Chapter Text
It was 12:36 a.m. on Wednesday night. Well, technically, Thursday morning. The important piece was that Maru would report to work at the clinic in exactly nine hours and four minutes, and by that token, see Harvey for the first time since she'd woken up in his bed at the crack of dawn.
She rolled over fitfully in bed, again, and flopped onto her back. Still no sign of sleep. Too jittery. She breathed in through her nose, slowly, and out through her mouth, but that only made her remember that he'd taught her to do that, and her fluttering heartbeat pounded even harder.
The rest of the night, after… everything that had transpired after work yesterday, had been relatively chaste, to her chagrin. But, it was standard practice to avoid sexual activity for at least 24 hours after placing an IUD to prevent complications—and even if it wasn't, she'd spent most of their night together clutching his hot pad to her stomach and trying very hard not to barf. Not the most alluring she'd ever been. For Harvey's part, he'd been happy to make her ginger tea, and hold her close to him under the duvet, and murmur encouragement into her ear about how brave she was being and how soon it would be over, because of course he had.
With a groan, she squeezed her eyes shut. God, she had it so bad.
And when the farmer had come to pick her up in her truck early that morning—earlier than even they'd anticipated; she supposed that the day did start awfully early on farms—she'd had to leave before they'd even had a chance to talk things over. What they were doing; how any of this was supposed to even work. He'd kissed her goodbye at the top of his stairs with a melancholy smile and put his personal number in her phone "in case you need me."
And then she'd waded through the high-piled snow to the truck and made awkward small talk with the woman who was about to propose to Penny as they drove up the mountain. But that was hardly relevant.
Maru unlocked her phone (again) and looked at the short text thread between her and Harvey (again). Nothing dazzling, just an exchange of hellos and a "thinking of you" from him accompanied by a photo of a fresh Percocet bottle that made her cackle.
So romantic, I'm swooning, she'd replied. He'd left a heart on her message. She'd been staring at it ever since.
She was still staring at it when he started typing. Her phone fumbled to the duvet, and she sat up straight to grab it and hold it up to her face. Her glasses were on the nightstand, but tearing her eyes away to look for them was hardly an option.
Are you awake? he said.
Everything is fine, don't worry! I just can't sleep, he quickly added. I thought maybe you'd be feeling the same.
Maru bit down on one of her knuckles hard enough to leave a dent. Hi :) yeah, can't sleep either, she replied.
I'm sorry to hear that, he said. She snorted.
Don't be. I'm just really excited to see you again. Even though I literally woke up next to you this morning.
Her pulse roared in her ears as she watched him type, then pause, then type again. Just when the suspense was truly about to give her a stroke, a veritable paragraph arrived.
I'm really excited to see you too. It just kind of hit me when I laid down tonight that you're going to walk through the door in the morning, and instead of hating myself for wanting to kiss you, I can just… kiss you. You know?
A sudden pulse of need bloomed hot and urgent between her legs and radiated up into her core. She collapsed back to her pillow, reading and re-reading his message as though it were going to disappear. It was one thing to kind of guess that the hopeless, guilty yearning she'd felt all these months was mutual; it was another to have it in writing. And to know he'd written it in the dark of his bedroom, as a secret between them, while the rest of the town slept.
You can absolutely kiss me, she wrote back, adrenaline putting a shake in her fingers. You should kiss me, actually, all the time. You're good at it.
His reply came instantly. Am I?
She bit her lip, a daring thrill rippling through her as she typed. So good. Your mouth is all I've been able to think about today. Aside from your hands, obviously.
Another instant reply—but this one made her forget to breathe for a moment.
I can't wait to show you everything they can do.
Her thighs squeezed together, again, again, trying to find some relief. She only burned hotter.
God, that's so hot. You're so fucking hot, did you know that?
Not especially, he said, and she could imagine perfectly the way he was probably smiling, but if you think so, that's all that matters to me.
She was formulating an elaboration on her statement that mainly focused on defiling his mustache when another text came in.
You are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I thought I was going to go insane last night just from having you in my bed. Even knowing I'll get to touch you tomorrow is honestly driving me crazy.
She swallowed, hard, around a dry tongue. The brakes were coming off of her better judgement, she was too fucking turned on.
I'm pretty sure I actually did go insane, she admitted, biting her lip, because I totally told my parents that I'm staying at Abigail's on Friday to help her housesit while her parents are gone. She owes me a favor.
He didn't start typing. Dread crept into the edges of her happy, horny thrill. She was moving way, way too fast, wasn't she? They'd spent exactly one night together, they hadn't even had sex, and she was already inviting herself over without even checking in with him about it—fuck, she was actually going to have to spend the night at Abigail's enduring a line of questioning about why exactly she'd needed an alibi, wasn't she—
Sorry, he finally said. Had to run downstairs and check my Friday schedule. I don't have any professional obligations, thankfully, so come by anytime after close.
Sweat prickled on the back of her neck. Her underwear had long ago soaked through onto her inner thighs. She yanked them off and rucked up the massive Ferngill Polytechnic University t-shirt she slept in, then slipped a hand into the mess to rub slow, lazy circles.
Would you wanna call? she typed one-handed.
Seconds later, her phone buzzed silently in her hand. She answered and pinned it between her ear and the pillow.
"Hey," she whispered.
"Hey," Harvey's hushed voice came buzzing down the line. "Are you sure—this is safe for you to be doing, right?"
Her heart did something funny in her chest. "Oh, yeah. I have kind of my own wing; no one can hear me as long as I'm quiet."
"Okay." He made a pained noise in the back of his throat. "I hate that you have to live this way."
"And I hate that I'm the one rubbing my clit right now instead of you," she replied, determined to get him out of his head and back to the task at hand. Just as she'd hoped, he exhaled shakily into his phone. Sheets rustled in the background. "There you go. How does it feel?"
"Like this is going to be a shorter phone call than I was hoping," he replied, gruff and affected. "God, Maru. Fuck."
She shivered and picked up her pace, spreading one knee wide. "Does it feel better than just thinking about me while you jerk off? Having me here?"
"Christ, yes," he groaned. "Does this feel better than just fantasizing about my hands while you touch yourself?"
"So much fucking better," she sighed. "Still wish it was you. I don't even know how you'd touch me yet; I know it's gonna ruin me."
"Yeah, it's gonna ruin me too, even more than you already have," he said, his voice starting to go ragged at the edges. "God, even thinking about having you in my bed again on Friday—tell me I can fuck you. Please. Say it, tell me you want it—"
Her hips jerked into her hand. Her cunt clenched and pulsed around nothing, so intense it hurt. "God, Harvey, yes, fuck—I want it so fucking bad, you have no fucking clue—"
They lapsed into moans and whimpers, echoing and responding to each other's pleasure while the delicious wrongness of what they were doing nearly made her snap. The image of good and noble Harvey doing this on any number of nights, stroking himself in his bed with her name on his lips, absolutely tortured by every shudder of want, made her have to muffle herself in her pillow. As though he'd had much the same thought, his breathing picked up into uneven, desperate gasps.
"Yeah, come, I want you to," she coaxed. Harvey whined. "I want you to feel good, make yourself feel so good for me, yeah? I'm—fuck—I'm close, I'm close, wanna hear you first—"
Harvey shuddered into the phone, his breath blowing out the microphone into a haze of static. Her eyes rolled in her head as warm, molten pleasure rippled down her spine to her curling toes. Not enough to make her finish, but enough to obliterate her ability to form a sentence.
He hummed, sated, directly into her ear. "That was so good, sweetheart. Did you like that?"
"Yeah," she whimpered. Her entire hand was a frenzy of motion now, all four fingers pressed flat against herself and soaking wet. She bucked into the pressure, chasing her agonizingly slow-building orgasm.
"I'm gonna give you so much more than your own little fingers ever could. I want you for hours, Maru, I meant that. Take my time with you and do it so well you never want me to stop. God, was that—I can hear how wet you are. You're so close, aren't you?"
She whimpered again, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
"Shh, it's all right, let me help," he said in the register of understated authority that never failed to take her out at the knees when he used it at work. "Take deep breaths for me. In… and out."
She breathed with him, a slow, deep inhale and a steady exhale, then another. The pleasure winding tight deep in her core made her legs shake of their own accord.
"Mm. Perfect, so good." Pleasure bloomed along every nerve. "Can you take a little more for me? Just a little harder, a little faster. I know you can."
She tensed all over as the crescendo reached its final peak. "Harvey," she choked.
"It's okay, you're okay," he murmured. "Come."
She did. With an arch in her spine and a twist in her neck and a soundless scream that squeezed the air from the very bottom of her lungs, she did. Through all of it, the smooth rumble of his voice encouraged her to keep going, just like that, until the last wave left her boneless and dreamy on her mattress.
"Maru?" he asked after a long moment, slightly nervous.
"Oh my god," she panted dazedly. "Fuck medicine, I think we found your calling."
He chuckled sleepily. "Phone sex?"
"Yes."
"'M glad you think so."
A jaw-cracking yawn escaped her, and a few seconds later, it echoed through Harvey. "Think I can finally go to sleep, too, so. Thanks."
"We should both get some rest. Goodnight, Maru. I can't wait to see you."
"Goodnight," she sing-songed.
Wisely, she hung up before she was tempted to say anything else.
The early morning came clear and cold. Slipping into her uniform sent a frisson of illicit anticipation over her skin. Even under her winter layers, it felt dirty in the best way to be back in the clothes that had made Harvey fucking lose his mind on top of her. Had he felt that way when he'd first handed it to her in a stack of white cotton/poly, back when she was a new hire and they were barely more than strangers? Or had it just sort of happened, the same way coffee and green apple shampoo made her lightheaded now? She couldn't wait to fluster the answer out of him.
She made a conscious effort to project calm and innocence as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen for breakfast. She could hear her parents making small talk while they drank their coffee at the counter, as they had every morning since she'd been alive. Getting in and out of her daily conversation with them without triggering suspicion would be a challenge, with the way her heart had been fluttering from the moment she'd woken up, but a surmountable one nonetheless.
First and most important step: set the terms of interaction.
"Morning!" she smiled—not too broadly, remember to sound a little tired—as she ambled over to the fridge to extract her breakfast. One foil-topped cup of whole milk greek yogurt, plain, and between six and eight strawberries. Opening the crisper drawer, however, revealed only salmonberries. Anemic, sour-looking salmonberries.
"Pierre didn't have my strawbs, huh," she shrugged, her disappointment stowed firmly out of sight. She sprinkled a few of the heartiest, least frostbitten ones into a bowl and set it next to her yogurt at the table. Maybe alternating bites with the yogurt would make it go down smoother.
Mom made an apologetic noise, forehead creasing. "Guess not. Sorry, kiddo."
"I didn't see any," dad added, defensive in a frequency only she and her mother could hear. Implications included: he did the shopping this week and expected gratitude for doing so, he resented the implication that his shopping had been inadequate, further action was needed to soothe his ego if she wanted to avoid a passive-aggressive feedback loop that was sure to last the rest of the weekend.
"It's okay! These are the next best thing," she lied, popping two in her mouth. Mealy, acidic, revolting. She swallowed hastily. "I really appreciate it, dad."
He smiled tensely into his coffee mug with a nod at her. Relief washed over her, and the lines of her mother's face visibly relaxed as well. She peeled back the foil on her yogurt and scooped a larger-than-usual bite to try to wash out the taste. Time for step two: distraction.
"Speaking of salmonberries," she added, "It's getting to be spring soon, huh? I have a few observations I was thinking of making around the vernal equinox this year; I was hoping to run them by you."
She did not, in any way, need to run them by him; she already had her tests prepared and ready to go. But, dad straightened and set his coffee down to shift into his persona as the village genius, which is exactly what she needed him to do. She kept him occupied with a truly inane question about atmospheric refraction until it was time to dash out the door. As the cold air hit her face and filled her lungs, she could finally breathe deeply again.
The walk down the mountain into town had never felt so interminable. Between the anticipation winding tight in her stomach and the treacherously icy path under her boots, finally coming into view of the empty, snow-covered town square was such a relief she could have cried. She carefully picked her way down the stone steps onto the cobblestoned plaza and walked as nonchalantly as possible to the door of the clinic, as though this were any other Thursday and she weren't sweating through the armpits of her uniform under her parka.
She fumbled for her key with numb fingers and unlocked the door to the clinic. The lights were already on, as usual. The bell over the door jingled with her arrival. She couldn't find her voice to announce herself further. Facing the door, she peeled away her layers and hung them on the coat rack in the lobby.
She smoothed her curls and scraped half her hair back into a tortoiseshell barrette, a few ringlets falling around her face as she gave her (still stupid) matching white hat a shake and perched it on the crown of her head. Her heart hammered in her throat. Finally, unavoidably, she turned around.
Harvey was most of the way into the hall, one loafered foot still on his office's carpet, looking just as unsure and overwhelmed as her. Her mouth felt stuck somewhere between smiling and hanging open.
"Morning," she managed.
"Good, uh. Good morning," he replied. His mustache twitched. "Did you sleep well?"
Heat shot straight to the high points of her cheeks. "Eventually, yeah. You?"
He nodded. "Really well, actually. Yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Silence settled over them, heavy and thick. She swallowed around a dry tongue.
"When's your first—"
"Not until ten."
"Great." Twenty minutes. She reached behind her and deadbolted the front door. Harvey advanced a few steps toward her, hands flexing at his sides. Mustering a confidence she didn't entirely feel, she crossed the tiled lobby and met him where he stood.
She tried to look him in the eyes but only made it as far as his lips. He exhaled shakily. A quippy, semi-ironic come-on was nearly fully formed in her head when his hands gripped the sides of her face and pulled her into, undoubtedly, the most enthusiastic kiss of her life.
Time slowed to a syrupy, bright blur. She threw her arms around his neck to bring him closer. His hands found their way to her waist, then her ass as he pressed her up against the poster of vaccine schedules she'd thumbtacked on the wall last autumn. She opened for him to slip his tongue into her mouth, sweet and claiming, then flipped him so that he was the one pinned and she was the one making him gasp and clutch at her. That was the thing that drove her fucking insane about him, she was discovering—he took the lead so naturally, but he unfailingly rolled over for her with stars in his eyes if she gave him just the slightest nudge. He was constantly recalibrating around what she needed, all while his relentless focus never shifted from her.
"I want to blow you," she murmured with a nip to his jaw, because god, she did. "Right now, before anyone gets here."
He made a noise like he'd been stabbed. "Fuck. You don't have to, no, it's—I don't think we have time."
"You haven't seen me work," she smiled against his neck. "We have time."
"Not like that—I'm sure you're, uh, incredible oh god," he groaned as she lightly sucked over his pulse point. "No, it's, I want to take all the time you need. For you. Fifteen minutes isn't—that's hardly anything."
Something warm and unbearably soft happened under her sternum. She pulled back to look at him. "I know you're gonna melt my brain out of my ears at some point," she said with a wry tilt of her head. "I can be patient. I was just thinking we could go through our work day with a little secret between us, that's all. Could be fun."
His soft green eyes went dark behind his glasses, and she knew she'd won. Time for the coup de grace.
"I know you've thought about it." Harvey's fingers gripped the back of her shirt. "Where do you want me?"
His jaw ticked as his eyes flickered down the hall, to the little inset alcove that led to the door to the front desk on one side and the door to his office on the other. She tugged on his white coat to lead him over there. He settled against the wall again, hands flat by his hips, and watched in stunned silence as she knelt in front of him and pulled his belt buckle open. The soft scrape of fabric over button and the low growl of his zipper coming undone felt deafeningly loud.
"Keep your hands where they are?" she said as she pulled his achingly hard cock free. "Normally I wouldn't mind, but—"
"—your hair," he acknowledged in a thin voice. "It looks nice today, by the way."
She burst into laughter and leaned her forehead against his thigh. When she looked up again, there was worry hiding in the lines of his face. She smiled, and it melted.
"You're too sweet, Harvey, you're killing me." She wrapped her hand around him and the back of his head hit the wall, his eyes squeezed shut. "Ah ah. Look at me. I'm wearing the hat and everything, come on."
She lazily pumped her hand once, twice, until he finally looked down at her through knocked-askew glasses. She kept their gazes locked as she leaned forward and licked a stripe up the underside of his dick, from base to tip, mapping the vein that ran the length of him. He tasted faintly of soap. His fingers curled uselessly against the drywall.
"This is going to be… embarrassingly quick," he managed, strangled, with a self-conscious laugh.
She shrugged. "Good."
With the ghost of a kiss to his shaft, she leaned forward and welcomed the first few inches of him into her mouth.
Harvey was spectacularly fun to suck off, she learned almost immediately. The best part of going down was the satisfaction of a reaction, trying new angles and pressures and relishing the sounds they produced, and he fell apart for her with a string of curses and moans from the first bob of her head. She grabbed his hip with the hand she wasn't using on him and relished the uneven, helpless way he jerked to follow her movements, all while a cascade of increasingly desperate whimpers leaked from him above her. She found her rhythm, quick and deep but unhurried, and settled into it.
"Maru."
She blinked up at him. Unfocused and flushed, he looked down at her through wild eyes.
"I'm close. I'm—oh—I'm close, you should—"
With a satisfied hum, she slid her eyes closed again and leaned harder into him, twisting her wrist as her hand followed the wet path of her lips on his cock. Harvey cursed through his teeth before his voice became muffled—he'd pressed a hand over his mouth, probably, or maybe bitten down on the fabric of his white jacket. His breath came in sharp, urgent gasps as his hips snapped to meet her. He made another noise of warning. She very pointedly ignored it.
Something close to a sob ripped from his chest, and he pulsed hot and heavy in her mouth. He came gorgeously, she didn't have to open her eyes to know; she could hear and feel and taste his ecstasy echoing from his body into hers. She didn't ease off of him until he was squirming with oversensitivity. Even then, she went reluctantly. She could easily work him up to another one if they had more time—which they didn't. Shame. She wiped her mouth, then gently tucked him back into his pants and refastened everything.
His hand suddenly descended into her field of vision. Maru squinted up at him, confused. He looked at his outstretched hand, then back to her with a quizzical tilt to his head.
Finally catching his meaning, she slipped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet. They stood like that for a long moment, chest to chest, her hand still cradled in his. Slowly, Harvey brought it up to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss to each of her knuckles. A hot flush crept up her neck.
"Being this precious right after you watched me swallow is crazy," she half-joked. "You're an even bigger freak than I thought."
He smiled against her skin as he reached her pinky. "Probably. But, I think you want me to be."
She snorted, nodding vigorously, which earned a chuckle and a sound kiss on the lips. Huh—in her experience, not a lot of people kissed after oral. At least not until she'd brushed her teeth. It was… nice, she realized with a flutter, to not feel like she'd just done something inherently disgusting.
"Normally, you know, I'd wish for today to move slower because you're here," he admitted, his soft features even softer with affection as he met her gaze with so much quiet earnestness she could have burst into flames, "but right now, I wish I could stop time altogether. Stay in this hallway with you for hours."
She leaned up to kiss him, vibrating with excitement when he returned it. "Mm, same. I just want—"
There was a tentative knock at the door. They broke apart like caught teenagers, straightening collars and re-tucking shirts. Without a word, Harvey retreated to his office, Maru went to unlock the door and start check-in, and the familiar two-person dance of tending to the valley's sick and injured began.
Naturally, it was one of the most hellacious days Maru had ever worked. Any hope she had of sexy, ever-mounting tension was shot out of the air like a clay pigeon the moment their doors opened.
The flu was continuing its rampage through both tourists and townsfolk, and it was only getting worse. The waiting room quickly filled with coughing, watery-eyed patients. She donned one of the KF-94 masks she kept in a private stash behind the desk (they were the only kind that didn't fog her glasses) and ran back to pass one to Harvey as his ten o'clock with Marlon was wrapping up. His eyes crinkled adorably as he fumbled to put it on.
"Here, one sec—" she reached up to tug on the ear loops until they were snug and pinched the wire over his nose bridge tight. The tips of his ears glowed pink through his hair.
"Thank you, Maru," he said in his most Businesslike Physician Voice as he put his glasses back on.
"Any time," she smiled placidly, "doctor. Come on, Marlon, I'm not letting you leave without scheduling a physical."
She held the door and herded him out toward the front desk, relishing Harvey's strangled cough behind her.
The rest of the day passed in a frenzy. She ran their PCR centrifuge nearly constantly between answering phone calls and sending stacks of prescriptions to pharmacies all over the Valley. Harvey barely left the exam room. They even ate lunch in shifts, unable to find a single pause in the barrage. By the time the last patient left and she was finally able to turn the deadbolt on the clinic, a tension headache was beginning to gather around her temples and she was the kind of tired that made her bones feel heavy.
She slogged her way though disinfecting the waiting room and her desk, then gingerly hooked off her mask and deposited it in the biohazard bin. Her snow pants went back on, then her big puffy coat. Down the hall, she could hear Harvey finishing his half of closing and locking up behind himself. He shucked his white coat onto the ground and held his arms out to her as he pushed through the door into the lobby, and she ungracefully fell into them.
"All done. You did so astonishingly well today, I can't believe it," he said into her hair. Her toes curled in her shoes as his hand made soothing circles on her back.
"I tried," she managed unsteadily.
"I mean it, that was the worst shift we've ever had together," he pressed, adjusting his grip to hold her just a bit tighter, "and you just tackled it head-on like it was nothing. I'm amazed by you. I would be this impressed even if I wasn't in—interested. In you."
She hid her face in the crook of his neck. Her eyes squeezed tight of their own accord against the thick, scalding knot of emotions burning up her throat. She was exhausted, she was hungry, she was many things that easily explained being a mite sensitive, but knowing the facts of her physiology didn't make his naked, earnest approval feel any less potent.
Harvey, infuriatingly insightful as he was, didn't seem to expect a response from her. He just turned his head to nestle farther into the unkempt mess her curls had become and let her have the moment.
"I wish I didn't have to leave." The words were faint as they tumbled out of her mouth.
He hummed deep in his chest. "I do too. There's nothing I would rather do right now than take you upstairs and set you up with a hot bath and a glass of wine."
The corner of her mouth twitched. "We both know we wouldn't make it past your living room, but you're still very sweet to offer."
He stammered and spluttered, his shoulders shaking with tired laughter, and she let herself laugh with him. Some of the tension melted out of her aching shoulders. The air seemed to return to the room, and with it, her fortitude to stay on task.
"I do have to go," she said regretfully, kissing him on the cheek as she leaned back, "but I'll see you tomorrow? Oh, wait, actually—would you want me to come in? I can keep helping out; you're gonna be swamped."
He shook his head. "I'm used to this. You're not. Take the day, get plenty of rest, drink your fluids."
"That a medical order?" she grinned, giving his button placket a playful tug.
He circled his fingers—his strong, effortlessly confident fingers—around her wrist and pressed a lingering kiss to her pulse point. Her breath faltered.
"More of a plea," he said, releasing her to tuck a stray curl behind her ear, "from an idiot who's trying to take the best, best possible care of you. If you want him to."
Her eyes prickled unbearably. Relief and pride and grief and a hot, underlying sweetness she refused to name harmonized into a single thrum in her ears. Instead of trusting herself to keep it together, she leaned back in for one last searching kiss before she backed up to the entrance.
"For the record," she finally managed as she paused in the doorway. She looked back to see him standing, expectant, where she'd left him. "I'm trying to take care of him, too."
She turned and shut the door behind her before she could process the way he was looking at her.
Hours later, exhausted but not yet asleep, her stomach in even more knots than the night before, her phone pinged. She lunged to grab it and scrambled to unlock it with an urgency that was frankly embarrassing.
Sleep well, sweetheart, was all it read. She bit her lip.
Goodnight, Harvey, she typed, then frowned. He'd passed the threshold for deserving an endearment, but she had no fucking clue which one to use on him. Sweetheart felt like cribbing, baby made her retch, darling was what her parents called each other when they weren't getting along and didn't want her to notice—
Goodnight, she finally sent, her eyes drowsing shut even as her heart fluttered. You're my favorite.