull through now, he has to know she’s okay”

It was another hour until Nina finally came back out to you. As soon as you saw her you jumped to your feet and ran to your friend. You wrapped your arms around her and she squeezed you back.

“Please please tell me he’s okay” you begged over and over again

“He’s okay, he’s okay” she said and you heard everyone let out an audible sigh of relief. Nina let you go so she could talk to everyone but mainly you. “I’m not gonna lie he was touch and go for a while. He had 3 gunshot wounds. One was straight through his upper right arm, easy fix. One into his right shoulder which broke his clavicle but it was a clean break, it's been reset and he’s obviously going to need rehab”

“Okay, and the third one?” you knew she was keeping something from you. She took in a deep breath “Nina please”

“The third hit his aorta... it obviously caused us the most problem, he lost a lot of blood...like a lot. I’m gonna say this because it’s you, I didn’t think he was gonna make it... I was preparing to come out here and tell you he didn’t make it”

“But he’s okay” Liv quickly jumped in

“Yes” Nina nodded “the cardiologist repaired his aorta and his heart was pumping steadily, they’ve moved him to ICU while they get a room for him”

“Can we see him?” Amanda asked

“You can all see him” Nina put an emphasis on the ‘all’ and looked at you “when he moves from ICU to the ward. It shouldn’t be too much longer”

“But-” you started

“No” Nina cut you off

“But-”

“No”

“What if I-”

“No and I’ve told ICU that you are not to step foot in there”

“Nina!”

“It's the rules! You know that no one is allowed in there after hours” Nina reminded you. “I’ll come get you when he’s been moved”

It was about another hour before Nina came to get you to tell you he was in. For the first time ever you were glad you knew this hospital like the back of your hand. When you neared his room you slowed down when you heard his voice. That sweet Staten island accent that was like music to your ears. You could tell he was drowsy but that was too expected.

“... I’m not just a cop I’m a detective” he said to Mel as you walked to the door. He was propped up on an angle, hooked up to an IV and heart monitor with his right arm in a sling. His eyes fell on you and his eyes went wide “Heeeeeey babbbbbbbe”

“Hey yourself” you giggled. All your stress and anxiety went away as soon as you saw him. It finally sunk in that he was okay.

“hey hey” he poked Mel “this is my girlfriend she’s a nurse too. She’s the best nurse ever... no offence” Mell burst out laughing

“She knows Sonny” you laughed

“She does?! How?!” He exclaimed

“We work together Sonny, you’re at y/n’s hospital” Mel shook her head as she kept writing notes

“This is your hospital babe!? Why didn’t you tell me you own a hospital?!” he turned back to you. his eyes wide

“I don’t own the hospital gorgeous, I work here remember” you walked around his bed to his side

“Ohhhhh, yes babe you’re right”

“I’ll be back in an hour to check on him” Mel smiled at you. You thanked her as she left the two of you alone. “What’s all this babe business by the way? You never call me babe”

“No I call you doll” he nodded, very seriously “you are my doll... Doll?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for worrying you”

“It’s okay-”

“No it’s not” he cut you off. He was very firm “I almost left you and I never wanna leave you. I heard you cry when I went in” he was concussion when he came in? You didn’t realise, now you felt bad that the last thing he heard before going under was you crying “Don’t. Don’t feel bad”

“Do you remember when we first met?” You asked changing the subject

“It was here, in the ER” he nodded

“You were here to talk to a patient, she was really fragile and when you and Amanda came in, you demanded to see her and I thought who is this guy coming in here and throwing his weight around. And the patient was so scared and I was afraid you were going to hurt her” you told him “and then when you went in there you were so soft and gentle with her and I knew, I just knew you were a good one”

“I’d seen you around the hospital a couple of times before that” Sonny confessed “Amanda used to make fun of me cause I was so hung up on you and then the moment I actually got to talk to you I was so nervous I could barely talk to you”

“The other nurses used to keep track of you every time they came in cause they knew I liked you”

“Liv would send me cause she knew I liked you” Sonny closed his eyes as you ran your fingers through his hair “I love you y/n”

“I love you too Dominick” he blushed as you used his real name “get some sleep gorgeous, you need it”

“You’re gonna stay right?” he mumbled, sleep was quickly taking over him

“Of course I’ll stay, I’m always gonna be by your side” you whispered leaning over to his him as he drifted off.

#sonny carisi fanfic #sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi imagine #sonny carisi imagines #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfic #law and order svu imagines

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underimagines · 4 years

Text

Commission - A Time of Need

Mob/Mafiatale!Asgore, Chara, and Sans’ reaction to their human female S/O going missing for a week. Only to turn up bloody, broken, and near death in an alley, turned into a Boss monster. And what they'd do after getting them home/hospital/whichever while they where unconscious? (i.e. Stay at their side, go hunting for people who did that, etc, etc?)

Fandom: Mobtale/Mafiatale Pairings: Asgore/Reader, Sans/Reader, Chara/Reader Length: 3k (1k per Scenario) Rating: T+

For @jainwolfe! Thank you again for commissioning me!

Mob/Mafiatale-Asgore:

Asgore knew he was lucky just to have you back, but it didn’t stop him from feeling guilt every time he looked at you.

“I’m so sorry…” He whispered, squeezing the hand you offered him tightly. But not too tightly. You were still healing, after all.

“It’s okay.” You replied, smiling kindly. By the stars, he loved that smile. He’d die a thousand deaths just to keep it on your face. “I’m here.”

“How are you feeling?” He asked, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes. He surveyed the bandages wrapped around your arms, waist, legs, and head. The patch over your eye taunted him, reminding him so much of Undyne.

“Better. Weird.” You shifted in the hospital bed slightly, trying not to jostle the IV in your arm too much. “It’s like, something changed inside of me. But I can’t put a finger on what.”

“It’s the magic in your system.” He explained gently. “Doctor Alphys injected you with some DT. I’m not sure what it stands for. Doing Treatments, maybe?”

You laughed, and he felt his stomach flutter. “Maybe.”

“Do they hurt?” He asked after a moment of silence, gesturing at the horns protruding from your forehead.

You touched them and winced. That was all the answer he needed, even as you furiously shook your head. “Not really.”

“Do you…remember anything that happened that night?”

You looked away, eyes growing foggy. Asgore clasped your hand between both of his. “Please, I need to know what happened.”

“It’s…foggy.” You sighed. “Like a dream. It all happened so fast. I was walking home after work. I was almost at the complex, when this car pulled up. The guy inside rolled down the window and asked me something—I can’t remember what. But next thing I knew, I was being grabbed and…”

You trailed off, biting down on your lower lip as tears built up in your eyes. “They did things to me, Asgore. Horrible things. They told me I was going to be ransom, that they were going to make you pay to get me back. They beat me, when I tried to fight back.”

You shuddered, violently, curling in on yourself at the memory. “I don’t even remember their faces. But I remember what they did to me.”

Asgore felt his brows furrow and his face set in determination. “Don’t worry, we’re going to catch them.”

“How?” You asked. It was half sob, half laugh. “How are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know.” He admitted, closing his eyes. Only to open them a moment later and give you an optimistic smile. “But we have Undyne on the case, so you can rest assured. She won’t give up until whoever did this to you is brought to justice. And I won’t either.”

“Thank you.” You sighed, squeezing his hand affectionately. “I’m…I’m tired. Is it okay if I take a nap?”

“Of course!” Asgore replied. “You must be exhausted, after everything you went through. Please, my dear, rest. I’ll be watching over you.”

“Thank you.” Your eyes grew heavy as sleep swept through you. “Asgore…”

In a matter of moments, you were out like a light. Asgore stayed by your side, clutching your hand tightly in his own. He only looked away from you when a nurse entered the room.

“How are they doing?” The bunny monster asked, her voice quiet and gentle as she crept inside, careful not to disturb you. She shifted the manila envelope tucked under her arm into her hands as she approached Asgore.

“They are suffering.” He replied. “Their soul—how did…?”

“Here are the test results.” She handed him the envelope.

He opened it, gingerly, sliding out the photos of the X-Rays they’d taken of your injuries. A few broken bones. Bruises, cuts, lacerations, gashes. The sight of them made his stomach turn.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The worst was your soul.

Humans weren’t made to absorb other souls. Or to absorb anything into their souls, really. But somehow, you had. Maybe it was all the time you’d spent with him, that had caused his magic to rub off on you.

But your soul was different now.

Instead of an upright heart, like most humans had, it was upside down. Only monsters had upside-down hearts. And the white glow that patched together the spiderweb of cracks decorating the surface of your soul was far too familiar for him to ignore.

Whatever you were now, it wasn’t human.

“Their readings,” the nurse explained softly, “are the most unusual part of this. They’re not normal soul readings. Even with the additional DT that was added to their system, their body is reacting like that of a monster’s. A human usually has the resilience to face situations like this. But a monster, even a Boss monster, needs a little more help.”

“So, what are they?” He asked, staring hard at the papers grasped in his paws. “Human? A monster? Or something else?”

“The closest similarities we’ve been able to find is that, whatever’s going on with them, it’s turning them into a Boss monster.” The nurse wrung her hands nervously. “The influx of magic in their system is starting to affect them physically as well.”

She gestured towards your sleeping form, and Asgore followed her gaze to the horns poking out of your forehead.

“So, what does that mean?” Asgore whispered, his voice on the verge of breaking. “What should I do?”

“For now,” the nurse laid a hand on his trembling shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze, “be there for them. That’s all that you really can do.”

She turned and left the room, just as quietly as she had come, leaving Asgore clutching your files.

She was right. Whatever was happening, he had to be there for you.

Asgore sighed, gently winding his fingers with yours, watching your chest rise and fall as you slept.

“Don’t worry. I’ll always be here for you.”

And he would always mean it.

Mob/Mafiatale-Sans:

Sans didn’t like the way you were looking at him. It was like you were staring right through him.

“babe…” He mumbled, stroking a thumb over your trembling hand, “what the hell happened to ya?”

Your mouth opened, then closed again. Like a fish out of water, struggling to get the words out. “I…I don’t know.”

“something had to have happened.” He gestured at the spines rippling out of your back, thick and bony, like the scales of a dragon leading all the way down to a thin, limp bony tail. “humans don’t usually…y’know, grow tails?”

“I know.” You snapped, then squeezed your eyes shut, rubbing your temples. Your head was probably hurting like hell, and he didn’t blame you for being testy. After everything you’d went through…

“I’m sorry, Sans. I really can’t remember anything. I was just walking home. It was raining. I was at the bus stop. And then—it all goes black.”

He sighed, gripping your hand tightly between his own. “do ya remember us findin’ ya?”

“Kind of?” You shook your head, hairs plastered to your sweaty face. “It’s fuzzy. I was lying on the ground. Everything hurt. My vision was all red. And then I heard shouting. I got scared. I thought they were coming back for me. But—”

“it was papyrus.” Sans explained. “he was the one that found ya, ‘long with undyne. you wouldn’t believe how happy he was. he couldn’t stop crying.”

Neither could Sans. He cried for hours after they’d found you. It took his brother and Toriel to pry him off of you, as he’d clutched onto your unconscious body and sobbed like a total baby-bones.

He still wanted to cry, watching you sit there in the hospital bed. Looking at all the bandages wrapped around your arms and legs and torso. The gauze taped to your swollen cheek, and the patch over your purple eye. You looked like you’d been through hell and back.

You probably had.

“Do the doctors…do they know what’s happening to me?” You asked, gently pulling your hand out of his. You wrapped your arms around yourself, staring at the bony tail laying across your legs with confusion, and a hint of distaste. “What the hell is happening to me?”

“from what alphys says, it has to do with determination.” Sans scratched his skull awkwardly. He really hated explaining things. “y’know, only some humans usually have it. we have no idea how you got so much of it. but…however you did, it did, uh, this.”

Another gesture towards the tail, which curled inwards, as if shying away from his reach. It made him feel even worse than he already did.

“I think they…did something to my soul.” You admitted, finally. “I don’t know why, but I can feel it. There’s something wrong, inside of me.”

“hey, we don’t know that.” Sans placed a trembling hand on your shoulder. “the docs are still running tests, we ought to just wait to see what they can find—”

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. He looked up. You didn’t.

“Excuse me?” A tiny, fluffy mouse dressed in nurse’s scrubs poked her head into the room. “Is now a bad time?”

“nah.” Sans mumbled, though he noticed how you flinched as she stepped up close to the IV running into your arm.

“Alright.” She said softly. “I’ve got the X-Rays here. I figured you’d want to look over them.”

The nurse offered them to you. You, with shaking hands, took them. But you didn’t open the file. You just let it lay there, on your lap.

“Thanks.” You replied in a small voice. “I’ll look at them later.”

“Okay. Take your time.” Then she glanced at Sans. “Visitor hours end soon, just letting you know.”

“sure. thanks.” Sans couldn’t bear the thought of having to wait to see you again. He wanted to stay with you all night. Until you got better, and then he could bring you home. And things would be okay.

The nurse nodded, slinking out of the room.

“hey, maybe i should take a look at those.” He gestured at the files with an incline of his head. “make sure there’s no ray-son to panic.”

You cracked a tiny smile and pushed them towards him.

Sans took the files gingerly and pulled out the first X-Ray.

You were littered with broken bones. The sight of them made him angrier than he’d ever been in his entire life.

He was going to find who did this to you, and he was going to make them pay for it.

But aside from that. He put that slide back and pulled out the next one. Your soul…

For a second, Sans thought he was holding the picture upside-down. But then he realized, no, he wasn’t.

Your soul had turned upside-down.

He felt his nonexistent stomach flip inside of him. Humans didn’t have upside-down souls. And the white glow that patched all of those horrible cracks together was too bright to ignore.

There was only one answer to this, and it was one he didn’t want to accept.

You weren’t a human anymore.

“Sans? What’s wrong?” He looked up, too fast.

You were looking at him, with so much concern. He looked down at the file and realized that his grip had gone so tight that his finger-bones had blanched. He quickly slipped the papers back into their folder, then set it aside.

“s’nothing. forgeddaboutit.” He offered you a wink and a shrug.

It was obvious, from the look on your face, that you didn’t believe him.

“Is something wrong with me?” You asked, softly. Your voice trembled.

“nah.” Sans took your hand, linking your fingers together. The smile he gave you was genuine. “nothing’s wrong with you.”

It wasn’t a lie. Even if you were changing, in ways that Sans didn’t quite understand, he could still tell you that with confidence.

Nothing would ever be wrong with you, in his eyes.

Adult!Mob/Mafiatale-Chara:

You knew they didn’t mean to, but the way they were staring at you was, quite frankly, freaking you out.

“How does it feel?” They asked, pinning you down with that crimson gaze. “To lose your humanity?”

“I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything.” You sighed. “I just feel…different.”

“Differences can feel good or bad.” They continued. “How does yours feel?”

“I’m not sure.” You admitted, flexing your hands. The claws springing from your nail beds looked so wrong. “Not good or bad. Just different.”

They hummed, leaning back in their chair. Head cocked to the side like a curious child.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.” You shook your head. “Just feels…y’know. Off.”

“I don’t mean those.” Now it was Chara’s turn to shake their head. They moved the finger pointed at your claws to the bandages adorning your arms. “I mean those.”

“Oh. Yeah a little bit.” You rubbed the gauze on your forearm self-consciously. “I mean, whoever got ahold of me, they sure did a number on me!”

You tried to laugh, but it just came out as a nervous wheeze. “I still don’t remember who they were, though.”

“We’ll find them.” Chara assured you. “My Family will make sure of it.”

They weren’t just referring to their adoptive family, you knew. They were referring to the entire Family. The nest of spies and gangsters who held New Ebott in an iron grip.

You clutched the blankets in your fists, staring hard at your bandaged hands.

When you looked up at them, they had their hands folded under their chin, and was surveying you like a scientist conducting an experiment. The only part that didn’t fit was the smile plastered onto their face. It was so fake. Painted on, beneath their dead, red-ringed eyes.

“You know I hate it when you do that.”

“Ah.” They closed their eyes. “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? My apologies.”

“It’s not your fault. This is weird for all of us.”

“I’m just thinking of the things I’ll do once I find the people who hurt you.”

That statement sent shivers down your spine. Though there was no emotion in their face, their eyes were burning like the fires of hell. It made you feel nervous, like a bird trapped under the gaze of a snake.

“I’m going to hurt them. Much, much worse.” Chara giggled. It sounded childish coming out of their throat. “I’m going to make them regret ever laying a hand on you.”

“Chara.” You stated firmly. “I don’t need a quest for vengeance. I just need you. Right here, right now.”

They blinked, slowly.

“I’m…sorry.” They sighed, shaking their head again. “I know I should put aside my personal hang-ups for your sake, but. It’s difficult.”

“Can you try?” You pleaded, offering them your hand.

They stared at your outstretched palm for a moment then slowly, hesitantly, placed their hand in yours. You wove your fingers together. Their hands were so cold, like they’d been holding onto ice cubes the entire time they were by your side.

“I’m scared, Chara.” You admitted. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“I’ll admit, I’m at a loss as well. This is. Extremely unexpected.”

At that moment, there was a loud knock at the door. You jumped, and Chara’s head snapped around so suddenly that you were surprised they didn’t break something.

A nurse poked her head into the room. The sight of her giant flower face, lined with teeth, reminded you of Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors. Her body was enigmatic beneath the uniform that hung off her misshapen frame.

“Is this a bad time?” She asked in a gentle, soothing voice.

“No,” You said at the same time Chara said, “Yes.”

You shot them a glare and they refused to meet it. They just pouted.

“Well, I’ve got the files from the doctor here. I figured you’d like to look them over.”

She set them on the tiny table next to your hospital bed, and walked around, surveying the IV sticking out of your arm. “How are you feeling, dear?”

“Better than I did when I came in.” You offered with a dry laugh.

Her smile should have comforted you, but instead, you were kind of worried she’d try to take a bite out of you instead. Feed me, Seymour.

“Let me know if there’s anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable.” She adjusted your pillow, tugged the blankets up over your chest, and left with a soft goodbye.

You waved after her, and when you looked back at Chara, they were grasping the manila envelope in their hands. They looked up at you, their eyes following your tongue as it swept over the fangs sticking out from under your top lip.

“Do you want to look through it?” You asked.

“Perhaps it would be best that I did.” They mumbled, tearing it open.

The first image was that of your body. Coated with bruises, cuts, and a few very noticeable broken bones sticking out of odd parts of your body. Just the sight of the photo made them sick. They wanted to rip it into pieces.

Next came the X-Ray of your soul.

No longer was it a right-side up solid heart, brimming with color and energy. Now it was upside-down, much like a Monster’s soul, littered with cracks like a smashed window, and stitched together again with a rich white glow.

It certainly explained the claws and fangs. From what they could guess, this was a transformation of sorts. Your body had reacted to the trauma by helping you survive in anyway that it could: which meant, apparently, turning you into a Boss Monster.

“How does it look?” You asked. They could hear the anxiety in your voice, and as much as they wanted to give you the info straight, that wasn’t what you needed right now.

They looked up at you and the smile on their face finally reached their eyes.

“Different.”

#commission #adulttale #mobtale #mafiatale #asgore dreemurr #sans #chara #x reader #scenario #romantic #angst #body horror #long post #mod mellow #queued post

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notaparty-trick · 4 years

Text

All Those Senseless Scars - Chapter 3

By @notaparty-trick for @asyouleft

@friendly-neighborhood-exchange

Rating: T

Relationships: Tony Stark & Peter Parker, May Parker & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, May Parker, Pepper Potts, Michelle Jones, Ned Leeds

Summary: There is a rule to the way Peter lives now. He didn’t know it at first, but he learnt it.

It’s simple.

To earn what he needs to survive, he has to make sacrifices.

---

Peter Parker's life is derailed when he's kidnapped and kept in a white-tiled room with nothing: no windows, no cameras, no food, no water, no phone, nobody else. Only his own thoughts keep him from losing his mind. If he asks for anything, he must take punishment. Tony Stark will stop at nothing to bring him home.

Archive Of Our Own link here

“What would you like?”

Peter tried not to cry. “Blanket.”

He’d warred back and forth all night, worrying himself to pieces over the possibility of a little extra warmth. Asking for it felt like admitting nobody would come to rescue him. But his fingers and toes were blue.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he found himself begging as he was thrust onto the floor on his stomach, jarring his misshapen hand. Though he knew it was utterly useless, the words spilled forth from a well of fear in his mind without filter. “I didn’t do anything, I just wanna go home. Please.”

At the first smack of the whip against his back, the breath was driven from his lungs.

Peter gasped in a shuddering breath, writhing at the unbearable burning sensation that immediately enveloped him.

The second had him moaning in agony.

The third, fourth, fifth, had him pleading.

“Stop, please, don’t touch me,” he sobbed. “I - I don’t want the blanket.”

The sixth followed all the same.

Peter remembered the History class where he’d seen on the page of his textbook the image of ‘Whipped Peter’, the awful scarring across his back, like something had eaten into him.

He cried at the irony of that name.

His skin broke at the tenth lash. He screamed.

---

“God, oh, God, oh - shit!”

“May, don’t take his hand. He’ll crush it.”

“C’mon, baby boy. You’re strong. You got this.”

“Hurts,” Peter hiccups, bracing himself for the agony of the wound cleaning substance against his ruined back.

“I know, kid. Just a little while longer.”

A team of nurses has him on his side, hospital gown untied to reach the web of welts at his back, restraining him so his reflexive flinches don’t worsen his injuries. His heart pounds.

“O- oh, crap,” he falters, pulling at the burns on his face as he screws it up instinctually. The shower he’d been assisted in taking just hours ago has been made superfluous by the sweat that’s breaking out all over him, brought on partly by the sheer torture of the procedure and partly by recollections of being held down and made to cry out in pain in his box.

“Deep breaths,” Tony reminds him softly from where he and May are crouched right beside him, inches away but forbidden from touching him until his wounds are cleaned and re-dressed.

Peter obliges, pushing out a rasping breath. His vision is too blurry to make out Mister Stark’s expression.

The burn arrives again, too quickly, too overwhelmingly, and he jerks against the hands keeping him in place. “No, sto’, too much!”

“We’re very nearly finished, Peter--”

Mister Stark rises from his seat in an instant. “He told you to stop.”

The pain recedes, leaving a residual sting, and a few shuffling footsteps sound behind Peter. He drags his face across the mattress of his bed, hoping to scrub away the tear tracks there but mostly just increasing the throbbing in his nose.

Then a calloused hand is in his hair, a softer one gracing a thumb over his forearm, and he sags in relief.

“You’re okay, Pete, you’re okay,” comes Tony’s low murmur, but he’s not.

“Th’nk you,” he breathes all the same.

“Nobody does anything without your consent, okay?” There again is the fierce yet uneven tone that Peter can’t decipher while the phantom lash of the whip still rings with harsh clarity in the back of his mind.

“’m good now. Jus’… get it over with.”

“You can keep taking a break.”

“No, I gotta do i’.”

Almost the moment the comforting hands leave him, the pain ramps up again, albeit only for a few seconds before a clean dressing is applied.

Peter knows what comes next.

A plastic tub held in a stand is wheeled to a stop beside the burned side of his face, lukewarm water tossing a washcloth back and forth inside. The nurse who had positioned it wrings out the cloth a little, steadies a gloved hand on an unharmed section of his head, and gingerly presses the wet cloth to the dressing just as Peter lets out a forcefully measured exhale.

He feels his flesh melting.

No. He shuts out the memory with gritted teeth.

This isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is after the dressing has been soaked enough that it peels off, when the cream is washed off and replaced.

Peter had stupidly presumed that the moment he staggered through the door of the Compound would be the moment his pain would end.

This time, he can’t even move his face, although every nerve in his body begs him to turn away from the razor blades of the washcloth against his raw skin.

“Mff!” he cries instead, his empty hand fisting in the sheets.

“Good job,” he hears May coaxing over his outbursts. “You’re doing amazing, baby.”

The truth is far from her reassurances. He’s whimpering like an idiot. Pain is a thousand times harder to cope with now, and with a superhero side gig like his, it scares him to contemplate how much harder it might become now.

If he ever heals enough to get out of bed, that is.

As the new dressing is being prepared, a morbid part of him speaks. “I w’nna see my face.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tony’s head fall forward into his hands. “Kiddo.”

“Show me,” he insists with all the shaky determination he can muster.

Both May and Mister Stark’s heads remained bowed as Tony taps a few times on his phone to enable the camera app and angles it towards Peter’s face.

Peter’s horrifying, ravaged, broken face.

He hadn’t even noticed that a patch of his hair had been singed off by the blowtorch and a further area shaved to a blunt stubble to bare the flayed brown edges of half-healed scalds. Like a disease that’s taken over his features, scraps of angry red, fragile pink and near-white mark the skin of his chin all the way up past his forehead. The dark pools of his eyes only point out more severely the bright, unnatural colours that ring them. Flecks of blood stand out at the palest areas.

Unable to articulate the gaping well of dismay that tears into him at the sight of himself, Peter lets out a sound between an exhale and a sob.

“You look just fine,” May rushes to tell him.

“Plus, you have super healing, remember? It’ll clear up real fast.”

At Mister Stark’s remark, Peter meets the eye of the man he gained the scars to see, simply staring at him. Tony’s face drops its false veneer of encouragement.

He doesn’t blame Mister Stark, not at all. He had no idea. But the more primal part of him, the part that boils over with rage, with shame, with despair, wants desperately to blame someone.

His disfigurement is the price of his freedom. It’s not fair. Not one other person in the room with him now has had to pay for the return of their own autonomy.

Except…?

The hot, stinging trail of a liquid down his cheek startles him out of his rumination. “S’mthin’ on my face.”

“Hey, he’s - yeah.” Mister Stark frowns even more deeply as a nurse dabs at Peter’s face with gauze. “It just comes out? That’s alright?”

“Wha'?”

“You’re bleeding a little, kid.”

“It’s nothing out of the ordinary,” the nurse assures them.

Peter feels nauseous.

When the medical team finally leaves him alone, he trades trembling exhaustion for the murky arms of sleep, passing out in a mess of IV lines and broken limbs and sweat.

May is the first to sit back in her chair with a vehement, “Shit.”

Tony realises he’s forgotten to breathe again in the way he seems to regularly forget basic human functions at the moment. Dragging in a pained breath, he shakes out his twitching hands and echoes, “Shit.”

Above their weary heads whine artificial squares of light. Tony blinks against their harshness, the white behind his eyelids recalling a light with the harshness of the sun against the kid’s cheekbone.

“When I became Peter’s guardian,” begins May quietly, “I knew he had a number of health conditions. I knew there would be hospital visits, examinations - I knew I’d have to see him suffer. But I never - I had no idea. Never this . This was never a thought, this… why do you think they did it?”

“It was because of me, I think,” grits Tony, eyes fixed on the floor.

“Tony - what?”

“When I - God.” The words are razor-edged, nauseating, painful to force out. “They brought him out to me, and then they - he looked like he knew what was coming. That’s when they burnt him.”

Curling into herself, May presses the back of her hand to her mouth. “Fuck.”

“He said - he told us he took punishment, right? And then they’d let him have things? Food, water, a blanket--”

“You,” May finishes for him, sombre.

Tony screws his hand into a fist and brings it down jarringly on his knee. “I was such an idiot. Just waltzed on in there - no plan - no backup - no thought of what they might do to the kid.”

May’s expression begins to change then, morphing into a look she’s seen directed at Peter countless times, the look reserved for flareups of self-sacrificial complexes. “Tony, you--”

“I couldn’t have known, sure. But I could’ve. That’s the thing.”

These thoughts have plagued him from the moment he declared the kid missing.

A pail of filthy water, his face jerked forward to meet it. Yinsen’s face inches from a glowing lump of coal. Sweat rising from his temples as he was screwed into a hulking metal suit that could have been his salvation or his downfall. And most of all, hand-trembling, muscle-knotting, mind-melting terror. Terror that the kid has lived with for twenty-one days.

“I’ve been through it, May. I know what they do, the twisted way they think, and I could have thought about his safety for a second instead of barging in there at the cost of--” he jerks a shoulder in Peter’s direction, his beaten, gauze-swathed body collapsed heavily atop his mattress.

“You barged in because you were desperate,” May counters with fiery sincerity, tearing her gaze from the kid to search for Tony’s eyes. “Because you love him. You had a chance to get him out and you couldn’t pass it up.”

Tony gestures to Peter again, failing to paper over the breaks in his voice as he says, “That isn’t love.”

“But you didn’t do that to him.”

“It sure feels like I did.”

Both of them are aware of the sudden shift in the tone of their conversation; with a hardening of her face that Tony has seen a less intimidating version of on Peter’s face, she flattens her tone and pins him with her gaze. Tony doesn’t dare to interrupt the point she begins to make. “Okay, I can’t - it’s time to cut the bullshit, Tony. I will not have you wallowing right now. I cannot handle it while my kid is still like this.”

Almost unbidden, her gaze strays again to Peter - Tony wonders if she’s worrying about the same things he is. Will he ever heal completely?

“We are going to be strong for him, okay?” she continues as if she’d never faltered. “Forget about the things we could have done or changed. You’ll forget about the way you came to get him, forget about passing out on him. I’ll forget that I let my sixteen-year-old child beat up criminals and didn’t consider that one day somebody with a grudge might choose to act on it.”

“There’s no way that was your--”

“That’s easy to think when it’s not you. And it’s not the point.”

May is filled with a grief-stricken, worn-down kind of wisdom just then. It flows from fidgeting fingers and lashes clumped together by old tears; it grips Tony and doesn’t let him forget the words being spoken to him.

“The point is that our kid is in a bad way, and we’re gonna be his pillars of strength. He is not going to worry one bit about how we’re feeling for once in his life. We’re gonna co-parent the shit out of this awful situation, and all three of us are gonna come out the other end, so help me God. I would prefer not to have to drag you behind me too.”

For a moment, Tony simply sits in stunned silence, marvelling at the fortitude of May Parker.

“How are you like this?” he says eventually, speaking his mind. “Why can’t I emulate your - what would Peter call it? Boss-ass parenting?”

“Because - and I’m just making an observation here - you flail around with your emotions and don’t know what the hell to do with them.”

The dry remark is punctuated by a laugh.

Abruptly, the intense sincerity of moments before gives way to Tony’ favourite coping mechanism: joking uselessly about anything and everything that comes his way. The levity eases the hearts of them both.

Raising his eyebrows, he sits back in the hard hospital chair and replies, “That’s bold of you to say.”

“So you acknowledge that I’m right.”

“Well, my own dad was more of an advocate for not having any emotions, so I feel like I’m doing alright.”

May just offers him an affirmative smile.

---

“Sure you aren’t better off in the chair?”

“I’m fine, mom,” retorts Peter good-naturedly. “Besides, if I get tired, you can carry me back.”

There’s the sassy kid Tony loves.

Still, it’s not easy to watch said kid wobbling at a snail’s pace out of his room in the MedBay, his walking stick the only thing keeping from splattering across the floor.

“C’mon, bud, you’re killing me. At least lean on me.”

“No. I’d rather look like a grandpa than an invalid.”

Tony ends up dawdling uselessly behind the kid as he makes his determined, sluggish way towards the elevator.

It’s difficult to look at the kid and simply see Peter Parker anymore, searching past the arm casts and stitches and dressings and hospital gown and - although Tony hates to admit that it fazes him - the patchwork of burns across his face. He loves his kid to bits, no matter how messed up his face is. It’s the knowledge that, even unintentionally, Peter has them because of him, that makes him falter every time he lifts his eyes to meet the kid’s.

But scars be damned, the look on his face when they make it outside and the sun falls across him is unbeatable.

Ever the motormouth, the kid is silent for once, a sigh purging itself from his chest instead as he squints into the dappled light. It eases just a few of the million knots pulling at Tony’s own sternum.

“How are you feeling, kiddo?” he eventually works up the courage to ask.

“Pretty boss, actually, for not keeling over yet. Didn’t think I’d make it all the way here.”

“I actually meant…”

“Oh. Right.” Instantly, a little of the childlike joy withdraws from Peter’ demeanour, and Tony kicks himself.

There’s another long stretch of comfortable silence while the kid, still gazing out at the open grassland, collects his thoughts, mouth opening and closing minutely. Tony has learned to allow space for this grace period rather than interrupt the kid as he so often used to do, finding that when he let Peter talk in his own time, work past his stammering, he’d come out with some really surprising stuff. Profound. Intelligent. Sweet.

“I guess I’ve felt worse. But, uh, I’ve felt better. It’s just… the world is still here, but it feels like it should have… changed.”

It’s a vague statement, but Tony understands. Staggering out of the shattered remains of his suit, finding the Afghanistan desert around him as undulating and brutally hot as ever, he found himself baffled that the landscape hadn’t undergone the same trauma as him. The rest of the world was no worse for wear while he’d been torn to shreds. He’d felt that the desert itself was mocking him.

“And that’s what I’m scared of most, I think. Everyone’s - you know, they’re just going about their lives like normal and I have another thing weighing me down. Most people don’t freak out when they’re asked, like, a normal question. But it’s questions that get me. That’s all they said to me. They’d ask me what I wanted, and if I agreed to have anything… that was it.

“They wanted - they were trying to make me break, I think. So either I’d… I don’t know, drive myself crazy in there, or refuse everything else they offered me until I… maybe. I don’t know. And I’d forget there were people outside who wanted me with them.”

Tony smiles solemnly.

“I never forgot. I didn’t wanna let go. But it’s like - it was almost easier in there.”

There’s a lifetime of suffering etched into the look that Peter fixes Tony with then, tinged with something that might just be guilt.

“I know that sounds… weird--”

“Not weird at all. I felt that too.”

“You - what?” It takes a few moments, but the knowledge he hadn’t thought to turn over in his mind presents itself to him eventually and he gapes. “Mister Stark. Oh my God. You didn’t - I didn’t think about - you too?”

“Come to me with all your kidnapping queries,” Tony jokes flatly. Peter just widens his eyes.

The ensuing pause is tense. It’s broken by the appearance of a car near the entryway where they stand and a flinch at Tony’s side.

“What are they doing here?” the kid breathes, stricken.

Tony peers over at the opening car doors. “Who?”

He recognizes the kid’s friends, although he likes to pretend he doesn’t.

“It’s just Ted and Emma,” he says deliberately, but it doesn’t draw a laugh or even an acknowledgement from Peter, who appears frozen in place. “What, did you guys fall out over Snapchat? I thought they were nice.”

Swallowing fiercely, Peter turns on his heel and makes a swaying break for the doors.

“Kid!” Although at first he expects to have to run after him, Tony finds the kid is still so slow on his feet that he hardly has to move to address him. There’s no way he’ll even be through the foyer by the time his friends have reached - and after all he’d said about the people he loves getting him through his time in captivity, Tony had assumed he’d be a lot more excited to reunite with them.

It’s when Peter clumsily brings his cast-clad forearm up to cover his face that Tony makes sense of his reaction.

“They’re gonna see me, Mister Stark,” pleads the kid, hints of swollen red protruding from behind his wavering arm.

Although it twists at Tony’s heart to see the kid in such a vulnerable state and encourage him to remain in it, a more earnest chemical that sparks in his veins compels him to stand firm. “Yeah, they are, and it’s gonna be fine.”

“Peter!” comes an enthused shout from the approaching figures.

Stilling in indecision, Peter fixes his eyes on his walking stick, his white-knuckled grip on the handle. Tony simply waits for him to make a choice.

Ned makes it for him, sprinting over like lightning but halting abruptly a few feet in front of the kid, who eyes him with a face tautened by fear.

Tony sees Ned take in Peter’s appearance from top to toe.

MJ joins him then, her deadpan veneer crumbling into horror-struck vulnerability as she beholds the brokenness of the once-mighty boy before her.

Peter ducks his head, hiding his expression behind a curtain of half-shaved hair. “I know,” he croaks.

There’s no reply for a long time. Then, as if he physically can’t contain his outburst any longer, Ned blurts, “ OhmyGodImissedyousomuchI’msogladyou’renotdead.”

Jerking his head back towards his friend a little, Peter lets out a bark of laughter that he surprises himself with.

Tears rapidly filling his eyes, Ned says, “Can I hug you?”

Peter opens his broken arm gingerly. “Don’t cry, dude,” he replies as Ned approaches with overly-hesitant steps, “Gonna make me cry, and when I cry it’s all over.”

The moment of embrace is heralded by a shared damp inhale from them both. Ned settles his arms softly around Peter, who sinks into the embrace, unable to raise his arms to reciprocate but making up for it by burying his face in the shoulder of his friend.

“Spider-Man trouble?” Ned questions him.

Faintly, Tony hears the kid mumble, “Sort of. It was just… they took me. Some bad guys.”

“You could have just told us, you dumbnut,” chips in Michelle, a telltale falter in the undertone of her own words, and goes to join the hug, looping her slender arms around both Peter and Ned.

Tony can’t help but smile at the sight. The kid does have good friends.

“Didn’t want you to freak out,” mutters Peter.

Ned pulls away a little with a frown. “We were freaked out enough,” he insists fervently, “We could take it.”

“He was freaked out to the max,” MJ adds, her trademark smirk ghosting her face for a moment. “I was cool about it.”

The kid isn’t comforted, however; Tony catches the gossamer-like glint of a tear racing down the unharmed side of his face. “It’s not just - I’m, I’m all screwed up now.”

“You’re fine. You’re still Peter.”

Michelle draws him back into the hug, three sets of teenage arms interlinking, comforting one another, all plagued by suffering yet lifting one another up. A string of shaky sniffing noise emanates from where Tony can only guess Peter’s head is nuzzled, but it doesn’t worry him. In fact, he’s comforted by them. He knows the kid, can pick apart the different ways he releases emotion, and these tears signify relief.

It’s almost a minute before the group embrace is broken. Peter raises his head, face paler than when it had disappeared, and says, “Sorry - uh, guys, I gotta sit down.” Tony is baffled to find he’ll let Ned and MJ wrap their arms around him and help him back towards the doors although he’d been so adamant that Tony wasn’t permitted to do the same.

It leaves him idling by the entrance as they retreat, forgotten by the trio of single-track teenage minds heading towards Peter’s hospital room, but he finds himself remarkably unbothered. In fact, his heart is set at rest to such an extent at the sight of the three of them that he waits to follow them back to the MedBay, instead wandering a few steps further from the entrance of the Compound and inhaling the dewy scent of the day.

He’s just glad to see Peter healing.

---

The walking stick is only in active use for roughly a week before the kid’s back and ribs are well on their way to healing and he’s progressed to solid foods, beginning to gain the weight he’d dropped while captive. Usually, his healing might work at a faster rate, but malnutrition got him good. The freaky super-healing of old days resetting bones and staunching minor wounds after the kid’s patrols is only just now making a re-appearance, now the hollowness of Peter’s face is filling with colour again, now wiry muscle is re-threading itself along limbs that had looked fragile enough to snap with bare hands, now there is a hint of a spark punctuating his irises.

Tony, on the other hand, feels like he’s coming out of all this the worse for wear. The damn kid is going to give him a medical condition one day, he’s convinced. If he hasn’t already.

Recovery isn’t linear, it’s a hot mess. Tony knows this well.

Peter cries in his assisted shower, then laughs uncontrollably for a straight minute at a meme MJ sent him while Tony is still drying his hair. He makes requests with distrust, then disquiet, then false confidence. He lets in visitors at last, lighting up from the inside out as he reunites with Pepper and Happy and Rhodey and hobbles out to the SI team that had helped find him to ramble out profuse thanks, then physically wilting when he returns to his room. His casts are sawed off. His hair begins to grow back. He eats his first meal. He cries at dinner. He has a nightmare. He begs to return to school, then begs not to the next morning. He stops writing halfway through a sheet of catchup Physics questions and stands at the Compound’s balcony blankly until Tony fetches him down. He remains blank and unresponsive for three days and nights before bursting back to life in a fit of tremors and tears and panic, then sags back in the arms of Tony and May and sleeps for a solid sixteen hours.

Now, he lies atop a jumble of cushions on the roof of the Compound, Tony at his side, and watches darkness bleed into the sky’s canopy.

Silence pervaded their walk towards the spot, and it pervades now. The gradual brightening of the crescent moon tells more for the moment than Tony’s words could, setting the tips of Peter’s eyelashes alight, spilling a pale wash of light across the fields that fold out from the two of them as if made by their hands.

It’s Peter who breaks the silence. “What’s gonna happen next?”

“What do you want to happen?”

“I don’t… I’m not sure, I guess.” Folding his arms tightly around himself so the ragged old fleece he’s wearing bunches upwards to warm his neck, Peter turns on his side a little, his eyes flickering upwards to meet Tony’s. “Everything was so simple when it was just me and my box. It sucked, but I knew what would happen. And before then, there was no reason to - to think about my life. It just happened. Now, I’m… scared. That if I don’t get it right I’m gonna stay like this, all screwed up, forever.”

The way in which Tony's face screws up at his declaration is overwhelmingly fond. “Peter, everyone's screwed up. Especially superheroes. We volunteer to deal with the blood and guts of the world, there's gotta be something wrong with us."

The kid lets out an abrupt giggle.

"But - you know what? No matter what, no matter how screwed up you feel, nothing's gonna stop you from being my kid. Nothing in the world - no, the universe.”

The truth having been dispensed, Tony sets back his shoulders against the cushions and notes the outlines of clouds dissipating into the captivating gloom of the night. While the kid makes no audible response, his stillness speaks.

“And if you don’t know what you wanna do, May and I can help you out. We’re in your corner.” A deprecating smile breaks out across his face. “I remember leaving Afghanistan, flying back to a world full of people waiting to see Tony Stark’s next move. They needed me to make a plan, crack a joke, do something.”

“What did you do first?”

“I asked for a cheeseburger,” he huffs.

Peter lets out a peal of laughter. It’s carefree in the way Tony only hoped it might return to when he saw the kid beaten and exhausted on the floor of the Compound’s entryway. “Must’ve tasted pretty awesome,” he says with a shrug.

“No, kid, it sucked.”

Peter swivels to study him.

“It sucked so bad that it brought me back to reality.”

“And… what was reality like?”

“In 2008? Reality kind of sucked too.” He pushes away thoughts of Obadiah’s leering face. They’re of no use to him now. “But - it’s crazy, because I think it took the kidnapping for me to figure that out. Not that I’m glad it happened. But… silver lining, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” is all Peter says, the furrow in his brow revealing that he’s deep in thought. Tony waits for him, pressing absentmindedly at his left temple where a low-grade headache buzzes. The night air, the peace of the moment, are helping to ease it.

Eventually, Peter blinks harshly and says, “I think I wanna start patrolling again soon.”

“You do?”

Tony will admit that his blood chills at the admission. It’s the simple fear of a repeat of everything they’re still working to overcome.

“As much as it kind of terrifies me… yeah, I do. I, it’s - helping people, it’s my thing.” Peter smiles at Tony, the burnt side of his face still struggling to sustain the lifting of his mouth but conveying the earnest hope of the expression nonetheless. “It’s what makes my reality good. I mean, it’s - it’s hard, and it hurts, and I see people who are at their worst and people who know no better than lashing out, but I also--”

The kid sobers in an instant.

“Did I ever tell you about the guy I met?” he asks quietly. “At the, uh, at the Queensboro Bridge?”

Tony shakes his head.

“He was standing right on the edge and he - yeah. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something. I just - swung by and sat a little way away. He swore something awful at me at first, and I… I was so close to just getting up and leaving. I was sure he wanted me to - to leave, I mean - but I didn’t. Maybe two hours later, he just, he just turned around, walked away from the edge, and got back down onto the sidewalk. He let me walk him home. He didn’t jump. Because I was there. And that was just - you know, wow. I always think about that, that one time someone kept living because I was there to help them. I’m not giving up the chance to do that again, a million times if I can. It’s… it’s my responsibility, I guess, and it also just so happens that I love doing it. It’s my real superpower.” He nods at that, a small, tight, affirming motion. Spreading his arms so they hover above him, oversized against the distant backdrop of the stars, he raises his voice: “So, like, why should bad guys be able to get in the way of it? Screw that.”

“Screw that,” echoes Tony, at a loss for further comment.

He won’t be keeping Peter away from patrolling any time soon. Not when the kid has a sermon like that to back him up.

A chill runs through him at the rippling of a current of breeze along the length of the roof; it jolts a bittersweet memory into his mind.

“I wasn’t alone in Afghanistan, did you know that?”

“No.”

“I woke up to a man in the cave with me. His name was Yinsen. He…”

“Is this the last act of defiance of the great Tony Stark?”

As easily as Tony forgets on some days, on others he remembers so deeply that he can still smell the dust and smoke and sweat and fear in that cave.

“With his last words, he told me not to waste my life. He was my Spider-Man.” He throws out a grin, returned instantly by the kid, who has his cheek pillowed on an arm to watch him. “And look at me now, right? If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here today. Definitely wouldn’t be worrying my ass off about you all the live-long day.”

Tony sticks a hand out of his own bulky sweater and ruffles the kid’s hair, anticipating the kid’s swerve and messing with the curls until they’re irredeemably rumpled. Peter lets his lower lip protrude; Tony just laughs at him.

“So… you’re not wasting your life?” hesitates the kid, shuffling a little closer. There’s a more profound meaning behind the question, one that tugs at Tony’s heartstrings in a million different ways.

He fixes Peter with a level gaze. “Not one second of it.”

As if his words have put his mind at rest, the kid flops onto his back, exhaling in a sigh. He doesn’t bother to fix his hair, leaving it tufting away from his head in countless haphazard cowlicks.

The ensuing inhale Tony hears issue from the kid’s throat holds a new, darker note.

“Mister Stark, what happened to the Oscorp guys?”

“You don’t need to worry about them,” Tony asserts firmly.

“Mister Stark.”

“I made sure they’d never think about taking you again.”

Peter rolls away to the side at that: just a little, but enough to let Tony know that his words have unsettled him. He’d done it for the kid, as much as he knew that it wouldn’t be received positively. Perhaps he’d really done it for himself, then. His own peace of mind, certainly, and relief from the pressure of fury behind his ribs.

All he can think now, however, is that he can’t lose the atmosphere he and the kid have cultivated here, the peace, the honesty.

Turning himself to angle his body towards the kid, he begins, “You know, Pete, I - I really want you to know that you can call me. Any time. None of the crap I pulled before you took down Toomes. I’ll be your Spider-Man. If that sounds… good.”

As hesitant as he’d been, Peter’s furtive smile shows he appreciates the sentiment. He sniffs away the dampness of the evening and says, “That sounds really good.”

“When you get back out there, it’s gonna be tough, I can guarantee. Tough as anything. Nobody can really know what you went through. But I’ll be there, and--”

“I get it, Mister Stark.” The kid’s nose scrunches then in that unique, wonky way of his when he’s amused.

“What did I say about interrupting when I’m being nice?” Tony retorts, affecting offense.

Peter pays the words little heed, instead shifting until he’s tucked against Tony’s side and shyly nudging his head into the nook between his shoulder and neck.

At first, Tony’s stunned into stillness. He and Peter have never been very physically intimate in the past although Tony knows the kid derives a lot of comfort from it: he’s placed hands on his shoulders, squeezed once in a while, steered him one way or another with a hand at his back, even tucked strands of hair away from his eyes once or twice, but the hug barrier has rarely been broken. When he puts his hands on Peter, thoughts of flying fists and broken glass overtake his motor functions, drawing him away.

Perhaps it’s these years of wrestling back and forth that make the simplicity of Peter’s current closeness so breathtaking.

“Thank you,” breathes Peter.

The words encompass a thousand instances of gratefulness. He always forgets the way the kid can do that with a single sentence of thanks.

Tony slowly lets his arm curl around the kid’s shoulders. Far above them, a star pierces the blanket of the night with increased potency.

Caring his throat, he hums, wondering how to bring up the strange thought that’s crossed his mind. “Actually, I also wanted to… a couple of days ago, I found this - you know what, forget it. I said nothing.”

“That’s mean!” Tilting his head so he’s gazing up at Tony from just beneath his chin, he pleads, “Tell me what it is.”

“It’s stupid and sappy--”

“I love stupid and sappy. Please, Mister Stark.”

And there arrive the wide baby browns Tony can’t resist.

“Damn puppy eyes,” he mutters, fishing in the pocket of his pants for his phone.

“They still work?”

Frowning, Tony looks away from the glow of the phone display to find a startling amount of uncertainty in Peter’s demeanour.

“What are you talking about, Pete?” he exclaims, letting his genuine disbelief temper his tone. Before the memories can flood in, he lifts his free hand and brushes it gently across the kid’s patchwork cheek. “‘Course they still work. As long as your head is on your neck, you’ll be able to sway me.”

There’s a faint smile from Peter, but it’s not convincing enough for Tony. He continues: “You look great, by the way.”

The kid ducks his head, huffing out a nervous laugh.

“Still Peter Parker. Still adorable.”

“I’m not adorable,” argues the kid weakly, casting about, “I’m…”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “You're adorable.”

“Okay,” Peter concedes with little reluctance.

Scrolling through his music app until he finds what he was looking for, Tony blows out a breath, feeling nerves unexpectedly rearing their head.

“It’s a song?”

“Yeah. I heard it first while you were out there. Made me think of you. Well, get ready for the sap.”

He presses play.

A soft guitar melody begins the song, slow strumming patterns flooding the rooftop and settling peace across both the figures lying there.

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick and think of you

Turning in circles, confusion is nothing new

Flashback to warm nights

Almost left behind

Suitcase of memories

Time after...

Peter’s knee settles against Tony’s as he winds himself further around him. The warmth at Tony’s side is elating and calming all at once; he wonders why he was so scared to do this before.

Sometimes you picture me, I’m walking too far ahead

You’re calling to me, I can’t hear what you’ve said

And you say go slow

I fall behind

The second hand unwinds…

An alien but wholly welcome silence descends upon his mind, halting the constant whirring and worrying. Watching Peter’s eyes slide shut on his shoulder, he imagines the kid is experiencing the same thing. There’s a small, confidential smile curling across his face; it’s a thank you of its own.

If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me

Time after time

If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting

Time after time

Peter’s head bobs in a way that somehow communicates that he understands why Tony connected to these lyrics. They say what he can’t.

Tony is filled with overwhelming affection, so all-encompassing it spills from his chest and fills the Compound, the surrounding forest, the sky itself, for the small boy at his side who has grown an unfathomable amount since the day he first set eyes on a kid in a onesie running around Queens.

---

One month later

Standing before the long mirror in the corner of his bedroom, Peter studies himself and the bundle of bright red-and-blue fabric he holds.

The suit appears innocuous bunched up in his newly-healed hands that way, but it holds more power than he'd before been aware of: in the eyes of some, the power to condemn him. The power to regard him as a test subject.

It had happened out of nowhere , his danger sense knocking him off guard with a sudden blare that pricked viciously at the back of his neck. Then--

BANG

The gunshot sent him scrambling the length of the block to reach the source, slipping and almost crashing to the ground with the misplaced momentum of a haphazardly slung string of webbing. Sprinting the last few steps, he rounded the street corner and came across a woman with a gun to her head, flanked by a gang of four masked people.

"Spider-Man! Help, get me out of here--"

"Shut up!" thundered the gang member who had her pulled against his chest. "And you--" he tilted his pistol momentarily in Peter's direction "--put your fucking hands up! Don't try anything!"

As much time as Peter spent rescuing small animals from the perils of New York City traffic and halting the occasional robbery, he wasn't unfamiliar with the city's more ugly crimes. This was a textbook mugging. In fact, it felt almost... too familiar.

Peter raised his hands for the moment, although he had no intention of keeping them there. The gun was his primary concern, however, and until he had a guarantee he'd be able to keep it a good distance away from the scared lady's brains he was eager to play it safe.

His hurried strategization proved in vain, as did the quip half-formed on his tongue, when a sharp sting in the side of his neck compelled him to turn sharply to the side.

Nothing.

Groping at his neck, he closed his hand around a needle.

The drug hit him instantly, knocking his sense of balance and clouding his vision so severely he hadn't a hope of getting to the hostage.

Or was she even a hostage? Had any of it been real?

"Woah, what the hell," he remarked with alarmingly numb lips. The ground rose up to meet him in the way it always does in movies: the screen fades to black, the music halts - but his senses remained dulled to a blurry grey.

Shedding his t-shirt, Peter clears his throat in a preparatory gesture before twisting around to see the half-healed welts across his back. The angry red swelling that had once ringed each mark has softened to a slightly heightened pink which rings long white lines, forty of them still there but receding.

They're kind of cool, he thinks abruptly. They show that he's still around. That he is strong.

He shucks off his pants then steps into the suit with a deep breath.

Then came the hands, what felt like dozens of them to Peter's wandering mind, gripping, running up and down his suit, searching for something.

He was in deep shit; although he was nowhere near coherent enough to fight off the invaders with his lead-heavy limbs, he knew that for sure. These guys had him in their lap - literally. The possibilities of what might happen to Peter ran through his mind in quick, delirious procession, so vividly reasonable that they brought bile to the back of his throat.

He let out a quiet groan, the only act of protestation he could muster. It only drew a laugh from the hands.

"They hit him hard, didn't they?"

"Not hard enough." It was the voice of the woman he'd rushed to save just moments ago. "Supposed to knock him out."

"Just hit him with another. It can't kill him, right?"

"Got a smaller chance than what's gonna happen once we get him to Norman."

Another furtive, ugly laugh.

A whizzing noise alerted him to the decompression of his suit.

"Fucking finally."

He was pulled back and forth, limp as a ragdoll, as the million hands worked his suit off him, his last shred of protection slipping off his immobile legs and leaving him in his boxers.

"Oh, Christ. He's... young."

"Still Spider-Man. We do our job."

Tapping the spider emblem on his chest, Peter watches as the fabric rushes inwards to meet his skin, as he transforms from boy to superhero.

Though he'd managed to hide the lash marks by changing in corners after gym class, there was nothing he could do to conceal the fading burns on his face.

Peter greets the shining, reddened skin there with a mixture of solemnity and strange fondness. He no longer needs dressings, just time, and acceptance of his new appearance. His hair will grow out again. The marks will fade further and further until they're a part of him.

The hands seized him again and dragged him back down the street he'd entered so quickly, so blindly. His sluggish heart begun a weak chorus of hammering. Torn between utter panic and complete lethargy, his body rebelling against his screaming danger sense, he found to his dismay that the drugs began to win. A screech of tires; he was lifted onto a metal floor.

Oh, God, he remembers thinking vaguely. Mister Stark had better come for me.

The ensuing cacophony of voices was too multitudinous for him to pick out. The second needle in his neck, however, was keenly picked up by his pleading, aching danger sense. The awareness of the fact that a second dose of drugs was about to enter his bloodstream did nothing to prevent his vision fading to black, noise halting. End scene.

He passes out among the million hands and wakes up to white tiles.

Brushing gloved hands habitually through the errant locks of hair lying across his forehead, he watches himself one last time, tries to connect the dots between the suit Mister Stark had re-made for him, the invisible stitching, the black arrow-lines dividing bold red and blue, the graceful shape of the suit around him culminating at his neck in a neat seam, and the scarred skin that grows from that seam and forms the face of Peter Parker, Spider-Man.

"Peter Parker," he repeats under his breath, "Spider-Man."

He'll admit that the murky flashes of the past that mar his mind now scare him a little. Although he hadn't known it the first time he'd stepped into this suit, he makes himself both strong and vulnerable when he's in it. His heart hadn't stopped beating in his box, but it had come close, whether from thirst or hunger or pain or blood loss or sheer loneliness; and yet now it beats a tattoo against his tender ribs as if making up for any doubts of its fervour, beating and beating and beating.

But there's more than one reason why he's donned the suit today.

Peter slips the mask over his head and vaults over the windowsill, emerging into the brilliantly warm light of the golden hour that lays in delicate streaks across the patchwork of rooftops that make up the puzzle of Queens. He's warmed from the inside out by the light. Shooting a web, taking a leap, he swings, revelling in the cool wind, the airy momentum of his movement.

The glass doors of the Compound cast blinding, enchanting reflections of the sinking sun, but if Peter squints he can make out a familiar form waiting for him in the entry.

Letting go of his web line, he twists backwards in the air, arcing into a backflip just for the hell of it, before dropping to his feet outside the doors.

The first thing he notices is Tony's smile. It's an indulgent thing, packed so full of fondness that Peter feels the excess settling in his own expression, and lit up by the golden light.

Spreading his arms, Peter nods at himself, making a beckoning motion as if encouraging praise from a cheering crowd, then turns on the spot so Mister Stark can see every inch of the suit and know that Peter's decision to wear it again is very deliberate. Through the glass, there's a silent laugh from his mentor. Peter hasn't seen him so unapologetically happy since the day he was taken.

Dropping the goofy act, he pulls off his mask and watches the face across the glass brighten further still. Peter unconsciously brings up a hand to his old burns, a flicker of a reflection showing him the ragged skin for a moment before being swallowed up by the vast glory of the sun. Tony just quirks the corners of his mouth, the affection in his eyes unwavering.

Peter steps through the glass door, throwing out a blade of refracted light that pierces nothing but the safe haven of nature around him, and meets him inside.

#fanfic #fanfiction #irondad #spiderson #tony stark #peter parker #whump #angst #hurt and comfort #notaparty-trick

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captainscanadian · 4 years

Text

Better | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 3)

My Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2

Summary: As Wanda convinced Bucky to leave your bedside for the night, Becca Barnes arrives in Brooklyn to let him know of the findings of her investigation. While Bucky thinks that no harm would come your way during his absence, he would not know how wrong he had been about that. But one thing is clear, Bucky fell in love with you one wintry night in Brooklyn after he learned that you were indeed a much better doctor and a much better human being than he could ever be.

Word Count: 6083

Pairing: Doctor!Bucky x Doctor!Reader, Doctor!Bucky x Platonic!Nurse!Wanda, Nurse!MJ

Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Abuse & Alcoholism, Surgery, Organ Donation, IV & Needles, Emotional Distress, Physical Pain, Drugs, Hospital Stay, Homelessness, Mentions of Death & Cancer

A/N: It may have taken my about two months to write this part but I do apologize for my lack of inspiration that was caused a major life change (of me moving to the UK). I am so excited to continue this fic because I just love Doctor!Bucky with my whole heart. I would like to thank @dramadreamer14 and @thedarklightwithinus for providing me with some genuine feedback for this fic. They really kept me going! On that note, here’s an extra long chapter to make up for the wait time. I hope you enjoy reading this and feedback is always welcome! :)

Perhaps it was impossible to get Dr. James Barnes to leave the hospital for the night. Hell, he was not even planning on leaving your bedside for more than a few minutes if he had to. But as the sun had finally set and visiting hours were over, Wanda Maximoff had woken up from her post-night shift nap to dial the nurses’ desk at the post-op ward. She had a gut feeling that Bucky would still be there, for she knew that man well enough to know how much he loved you.

Michelle Jones, the trainee nurse who had replaced her at the desk since that morning, answered the phone in an instant. “Good evening, you’ve reached Brooklyn Hospital Post-Op. How may I help you?” She recited in her best customer service voice that seemed way too polite for her own liking.

“Hey MJ, it’s Wanda.” She responded as she rubbed at her eyes, ridding of the last bit of slumber that remained within her eyes before she let out a yawn. “Is he still there?”

“Does it snow in New York in December?” The younger nurse retorted with a chuckle, pulling up the moleskin journal that she had been keeping. After Wanda had instructed her to keep an eye on your hospital room, Michelle had managed to write down every single instance that Bucky had left your bedside. “He took a bathroom break every one or two hours and when Peter- I mean, when Dr. Parker went to check her vitals around 2 pm, Dr. Barnes promised to let him scrub in with him on his next surgery if he brings him lunch. Dr. Parker brought him a sandwich from the cafeteria, and then a vanilla bean latte from the coffee cart across the street at around 4 pm. He had his last bathroom break a few minutes ago but he’s still there.”

“And Y/N?” Wanda asked as she bit her lip, completely unsurprised by the fact that the lover boy was still at your bedside. She made a mental note to give him a stern talking to and make sure that he left the hospital for the night. As much as she adored that he was putting himself out there to care for you; she believed that you needed someone like him in your life too, but she could not help but worry about him just as much.

MJ set aside her moleskin before pulling up your file on the computer. “Well, her PCA log shows that she’s been pumping pain meds every few hours, as she should be doing for the amount of pain that she must be going through on her first day in post-op. Nothing unusual there. She was knocked out when I went to change her IV and drainage tubes and I don’t think she would be waking up for another few hours or so. I had to kick him out of the room for a few minutes but he didn’t mind. He had no problem letting me do my job but he’s still sitting there.” MJ replied with a shrug, turning her head towards the hallway once she heard footsteps approaching her. Noticing that Bucky had stepped out of the room and was walking swiftly towards the desk, she quickly turned away to avoid his eye contact. “Wanda, he’s coming towards the desk right now.”

“MJ, please give him the phone.” The older nurse demanded. “I’m going to talk some sense into his head so if he tries to get out of my lecture by giving you back the phone, don’t you dare let him do that. Visiting hours were over hours ago so if he doesn’t leave after I hang up on him, just let him say goodbye to her and make sure he actually leaves the hospital and doesn’t crash in an on call room. He might even try to go down to the pit and get himself a patient, just so that he doesn’t have to leave the hospital. Don’t you dare let him do any of that! Call security to drag him out if you have to, because I wouldn’t trust him if I were you.”

“Michelle, can I ask you-”

She held her finger up for at him for a moment, listening intently to what Wanda had just told her. “Yes, ma’am...” She turned over to Bucky with a toothy grin. “Phone call for you, Dr. Barnes!”

Bucky gave her a confused look for a moment as she handed him the phone. “Hello?” He said, casually, as he brought his phone up to his ear.

“Bucky, you’ve been sitting there for more than twelve hours!” Wanda yelled at him through the phone, startling him slightly. “Get the fuck out of there! Go home, visiting hours were over ages ago.”

The dark haired doctor gave the other nurse a look of disbelief, shaking his head at her as she pulled out her cell phone to make another call. “Wanda, visiting hours don’t apply to me. I work here.”

“You went over your weekly limit yesterday, you dipshit. You shouldn’t even be back at the hospital until the day after tomorrow.” She reminded him. “What are you even doing there? She’s knocked out on pain meds. Just stop sitting in her room like a fucking creep and get your ass back to your apartment, Barnes. You haven’t been there in days.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Why? What are you going to do about it? Fire me? If I tell Chief Stark that you’ve been a fucking nuisance around the hospital, I’ll make sure he’s the one firing your dumbass!”

“Wanda...” Bucky let out a groan at her threats, not even sure if she actually meant them. As much as he loved her like a fourth younger sister, he knew that Wanda could be a bitch when she wanted to be. A part of him was hesitant about pissing her off even more. He could not risk it. “I can’t just leave Y/N here like this. She’s all alone. She has no family to watch her and... I’m not doing anyone any harm by being here.”

“Every single doctor, nurse, lab tech and orderly working in that hospital is her damn family, Bucky!” She reminded him with a sigh. “We’re all her family and we’re all keeping an eye on her. You’re being hard on yourself, Bucky. I know you care about her and you want to be there for her right now. But you should also take care of yourself too. You haven’t been home in days. Just go home for the night, sleep in your own bed for once. Take tomorrow off for yourself. She’ll be right where you left her when you come back.”

He let out a sigh as she contemplated her words. “But Wanda, what if something happens to her while I’m gone?”

“Bucky, are you out of your mind? You’re a fucking surgeon, come on, get it together. You know how liver transplants work. She didn’t suffer any complications during surgery. Nothing’s going to happen to her. She’s just going to be in pain for a few days so she’ll be knocked out on drugs until then. She’ll be back to her cheery self by the time you get back to work and Romanoff will discharge her by the end of next week.” She explained, wondering if you had made any arrangements for how you were going to spend the next eight weeks in bed rest. After all, Wanda knew that you lived alone. There was no way you could get through the days of recovery on your own. She made a mental note to ask you about it when she returns to work in the morning. Though knowing you, she was also contemplating on calling a family meeting with everyone else to come up with a solution for that. Asking you about it or offering to help take care of you would not cut it. She knew that you would refuse the help either way. If she had just went ahead and made the arrangements herself though and let Steve deliver the message to you, she knew you wouldn’t say no to the offer. You would never say no to Steve.

Wanda was right and Bucky knew that. But his heart refused to accept it. He did not want to leave you when you were all alone and in pain. Nevertheless, he gave in, only because he trusted the rest of the hospital staff to keep an eye on you during his absence. “Fine, I’ll go home. I’m sure everyone here would make sure she’s still in one piece by the time I get back.” Boy, if he only knew how wrong he was about that.

“Good. Now, you better not be at the hospital when I get to work in the morning and you better not show up until my eighteen hour shift is over. Are we clear about that, Dr. Barnes?” Wanda asked him with a chuckle.

Bucky laughed softly. “Noted, Maximoff. And before I forget, Y/N told me that she asked you to check on the status of her father. Can you let her know what’s up with him when you see her tomorrow?”

“Okay, I will.” She told him as she bit her lip at the thought of your father. Though she did not know the man personally and was certainly in a place where she should not be judging him, she could not help it. Boy, did she loathe that man for drinking away his health, driving away his own daughter and showing up at this hospital to make you pay for his mistakes. Having lost her own parents when she was eleven years of age and having lost her twin brother at sixteen, she felt empathetic towards the way your parents had been treating you despite your sacrifice. She could not believe how much you cared to ask about the man who could not care any less about you. But she knew that it meant you were a much better person than the people who had raised you. “Now I told MJ to call security. So once you hang up the phone, if you can go and kiss your Sleeping Beauty goodnight and then go straight to your car that would be highly appreciated.”

He turned around to give MJ another look of disbelief before seeing Thor, one of the security guards at the hospital, standing next to her and giving him the same toothy grin as the nurse. “Damn you, Wanda!” Bucky let out another chuckle as he hung up the phone and turned back to MJ. “Take care of her, yeah?”

Michelle gave him a nod. “Don’t worry, Dr. Barnes. She’s one of us. We’re definitely not going to let her pull one on us.” She gave him a reassuring smile.

Bucky gave her a nod before he turned over to look at Thor. “God, I can’t believe you’re-”

“Move it, Dr. Barnes.” The security guard cut him off, motioning him to walk back to your room as he gave him a playful glare. “Wanda’s orders.”

The love struck surgeon laughed softly as he shook his head, turning around and walking back to your hospital room with the beefy blonde male following right behind him. Bucky entered the room while Thor stood by the door, knowing that he should give the doctor some privacy. After all, not even the security guards and the rest of the hospital staff were immune to the gossips around the hospital.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they were all quite fond of you. Despite the fact that you were a surgeon, which had naturally given you a higher rank within the social hierarchy of the hospital, you were known to be extremely polite towards the nurses, orderlies, lab technicians, the catering staff and the cleaning staff alike. Most of the surgeons, your own friends included, possessed a certain arrogance that came with being a surgeon. But you had managed to overcome that arrogance rather quickly, thanks to your very humble beginnings. Even the staff had been concerned about your health following your surgery. But the moment news broke out that ‘Dr. Long Hair, Don’t Care’ had found himself sitting by your bedside for the whole day, it seemed that they were also eager to know if he would finally confess his feelings to you by the time you recovered and returned to work. Their bets had been placed but all they could do was wait and watch.

It seemed as though you were the only one who had been unaware of Bucky’s feelings for you, but you had a reason for that. Your years of longing to be loved by someone had only resulted in multiple rejections, causing you to eventually give up on pursuing any kind of relationship at all. For some reason, you had become accustomed to turning a blind eye to anyone’s romantic advances towards you. Perhaps that was why even Bucky had been hesitant to ask you out over the years. You had told him early on in your friendship of how the only reason you had moved to Brooklyn was because you wanted to train under Steve and build yourself a career. You weren’t looking for love, you had told him, even though that had been a lie. You had just believed that you did not deserve to be loved; you still believed it too, as a matter of fact. And Bucky, even he had started to fear your rejection after that.

But he could not deny that he loved you either way. He loved everything about you, from your determination to be a better surgeon to your generosity when it came to the way you treated your patients. You weren’t a surgical robot; unlike him, you actually had a heart. You had a heart that had been so deprived of love yet had so much love to give to everyone else around you. He had been the first one to notice that about you. And it was at that moment that he had fallen in love with you.

The two of you had only ever gotten a chance to work closely together when Steve had made the decision to go on a six month paternity leave after his daughter’s birth, leaving Bucky in charge of the department in his absence. Perhaps that was the time he had really gotten to know you as a surgeon and a human being, even though the two of you hadn’t gotten along all that well back then.

You had disagreed with him regarding a patient at that time, to which he had responded by taking you off the case. Your inability to see him in a place of authority and your slight confidence that Steve would have understood why you did certain things the way you did, had caused you to lash out at him. Bucky, being irritated by how you had challenged him in that situation and in desperate need of proving his authority, had suspended you from his service for an entire week.

He had realized a few days later that he had been wrong to punish you; he had Wanda to thank for knocking some sense into his head regarding the way he had exercised his newfound power. But when he had approached you to convince you to return to work, he was slightly surprised to find that your time away from the hospital had been spent providing free medical care at a local homeless shelter in Brooklyn.

“I wasn’t expecting any visitors at this time...” You had told the familiar dark haired man who had entered the make-shift clinic you had set up at the shelter. Despite the issues that you may have had with him, you still had a lot of respect for him. He was a renowned surgeon in his own right, certainly more experienced than you were. A part of you felt guilty for the way you had disrespected him at the hospital, but you had only stood up for yourself and the call that you had made for your patient. You had every right to do that. “And I certainly wasn’t expecting a visit from you.”

“So, this is where you spend all of your free time after... turning down Nat’s invites to go to the bar after a hard day’s work.” Bucky noted as he looked around the dimly lit room that was barely the size of his laundry room. The clinic did not look typical at all, an old single bed pushed against the back wall, a small school desk and folding chair placed in the center of the room and a shelf against the other wall holding various medical supplies that you might need to use. The pasty white paint was starting flake out of the walls despite your attempts to cover them up with multiple anatomy posters. It could not compare to Brooklyn’s most reputable teaching hospital where the two of you worked, but he knew that you were certainly making a difference in the lives of the homeless people you were helping.

“Well, I do think that there’s a lot more value to my time if it’s spent tending to these people rather than screwing up my liver.” You told him with a hint of sarcasm evident in your voice, removing a pair of latex gloves that you had been wearing and tossing them into the trash can. “No offense to Nat though. I’m sure she understands that I had a valid reason to skip out on her usual hangouts.”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets as he stepped over to the shelf of supplies, eying the items that you had purchased and donated to the shelter before turning back around to face you. “Are you paying for all of these?”

You gave him a nod as you lathered some hand sanitizer on your hands, getting up from your chair as it was about time to close up for the night. “Well, these are just the bandages, gauze pads and cotton swabs... I only keep these in here. The ibuprofen and other pain killers, all of the other over the counter drugs, needles and syringes are locked in a storage room near the kitchen. I’m the only one who can go in and grab them. I can’t have anyone coming in here for free drugs, you know?”

Bucky nodded, understandingly, and his lips curled into a small smile at the thought of your generosity and the skill you had in operating such a clinic, the thought and planning that had gone into doing something like this. He was well aware that you had only moved to New York two years ago to begin your fellowship with Steve. But the woman who was running the shelter had informed him just now that you had offered to start up this make-shift clinic within a few months of living in Brooklyn. “And you’re prescribing as well?” He asked, noticing your prescription pad on the desk.

“Mostly antibiotics, to treat minor infections.” You replied with a shrug, reaching under the desk to grab your bag. “I made a deal with the drug store down the street. They’re open twenty-four hours a day. I would write down the prescriptions and one of the volunteers, MJ, she’s a nursing student from Queens who helps me out... she would run down the street and fill them up. The drugstore sends me a receipt and I pay them off, out of pocket.”

His eyes grew wide as he realized what you had been doing. “Out of pocket? How are you able to afford all of this?” He asked, curiously. Surely, as a heart surgeon himself, he knew just about how much money you would be making since you were recently board certified. While you could certainly afford to pay for the entire make-shift clinic at the shelter, he had assumed that you must still have some student loans to pay off. Taking that debt into consideration, he was surprised that you were able to give back so much.

You nodded as you tossed your prescription pad and pen in your bag, pulling off your stethoscope that loosely hung over your shoulders. “Yeah... I mean, it’s not that much. I think I’ve mastered the art of saving up and living on a budget over the years, Dr. Barnes. Most of my tuition during pre-med and med at NYU was paid off by scholarships. I had pretty good grades and the financial need so I pretty much got... a free ride. My rent and food were covered by the money I made working two part-time jobs and a weekend job and there wasn’t any student loan debt to be paid off. I made a pretty decent income working as a resident but after paying my rent, groceries and other necessities, I pretty much saved up. I didn’t even have a car so I didn’t need to pay for insurance or gas. I didn’t even waste my money taking the subway. I rode a bike to and from work... for five years. Everyone I knew judged me for it but I didn’t give a shit. Saving up a lot of money during residency was the only reason I was able to afford living in New York in the first place and... Now, I think I’m in a really good place.” You could not help but smile at that, feeling a sense of pride at how much you had accomplished over the years. “I worked so hard to get where I am, Dr. Barnes. And I did all of this because I wanted to make a difference. So, if I can’t make a difference by cutting into people’s hearts then I might as well make a difference by... doing this, I guess?” You told him with a shrug, sighing as you packed up your bag and grabbed your jacket.

It was at that moment that Bucky had truly regretted how harsh he had treated you, but he did not show it. He remembered that night two years ago, when he had walked in on you crying your eyes out in an on call room. He had remembered how he had told you to aim to be a better doctor than him and Steve could ever be, yet he had now seen in person that you already were a much better doctor and human being than he could ever be.

James Buchannan Barnes had always been a privileged man. His parents were both doctors who ran their own respective practices. He and his three sisters had been raised by a nanny in their mansion in Clinton Hill. By the time he had started first grade, his parents had already deposited a large amount into his college fund. At sixteen years old, he had been given his own Mercedes and at eighteen, he had moved into his own penthouse apartment overlooking the bridge. He had never had to work a part-time job or live on a budget to make ends meet. But he felt extremely guilty for being someone who had had it all and had given back nothing. Yet there you stood before him, someone who seemed to have very less than what he had but still gave more than he could ever.

“I... hate to do this right now, Dr. Y/L/N. I think it’s a very noble thing that you’re doing here and I hate to be the one to drag you away from it.” He admitted as he bit down on his bottom lip, his hands still stuffed in his pockets as he finally gained the courage to look you in the eye. “But the reason why I came down here was... because I wanted to apologize to you for the way I treated you and ask you to come back to work, even though what you’re doing here seems... better. You’re a really good doctor and a really good human being. I could really use someone like you on my service, someone who actually has a heart.”

You let out a chuckle as you shrugged on your jacket and walked up to him. “Well, as much as I love being here... and mind you, I’ve been here every single day since you kicked me out of the OR, I’ve come to realize that the only way I can keep running this clinic is if I can actually fund it.” You admitted, laughing softly. “And I may or may not need to have a day job for that.”

Bucky chuckled softly as he nodded in agreement. “No, really... I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have humiliated you in the OR like that and I shouldn’t have undermined your judgement. Your patient, your call... although the procedure was rather unconventional, I could have cut you some slack. After all, you did train under Steve and I shouldn’t have been so surprised to know that you might have picked up some things from him.”

You laughed at the way he poked fun at his best friend. “Well, Dr. Barnes... I did cross the line and as my newly appointed boss, you had every right to interfere and take disciplinary action.” You admitted as you sighed. “I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have been so disrespectful towards you, especially in the OR. That was extremely rude of me and I’m really sorry.”

He nodded. “Apology accepted.”

You smiled politely at him as you motioned him to follow you outside of the room, turning off the lights on your way out. “Hey, I never bothered to ask. How did you even find me here?” You asked as you locked up the clinic, turning over to give him a confused look. No one at the hospital was aware of what you did on your spare time, except Dr. Rogers. Yet you could not help but wonder how he had found you.

Bucky looked down at his feet as he walked down the dimly lit hallway of that led to the front desk of the shelter. “Well, my temporary yet newfound power does allow me took look into your employee records.” He admitted as he laughed softly. “I found your home address from your profile and went down to the Indian restaurant that’s located on said address. A waiter told me that you lived on the loft apartment upstairs and that you weren’t home right now. So, I asked him where I could find you.”

You let at a sigh at his explanation. “Did you really go out of your way to... do what? Ask me to come back to work?” You were slightly surprised by the fact that anyone would even care that you were not home. Hell, you were even surprised that Dr. Barnes had even showed up to your little clinic to apologize to you after what had happened. You had taken him for a rather arrogant man, compared to Steve. This was partially true though, even he wouldn’t deny that. Yet his attempts to give you a personal apology did seem endearing to you. He intrigued you.

He nodded as he looked over at you. “Yeah...” He looked over at the woman who was sitting at the front desk and waved her goodbye.

“Goodnight, Dolores.” You told her as you walked out the front door, Bucky following right behind you. “You’re not going to ask me why I live above a restaurant, are you, Dr. Barnes?” You asked him, curiously, wondering if he was judging your choice in a home. While you could certainly afford a nicer apartment with your new salary, you had chosen to live there for the sake of convenience. The old Indian couple who owned the restaurant were kind enough to allow you to eat in the restaurant whenever you wanted, knowing very well that your unpredictable work hours did not allow you to even cook a meal for yourself. When you weren’t working at the hospital or running the clinic at the shelter and you happened to miss the good old days of waitressing, you would lend them a hand at times.

“It’s none of my business.” He admitted, shaking his head as the two of you stepped had stepped out into the cold winter night. “But I think I learned a lot about you this evening and that’s saying something, considering how distant you have been with all of us.”

Your warm breath had condensed every time you exhaled, the air a little misty as it was that night. “I admit that I might come off as- more like, I really am... a bit closed off. But I have a valid reason for that.” You admitted as you walked along the sidewalk, the snow crunching under your boots with every step you took. “I’ve been used to doing my own thing, Dr. Barnes. It’s really hard to get out of that.”

“That’s understandable.”

The two of you walked in silence for the next few minutes, neither of you uttering a word as the snow continued to fall from the sky. It was not an awkward silence but one that was calming, to him more than yourself though. You kept your eyes at your feet, not knowing what exactly you needed to say in order to keep a conversation going. Not that you had nothing to say. You wanted to keep talking but you were hesitant about doing so. What could you possibly say to that man that could be of interest to him? What if you said something wrong and he took it the wrong way? That had happen once already and it had almost cost you your job. You could not make that same mistake.

“What made you want to start up this clinic, Y/L/N?” Bucky asked, curiously, finally breaking the silence. “Why did you go out of your way to do this?”

“Because...” You paused to bite down on your bottom lip, not knowing if you should give him an honest answer to his question. Would that be over-sharing? After all, you had spilled quite so much of your past to him. Did you need to say more? “Because I know how it feels, Dr. Barnes. I know how it feels to be out here in the cold... no food, no warm clothes, nowhere to go. The uncertainty of whether you would get through the night and into the next morning, it’s... the worst feeling in the world and... I just wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.”

“You know, Steve grew up... just a few blocks away from here.” He recalled, his hands still cold despite the fact that they had never left his pockets.

You nodded. “He did mention it when I told him about me volunteering for the shelter. As a matter of fact, he funded the clinic for the first couple of months until I was able to handle it on my own.”

“His mother was my nanny. She started working for our family after her husband passed.” He did not know why he was telling you this but his guilt for not being the better human being may have had a part in that. “Steve and I knew each other since we were very little. He’s like the brother I never had. His mother raised me and my sisters as if we were her own. She passed away when he was just about eighteen. Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, the tumor was malignant by the time they caught it and she had already been misdiagnosed with pneumonia. There was nothing anyone could have done to save her. Steve couldn’t... he couldn’t afford to live after that. My folks offered to pay off the medical bills but he wouldn’t accept it. He had just gotten into NYU but he didn’t even know if he would end up going. A few days after his mother’s funeral, I found him right outside of that same shelter. I asked him to come and live with me and he told me that he could get by on his own. But I told him he didn’t have to... and I dragged him right back to my place and let him live in my guest bedroom for as long as he needed to. I owed that much to his mother. Best heart surgeon in New York and the best father in the entire world now that he traded his scalpel for changing diapers, he was capable of being so much better... than what life had to offer him, Y/N. You are also capable of being so much better than whatever life had to offer you and I hope you know that.” And that was the moment Bucky had realized that even he was capable of being better than what life had offered him. Perhaps he would start by writing you a cheque so that you could continue you doing what you were doing for the shelter. That was the least he could do.

Just then the two of you reached the Indian restaurant above which you lived. “Well... this is me.” You told him as you motioned towards to loft above the restaurant.

He nodded, pointing to his Mercedes that he had parked just across the street from the restaurant. “And that’s me.”

“Goodnight, Dr. Barnes.” You gave him a wave as you began to walk into the diner, stopping in front of the door before turning around to look at him. “Hey... James?”

He had turned around to cross the street once he waved you goodbye when you had called out to him. At first he was a little startled that you had referred to him by his first name, as you had never done that before. Besides, no one else other than his parents had called James. “Yes?”

“Thank you.” You told him as you gave him a genuine smile.

He nodded, smiling brightly as he ran his hand through his hair. And it was at that moment on that cold winter night did Y/N Y/L/N manage to thaw out the cold dead heart of James Buchannan Barnes.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” Bucky leaned over to press his lips against your forehead once more, his cold hands gently running through your hair as he sighed. He knew that you would have no recollection of this, since you were still knocked out from pain meds. But he could not help but speak to your unconscious self before he left, for the sake of his own sanity. “Wanda’s making me go home for the night so I might not see you again until... the day after tomorrow, I guess. Hang in there, doll. I hope you feel better... and I’ll see you when I get back.” I love you, he wanted to say, but he held himself back because he would rather say it in person and when the time was right. Grabbing his belongings, he walked out of your hospital room as he gave Thor a thumbs up, jogging down the hallway, down the stairs, past the ER and out the door towards the parking lot where he had parked his Mercedes.

It was only when he had started his car did he remember that he had forgotten to turn his phone back on. Before he pulled out of the parking lot, he turned on his phone to see that had several missed calls and text messages from his sister.

His eyebrows furrowed as he read her texts, a lump forming in his throat as he began to worry about the context of the messages. Bucky had asked his private investigator sister to do him a favor last week. And from what her messages now said, she must have found something that was relevant. He could not help but expect the worst after that.

Becca Barnes: Hey Buck, your phone’s off so you’re probably at work. Just wanted to let you know that I’m just heading back from Philly.

Becca Barnes: I found some things that you might find concerning. Let me know if I can come over tomorrow. I can’t tell you any of this through the phone.

Bucky bit down on his lip as he typed up a reply, but he could not help but worry about what his sister had found out for him.

How about first thing in the morning? I’m not working tomorrow.

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