Latest Posts by eatingyouryoung - Page 6

Rose - Oneshot

Pairing: Jonathan Levy x Reader

Word Count: 4.6k

Summary: Jonathan wants to say you came into his life like a flower, but it feels too fickle, too unlasting. Instead, he thinks, you grew like a rose bush for him.

A/N: The Jonathan Levy era is here folks. Keep in mind this was written after watching only the first two episodes of the show. I am completely ignoring Jonathan's second wife and his cheating.

I don't own photos or characters. Divider from @firefly-graphics

Ava’s head is lying on your stomach. You’re lying on your back, your head in Jonathan’s lap. He’s against the headboard, trying to find the courage in himself to fully wake up Ava, and break your drowsy state. This is no way for the three of you to sleep tonight, there’s not even a pillow behind his back, and you’re surely going to freeze, just in a pair of shorts and one of his t-shirts. 

You’re actually matching with him, pulling off the plain grey cotton better than he ever could. His book is long forgotten to the side, the sun having set a few minutes ago, all his will to get any more reading done that evening lost to the wind. There was a movie playing on his laptop, one that you’d set up for Ava. A movie Jonathan had paused when he saw his daughter asleep, your eyes hazy and struggling to stay open. 

The lights had remained on, a half-hope of his that he’d finish his chapter and tuck his daughter into bed before drifting off himself in your arms. He knows now that that was a foolish hope. There’s no sight prettier than the softness of you in his arms, his daughter in yours, both of you in his. He feels strong, indestructible. Wants to take the two of you and let no harm ever come to you again, be it at the expense of his own safety. There’s a bubbling need for him to protect. Feral and unknown. You’d scoff at him if he ever told you this, tell him that his old man is showing and they don’t do things like that anymore, but he wants to think it all the same. 

He lets his fingers follow your hairline, down to the curve of your jaw. The movements make you catch his eye and he’s filled with instant regret for even drawing a drop of your attention towards him like this. 

You smile at him and let your eyes droop to half-shut again 

Unlike Mira, who’d come into his life like a twenty-year hurricane, and left just as abruptly, you come into his life like you’d always been there. In many ways you’d had. Had been introduced as the daughter of his PhD supervisor, graduating with your Bachelor’s the same week he had stuttered his way through and promptly threw up after his field of study exam. 

He wants to say you came into his life like a flower, but it feels too fickle, too unlasting. Instead, he thinks, you grew like a rose bush for him. When you had blossomed out for him in love, he knew, that this wasn’t a storm he had to ride out, one that would inevitably end for better or for worse, but that with a little care, a little attention and love, your adoration for him, your rose bush would be a permanent fixture in his life. 

Your seed had taken root quietly. For many years, as he drifts in and out of your life, helping you secure a position with a supervisor for a graduate degree, visiting your mother every once in a while, smiling at you, when you shyly bring in a tray of coffee cups and sit quietly all through the afternoons he’s spent in your living room, you furrow your way into his chest. 

Though you don’t make a sound, barely talk to him for the first year of his acquaintance with you, you’re working. Growing a myriad of roots, a complex maze that only you alone can make your way through. You do it so subtly, like the gentle flutter of your eyelashes. Always there but never noticed. 

By the time you burst up in a little sprout, a promise of what is to come, it’s too late for Jonathan to weed you out. You’ve reached deep inside his chest and with your roots, you tug at heartstrings he didn’t know he had. You’re walking across the stage to receive your degree, when he notices you for you. Feels his heart quiver in a concerning way, thinks he’s hallucinated hearing your name called out, booming over the cathedral where the ceremony is held. But you’re very real. There’s an earthy, grounded freshness to you, an aura hanging around your body that Jonathan hadn’t noticed until then. It draws him in, leaves him thirsty for more as he hungrily drinks the sight of you, as your traditional academic robes billow with every step. 

When you were graduating, he was steps away from becoming an instructor, his post-doc in its final stages. Tenure was almost on the tip of his tongue, if he kept his contacts, if his cards were played right. He just had to get to and then through associate professorship. Ava had just arrived, had disrupted his mind and his sleep schedule, had taken over the entire house with a seemingly never-ending load of laundry filled with baby onesies, toys scattered across the living room, a milk bottle always drying alongside all the rest of their dishes.

Needless to say, there was a lot on his plate. He shouldn’t have even been at the ceremony that day had it not been for the promise of the cocktail hour afterwards. But he was and his relationship with you changes irredeemably.

You don’t belong in his life, really. You’re…nobody to him, at least, you should be. The daughter of a mentor who supported him during one of the hardest periods of his life. The daughter of a mentor whom he gave a favour to and put in a good word with the department head, who had sat in on his defence. Jonathan really could just chalk you up to an acquaintance, had it not been for the way your seedling had made its home in his chest. 

So, he runs to the campus floral shop, booming with business and buys you a mismatched bunch of flowers from the ones left over. He taps your shoulder and pulls you, beaming, away from all your friends. Your mother, he knows, is away in Europe at a conference, will be back next week and will celebrate privately with you. He’s tongue-tied as he congratulates you, his fingers have turned into knots as he struggles to hand you the flowers. 

As a child you’ve probably been to so many of these you were most likely bored out of your mind through the commencement ceremony. Still, Jonathan thinks you deserve flowers. Knows that you’re fond of brushing past the big events of your life as if they were just another day, a day not worth noting in the album of your life as your eyes are already drifting on towards new adventures. He tries that day, to make you slow down, to breathe deeper, smile wider, take in the world around you without any responsibilities on your shoulders. 

He also gives you his number, tells you to stay in touch and let him know if you ever decide to return to the dark world of academia. You laugh and give him a mysterious smile, not a yes or no. You don’t let him dwell too long on your smile, on the sudden glint in your eyes, before you ask him how Ava is doing, where her mother’s health is at, post-partum. 

At the end, right before you’re pulled away again, he asks you for a hug and he’s oddly sentimental about the whole thing. It’s not like you were a child when he met you, but he’s seen you grow, has seen you take on the challenges of graduate school head-on and come out triumphant at the end of each one, if a little bruised or scarred. So, it does feel like the end of an era. The end of his time as a student, and a gaping, wild unknown territory of teaching, research, supervision in store for him. 

Jonathan knows better than to ask you what you plan to do with the fancy piece of paper in your hands. Knows you must be sick of the question by now and that today was one of those rare days that was supposed to be reserved for only the present, the breaths between minutes. 

He’s drawn out of his thoughts when he sees your eyes blink slowly, as if there’s molasses dripping from your eyelashes, drying stickily. You glance down at Ava, and he sees you brush the hair away from her face gently, tucking it behind her ear, and placing your hand over her eyes, so the frown can fade away from her otherwise smooth skin.

Reaching over, he dims the lights, and it feels like the room is lit by candles only. 

Really, it’s just electricity, probably some horribly inefficient light bulbs that were killing baby pandas all over the world. He knows you’d like to light candles instead, knows you prefer natural light, and nice, comforting smells. When he had hugged you that day at graduation, you smelled like the citrus candle at the grocery market. 

You don’t smell like it anymore though. Because you’d given up candles for him. For his inflamed, damaged lungs that struggled with the stale air of his favourite lecture hall. The one with the high ceiling windows, the seemingly never ending amount of chalk close to the blackboard, the projector always working. 

Over the years, as he secures tenure and Ava grows up, your sprout grows, fresh green branches hardening into delicate twigs, jagged edges of leaves springing up in every available corner. But there are no flower buds yet.

You meet him for coffee, rant about the job market to him, appalled at how you could have two, top-notch degrees, stellar references, and several first-author publications, and still not manage to land an interview. He listens, hums and shows his support, tries to rack his mind for any of his friends who took a master-out and went into industry instead who could maybe line something up for you. 

He takes you to museums and art galleries, to street food stalls afterwards and buys you greasy foods that don’t rest well with his stomach. Invites you over for dinner, watches fondly as you talk with his wife, play with his daughter. Comes to your apartment in turn, and meets your mismatched group of friends that you love fiercely and proudly. Considers himself blessed that he’s considered part of them, part of the people you deem worthy of your attention, your time, your cooking and wine. 

His marriage becomes strained. He texts you more, sets up coffee, lunches and walks in the park with you more and more. Your chatter, your fresh, still hopeful outlook on life breathes air into his lungs, new life into his soul. He finds he can forget the growing pit in his stomach when he’s with you, the terrifying fear that if things don’t work out with Mira, if they don’t figure out how to heal, leaving Mira and being left by her is going to tear him to bits. 

Instead, he laughs until he has to reach for his inhaler at your eerily accurate impressions of your shared acquaintances at the university. He tries new food with you and watches foreign films that are poorly translated through the subtitles. Exchanges books and gets into heated arguments, pushes you to use and maintain the skills you learned while writing your thesis as he vehemently stands his ground on the other side of the debate. 

Six months after you graduate, you secure a job, and a well-paying salary, with a workweek that ends Friday evening, no ifs ands buts or doubts about it. Of course you would. Jonathan had no doubt about it. And if he’s honest with himself, on a Saturday evening cooped up in his office with a stack of essays to grade, he’s jealous of you. 

The day he takes you to see that new space documentary at the movies, he gets a taste of a line you’ve never crossed with him. A line you’ve surely crossed with all your friends, except him. He notices that day that you’ve always kept him at an arm’s length away, that your friendship with him was different than his friendship with you. 

And, fuck, does it hurt, does he hate how it makes his stomach twist. 

Jonathan had just juggled the popcorn and the tickets, handing them over to the boy to be ripped when he felt you stall, stiffening up beside him. You don’t mention anything and he doesn’t ask. Just like how he never mentions Mira anymore and you never ask. You keep your conversation, your questions and attention, for little Ava. 

But, instead of following him to the last door on the right, you stop at the third door to your left. You tell him you want to watch a movie instead, a cheap thing, with a cheap budget and mediocre acting at best. He wants to say that? You sure? But your eyes are glinting and he doesn’t want to prod. 

Of course, the film is, objectively, terrible. You’re the only ones in the theatre so it doesn’t matter if he pokes fun, mocks the acting, goes discretely silent at the sex scene that really, shows too much. He’s grateful that you don’t notice how he blushes, how he wants to melt into a literal puddle on the floor. You’d surely think he’s an old fart, if it seems like he can’t handle a little full frontal nudity. 

But you’re too astute of an observator, can pick up on the cues of his body better than he can, and you nudge him and with a little flick of your head, let him know that it’s ok to leave. 

You notice how he blushed, how he wanted to melt into a literal puddle on the floor. You don’t care though. You don’t think he’s an old fart, and instead, walk behind him and throw popcorn at the back of his head until he looks at you with a glare. 

That’s when it happens. 

He hears your name called across the theatre, a rush of people piling out of one of the doors. 

Mile-wide grin, square-set shoulders and clean-shaven. The man waves you down, and Jonathan doesn’t know where he wants to look at that moment. He follows behind you, the greasy bag of his popcorn brushing against the side of his pants and surely leaving stains behind. 

This is Jonathan. He remembers you saying, turning towards him with a smile that has the promise of an apology behind it. Jonathan reaches forward and gives the so far unidentified man a handshake, maybe a little firmer than necessary. A family friend, we go way back. 

Awkward would be one way to describe the way you talk with your ex. At least from your perspective, it really is awkward. Gauche, maladroit. It makes his skin crawl to see the way you look at him, the way you dig your nails into your palm. You hand over sugary-sweet smiles that Jonathan can see right through. It’s the synthetic sweetness of maraschino cherries, the taste of the fruit underneath, subtle and addicting, drowned out through chemicals and fructose corn syrup. High in calories, low in nutrients. 

But Mr. Patagonia jacket doesn’t seem to mind this, thinks that the encounter has gone wonderfully, since he confirms with you if you still have his number and asks you to text him, for coffee or dinner sometime. 

It hits Jonathan then, that the nauseating feeling crawling up his throat isn’t the popcorn. 

You’ve never talked to him about this stuff. People with whom you wanted to be closer to than just friends, with whom you’ve wanted to cross that line with. It occurs to him that never, not once, have you ever shut down plans with him because you had a date. It was always that there was something at work, something at home, you were just too tired. 

He’s not sure why it bothers him so much. You’re allowed to dictate your relationship with him, and matters of the hearts are intensely private affairs, not to be divulged with just anyone. So, it shouldn’t bother him. Surely, he doesn’t have the right to demand you divulge your love life to him, and he’s not going to even attempt to go there. 

But, though he tells himself to calm the fuck down, he’s still bothered. Bothered by the fact that he’s never even met one of your partners. Ever. Not in passing, not in the evenings he’s spent at your house and the ones you’ve spent at his. You’ve always opened the door by yourself, grinning wide as you welcome him inside, and in turn, you’ve always come alone, with a bottle of wine. 

Sorry about that. My ex. 

Jonathan, still deep in thought, hums and muses that he seemed like a nice guy. He says it only out of politeness. He didn’t care for the guy the minute he gestured over for you to come over and didn’t tell you to stay put so he could come towards the two of you. 

His eyes fall on you as he watches for a reaction to his words. Nothing. You don’t twitch an eyebrow or bat a lash. You make a low noise at the back of your throat and say that when he wants to be, he can be a nice guy. 

“Hey, you,” your voice is raspy, quiet with the fear of waking up the girl curled into your body. It draws him out of his thoughts and makes him acutely aware that he’s been staring at the wall ahead of him with a horrible kink in his neck. He takes a deep breath and straightens up, his back cracking. 

He peers down and it feels like he’s looking at two stars. “We can’t sleep like this,” he says just as quietly as you. All the other girls never loved Ava as much as you did, some didn’t even like her at all, had fled at the break of dawn from his bed when they saw the toys strewn across the living room. It makes his heart warm to see the way she’s fallen asleep on you now, how much she must trust you. “Ava’s gotta get to bed.” 

You’re going to ask for five more minutes, and Jonathan already knows he’s going to give you ten. 

“Five more minutes?” Your free hand comes to hold his, and you bend your head awkwardly to give Ava a kiss. “She’s so warm. Wanna stay like this forever.” 

It was about six months after he finalised the divorce that Jonathan dared something beyond the friendly touches he normally gave you. In turn, you’d sit closer beside him when you were on his couch, pressed the length of your thigh against his and made his heart beat two times faster. Three months later, he kisses you for the first time. 

He’s sitting on the floor with you in your apartment, hours into what should have been just one round of Dutch Blitz, when it happens. You’re glowing, triumphant and content with the rush of your latest win, when Jonathan realises that the only thing he wants in that moment is to feel your lips against his. Realises that he hasn’t felt a need this strong ever in his life. 

He murmurs your name, catches your attention from the glass of wine you’re topping up for him, and you smile and give him a wink. 

He pushes the cards between the two of you to the side and stands up on his knees, though they protest in old age. He’s mirroring the way you are now, and his hand comes to wrap around your waist, something he’s never done before, not like this. Not with the lights dimmed, soft music in the background and his heart beating the way it is. He hears the faint clink of the wine bottle hitting the glass tabletop, as your eyes fall on him and everything drowns out except for you. 

It feels like he’s moving purely on instinct, not an ounce of logic is behind his actions. All his thoughts are you. The aching, soul-burning desire he has for you to be his. You’ve drawn closer to him, and right now you’re looking up at him through your eyelashes. He asks you if it would be alright if he kissed you, if it would be something you liked. 

You brush the tip of your nose against his, repeating the action with your lips. Tantalisingly, as if daring him to do it, you tell him, demand him to kiss you. And he does. His lungs burn and he knows that this is it for him. That the feelings he holds for you are beyond love and adoration. They’re beyond words. They existed at the beginning of the universe, at the beginning of time. 

Jonathan, in that moment, feels both the chest-crushing pressure of nothingness of before the universe, and the sudden breath in, the moment where nothing changes into now, the beginning of time and life itself, all in your arms. His knees are killing him, and he thinks he’s a little hazy-headed from the alcohol, but nothing’s ever felt this right as it does now. 

He doesn’t think that he’s indestructible, that the world can bring him any harm. He is the world, the rivers and mountains, galaxies and stars and atoms and everything in between. He breathes life into beings and takes it away in the blink of his eye, in the soft caress of your hands against his neck. 

Being in your arms, holding you like he is now, is a solace, a safe haven for him from which he never wants to stray from. His Garden of Eden, his paradise on Earth, his home. A home that he’ll never have the temptation of running from. Why would he? 

Your rose bush blooms for him at that moment, takes his breath away. The seemingly inconspicuous, leafy bush, neither fruit tree nor weed, blossoms into love. If it was possible to ignore the space you had taken up in his body, it’s impossible now. He can’t see unless he’s looking at you, the flower you’ve grown into under the care of his hand, his friendship, his life. He knows that nothing else in his life will be worth as much as you are. 

He’s stumbled upon an underwater cave of riches, of luxuries never seen before on land, and instead of ripping them from their home, into harsh light and to be battered over by greedy hands, he’ll make his home here. Will let the saltwater flow into his lungs, give his last breath away to the ocean, and never leave again. 

In short, Jonathan realises that he loves you, that he’s loved you for some time now, and will never love anyone else other than you. 

He’s not sure how to tell you all this. The sudden tornado of feelings you cause in his chest. So, instead, he pulls away, breathless, only to push his forehead against yours, to let his hands underneath your shirt and trace the knuckles of your spinal cord. 

Kissing you wasn't an impulse at all. He wasn’t acting to fulfil a need, no matter how burning or life-threatening. Kissing you was pure logical decision-making. It was the next rational step in his relationship with you. It was like the exhale of his lungs after the inhale, the inhale to follow after the exhale. There was no second-guessing, no impulsive heat-of-the-moment movements, breathing was never like that, and kissing you would never be like that either.

You tell him, eyes glowing and filled with love, that you did like it, how he kissed you, and wouldn’t mind it if he did it again sometime. 

He sits back, and pulls you with him into his arms. His back comes to rest at the edge of the loveseat behind him, his legs fall to either side of your body as his arms wrap around your shoulders. 

He’s never letting you go. 

“Ok, baby,” his hand comes to soothe over the side of your head. It’s been fifteen minutes and it’s high time that everyone gets to bed. “Honey, I’m going to take Ava to bed, alright?” Your eyes are fluttering, and he takes the pillow closest to him and prepares it right beside his leg. As he slips out from underneath you, you barely feel it, as your head falls onto the pillow seconds later. 

He walks around and presses a kiss to his daughter’s temple before he gathers her in his arms. She’s half-awake, her voice slurred and dripping with sleep. When he asks her if she’s brushed her teeth, she tells him yes, that you helped her to do so, before the movie. 

Jonathan falls a little more in love with you at that moment. For the common sense you had, for the way you could perceive what would happen once the three of you were cuddled up in bed, for the care you extend to his daughter as if she were your own. 

Once Ava’s tucked in, sung to, kissed and loved, her night light turned on, he comes back to your shared room. He manages to catch you coming out of the bathroom, little flecks of water darkening the grey of your shirt. 

“Sorry,” he feels shy with you suddenly, and shoves his hands into his pockets like a little bird tucking its head underneath its wing. You smile at him and walk towards him, your arms fall around his waist and smile up at him. He loves you. 

“For what?” You press your nose against the side of his neck, briefly bite his skin, but change your mind halfway through and kiss over the spot instead. 

He shrugs, “Waking you up.”

“It’s ok,” your hands come to the nape of his neck and you pull him down towards you. Your lips are breaths away from his. “I’ll thank you in the morning when I don’t have a kink in my back.” 

The next rational decision is to kiss you. The world wouldn’t make sense if he didn’t. It took Jonathan a while to get used to the feelings that would rush through him when he kissed you. At first, he naively thought that they would stop after a while. Now, two years after that kiss, he still feels it, just as intense, just as life-changing as the first time. The only thing that’s changed now is that he knows that he has to prepare for them. Ground his feet, take in a deep breath, so he’s not as thrown off as he was that night. 

Now, he pulls your leg to rest on the side of his hip, his other hand comes and rests on your upper thigh. You jump into his arms and he walks you over towards the bed, lays you down and hovers over you, his weight resting on his forearms right beside his head. 

Jonathan loves you. 

“I love you,” you murmur, threading your hands through his hair. 

Jonathan smiles. 

So, what's the verdict? More Jonathan Levy?

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you thought of it, it means the world to me! Masterlist here.

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dlz ; jake lockley.

track ten of DEAR SCIENCE.

pairing ; jake lockley x gn!reader

synopsis ; jake lockley wasn't your husband. steven and marc were. jake was just... he was just there. a ghost living in your house.

words ; 3.5k

themes ; angst, mild fluff, married au

warnings / includes ; suggestive, implications of sex, jake is a rough kisser e_e, mentions of injury/blood, mild cursing, marc and steven both have appearances, jake is emotionally constipated, jake calls reader peach !! reader is a sweetheart <3

main masterlist.

Jake Lockley didn’t like your perfume—it was almost nauseatingly fresh and its smell permeated through his own clothes so that he’d often walk out smelling like he had doused himself in Febreze. 

He didn’t like the way you’d hum to his favorite songs while doing the dishes. Nirvana, Muse, Nothing But Thieves, Radiohead—were you singing them on purpose just to annoy him? Nearly every night, he could hear your faint voice drift into the living room, where he was reading the same three sentences of the daily paper over and over and over again because he couldn’t concentrate on anything but your endearingly inconsistent mutters to the music.

He especially hated when you’d walk out of the bedroom in nothing but Steven’s shirt loosely draped over your form, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from your heavy-lidded eyes. There was just something about seeing you at your most vulnerable. You were comfortable around him, and that made Jake uneasy.

When Jake fronted, he slept in the guest room. Marc had convinced him not to blow more money staying at a hotel—and Steven was trying to persuade him to at least sleep in the same bed as you. After all, they were married to you. 

But Jake wasn’t your husband. Steven and Marc were. Jake was just… he was just there. A ghost living in your house.

The very thought of sharing a bed with you made a chill dance down Jake’s spine. He could never. As appealing as the thought of having you slotted between his arms, sleepily recounting how your day went to him, sounded, he couldn’t ever have that. Jake Lockley wasn’t a domestic man.

His hands would always be dripping with blood that wasn’t his, no matter how hard he tried scrubbing it away.

There were times Jake felt a morsel of regret. He was nowhere near nice to you, and yet you still spared him that infuriatingly patient, sweet smile, always telling him to stay safe before he left to drive his cab around (or do Khonshu’s dirty work), and never failing to whisper good night before slipping into your bedroom. 

Sometimes he had a queer, niggling feeling scratching at the pits of his stomach one would commonly refer to as jealousy. He knew that Marc and Steven got to hold you, kiss you, tell you they loved you as they pleased. 

Jake couldn’t do that. Jake wasn’t even entirely sure he was capable of loving someone. 

What made it even worse was that Jake learned about you through them—not because he ever actually tried to get closer to you.

He knew you loved apricots, but not as much as peaches. He knew you loved lighting scented candles whenever it rained. He knew you named each one of your house plants. He knew you were only slightly ticklish. He knew you had a tell; your nose would twitch and your eyebrows would quirk upwards whenever you lied. He knew from Steven to kiss just above your pulse point against the column of your throat to make you melt into him. He knew you had a birthmark between your thighs from when Marc—

Yeah, he’d rather not think about that one.

Jake knew you cried a lot—that one he learned on his own. He could hear you through the walls, but you probably weren’t aware of that fact. 

One night, Jake sat in the living room, staring into nothing, heart twisting angrily at himself until he couldn’t take it anymore, storming out of the apartment after shoving his hat onto his head and grabbing his cab’s keys. Steven and Marc had yelled angrily at him the whole time, but he learned to block their voices out. 

He wasn’t very good in the emotional department, that was abundantly clear.

When he came back home hours later, having driven around the city several times to clear his head, he tried to be as quiet as possible. At an hour as late as this, you were bound to be asleep, right?

But alas, there you were, curled into the corner of the couch, head uncomfortably lolled onto your shoulder. The house was entirely dark save for the dim glow of the television, casting a blue luminescence over your dozing form. Long shadows kissed the slopes of your features, softened with sleep. He noticed that there were tear tracks faintly outlined over the skin of your cheekbones.

Jake froze at the doorway for a moment. Were you waiting for him to come home?

He pushed down any and all intrusive thoughts, begrudgingly shrugging off his coat and hanging up his hat. A calloused palm carded through messy, coffee-hued curls. 

Heart dipping heavy within his chest, Jake stalked forward to turn the TV off, setting the remote down on the coffee table. He stood over you for a moment. A frown twisted at the corner of his lips, drawing his brows together.

Jaw clenching, Jake stepped away from you, slipping into the hall. He leaned against the door to the guest room for a moment, huffing out a low groan. Gods, what in the hell was he doing?

After another minute of frustrated hesitation, Jake willed himself to make his way back into the living room. You were twitching in your sleep, eyelids fluttering with what he could guess were the beginnings of a harsh nightmare. 

Gently—or, as gentle as a highly-skilled mercenary could be—Jake hooked an arm beneath the crook of your knee, the other looping over your shoulders and neck. When you stirred, Jake could only quietly make hushing noises, wincing at himself. Thankfully, you didn’t fully awaken, a soft noise falling from your lips as your nose turned to press against the fabric of his shirt obscuring his chest, just above where his heart scratched at the walls of his ribcage.

He kicked the door to your bedroom open none too silently, eager to set you down. Get as far away from you as possible. The sound of the doorknob thwacking against the wall behind it made your lids shoot open, and you groggily mumbled incoherent phrases under your breath before peering up at him with confused, watery eyes. He cursed internally.

“You’re back,” you said, voice hoarse with disuse. “You okay?”

There were lots of things Jake wanted to say to you at that moment.

No, I’m not okay. Were you waiting for me to get home? I’m sorry if I made you worry. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole. Am I an asshole? You shouldn’t ever wait for me again. What were you dreaming of? Was it a nightmare about me?

Instead of any of that, Jake merely set you down onto the mattress with a grunt, dusting his hands onto his pants. He glared down at you as if he was angry—and he was, but not necessarily at you. 

But wasn’t he, though? He was angry that you were just so… so kind to him. He was angry that you were patient. He was angry that you were so easy to love. 

“Go to sleep, peach,” he gruffed. A hot flush coursed over his face at the nickname that had unintentionally slipped out. To his relief, you didn’t seem to notice.

Your sleepy expression seemed to cave in on itself and you dazedly nodded, head falling back into the pillow. 

If only he could slip in beside you, entangle his legs with yours as you kissed softly over his tense face, call you his.

Jake nearly slapped himself to get his head screwed on straight. He spared your already-sleeping form one last glance before trudging out of your room. Hurriedly, he threw himself into the guestroom, ripping off his shirt and pressing a palm flat against his chest to quell the racing thunder of his heart.

You were not good news for him. 

You didn’t see Jake for weeks after that incident. 

A part of you was glad—you were beginning to miss the sound of Steven’s sweet voice, his tender touches, his passionate kisses. You missed Marc’s back hugs, his strange fixation with your bare legs, his lopsided smiles.

The other part of you, however, wondered about Jake.

“Does Jake ever… say anything to the two of you?” you asked Steven one day, stirring sugar into your steaming tea as you leaned against the kitchen counter. Your husband looked up from the novel he was reading, pushing his glasses up his nose while considering your question. 

“Sometimes. Mostly stays to himself—quite the quiet bloke, innhe? Why, love?”

Your bottom lip trembled as you glared into your tea, as if it was the source of all your troubles. Steven was immediately out of his seat, tugging you close until your forehead rested upon his clavicle bone. You sniffled into him, crushing your eyes shut with shame. 

“Does he hate me?” you asked, voice cracking. “I don’t… I don’t know what I did to make him—”

Steven immediately held you all the closer, crooning out, “No! No, of course not, silly. He’s just… he’s just having trouble with himself, that’s all. Doesn’t really talk to us much, either. It’s not you, love, I promise. In fact, I’m nearly certain he fancies you.”

“You’re not just saying that?” you said, scrutinizing him with wide, glassy eyes. “I don’t need him to love me like you and Marc do. I just… it’s hard when it feels like a man with the same face as your husband hates you.”

Steven’s expression crumbled, and he kissed over your left eyelid softly. “I know. I’m sorry, darling, I can’t imagine what that’s like.” Rubbing soothing circles over your back, he urged you to take a seat next to him, leaning over to move your mug of tea from the counter to the kitchen table. “Come on, I’ve got an amazing poem I want you to read.”

It was only two days later that you saw Jake again. You strode through the door, juggling grocery bags in one hand and a stack of books you borrowed from the library in the other. With a huff, you set the groceries down in the kitchen, turning around to see Jake quietly observing you, leaning against the fridge. You bit down a startled scream, flinching at his unexpected presence. 

“Oh,” you said after a second of flustered silence. “Hi, Jake. Didn’t see you there.”

He was observing you with such a sharp gaze that it felt like his irises were cutting straight through your flesh. Finally, he pushed away from the fridge, slowly moving towards you until he stood just in front of you, about an arm’s length away.

“Jake, what are you—?”

“I don’t hate you, peach,” the man said, all gravelly and brusque.

It took you a moment to fully register what he was saying. “Oh,” was all you said, parroting yourself from five seconds ago in a rather poignant manner. “Well… I don’t hate you, either, Jake. Far from that.”

You could see the struggle in the dark depths of his irises. Turmoil raged behind those narrowed lids, and you couldn’t bring it in yourself to look away, not even if you tried. 

Feeling bold, you shuffled forward to slowly raise your hands, cupping Jake’s face within your palms. His glare seemed to harden at first, always so angry at things for not going the way he expected it to go, muscles tensing beneath your touch—but when your fingers gently scraped over his stubble, he could feel himself letting go, practically liquefying into you.

“Why are you like this, Jake Lockley?” you murmured, thumbs stroking over his cheekbones. The action made his eyelids flutter shut. He’d never let himself be this vulnerable in front of you before. He wasn’t prepared for his walls to come crashing down around him so quickly—so easily. “Did I do something to upset you?”

All previous inhibitions thrown out the window, Jake grumbled out a small, “Yeah. All the fuckin’ time, peach.”

You quirked a brow. “Go on, then.”

One of his eyes opened before sliding closed again. “Where do I start? You smell too good—I can never concentrate around you. You’re always singing my favorite songs and it’s buggin’ the hell outta me. You’re always so nice to me—even though you know I’m not like your precious Steven and Marc.”

Something akin to a guffaw fell from your lips. “Well, first of all, thank you? Somehow you managed to compliment me in the rudest way possible, and I commend you for that. Second, I know you’re not like Steven and Marc. But I still love you all the same.”

The kitchen grew so quiet, Jake could’ve sworn he’d be able to hear a pin drop.

His heart began tripping over its own gallop of a pace. You’d said it so easily, so swiftly, as if loving him came as naturally as breathing. 

Jake found his eyes falling to your mouth, slightly puckered to the side in thought. 

Noticing his sudden change in demeanor, you started saying, “Jake—?”

“Can I kiss you?” he interrupted, glowering at you with a newfound fire crackling behind his eyes. 

You blinked once, then twice. Then you nodded.

A small sigh of content that made Jake far too excited for his own good escaped your lungs as he dove forward and melded his lips with yours, dipping you backward ever so slightly in the midst of his vigor. 

He kissed differently than Steven or Marc did. Steven was languid, careful, and tender whilst Marc was feverish, calculated, and explorative.

Jake Lockley, however, kissed like a mad man. He was all tongue and teeth, desperately furious with his motions, kissing you as if it was the very last time he’d have the chance to do so. His nose slotted against yours, brushing against your cheek as you caved into him, arms winding over his neck to pull him ever so close. 

His fingers immediately clutched at your waist, one moving upwards beneath your (Marc’s) shirt to lightly scratch over the skin of your ribcage and the other shifting lower to tug over the back of your thigh. 

Gods, you just felt so right. 

“Mmh, peach,” Jake growled into your skin as he traversed down your neck, biting at the spot just above your pulse point, which made a low, desperate noise scratch at the back of your throat. He’d do anything to hear that noise over and over again.

“Why do you call me that?” you panted out, fingers threading through his haphazard curls to haul him away from your neck and back onto your lips. 

“You like peaches,” he breathed into you, a groan of agony rumbling from his chest when you nipped at his bottom lip with a hum of approval. “Don’t you?”

A choked sound was all you could let out when he shoved you none-too-gently against the counter, bending over to accommodate for his eager lips over yours.

“I love them,” you whispered once he parted away to catch his breath. 

There it was again. The L word. 

Fuck, he couldn’t do this.

Suddenly, as if snapped back into reality, Jake halted any and all ministrations, nose only a hair's breadth away from your neck. You smelled so damn good, so tantalizingly tempting, lips raw-bitten and skin flushed with heat.

But Jake couldn’t. You didn’t belong with a person like him. With Steven? Yeah, of course. With Marc? The idiot loved you too much to ever let you go, even if he tried to. 

Jake would bring you nothing but pain and misery and the thinly-veiled threat of danger. 

“This is a mistake,” he said, voice rough with tremendous restraint.

He thought that if he kissed you, all these stupid feelings would wash down the drain, as if you’d be able to suck it all out of him like a goddamn love vacuum. But, no, it was as if just having a taste wasn’t enough. He needed the rest of you. He needed all of you.

But he couldn’t.

“Jake…” Your voice was quiet, breaking off slightly when he let go of you, stepping back while glaring a hole into the ground. 

With the maturity equivalent to that of a prepubescent teenager, Jake stormed out of the kitchen and into the hall, slamming the guest room door behind him so hard that the picture frames of you and Steven and Marc on the walls rattled. 

A week passed by until you saw Jake again.

You were in bed with Marc, shivering as he ran his palms down your waist, swatting his hands away while gritting out, “That tickles, Marc!”

He hummed noncommittally, pressing kisses down your shoulder, nosing your cheek affectionately. 

“Tell me about this one,” he whispered into you, taking your hand to trace a thin scar over the inside of your wrist.

“I was seven,” you whispered. “This boy pushed me off a swing in the playground. I threw my hands out and a rock got me bad—fractured my wrist, too. I don’t remember much, but I remember there was a lot of blood. I’m pretty sure the poor kid was the one that ran screaming for a teacher to come help.”

Marc regarded you with a look of pure adoration, thinly laced with amusement. “Did you really just call the bastard who pushed you a ‘poor kid’?”

You barked out a laugh and he pressed a lasting kiss over your faded scar.

“Alright, your turn. Tell me about this,” you playfully pressed your thumb between his brows. “You got a little divot here. Been furrowing your eyebrows too much, huh? And you wonder why I call you the grumpy eagle muppet.” When he rolled his eyes, you chuckled out, “What? Listen, it’s not my fault Khonshu got rid of all your scars! I gotta work with what I’m given, here!”

“That’s enough out of you,” Marc bit out, though you could tell he wasn’t really being serious with the smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Okay, turn around. Sleep time, baby. Love you.”

You hummed in mild contentment, turning around so your back molded perfectly against his chest. “Love you, too, Marc.”

The rise and fall of his chest was deep, rhythmic, so calming that you were just on the brink of sleep—

Until it stopped.

You could feel the body wrapped behind you stiffen. Immediately, you knew this was Jake.

With a lump lodged in your throat, you hesitantly turned around, only to be met with Jake staring back at you, wide-eyed. It was dark, so you could just barely make out the upset tautness of his features.

Jerkily, he started moving to clamber off the bed, all but shaking you off of him like you were a pesky insect.

No. No, you wouldn’t stand for this.

“Jake,” you said firmly, reaching out to wrap your hand around his wrist. “Stay. Please.”

Mute, the man shook his head, legs slipping out from beneath the blanket. 

Desperate, you sat up, wrapping your arms around his midriff and pressing your cheek into his back as you said, “You deserve love, Jake. You deserve my love. Please, stay.”

For a moment, you wondered if he’d just push you off again. Disappear into that guestroom you were too scared to venture into when he left for work. Just when you were on the near precipice of relinquishing any and all hope, you could feel Jake’s shoulders sag. His head hung low as he sighed.

Wordless, he shifted around and you let go of him so he could slip back under the covers. 

Tentative, you laid down next to him, shifting so your head could rest over his chest. His arm jostled around to rest comfortably beneath your neck. 

Jake held you differently from Marc and Steven.

Jake held you as if he was afraid you’d break apart. Jake held you like he had to be ready to let you go at any moment. Jake held you like he was afraid to show you just how much he loved you.

You craned your neck upwards to press a light kiss to his stubbled jaw, then settled back down.

You heard Jake sigh, but this time, it was one of pure relief—utter bliss. It was quiet, but it was there.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered finally, nose tucked into your hair. “I’ll try to be better with you. I’ll try, peach.”

Nodding minutely, you intertwined your hand with his free one, playing absentmindedly with his fingers. “I know.”

Just before your breaths evened with sleep, Jake could only barely hear you drowsily mumble out, “I love you, Lockley.”

He knew you were already asleep, which made the feat of saying it back somewhat easier for him.

“Love you, too, peach.”