:( I Love Him Im Gonna Crumple Him Up

:( i love him im gonna crumple him up

bodyguard | patrick zweig x reader

warnings: SMUT 18+, this is a blurb

It almost ends in silence.

That kind of silence that isn’t soft or thoughtful or pregnant with meaning—it’s thick, charged, bitter. The kind that fills a car when one person wants to speak and the other refuses to be heard.

Patrick’s hands are clenched on the steering wheel. Knuckles white. Jaw tighter than it needs to be. You’re staring out the window, blinking hard against the sting in your eyes. Not crying. Not yet.

The fight—if you can call it that—wasn’t loud. It never is with him. Just a deflection here, a shrug there. You asked a simple question. Something like "How are you, really?" Something like "Let me in."

And he did what he always does. Shut the door.

You almost got out when he pulled into your building’s lot. Almost left him there, sitting in the blue wash of streetlights with his hands still gripping the wheel like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this earth.

But something in you stayed.

Because even in the worst of it—even when he’s all teeth and armor—you can see the boy behind the racket. The one who’s tired of being hard all the time.

So you twist in your seat.

He’s still facing forward, and you can see it—the crack in his armor. The set of his shoulders isn’t quite as stubborn. His grip on the wheel is no longer furious, just tight. Like he’s not sure if he should let go.

And you know this version of him.

You’ve seen him at ten—spinning, sharp-tongued, manic with energy he doesn't know where to put. You’ve seen him on the court, teeth bared, eyes wild. You’ve seen him explode and implode all in the same hour.

But you’ve also seen him at zero. At nothing. The mornings he can’t get out of bed. The press days he skips and blames on jet lag when really, it’s the weight in his chest.

You know how to read his silences. The kinds that ask you to stay even when he won’t say it out loud.

You’ve never wanted to fix him. You’ve just wanted to be there. Wanted to be the one thing in his world that didn’t want anything from him.

You speak softly, like you’re talking to a wounded thing. “Patrick, I’m not trying to fix anything.”

He still doesn’t look at you.

“I just wanna know what’s going on in there,” you add, tapping lightly on the side of your head. “You don’t have to make it nice. You don’t even have to make it make sense. I just… want to know you’re here.”

Another pause. This one stretches.

He finally exhales through his nose. Barely audible.

“I don’t talk about shit like that,” he mutters. “Never have.”

You nod. “Yeah. I figured.” You shift, turning to face him fully. “But you let me be here. Every time. So either you want something real, or you don’t. And if you do... I need you to stop pretending you're alone.”

That lands. You see it in the way his fingers loosen on the steering wheel.

And then he finally looks at you.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says.

You blink. “What, talk?”

He almost laughs, but it dies in his throat. “Yeah. That. All of it.”

“Then don’t talk,” you say. “Just let me in.”

And that’s when you move.

You lean in slowly. Not to comfort. To reach. You press your mouth to his—soft, sure, no hesitation. He responds like it hurts. Like it heals. Like he’s been waiting for permission to fall apart.

Your hand slips into his hair. His jaw slackens. The car windows fog.

It’s not a rush. Not at first.

But soon you’re climbing into his lap, straddling him, your knees bracketing his hips, the console digging into your thigh and neither of you caring. His hands settle on your waist, unsure.

“You don’t have to do anything,” you whisper against his jaw. “Just let me be here.”

And when you grind down, he gasps like he’s breaking.

You kiss him again. Deeper. Messier. Like a promise made with tongue and teeth and breath.

You press your forehead to his and say, “Let me take care of you.”

And when you rock your hips again, when his hands grip you like you’re the only real thing he’s ever held, he lets you.

For once—he lets you.

You pull back just enough to look at him. His eyes are heavy, lips parted, chest heaving. You guide him gently, tugging down the waistband of his sweats, freeing him fully. He’s already slick in your hand, the head flushed, and his breath stutters as you shift your hips.

“Can I?” you murmur.

He nods—almost frantic—and you line yourself up with shaking fingers.

When you sink down onto him, it’s slow and devastating. Your breath catches at the stretch, the fullness, the feeling of him beneath you, inside you, finally here. His hands clutch at your waist like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

The car is too small for this, too cramped, but it doesn’t matter. Your bodies find rhythm anyway. A language made of friction and breath and everything you’ve never needed words for.

The smell of his cologne has long faded under the weight of everything else—sweat, sex, and the faintest trace of smoke from the ashtray by the gearshift. There’s a lipstick-stamped cigarette butt half-buried beneath a crumpled parking receipt. He hasn’t cleaned this car in months. It smells like late-night drives, like sweatshirts in the backseat, like every fight you’ve almost had and every kiss you didn’t mean to give.

The cracked vinyl seat beneath your knees sticks to your skin. Somewhere in the background, the faint click of the hazard light ticks like a metronome. The windows fog faster than you can clear them. The Honda rocks with every roll of your hips.

The ceiling liner droops slightly overhead. The rearview mirror is useless now, fogged over and tilted sideways from where his elbow knocked it loose.

None of it matters.

You’re the only thing that matters.

He curses when your hand returns to where your bodies meet, when your fingers circle just right. You smile, not teasing, just full of something fierce and warm and steady.

“Let me take it,” you whisper. “All of it. Just for tonight.”

His head falls back. His mouth falls open.

You keep going until he’s shaking. Until he’s saying your name like it’s the only thing left that’s his.

When he comes, you hold him there. Through it. Around it. Until he’s panting against your neck, hands still gripping your hips like they’re his last prayer.

You follow a heartbeat later. The kind of release that steals your breath, curls your toes, and makes your chest ache.

And after—you don’t move.

You just breathe. Let the sweat cool. Let the quiet settle.

You press your palm flat against his chest and feel it thudding wildly beneath your skin.

You don’t ask him to say anything. You don’t need him to explain.

You hold him the way he’s never let anyone hold him—without expectation, without question.

Like softness is a shield.

Like love can be a place to rest.

-----

tagging: @kimmyneutron@babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow

let's be friends | tashi duncan x reader (patrick zweig x reader)

warnings: SMUT 18+, cheating

It starts with a look.

Not a dramatic one. Not a sweeping, heart-stopping, violins-in-the-distance kind of look.

Just a glance. Too long. Too soft. Too knowing.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the floor in Patrick’s living room, a beer in one hand, your chin tipped back with laughter—warm and open and a little too loud—over something Art said that wasn’t even that funny. The TV flickers in the background. Someone’s half-finished drink sweats on the coffee table. The room smells like takeout and fabric softener. And Tashi watches you laugh like it’s something private. Tashi’s on the couch behind you, sprawled out like she owns the place—because she kind of does. And when you tilt your head to glance up at her, something in her expression sticks.

It’s not surprise. Not amusement.

Interest, maybe.

And then it’s gone.

You blink. You sip. You look back to Patrick, who’s started ranting about some guy on the challenger circuit who swings like a puppet.

But it lingers. A seed planted.

---

The first time you met Tashi, she barely looked up from her phone.

You’d just started seeing Patrick—two dates deep, that giddy sweet spot where everything is effortless and full of potential. He brought you to a casual post-practice dinner with Art and Tashi, like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t them.

Art had been polite. A little cold, but not unkind. Tashi had nodded at you once, then gone right back to whatever was happening on her screen.

You weren’t offended. You were the new girl. You were used to that.

But later that night, she’d called you smart. Offhand. Like she’d been listening the whole time.

After that, you started seeing them more. Group hangouts. Drinks after matches. Late nights in Patrick’s apartment where everyone ended up on the couch together, legs tangled and shoulders pressed close.

Tashi was magnetic without trying. Loud in bursts. Quiet in corners. She made fun of Patrick constantly. She never complimented you directly, but she remembered your favorite lollipop flavor, which bar bathroom had the clean mirror lighting, which playlist you always skipped the third song on.

At first, you thought she just liked knowing things.

Then you started noticing the way she looked at you when she thought you weren’t looking.

And the way your stomach flipped every time she did.

You told yourself it was fine. You were just becoming close. Girls got intense sometimes. Friendships could blur at the edges.

But the edges kept blurring.

And she never did anything about it.

Until she did.

---

One night, Patrick’s out getting another round, and Art’s halfway into an argument with the bartender about the definition of a double.

Tashi leans in close. Not too close. But closer than she usually sits.

“Do you always stare that much?”

You freeze. Your beer is halfway to your lips.

“I—what?”

She’s smirking. Lazy. Crooked. Her knee bumps yours.

“I’m just asking,” she says. “Because if you do, I could get used to it.”

You blink. The music is too loud. The lights too warm.

Then Patrick’s back with drinks and a stupid grin, and everything rearranges again.

But you’re not the same after that.

Neither is she.

And you both know it.

---

It doesn’t happen all at once.

It happens in moments. Small, dumb ones.

You start riding with her even when Patrick offers. You ride with her on slow mornings and fast ones, in silence and with music blaring. You ride with her because it’s easier. Because it feels better. Because it’s starting to mean something, even if you won’t admit it. You find yourselves pairing up on game nights, trading insults and high-fives that linger too long. Fingers brushing. Knees knocking. Looks held for just a beat too long. You steal sips of her drinks. She steals fries off your plate. You start texting her things that don’t need responses. She starts answering them anyway.

She starts calling you by your last name, in a voice that’s always teasing, always warm. You start finding excuses to touch her—grabbing her wrist to show her a song, brushing hair out of her face like it’s natural.

One night, you fall asleep on her shoulder during a movie, and when you wake up, she’s still there. Arm around you. Her fingers tangled lightly in the hem of your shirt.

Neither of you mention it.

But the next day, she texts you a selfie from her car, lip gloss perfect, eyebrows smug, with the caption: still waiting on my cuddle review.

You laugh harder than you should.

You send her a voice memo back. “Four stars. You run hot and you snore.”

She sends another photo immediately. This one’s worse. Or better. Her middle finger is up. Her lips are still curved in that smile you’re trying very hard not to memorize.

Five stars now? she asks.

And maybe it’s just fun. Maybe it’s just harmless.

But it doesn’t feel harmless when she watches you in group settings like you’re the only one there. It doesn’t feel harmless when you dream about her hands. When you wake up aching.

It doesn’t feel harmless when she shows up to a hangout in a tank top that’s definitely not for the weather, and you can’t stop staring.

And it definitely doesn’t feel harmless when she catches you.

When she licks a little melted ice cream off her thumb and says, without looking up, “You know, you’re allowed to want things.”

You don’t answer.

But you want.

God, you want.

And that’s the part that starts to ache.

Because Patrick is good. He’s kind. He kisses you like he means it and holds your hand like he’s proud of it. You like him. You really do.

But every time his lips find yours, every time his hand slides across your back and pulls you close, there’s a flicker of something traitorous at the base of your skull.

What would Tashi taste like?

It’s not a conscious thought. It’s not even loud. It’s just there. Present.

And when you open your eyes after a kiss, gasping, dazed, flushed from how sweet he always is with you—there’s still a name pressing soft against the edge of your thoughts.

And it isn’t his.

---

One night, it’s just the two of you. Rain tapping against the window, some old movie playing quietly in the background. Patrick’s hand finds yours where it rests on the couch cushion, fingers linking with yours like he’s done it a thousand times.

He kisses you slow, soft, like he wants you to feel how much he means it. And you do. You kiss him back, warm and grateful, even as something coils in your chest.

When you pull apart, he smiles against your cheek. “I’m really glad you get along with them,” he says, voice low. “With Art. With Tashi.”

You nod, pressing your forehead to his shoulder.

He laughs a little. “Tashi’s hard to impress. But she likes you. You know that, right?”

You swallow. You try to keep your voice even. “Yeah.”

“She told me she was glad we were dating.”

That makes your chest clench in a way you can’t explain. Your heart aches, confused and guilty.

Patrick presses a kiss to your hair. “You’re my favorite person. And I think it’s kinda cool that my favorite people are becoming friends.”

You close your eyes.

You wish that was all it was.

---

It happens on a night that feels like any other.

You’re at her place. Music low. A bottle of wine cracked open even though you both swore you were only staying in for a quiet night. There’s a half-hearted movie playing, and she’s sitting close enough that your knees touch. Not in a dramatic way. Not even on purpose. Just enough to feel it.

You're laughing at something she said—something ridiculous and small, and the sound sticks in the air between you. She watches you for a second too long. And you feel it.

Your stomach turns over. The kind of flip that’s not new anymore, but still dangerous.

She shifts on the couch, facing you more fully. Her fingers drum lightly on the stem of her wine glass. You don’t know what you’re saying anymore. Your mouth keeps moving, but your brain is stuck on the way her eyes flick down to your lips.

The tension stretches—taut and humming and painfully quiet.

And then she says your name.

Soft. Careful. Not a tease. Not this time.

You stop.

Tashi leans in. Just a little. Enough.

“Tell me to stop,” she says.

You don’t.

So she kisses you.

It's not rushed. It's not wild. It’s gentle. Testing. The kind of kiss you give when you’ve thought about it too many times to pretend you haven’t.

You gasp against her mouth before you can stop yourself. Her hand comes up to cradle your jaw.

And when she pulls back, she doesn't move far. Just enough to murmur—

“Don’t you wanna?”

Your chest rises too fast.

And you nod.

You really, really do.

She kisses you again, deeper this time. Her hands are on your waist, sliding under your shirt, fingers spreading across your skin like she’s trying to memorize you by touch.

You moan—quiet, shocked by how fast it unravels you. Tashi catches it with her mouth, her tongue slipping past your lips with such practiced ease it makes your thighs press together.

“You always this easy to kiss?” she whispers, tugging at your shirt. “Or is it just me?”

You breathe out a laugh—shaky, dizzy. “It’s you.”

She grins against your skin. “Thought so.”

She’s pushing you back onto the couch before you realize it, hovering over you with one hand braced beside your head and the other sliding down your body.

When her hand slips under the waistband of your pants, your hips buck. You gasp again, louder this time, and she watches you—eyes heavy, lips parted, like she’s starving.

“You gonna let me?” she asks.

You nod, too fast.

She hums, pleased, fingers slipping lower, slow but deliberate. The first press of her thumb to your clit has you whimpering.

“Fuck,” you breathe.

“God, you sound good,” she mutters, kissing your neck, your jaw, your cheek. “Been thinking about this every time you wore something tight and acted like you didn’t know what you were doing.”

“I didn’t,” you gasp.

Tashi laughs. “Liar.”

And then she’s inside you, two fingers curling just right, and you’re gone—hips rolling, back arching, her name a broken whisper on your lips.

She takes her time. Watches every twitch, every breath. Brings you right to the edge and holds you there, kissing you slow until you’re trembling beneath her.

“Let go,” she whispers. “Come on. Let me have it.”

And when you do, it’s with a cry you couldn’t hide if you tried.

You collapse into her, flushed and panting.

And she kisses your shoulder like she's done it a billion times before. Maybe she has. Just not in real life.

---

After that night, nothing feels casual anymore.

You don’t talk about it. Not directly. But the way she touches you changes—more often, more deliberate. She stands too close. She doesn’t look away as fast.

And you let her.

You let her every time.

But it twists something sharp in your stomach when you see Patrick. When he kisses your cheek or brings you coffee or grins like he still thinks he’s the only one who gets to make you blush.

You can’t meet his eyes when he says, “Tashi says we should all hang out again this weekend. You in?”

You say yes.

You always say yes.

But it feels like lying now. Even though it technically isn’t.

Technically.

You think maybe you were fine until the second time it happened. The second time Tashi kissed you like she couldn’t help it. The second time she made you come with her mouth on you and a growl in her throat.

Because this time, when it’s over, she doesn’t move.

She stays. Curled up behind you on the couch, hand splayed on your stomach like she belongs there. Like she wants to be there in the morning.

You lie there wide awake, her breath warm on your neck, and you realize something you really didn’t want to know.

You’re not the only one who caught feelings.

And now it’s harder to pretend.

Tashi holds you like it means something. Like it has meant something. And you let her, night after night, long after the tension gave way to touch.

But something shifts in the quiet. In the way she presses her face into your neck when she thinks you’re asleep. In the way her fingers twitch when Patrick texts you.

You start noticing things.

Like how she doesn’t meet your eyes when she says his name. How she jokes about him less now. How she touches you softer after.

It should make you feel wanted.

Instead, it makes you feel split down the middle.

Because Patrick’s still sweet. Still good. Still smiles at you like you’re his whole world.

And you keep smiling back.

Even as part of you starts to wish he wasn’t in this picture at all.

---

It happens by accident. And then, almost instantly, it doesn’t feel like one.

You're at Patrick's. All of you. A lazy Saturday stretched too long, half-dressed in your comfiest clothes. Tashi’s curled in the armchair. You’re on the floor with your back to the couch, between Patrick’s knees. He's absentmindedly running his fingers through your hair while watching something dumb on TV.

And Tashi says something—something that makes you laugh. You throw your head back, and she catches your eyes. The smile she gives you is soft. Real.

Patrick notices.

You feel his fingers pause against your scalp.

“You two have been really tight lately,” he says, not accusing, not suspicious. Just curious.

You freeze.

Tashi shifts, unfazed. “She’s fun,” she says. “You did good.”

Patrick hums. “I mean… yeah. You’re both fun.”

There’s a beat.

Then he says it.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it.”

Your heart stutters.

“Thought about what?” you ask, even though you know.

He leans forward, chin on your shoulder, voice low. “You and her. Together.”

You don’t speak.

You feel the way Tashi goes still across the room.

Then Patrick adds, quieter—

“If I walked in on something… I wouldn’t be mad.”

He squeezes your shoulders once. Just once. Then gets up to grab more drinks.

And the silence he leaves behind is electric.

You look at Tashi.

She’s already looking at you.

And there’s no hiding now.

---

He brings back beers and popcorn like nothing happened, and you pretend for a while. All of you do. The show keeps playing. The room keeps breathing. Patrick settles back into the couch behind you like the air hadn’t just changed.

But then you stand to stretch and say you’re gonna help Tashi grab something from the car.

There’s nothing in the car.

You don’t even make it to the door.

The moment it closes behind you, she grabs your wrist and pulls you in. Mouth on yours. Desperate. Sharp. Messy.

You kiss her like it’s your last chance.

“Is this what you want?” she breathes against your lips.

You nod. Hard. “Yes.”

Then Patrick’s voice calls out from the other room—“You two making out in there?”

Silence.

You look at her. She’s breathing hard, lip bitten, pupils blown wide.

Then he steps into the hall.

Patrick sees you both—disheveled, pressed together, the heat still clinging to your skin like fog.

He smiles.

“About time,” he says, and walks toward you.

You don’t move. You can’t. You expect tension. Jealousy. Confusion.

Instead, he kisses you. Then her.

“Next time,” he murmurs, “just ask if I wanna watch.”

And when Tashi grabs his shirt and pulls him in, you realize this is happening. Not a fallout. Not a crisis.

Just heat.

Just yes.

And when the three of you stumble into the bedroom, laughter and tension and hunger all tangled up in your mouths and hands, you think maybe it was always going to end like this.

Messy.

Beautiful.

Loud.

Tashi’s mouth is on yours again the moment you hit the bed, her hands already dragging your shirt up, exposing skin she’s seen but never rushed. Patrick’s behind you now, his breath hot at your ear as he lifts it the rest of the way, tugging it off like it’s a ribbon, not a barrier.

“Pretty,” he says, voice low and rough, as his fingers graze down your spine.

Tashi kisses your shoulder. “We know.”

Clothes hit the floor like they’ve been waiting. Hands overlap. You don’t know whose grip is tighter, whose mouth is lower, only that you’re unraveling fast and you haven’t even been fucked yet.

Patrick slides down first, tongue slow and sinful between your legs, while Tashi kisses you through every twitch of your body. When he moans against your clit, it sends a shock straight through your spine.

“Jesus,” you gasp.

“Not quite,” Tashi whispers, fingers sliding into your mouth as she watches you fall apart. “But close, right?”

It doesn’t stop. It just layers. Hands, lips, sounds, heat. You feel Patrick’s cock brush your thigh as Tashi pulls you into her lap, and when you sink down onto him, it’s all dizzy, all stretch and pleasure, with her mouth right at your ear.

“You’re so fucking good like this,” she purrs. “Look at you. Perfect.”

You ride Patrick with Tashi’s hands on your hips, her mouth on your neck, all three of you lost to it, to each other.

And when you come again, it’s Tashi who whispers you through it, and Patrick who groans into your skin like he’s been waiting his whole life to hear the sound you make falling apart between them.

You don’t know how long it lasts. You don’t care.

It ends in breathless laughter, bodies tangled, limbs sticky and flushed.

And when you finally open your eyes, they’re both still there.

Watching you.

Touching you.

Smiling like they’ve always known.

Like this was never a mistake.

And somewhere on the floor, someone’s sock is inside the popcorn bowl. Patrick swears it’s not his.

No one believes him.

-----

tagging: @kimmyneutron @babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow

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asheepinfrance

2 months ago

the road trip

or, how they spent their last summer.

an: not reallyyyy proof read, so if you note any grammatical errors, mispellings, etc. feel free to let me know. creds to @ithemes for the border, and a special thank you to my dear friend @blastzachilles for reading most of this. you will never fail to bring me out of a well-practiced shell. i hope you enjoy, and, as always, likes, comments, critiques and reposts are very appreciated.

Despite what everyone thought of him, and his general raucous demeanor, Patrick was a good driver. Maybe it was the devil-may-care attitude that kept him from getting that clammy-handed nervousness that Art defaulted to behind a wheel, but it earned him the title of “Pre-Graduation Road Trip Driver”. He only pretended not to be insulted when everyone clapped Art on the shoulder and told him to say a prayer before getting in the passenger seat. Patrick was reckless with plenty of things, sure. Reckless with girls, reckless with his body, reckless with the amount of Four Lokos he drank the night before Ms. Anderson’s logarithm test, reckless with himself. But not Art. Never Art. It’s the only reason Art had stuck around so long, he thinks.

He was proud of himself and his little Honda, one that he’d gotten with his own money and a smile so bright it exposed the chip in one of his bottom teeth. Art had asked him about that when they’d first met, why he only ever smiled with the right side of his mouth. So he pulled down his bottom lip with his index finger, exposing that little semicircular inconvenience, the one that hissed when it met with cold. “‘S from a fight”, he’d added with a lax shrug, hoping the nonchalance wouldn’t betray the fact he was dying to tell the story. But Art couldn’t read him that well, not then at least, and nodded. Said something about being ‘more careful next time’. Art didn’t notice the sag of his shoulders, either.

It’s funny, now that they’re on this trip, commemorating their last summer together, 12 to 18 went by so fast. The woman at the gas station in Maryland had said it was sweet for two boys of their age to be so close, ‘Usually sibling rivalries only get worse around college, what with the competition for the better letter and all’. She had no way of reading why the boys had winced, Art shoving his hands into the pockets of his cargos, rocking back and forth on his heels like a guilty toddler. Patrick just said, “Not brothers”. That seemed to throw her off kilter more than that thick tension growing in the inch of space between Patrick’s hoodie sleeve and Art’s bare arm. “Sorry, sorry. You two just… seem like brothers.” They laughed in that way only two people who want to be anywhere but their current standing is, grabbed their cigarettes from off the cracked countertop, and left with the ring of the bell above the too-heavy front door.

That night, when they’d curled up on the scratchy sheets of their motel beds, which groaned beneath each movement, Art turned towards Patrick, picking at his nails and flicking the detached skin somewhere across the room. “Why’d you say that?” He asked, mumbled through concentration, like lifting his lips just a micrometer further apart was some Herculean effort. Patrick turned over, staring at the blinking orange lights of the digital clock on the nightstand. “Say what?” Art looked up then, rolled his shoulders back, the thin pillow letting out a puff where his head met it. “That we aren’t brothers”. There wasn’t offense in his eyes, stormy and addictive in all the ways that made Patrick remember he was the worse of the two, but curiosity. Well, the obvious answer was that they weren’t. Patrick grew up one place, under some surname attached to ‘dignity’, ‘family pride’. Some surname no one ever bothered to remember the proper pronunciation of. And Art? He grew up under the setting sun in mid-July, allowed to dirty his clothes because they were never expected to remain white. Somewhere where grass was allowed to grow without getting cropped down to just above the root. All-American, sweet as cherry pie, golden retriever boy with a starched collar for church and an ever-burning fire on the grill. Art grew to know what softness was, and Patrick could play parrot, replicate it with enough accuracy to be recognizable, and enough lingering signs that it was an approximation to make people hope it just got quieter with time.

Then again, what really made someone a brother? If it was just the DNA, then that meant nothing. Patrick knew just what it was to be related to someone, and not have them be family. To love someone, but never like them. And wasn’t Art doing better then? Art had seen Patrick laugh, cry, trip over an untied shoelace and fall face first into a puddle. He helped him up after snorting a little, rarely one to fully laugh, like the sound was some kind of finite resource. And Patrick had seen the worst of Art, from his slobbery first kiss, the one where he bit the girl’s lip too hard and she’d pulled away bleeding, to the one summer he’d dyed his hair black. He fancied himself a philosopher at the time, something about ‘reflecting his inner darkness’. Even if Art claimed it to be there, that Patrick had grown so accustomed to seeing it he hardly recognized it as being bad anymore, he could never quite pick through his own admiration to find it. So that night, stereotypically, Art dug out his grandfather’s old pocket knife, the one from one of the World Wars, and cut a line across their right palms, Art’s just a bit straighter than Patrick’s. When they pressed their hands together, wincing at the pressure against the weeping gashes, they didn’t shake their hands, like the men they were growing into. Just held them there, flat palm to flat palm, dripping into the non-descript, darkly colored carpet, just looking. Brothers now. Art wrapped his hand in toilet paper, flicked off the rickety lamp with stained, formerly white lampshade, and went to bed. Patrick just watched himself bleed for the night, and then watched Art sleeping.

It was harder now to drive, with the pulsating behind his hand, like a miniature heart had grown there, occurring with each day spent driving. But they’d arrived in Colorado a night or so ago, spent yesterday making good of those cigarettes by a lake they didn’t bother to check the name of. Two girls had come by, never shared their names, and the boys didn’t share theirs. They all just passed cigarettes back and forth like they were secrets in their own right, like they weren’t all sharing saliva, like they didn’t recognize the sunkenness in each others’ eyes as matching the sunkenness in their own brains. Patrick thinks sometimes that he’s got cinder blocks tied to his feet, one’s he can’t see, and that’s why it’s so exhausting taking that first step out of bed each morning. He wondered then, if he walked out where the water swallowed up his lower half, and he tilted his head back to greet the invisible face of God, with eyes of stars and flashing plane lights, stretching his arms out like he’d catch the breeze in his embrace, if he’d sink to the bottom. When the girls left, and Art had passed out against the trunk of a tree, he’d tried. He was only slightly disappointed to find that it wasn’t all that deep. Art woke up when the press of Patrick’s wet boxers touched his thigh, and he didn’t seem mad. He smiled, actually, with the left side of his mouth exposing moonlit teeth. Patrick wanted to ask what there was to smile at, but realized maybe it was just him. He doesn’t know why he kissed him, or who started it first, but Art slinked off afterwards into the backseat of the car, leaving Patrick to curl his hands into the dirt until he knew how to carry his own weight again. They didn’t talk about it the next day, or the day after.

After Colorado, they’d gone to Nevada. Something about Art ‘needing the ocean’. They’d found an empty little dock to perch on, Art sitting at the edge to allow the soft, mid-ocean waves to lap at his skin like a dog. The ocean had always reminded Patrick of Art. He thinks it’s the stillness among the chaos that bears the resemblance. Patrick had always loved the ocean, some of his fondest childhood memories spent jumping over the incoming crash of water on the shore. If he had to forget everything, he hopes he’d fall in love with the ocean all over again. He’s sitting behind Art, but only by a bit, bare, crossed feet in line with his hips. “I was reading something the other day. Did you know Patrick means noble?” He huffs, watches the way Art’s back dimples and ripples with muscle, the way that his hair looks a richer gold in this light. His hair looks like the sun. Or maybe, the sun looks like it. “I don’t know about that.” He replied after a breath. He wanted to tease back, say that Art meant… well, art, but he realized that there’s not one way to define what art is. People argue on it all the time, and he’s not intelligent enough to be the one to define it. But it’s usually beautiful, even where it’s ugly. It usually evokes something. And Art’s all unscathed besides where he tore a patch of skin off his knee, wet and pink with the newly exposed layer awoken before its time. He’d fallen off a rock while trying to get a picture of the sunset. He deleted it afterwards, anyway. The colors weren’t right. Art was holding a bottle of something, unopened and dark, the condensation dripping in and out of the divots created by the spaces between his fingers. He sits back on his elbows, squinting under the glare of the sun, and in it he thinks he can see disapproval. He flicks his shades over his eyes. “Hey, Art?” Art doesn’t turn his head over his shoulder to meet Patrick’s eyes, just hums a little, shoulders moving with it. He’s staring at something. Thinking, maybe. He usually is. “Do you think, you know, after you go to Stanford, we’ll still be friends?” Art lifts his head, softens like he’s fourteen again, and Art, who fancies himself a philosopher to this day replies, “I think we’ll always know each other”.

Patrick heard something, maybe fate’s, breath hitch, as if something had clicked into place. Something had been decided for them, and for the most part, they were none the wiser. Patrick grins that right-mouthed smile of his, rests his back against the splintered wood of the dock, hands crossed behind his head. For now, he can only hope that decision is something good.

crack in the door | patrick zweig x reader

a/n: i have maternal instincts for patrick zweig in the sense that i want to bear his children. had an idea and had to get it out literally tonight

warnings: SMUT 18+, pregnancy mention, not proofread

Crack In The Door | Patrick Zweig X Reader

There’s a knock at the door that doesn't belong to Sunday.

You know the rhythm of your mailman’s hands, the two quick taps of the UPS guy, the heavy slap of your neighbor’s fist when he’s locked himself out again. But this—this knock is soft. Hesitant. Like it doesn’t want to be heard.

You set Levi’s plate down—half-eaten grilled cheese, blueberries arranged in a smiley face—and pad over barefoot. You glance through the peephole.

And your heart stutters.

Patrick.

You haven’t seen him in four years, and yet, there he is, standing in the yellow hallway light like a memory that refused to stay dead. The light buzzes above him, casting long shadows across the floor, washing him in a hue too warm for how cold it feels. Your stomach flips. Your knees lock. Seeing him again is like stepping into a dream with teeth—familiar and sharp all at once. He looks older—leaner, scruffier, more hollow around the eyes. A duffel bag slung over one shoulder. His hands twitch at his sides, curling and uncurling, like he's not sure whether to knock again or bolt down the hall and disappear.

You open the door slowly. The air between you is thick and sour with things unsaid.

He speaks your name like a confession. Soft. Sacred.

Your voice doesn’t come. Your stomach tightens. Your throat burns.

And then, behind you—

“Mama?” Levi’s voice, high and curious, drifts out from the kitchen. “Mama, where’d you go?”

Patrick’s entire face changes. He stiffens, like someone just knocked the wind out of him. His eyes—those same eyes that used to kiss every inch of your skin—dart past you.

And then he sees him.

Tiny feet padding across hardwood. A flash of soft brown curls and wide, blinking eyes. Your son. His son.

“Is that—?” Patrick breathes, but the question dies on his lips.

You step halfway in front of Levi, like instinct, like muscle memory. Like heartbreak.

“His name is Levi,” you say. “He’s four. He likes dinosaurs and peanut butter and books with flaps. He’s shy at first but never stops talking once he starts. And he thinks thunder is just the sky saying 'I love you' too loud.”

Patrick’s mouth parts. Closes. Opens again.

“I—” He’s not crying, but his voice sounds like it wants to be. “I didn’t know how to come back.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Silence.

“Mama,” Levi whispers, wrapping his arms around your leg, looking up at Patrick with open, trusting eyes. “Who’s that?”

Your heart breaks cleanly in two.

You look at Patrick. Let him drown in it.

“That’s no one, baby,” you lie. “Just someone I used to know.”

---

Patrick always used to knock on your window, never your door.

The first time he did it, you thought it was a rock or a branch. The second time, you nearly screamed. The third time, he was already halfway in your room, grinning, breathless, tasting like cigarettes and strawberry gum.

“You should really lock your window,” he said, pulling you in by the waist.

“You should really stop breaking in,” you answered, but your smile gave you away.

Those were the good days. The days when he was still fire and promise and you believed you were the only one who saw the man behind the racket. When he played like he had something to prove and kissed you like he had something to lose.

When the world hadn’t taken his shine yet.

You lay together in your tiny bed, limbs tangled, the night soft around you. He whispered dreams into your collarbone. You traced his jaw with your fingertips like a prayer. He said he’d win for you. Said you made everything feel less heavy.

And you believed him.

Even as the losses came. Even as the press called him a burnout. Even as he lashed out, shut down, pulled away.

Until one night, you held up a stick with two pink lines, and he couldn’t even look you in the eye.

“I can’t be this,” he said. “I can’t be someone’s dad when I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore.”

You begged him to stay. You told him love would be enough.

He left anyway.

The door slammed so hard the windows rattled. You stood there, frozen, stick in hand, the silence ringing louder than any scream.

It wasn’t just the leaving. It was what he took when he left. The belief that things could still be okay. The sound of his laugh echoing through your walls. The security of two toothbrushes in the cup by the sink.

He didn't say goodbye. He didn't say I love you. He just looked at you like you were the one hurting him, and walked out like he had somewhere better to be.

You didn't sleep that night. You laid in the bed where he used to lie, and wondered what was so unlovable about needing him.

In the weeks after, you didn’t tell anyone. You couldn’t say it out loud, not yet. Not until you had something to show for all the ache.

You kept your hand over your belly every night, like a promise. Like maybe, if you held it long enough, the ache would shift into something softer. You whispered into the darkness what you never said aloud: that you hoped the baby wouldn’t inherit the hollow. That you prayed they would never learn the weight of being left. You imagined holding them for the first time, imagined the sound they might make—laughter, a cry, a breath taken for the first time and given to you. Some nights, your palm rose and fell with the gentle flutter of movement beneath your skin, and you let yourself believe that maybe you weren’t completely alone. That maybe something was listening.

If he wouldn't stay, you would.

The pregnancy was not kind. Morning sickness that didn’t stop in the morning, aches in places you didn’t know could ache, and a hollow, gnawing loneliness that settled behind your ribs like mold. There was no one to rub your back when the cramps came. No one to hold your hand at appointments. You learned to read ultrasound screens like maps to a place you were terrified to reach alone.

You taped the first photo to the fridge and stared at it through tears. A blurry, black-and-white smudge. Proof. Anchor. Punishment.

You bought a secondhand crib off Facebook Marketplace and put it together yourself, swearing softly when the screws wouldn’t line up. Painted the walls a soft sage green, not because you liked it, but because it felt like the kind of color people chose when they still believed in peace.

At night, you whispered to your belly. Told him stories about heroes. About bravery. About love that stayed.

You never said Patrick’s name aloud, but some nights, when the air was too still and the weight of it all was too much, you dreamed of him walking through the door. You dreamed of forgiveness. Of soft apologies and strong arms and maybe’s that could still be real.

And then you’d wake up alone. And cry in the shower where no one could hear.

You didn’t get flowers when Levi was born. There was no one pacing outside the delivery room, no hands gripping yours through contractions, no voice telling you it was going to be okay.

But you did it. You screamed him into the world, heart breaking open and filling all at once.

And when they placed him on your chest, tiny and warm and blinking up at you like you were the only thing he knew—

That was the first time in months you remembered what it felt like to be loved without conditions.

Motherhood came at you like a tidal wave: no warning, no mercy. The nights were the worst. Not just because of the crying, but because of the silence in between. When the world went still and you were left alone with your thoughts, your fears, your memories. You held Levi in your arms like he was both shield and sword.

You learned the patterns of his breathing, the way his body curled into yours like he’d been there before, in another life. You learned to eat with one hand, sleep with one eye open, cry without making a sound.

The first time he smiled, it was crooked—just like Patrick’s. It hit you so hard you had to sit down. You laughed and sobbed into his blanket and told yourself it didn’t mean anything. That it was just muscle memory. A coincidence. Nothing more.

But everything reminded you of him. The curve of Levi’s jaw. The way he furrowed his brow in sleep. The quiet intensity in his gaze when he was focused on something—like building blocks or pulling the cat’s tail. He was made of you, yes. But he was stitched together with pieces of a man who had vanished.

You tried to be enough. Every bath time became a ritual. Every bedtime story a litany. Every scraped knee a prayer.

You never let Levi see you cry. You waited until he was asleep, until his breaths came soft and steady, until the lights were out and the apartment felt like a stranger’s house. Then you let the grief in. Let it climb into bed beside you like an old friend.

There were days you hated Patrick. Hated him for leaving. For making you strong when all you wanted was to lean. For making you lie when Levi asked why he didn’t have a daddy like the other kids at the park.

You always said the same thing: "Some people take a little longer to find their way."

And then you held him tighter. Because you knew—when Levi looked at you like you hung the stars, when he clapped after you made pancakes, when he said, “Mama, I love you more than dinosaurs”—you knew you’d do it all again.

Even the heartbreak. Even the waiting.

Even the door that never knocked—until today.

---

He comes back on a Tuesday. You’re still in your work-from-home clothes—soft pants, yesterday’s sweatshirt, hair twisted into something barely holding. Levi is at school, and the silence in the apartment feels like a held breath.

When you open the door, Patrick’s hands are stuffed into the pockets of his coat. His eyes flick up, then down, like he’s not sure where to look. He’s shaved. Mostly. Still looks like he hasn’t slept.

“I didn’t want to do this in front of him,” he says.

You nod once. Then step aside.

He walks in slowly, like the space might bite. You close the door behind him and lean against it, arms folded. He turns in the center of your living room, gaze moving across the walls like they might tell him what he missed. There’s a drawing Levi made of a green scribbled dinosaur taped beside the thermostat. A tiny sock abandoned near the coffee table. A photograph on the bookshelf—your smile tight, Levi’s toothy and bright.

Patrick presses his lips together. Doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches between you like a string pulled too tight, fragile and humming with things that might snap if touched. He stares at the walls, the crumbs on the floor, the drawing of a green dinosaur taped beside the thermostat like it’s a museum relic of a life he wasn’t invited to. Every breath he takes feels like it costs him something.

You don’t either.

He turns to you, finally. "I don’t know where to start."

"Start with why you’re here."

His jaw flexes. He looks down, then up again. "Because I never stopped thinking about you. Because I thought leaving would protect you. Because I hated the version of me I was becoming, and I didn’t want him to ever know that man."

"You don’t get to talk about him like you know him."

The words come fast. Sharp. You weren’t planning to say them, but they’re out before you can stop them. Patrick flinches like they cut deep.

You swallow. Try again. Quieter.

"You left. And we stayed. That’s the only truth that matters."

Patrick nods. Doesn’t argue.

"I want to be in his life," he says. "If you'll let me. I—I know I have no right to ask. But I’m asking. Anyway."

You look at him for a long time. Long enough for your throat to ache. For your eyes to blur.

You think about Levi’s face when he colors in the sun yellow every time. The way he runs down the hall with his shoes on the wrong feet. The way he says, mama, mama, look, like you’re the only one in the world who ever truly sees him.

You nod, once. Slowly.

Patrick’s breath catches.

"You’ll start as a stranger," you say. "You’ll earn your way back in. Brick by brick. Word by word. I won’t let you hurt him."

"I won’t," he promises. And you almost believe him.

You point to the couch. "Sit. I’ll make coffee."

And he does. And you do. And for the first time in four years, the apartment doesn’t feel quite so haunted.

---

The change is slow. Measured. Like the seasons shifting before the trees notice.

Patrick starts showing up more often. Not just when he says he will, but earlier. With snacks. With books for Levi. With hands that fold laundry without asking. Sometimes you find your dishes already washed. Sometimes he takes the trash out without a word.

You don’t trust it. Not at first. Not really.

But Levi laughs more. Sleeps easier. Starts drawing pictures of three people instead of two.

Patrick never pushes. Never raises his voice. Never tries to reclaim what he left. He plays the long game—quiet, consistent, present. And that consistency starts to chip away at your defenses in places you didn’t know were still cracked.

You catch yourself watching him. The way he kneels to tie Levi’s shoes. The way he listens—really listens—when your son talks about dinosaurs or clouds or how loud the sky can get when it’s excited. You hear the soft laugh in Patrick’s chest when Levi calls thunder a love letter. You feel it in your bones.

You try not to let it in.

One afternoon, while Levi is still at school, Patrick asks if you want to take a walk. Just around the block. Clear your head.

You almost say no. Almost slam the door of your heart before it even creaks open. But you grab your coat anyway.

You walk in silence. Leaves crunching underfoot. He stays a step behind, like he doesn’t want to crowd your space. The wind cuts sharp through the collar of your jacket.

Out of nowhere, he says, “I should’ve stayed.”

You stop walking.

He keeps going for a few steps before he notices, then turns around.

“I know that’s not enough. I know it changes nothing. But I did love you. I still—” He stops himself. Looks away.

You don’t realize you’re crying until you taste salt.

You press the sleeve of your jacket to your eyes, angry at the weakness, angry at the memory of who you were before. Angry that some part of you wants to believe him.

“I can’t do this again,” you whisper. “I can’t survive loving you twice.”

He takes a step closer. Doesn’t touch you.

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. I’ll love you from a distance if I have to. I’ll show up. I’ll keep showing up. I just—needed you to know.”

You shake your head, stumbling backward. The tears come harder now. Not the gentle kind. The ragged, breathless, body-buckling kind.

You don’t even remember falling to your knees, but suddenly you’re on the ground, sobbing into your hands. All of it—years of holding it together, of being strong, of never letting anyone see the mess—it all spills out.

And then he’s there.

He doesn’t touch you. Not right away. He kneels beside you, his hands palm-up on his thighs, waiting. Quiet. Steady. And somehow, that’s worse. That he’s learned how to wait. That he’s here.

You want to scream at him. You want to collapse into him. You want to run.

But mostly, you want to be held.

And after a long moment, you let him.

You wake up the next morning expecting silence.

It’s muscle memory now—waking before the sun, padding into the kitchen with half-lidded eyes and heavy limbs, bracing for another day of doing it all on your own.

But the apartment doesn’t greet you with emptiness.

There’s the soft clatter of dishes in the sink. The low hum of someone speaking—gentle, amused.

You freeze in the hallway, bare feet pressed to cold tile, heartbeat thudding in your throat.

And then you hear it.

Patrick’s voice. "Okay, buddy, but the cereal goes in first. Not the milk. Trust me on this one."

Levi’s giggle echoes like sunlight in a room too small to harbor his birghtness.

You move forward slowly, quietly, until you’re standing just beyond the edge of the kitchen. Patrick is crouched beside Levi at the counter, helping him pour cereal into a chipped blue bowl. He’s still in yesterday’s hoodie, hair a mess, barefoot like he belongs there.

He doesn’t see you at first. He’s too focused on Levi, steadying the carton as milk splashes too close to the rim. There’s something soft in his posture. Something heartbreakingly domestic.

Levi notices you first. "Mama!"

Patrick straightens immediately. His eyes meet yours. There’s a flicker of panic there, quickly masked.

"Morning," he says, voice quiet.

You nod, swallowing down whatever this feeling is—this lump of disbelief and longing and something dangerously close to hope.

"I didn’t want to wake you," he adds. "Levi asked for cereal and… I thought I could help."

You look at your son, cheeks full of sugar and joy.

You look at Patrick, standing in your kitchen like it’s sacred ground.

And for the first time, you don’t feel like running.

---

The days start to stack.

Patrick picks Levi up from school on Fridays. He folds the laundry you forget in the dryer. He learns how you take your coffee without asking and starts leaving it on the counter—right side of the mug facing out, handle turned the way you like it. He hums sometimes when he cleans up, soft and aimless. It makes your chest ache.

You fall into rhythms again. Not like before. Slower. Cautious. But real.

One evening, he stays later than usual. Levi’s fallen asleep on the couch mid-cartoon, a stuffed dinosaur clutched in one arm. You’re washing dishes. Patrick dries.

Your hands brush once.

Twice.

By the third time, neither of you pulls away.

You look up. His eyes are already on you.

Something lingers there—warm and pained and dangerous.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, but he speaks first.

“I miss you.”

The plate slips from your hand into the sink. It doesn’t break, but the splash feels final.

“I can’t,” you say quickly, too quickly.

“I know,” he says. “But I do.”

You dry your hands and turn away, pressing your palms flat to the counter to steady yourself, trying to remember how to breathe like you used to—before he walked back in.

“You don’t get to say that to me like it means nothing,” you whisper. “Like you didn’t leave. Like I didn’t have to scrape my life back together alone.”

“I know I don’t deserve it.”

“Then stop acting like you do.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is low. “You think I haven’t punished myself every day since?”

You spin around, suddenly angry. “And what, I’m supposed to forgive you because you feel bad? Because you missed a few birthdays and now you want back in?”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “You’re not supposed to do anything. But I’m here. I’m not running this time.”

“You broke me, Patrick.” Your voice cracks. “And now you want to build something new on the ruins like it’s nothing.”

He’s in front of you now. Too close. The space between you charged, buzzing.

“I don’t think it’s nothing,” he says. “I think it’s everything.”

Your breath catches. The air shifts.

His hand lifts—hesitates—then cups your jaw.

And you let him.

Because the truth is, you’ve wanted this. Wanted him. Even if it terrifies you.

His lips brush yours, tentative, like a question. When you don’t pull away, it deepens. He kisses you like he remembers. Like he regrets. Like he’s starving.

You back into the counter. His hands find your waist. Yours find his hair. You pull him closer.

It’s messy. It’s breathless. It’s years of anger and ache colliding in one impossible kiss.

When you finally break apart, his forehead presses to yours.

“I still love you,” he breathes.

And you close your eyes.

Because maybe, just maybe, you still do too.

---

He kisses you again, harder this time.

But it’s different now. Slower. Like mourning. Like worship. He takes your hand, and you follow, barefoot through the dark.

The two of you stumble back toward the bedroom, the one you once shared, where his cologne used to cling to the pillows and laughter used to live in the walls. Now it smells like lavender detergent and your son’s shampoo. Now it holds the weight of everything that’s happened since.

He kicks the door shut behind you with a soft thud, and the silence that follows is thick with ghosts.

You lie down first. He joins you like he’s afraid the bed might refuse him.

Your mouths find each other again, and it’s like no time has passed, and also like every second is a wound reopening. His kiss is deep, aching, soaked in apology. You pull at his hoodie, and he helps you out of your clothes with hands that remember everything—every freckle, every scar, every place you used to let him in.

He touches you like you might slip through his fingers again. Fingers grazing your ribs like a benediction, lips following like he's asking forgiveness with every breath. The inside of your knee, the curve of your belly, the dip of your collarbone—he maps them all like he’s afraid you’ve changed, and desperate to prove you haven’t.

When he finally sinks into you, it feels like grief.

He gasps like he’s never breathed without you.

You wrap your limbs around him like armor. Like prayer. You hold on because if you let go, you might disappear.

He moves like he remembers. Slow. Deep. Devotional. Not trying to make you come—trying to make you stay.

Your eyes lock. His forehead rests against yours. And it’s not lust anymore. It’s penance.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice threadbare. “For everything I lost. For everything I made you carry alone.”

Your fingers press to his jaw, tremble against his cheek. “You don’t get to be sorry now,” you breathe. “But don’t stop. Please… don’t stop pretending this could still be real. Don’t stop making me feel like I’m not the only one who kept the light on.”

You fall together like a storm collapsing. No crescendo, no clean ending. Just trembling limbs and bitten lips and all the years that weren’t spoken finally breaking open between you.

After, he doesn’t move. You’re tangled up, forehead to collarbone, his thumb brushing soft circles into your spine like he’s trying to say everything he can’t.

You don’t speak. Words feel too small.

You fall asleep in the bed where he first kissed your shoulder, in the bed where you cried alone, in the bed where you dreamed he’d come back.

And this time, when you wake up, he’s still there.

His eyes already on you.

Like he never stopped looking.

---

The morning light is soft, gray around the edges. You blink slowly, still tucked against him, your body sore in ways that feel almost sacred. There’s a pause before reality settles, before memory floods back in. His chest rises beneath your palm. He’s warm. Solid. Still here.

You sit up gently, careful not to disturb the quiet. But Patrick stirs anyway, eyes still on you like he was never asleep.

“Good morning,” he murmurs, voice low, gravelly.

You nod. Swallow. You don’t trust your voice yet.

There’s a beat. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask what last night meant. Just watches you, eyes soft, full of something he doesn’t dare taking the risk of naming. Something close to hope.

You slip out of bed and grab your robe, tying it loosely as you move through the morning light. You half-expect him to vanish while your back is turned, but when you glance over your shoulder, he’s still sitting there, eyes trailing after you like they never stopped.

You make coffee with shaking hands. The kitchen smells like warmth and cinnamon, the candle you forgot to blow out last night still flickering quietly on the counter. You pour two mugs, unsure if the gesture means too much or too little.

When you return to the bedroom, Patrick is sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt tugged over his head, hair wild from sleep. He looks up like he wants to say something, but doesn’t.

Instead, you hand him the mug.

He takes it like it’s sacred, fingers brushing yours with a hesitation that feels reverent, his gaze catching on yours with something close to disbelief. Like he’s afraid the mug might vanish if he holds it too tightly.

And then, footsteps.

Tiny ones.

The soft shuffle of socks against hardwood. A bedroom door creaking open. Levi’s voice drifting down the hallway: “Mama?”

Your breath hitches.

Patrick stands quickly, not panicked but present, like he knows this is delicate. You move toward the hallway just as Levi turns the corner, hair a mess of curls, pajama shirt twisted from sleep. He rubs one eye and stares at you, then at Patrick behind you.

He blinks once. Steps forward.

And then, small and serious:

“Are you gonna be my daddy again?”

You exhale like someone just punched the air out of your lungs.

Patrick lowers to a knee, eyes level with Levi’s. “Hey, buddy,” he says, voice soft, unsure.

Levi looks at him like he’s made of starlight and storybooks. Like he’s a wish come true.

Patrick’s throat works. “I… I’d really like to be. If you want me to.”

Levi nods, serious, like it’s a very important decision. Then he climbs onto the bed and curls himself into your side, tiny fingers finding Patrick’s hand.

You don’t say anything.

You can’t.

But when Patrick squeezes Levi’s hand, and Levi doesn’t let go, something in you cracks open.

And for the first time, the pieces don’t scatter.

They start to fall into place.

---

Later, after breakfast is made and half-eaten, after Levi has gone back to coloring at the kitchen table—his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration—Patrick lingers by the sink, coffee mug long since empty.

You wash dishes beside him, quiet.

“I used to lie,” he says suddenly, voice barely above a whisper. “To everyone. About why I left. About what I was doing. About you.”

You pause, fingers wet and soapy in the sink.

He keeps going, eyes fixed on a spot just above the faucet. “I told people I wasn’t ready. That I needed time. That I didn’t want to hold you back. But the truth is… I was scared. Not of being a father. Not really. I was scared of what you’d see when everything in me started to rot.”

Your chest tightens.

“I thought if I stayed, I’d make you miserable. That you’d look at me one day and see someone you pitied. Someone who used to be something. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t take that.”

The silence blooms, wide and brittle, as Levi hums softly in the background, his small voice painting innocence across the sharp edges of the truth hanging in the air.

“I would sit outside playgrounds,” Patrick says, his voice thinner now. “I’d watch kids run around and wonder if any of them were mine. I used to see this one boy who had curls just like Levi’s. And I’d imagine what it would feel like if he looked up and called me Dad.”

You stare at the bubbles in the sink. They pop, one by one.

“I thought I was punishing myself by staying away,” he says. “But it was cowardice. It was me choosing the version of pain that didn’t involve looking you in the eye.”

You set the dish down. Turn off the water. And you say nothing, because there’s nothing to say. Because guilt is not a gift, and grief is not a currency. But hearing it—letting him say it—somehow makes it heavier.

And still.

You don’t ask him to leave.

But you do walk outside.

The morning has shifted. Clouded over. You sit on the steps, arms wrapped around yourself, the chill crawling into your sleeves. You hear the door creak behind you and then close softly. He doesn’t follow. He knows better.

There’s a lump in your throat the size of a fist.

You think about all the versions of yourself he never met. The woman in the hospital bed, sweat-soaked and screaming, holding Levi against her chest with shaking arms and blood beneath her nails. The woman who sat awake at three a.m. night after night, bouncing a colicky baby in the quiet because there was no one else to pass him to. The woman who pawned her violin, sold the gold bracelet her grandmother gave her, whispered I’m sorry to her own reflection just to keep the lights on. The woman who smiled at Levi even when her eyes were raw from crying. The woman who learned how to fold pain into lullabies and grief into grocery lists. You became a mosaic in his absence—sharp-edged and shining. You held yourself together with coffee spoons and lullabies, with baby monitors and the ache of resilience. You wore your grief like a second skin, stretched tight and stitched through with hope you never admitted aloud.. And now he wants to stay. The one in the hospital bed. The one who learned how to swaddle with trembling fingers. The one who sold her violin to pay for rent. The one who laughed, even when it hurt, because Levi was watching.

You think about what it cost to become someone whole without him.

He didn’t get to see the becoming.

And now he wants to stay.

You close your eyes. Rest your forehead on your knees. Breathe.

Footsteps approach. Small ones.

Levi climbs into your lap without a word. He curls into you like he did when he was smaller, like he’s always known how to find your center.

“Do you still love him?” he asks.

You press your lips to his hair. “I don’t know what to do with it,” you whisper.

Levi’s voice is soft. “Maybe we can love him different now. Like a new story.”

And something inside you breaks.

Not the way it used to.

Not shattering.

Cracking open.

You look toward the door, and through the window, you see Patrick still standing there—his forehead resting against the frame, like he’s praying to the quiet.

You don’t run to him. You don’t forgive him.

But you do stand.

And this time, when you open the door, you leave it open behind you.

Just enough to tell him… ‘try again.’

-----

tagging: @kimmyneutron @babyspiderling @queensunshinee @hanneh69 @jamespotteraliveversion @glennussy @awaywithtime @artstennisracket @artdonaldsonbabygirl @blastzachilles @jordiemeow

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asheepinfrance

3 months ago

Can't Be That Bad

aka patrick gets a taste of his own medicine

an: based on a convo with @artstennisracket we had a while back. this is kinda short and silly but i felt like getting something small out while i try and source my energy into another bigger thing ill write tomorrow or sunday.

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

You lay on your side, curling in on yourself tighter, tighter, tighter still till there was no closer you could get to your own insides without popping. Knees to chest, chin to knees, arms wrapped around your bare legs like the ribbon atop a gift, holding things in place until the long-awaited relief of getting the product you want. The ache was dull, deep beneath your skin, festering like a wound, and it was sharp at the same time. Sharp, thudding, pulsating, echoing. Reverberating off the walls of your abdomen until it hits each piece of flesh within you, a muscular soreness that spreads where it shouldn’t. Even the expansion of your lungs with much needed oxygen seemed to hurt, the sharp feeling widening, pulling, growing taller with your chest, then shorter with exhale. It made your voice come out funny, shaky, like a sickly child. Patrick looked down at you from his place standing, which he so aggravatingly gets the continuous capacity to do, at the dresser, naked from the waist down. Why he would ever dress himself shirt first is beyond you, but if he ever changed his routine, you’d think the world was freezing over. The words come out muffled behind the cotton of the white tee he’s pulling over his head, but they’re there all the same.

“Seriously, babe. It can’t be that bad.”

And your body which once felt like it was heated by an internal coal furnace has suddenly frozen over. You must be glaring, not even with intention, because he briefly raises his hands to his shoulders as if to call for mercy. That smug little boy of an adult man can’t even bother to verbally apologize, but then again, you can’t verbally respond. You’re still heaving for air like you’d run a marathon.

“Like, I’m sure it sucks, yeah, but… can’t you just, like, tough it out? Trust me, I’ve been hit in the stomach with a tennis ball, like, more times than I can count, so I think we’re both even, anyway.”

He’s putting on his pants now, boxers having been slipped on somewhere distant, hazy and blurred through your simmering anger. If looks could kill, the sheepish smile he sends you while buttoning his jeans up tells you that he’d have died a painful death about a minute ago. He makes up for it, momentarily, by striding to your side of the bed, leaning over to press a kiss to your damp hairline, your eyes sliding shut like he’d connected his lips to yours. It’s salty and gross. You know it’s gross, you know he thinks it’s gross, but he doesn’t mention it.

“Left you some meds on the nightstand, kay? I’ll be back later.”

It’s a little ‘I love you’ without the heavy weight of actually saying it. He’s got a little stubble on his cheeks, he last shaved three days ago. You know this because he does. It’s one of very few things that Patrick is consistent about. Call it vain, but he likes to keep his appearances up as best he can. If the world is going to see him panting and sweaty most of the time, he better have a clean face doing it, even if flushed red from exhaustion. He left the room before you had the chance to meet his gaze without any annoyance, and you sigh, slowly straighten out each bend and curve of your bed until you’re on your back. He’s an idiot. It is that bad, and no tennis ball to the gut, eye, or crotch is ever going to change the fact that your entire body is beating like each cell was a little heart all its own. You’d seen so much red that the room now looks like it’s made up of mottled shades of gray. He’s an idiot. But, then again, he doesn’t have to be.

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

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

He hisses through his teeth, eyes screwed shut like he’s bracing himself for impact, more accurately, like he’d already been hit. Badly. He’s certainly behaving as if that were the case. The dial in your hand reads an embarrassingly small number: 5. A 5 out of the possible 10 levels, and he’s practically writhing around against the plush cushions of your couch. You almost feel bad about it, almost, considering you’re only standing over him, watching with sinister glee, because of those painkillers he so kindly supplied. However, your friend had lent you the actual cramp simulator, and only one of those things is actively teaching Patrick he’s a dumbass. You’ll have to Venmo your friend something letter, just for an accurate measurement of gratitude.

“Aw, come on, P. Man up!”

He’s gripping his stomach like he wants to pull it off and suddenly things are less fun, your thumb twitching over the dial, until he looks back up at you and tries to steel himself. Emphasis on ‘tries’, because all he really does is grimace. You turn the dial to 8.

“Fucking- Just turn it off, please!”

“Why? Can’t be that bad.”

He raises a hand to give you quite possibly the most pathetic middle finger you’ve ever seen, all wobbly and brief, like one of an elementary schooler believing themselves to be rebellious. His entire body is twitching, like it no longer knows what to do with itself from the sheer amount of sensory input. The overflow of pain signals. A civil war in his body, and one that you’re controlling. He looks like he might cry if he’d let himself do so without believing it to be embarrassing, which he won’t. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to, though. You slide the dial back to 0.

“ ‘M sorry.”

You grin, kneeling between his bent legs to pull the adhesive pads from his stomach, feigning ignorance.

“What was that?”

“I said I’m sorry, you evil-”

He cuts himself off, shakes his head. Meh. Not worth it. If that’s what he felt like upon waking up, he’d be evil, too. You’re well within your right. You place a kiss to his knee, which bounces in place. Still on high alert, even when there’s nothing to be scared of anymore. Besides pissing you off, maybe. You left him water and Advil on the coffee table beforehand, just in case. A small ‘I love you’ without verbally saying it. ‘I love you, even if you’re so, so painfully dumb.’ Patrick Zweig was an idiot. It can be that bad. He knows this because you do.

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asheepinfrance

2 months ago

We moved on from young dad!art too fast his sexy ass

I NEED HIM!!!!!