hello everyone!!! my name is aleeya :) mainly using this account to reblog silly stuff about all of my fandoms and add commentary about my favorite scenes & characters
fandoms: stranger things, it (2017/2019), the goldfinch, harry potter/marauders, teen wolf, tvdu, mcu, shadow & bone, ianowt, peacemaker, && everything sadie sink & jaeden martell related
you can find all of my works on my wattpad linked above & under my same username! i’m currently writing a steve harrington fanfic and hopefully will have my stiles stilinski & my james potter fics back up soon! don’t be a ghost reader!!
The thing about reading a really good book as a writer is that it does two things at once. it fills you up and it destroys you. you're reading going "yes. yes this is why. this is the whole reason." and also "i will never write a sentence this good. i should give up and become something reasonable like a geologist. geologists don't have to do this. geologists go outside and look at rocks and nobody asks them why the pacing is slow in the middle." i finish every great book both inspired and briefly geologist-curious.
the thing about the goldfinch is that recommending it is difficult because i truly believe that the best and perhaps only way to read it is while going through a severe depressive episode yourself. was it a good book? i can't even tell you, all i know is that i read it when i was feeling deeply sad and alineated from the world but at least i had theo decker with me talking about how sad and alineated from the world HE felt. book for and about people so so scared to live. what if we all died wondering???
The first time you meet Jack Abbot, he’s elbow-deep in somebody’s chest cavity and calmly asking for more suction like he’s ordering coffee.
You are, unfortunately, staring.
Not because of the blood. You’ve worked at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center for almost eight months now as a day shift ER nurse. Blood stopped bothering you sometime around your third week, somewhere between a ruptured spleen and a guy who lost a toe trying to deep fry a frozen turkey.
No.
You’re staring because Dr. Jack Abbot is unfairly composed.
Everything about him is controlled. Efficient. Quiet. Sharp around the edges in a way that makes people automatically move out of his path. His dark curls are damp with sweat beneath his surgical cap, his scrub top streaked with blood, and somehow he still looks put together.
“Clamp,” he says.
Someone hands it to him instantly.
“Pressure’s dropping.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t panic. Doesn’t flinch.
The room bends around him instead.
You’ve heard things about him, of course. Everyone has.
Brilliant doctor. Terrifying under pressure. Doesn’t sleep enough. Doesn’t date. Doesn’t smile much. Has impossible standards and an even more impossible success rate.
Also allegedly once made a resident cry with a single look.
You’d believed all of it.
Then he glances up from the operating table and catches you watching him through the observation window.
His eyes pin you in place.
You should look away.
Instead, you forget how breathing works.
One of the nurses beside you mutters, “Jesus. Good luck.”
“With what?”
“That.”
She points through the glass.
Dr. Jack Abbot.
And somehow, impossibly, he’s still looking at you.
Three weeks later, Jack learns your coffee order.
You don’t know this until he walks into the ER break room at six-thirty in the morning and silently sets an iced coffee down beside your charting station.
Extra caramel.
Oat milk.
Exactly right.
You blink up at him.
“…Thanks?”
He shrugs once. “You looked tired.”
“That obvious?”
“Yes.”
Then he walks away.
That’s it.
No flirting. No smile. No lingering conversation.
Just quiet observation and scary levels of attentiveness.
It should not affect you as much as it does.
Unfortunately, it affects you enormously.
“You have a crush on Dr. Abbot.”
“I do not.”
“You just watched him walk through the department like he’s the last man alive.”
You continue aggressively typing patient notes. “I was observing.”
“Mhmm.”
Your best friend and fellow nurse Carmen leans against the counter, entirely too amused.
“Sweetheart, you practically stopped blinking.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you want to climb that man like a tree.”
You choke on your coffee.
Across the ER, Jack glances over at the sound.
Your eyes meet.
You immediately look down.
Carmen wheezes with laughter.
“Oh my God, you’re down catastrophic.”
The problem with Jack Abbot is that once he notices you, he really notices you.
He notices when you skip lunch during double shifts.
Notices when your hands shake after pediatric traumas.
Notices you rubbing your left shoulder after moving patients all night.
Notices when you’re overwhelmed before you even say anything.
And worst of all?
He does something about it.
“You haven’t eaten.”
You look up from the trauma bay. “I had a granola bar.”
“That was nine hours ago.”
“You memorized when I ate a granola bar?”
“You’re getting irritable. It’s usually low blood sugar or sleep deprivation.”
“That is the least romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
A pause.
Then, unexpectedly, one corner of his mouth twitches upward.
Your brain short-circuits.
Jack sets a sandwich beside you.
“Eat.”
“You can’t just command me around because you’re scary.”
“I’m not scary.”
You stare at him.
He stares back.
From across the nurses’ station, someone whispers, “He absolutely is.”
Jack ignores them.
You smile despite yourself.
And because you apparently enjoy making poor decisions, you say, “What if I refuse?”
Jack folds his arms.
“You won’t.”
God.
The confidence should be illegal.
You eat the sandwich.
The first time you see Jack genuinely angry, it’s because of you.
Not at you.
Because of you.
A patient’s drunk family member corners you near the ambulance bay at two in the morning.
He’s shouting. Too close. Aggressive.
You’re trying to de-escalate.
“Sir, I need you to lower your voice—”
“She doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about!”
His hand grabs your wrist.
Then suddenly—
Gone.
The man stumbles backward so fast he nearly falls.
Jack stands between you and the patient’s family member with terrifying stillness.
He doesn’t shove him.
Doesn’t yell.
Honestly, you think yelling would’ve been less frightening.
“Do not touch her again,” Jack says quietly.
The guy puffs up immediately. “Who the hell are you?”
“Attending physician.”
“That supposed to scare me?”
Jack steps forward once.
Just once.
The guy immediately retreats.
Security arrives seconds later, but honestly they’re unnecessary at that point.
The man’s already backing away.
Jack waits until he’s escorted out before turning toward you.
“Are you hurt?”
Your pulse is still racing.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
His jaw flexes hard enough to hurt.
Jack reaches for your wrist carefully, checking for bruising where the man grabbed you.
His touch is unbelievably gentle.
“I’m fine,” you say softly.
Jack exhales through his nose.
Then finally mutters, “Christ.”
Something in your chest flips over.
After that, things change.
Not officially.
Not verbally.
But everyone notices.
Jack starts appearing beside you like he’s magnetized to your location.
You find coffee waiting for you before shifts.
Protein bars shoved into your scrub pockets.
Your favorite muffins left in the break room without explanation.
Once, after a brutal twenty-hour stretch, he drapes his hoodie over your shoulders because you’re shivering.
You keep it for three weeks before giving it back.
It still smells like him.
Cedar soap. Coffee. Hospital sanitizer.
You nearly die over it.
“You know he’s in love with you, right?”
You nearly drop a patient chart.
Carmen doesn’t even look up from her computer.
“I’m serious.”
“He is not.”
“He stares at you like he’s trying to personally fight anyone who stresses you out.”
“That’s just his face.”
“No, babe. That’s yearning.”
You snort.
Then glance up automatically—
And find Jack already looking at you from across the department.
Not casual looking.
Not accidental looking.
Looking.
Warm. Focused. Intent.
Like the entire room narrows down to you.
Your stomach flips violently.
“Oh no,” you whisper.
Carmen grins.
“Oh, there it is.”
It happens slowly after that.
Long conversations during overnight shifts.
Shared coffees on the ambulance ramp at dawn.
Falling into step beside each other naturally.
You learn Jack hates cantaloupe.
He learns you sing under your breath while suturing.
He tells you he became a doctor because trauma surgery was the only thing loud enough to quiet his brain.
You tell him sometimes you’re scared you’ll never stop carrying the patients you lose.
Jack looks at you for a long time after that.
Then says quietly, “Good.”
You blink. “Good?”
“It means you still care.”
Nobody’s ever said it to you like that before.
Like caring is strength instead of weakness.
Like softness isn’t something to apologize for.
You think that might be the moment you start falling in love with him.
The first time Jack kisses you, he looks furious about it.
Not angry at you.
Angry at himself.
It’s after a brutal shift involving a multi-car pileup, two fatalities, and one pediatric trauma that nearly destroyed the entire department emotionally.
You’re sitting alone on the roof outside the hospital at three in the morning trying not to cry.
Jack finds you anyway.
Of course he does.
He sits beside you silently.
Doesn’t push.
Doesn’t ask questions.
Just stays.
Eventually you whisper, “I hate losing them.”
“I know.”
“I keep thinking if I’d moved faster—”
“You did everything right.”
“But it still wasn’t enough.”
Jack turns toward you then, eyes dark and exhausted and unbearably soft.
“You are not God.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
The words hit harder than they should.
Your eyes burn.
Jack watches you carefully like he’s trying to decide something impossible.
Then you say, very quietly, “I don’t know how you do this every day.”
His gaze drops to your mouth.
“You.”
Your breath catches.
“What?”
“You’re how.”
And then he kisses you.
Abrupt.
Desperate.
Like he’s been holding himself back for months and finally snapped.
His hand cups your jaw carefully, reverently, despite the intensity of the kiss.
You kiss him back instantly.
Because you’ve wanted this for so long it physically hurts.
Jack makes a rough sound against your mouth that nearly ruins you.
Then suddenly he pulls back.
Breathing hard.
Looking wrecked.
“This is a bad idea,” he mutters.
You stare at him in disbelief. “You literally kissed me.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re saying it’s a bad idea?”
“Yes.”
“Jack—”
“I don’t do this.”
You fold your arms. “Kiss women?”
His expression flickers despite himself.
“Relationships.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”
“You deserve someone less…” He exhales sharply. “Complicated.”
You look at him for a long moment.
Then step forward and kiss him again.
Jack freezes.
You pull back just enough to whisper, “That sounds like my decision.”
Something in his expression cracks wide open.
After that, he kisses you like he’s starving.
Dating Jack Abbot is strange.
Not bad strange.
Just… intensely Jack strange.
He never remembers anniversaries but memorizes your medication schedule.
He forgets to buy groceries but can identify your footsteps from down the hallway.
He falls asleep on the couch still wearing scrubs because he works too much.
You cover him with blankets and he sleepily reaches for your hand every single time.
The first time you stay at his apartment overnight, you discover three things:
He owns exactly one decorative pillow.
His fridge contains alarming amounts of cold brew.
He talks in his sleep.
You learn this because at four in the morning he mumbles, “Don’t let her skip meals.”
You blink awake beside him.
“…Jack?”
He’s dead asleep.
Five minutes later:
“She’s overworking.”
You stare at him.
Then burst into helpless laughter into his shoulder.
In the morning, when you tell him, he looks genuinely horrified.
“You heard that?”
“Oh, it gets worse, sweetheart.”
Jack groans and covers his face with a pillow.
You decide then and there you’re going to marry him someday.
It’s about a year into your relationship when things go wrong.
Not catastrophically.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
You’ve both been working impossible schedules for weeks.
Too many shifts.
Too little sleep.
Too many trauma cases.
Jack gets quieter when he’s exhausted. More withdrawn. Less communicative.
You get emotional when you’re overwhelmed.
It’s a terrible combination.
“You missed dinner again.”
Jack drops his keys onto the counter. “I got called into a case.”
“You could’ve texted.”
“I forgot.”
“You always forget lately.”
His shoulders tense immediately.
“I’m trying.”
“I know, but I barely see you anymore.”
“I’m literally here right now.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Jack rubs a hand over his face, exhausted. “Can we not do this tonight?”
And there it is.
That tiny sentence.
Small.
Careless.
But it lands wrong.
You go quiet immediately.
Jack notices too late.
“Hey.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“It’s not what I meant.”
“You’re tired.”
“So are you.”
Something in your chest aches.
Because you know he loves you.
But sometimes loving Jack feels like trying to hold onto someone who keeps drifting out to sea.
You sleep facing opposite directions that night.
It’s awful.
The next three days are worse.
Not fighting.
Jack doesn’t really fight.
He retreats.
And you hate it.
By day three, you’re charting in the ER with a headache building behind your eyes when Carmen appears beside you.
“You look homicidal.”
“I’m considering violence.”
“Jack?”
You glare at your computer.
Carmen sighs. “That man loves you so much he looks physically ill when you’re upset.”
“Well maybe he should try speaking words.”
As if summoned by irritation alone, Jack walks into the department.
He looks exhausted.
And the second he sees you, his entire focus sharpens.
You refuse to look at him.
Unfortunately, your body betrays you by noticing everything anyway.
The tired slump of his shoulders.
The coffee stain on his scrub sleeve.
The fact that he hasn’t shaved.
He crosses the ER slowly.
Stops beside you.
“Can we talk?”
You continue typing. “Busy.”
A beat.
Then quietly:
“You’re still angry.”
“You vanished for three days.”
“I was working.”
“You were avoiding me.”
Jack goes silent.
Which is basically confirmation.
Your eyes sting unexpectedly.
God, you hate this.
“I need five minutes,” he says softly.
You finally look at him then.
And immediately regret it.
Because he looks awful.
Not angry.
Not irritated.
Worried.
“You look terrible,” you mutter automatically.
Something warm flickers in his eyes.
“You too.”
You hate that you almost smile.
Carmen physically walks away muttering, “I cannot keep watching this foreplay.”
Jack corners you on the hospital roof during your break.
The city glows beneath the night sky, ambulance sirens echoing faintly below.
Jack stands in front of you looking deeply uncomfortable.
Which, weirdly, scares you more than ER-Jack ever has.
“I’m bad at this,” he says finally.
“At communication?”
“At needing people.”
Your anger softens immediately.
Jack looks away toward the city.
“My father used to disappear for days at a time when things got difficult. My mother called it giving people space.” His jaw tightens. “I think maybe I learned the wrong lesson.”
Your chest aches.
“Jack…”
“When I feel like I’m failing someone, I pull away first.”
“You’re not failing me.”
“But I could.” His voice roughens. “And that scares the hell out of me.”
The honesty in that sentence nearly breaks you.
You step closer slowly.
“You know what scares me?”
His eyes lift to yours.
“Losing you because you think you have to handle everything alone.”
Jack goes very still.
Then quietly says, “I don’t know how to do this correctly.”
“You don’t have to do it perfectly.”
A long silence.
Then finally, softly:
“I missed you.”
You smile despite yourself. “Yeah?”
His hand slides around your waist carefully.
“Felt like somebody removed an organ.”
You laugh helplessly.
Jack’s forehead drops against yours in relief.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
And because you know how hard that apology was for him to say, you kiss him before he can retreat again.
Two years after your first kiss, everybody at the hospital assumes you’re already married.
Mostly because Jack behaves like a husband accidentally.
He keeps spare hair ties in his locker for you.
Knows your coffee order better than his own.
Once threatened a resident for making you cry.
(Technically he said, “Fix your attitude or transfer departments,” but the intent was there.)
You move into his apartment eventually.
Then slowly it becomes your apartment too.
Your books on his shelves.
Your skin care products invading his bathroom.
Your socks everywhere.
Jack pretends to hate it.
He absolutely does not.
One night, after a sixteen-hour shift, you find him asleep on the couch waiting for you.
Still sitting upright.
TV on mute.
Dinner cold on the table.
Your heart hurts looking at him.
You kneel beside him carefully and brush curls off his forehead.
Jack wakes instantly because apparently doctors never fully sleep.
“You’re home.”
“I’m home.”
His hand reaches for your face automatically.
Thumb brushing beneath your eye gently.
“You okay?”
“You fell asleep waiting for me.”
A shrug. “Wanted to eat together.”
God.
That’s the thing about Jack.
He loves quietly.
Steadily.
In all the little ways that matter most.
The proposal happens after the worst shift of your life.
Mass casualty incident.
Bus accident.
Twelve straight hours of chaos and blood and screaming.
By the end of it, you’re exhausted down to your bones.
You’re sitting on the floor in an empty supply closet because it’s the only quiet place left in the hospital.
Your head is tipped back against the wall.
Eyes closed.
You don’t hear Jack come in until he crouches in front of you.
“You disappeared.”
“I’m hiding.”
“Fair.”
His hand slides into yours immediately.
Warm. Familiar.
Safe.
For a minute neither of you speaks.
Then Jack suddenly says, “I’m going to need you to marry me.”
Your eyes snap open.
“…What?”
Jack looks oddly calm for a man who just dropped a grenade into the conversation.
“You heard me.”
“You cannot possibly think that was a normal way to propose.”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“You definitely didn’t.”
“I had a speech.”
You stare at him. “You had a speech?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I forgot it.”
Despite everything — the exhaustion, the grief of the shift, the emotional whiplash — you start laughing.
Jack watches you with so much fondness it almost hurts.
“You’re laughing.”
“You proposed in a supply closet.”
“It was the nearest available room.”
“Oh my God.”
Jack’s mouth twitches.
Then he reaches into his scrub pocket and pulls out a ring box that’s slightly crushed.
You gasp.
“You had that on you during a trauma?!”
“I’ve had it on me for three weeks.”
“Jack!”
“I was waiting for the right moment.”
“And this was the right moment?”
“No,” he admits. “But you looked exhausted and sad and I wanted…” He exhales shakily. “I wanted you to know there’s going to be a future after days like this.”
Your eyes immediately fill with tears.
Jack notices and instantly looks alarmed.
“Don’t cry.”
“You literally proposed to me!”
“You’re making this seem emotional.”
You laugh through your tears.
He opens the ring box finally.
Simple. Elegant. Perfect.
Entirely him.
Your voice shakes. “You really want to marry me?”
Jack looks at you like the question itself is absurd.
“There has literally never been another option.”
That does it.
You start crying harder.
Jack mutters, “Christ,” and wipes your tears with both hands.
“You’re supposed to say yes or no,” he says softly.
“Yes.”
Immediate answer.
No hesitation whatsoever.
“Yes, Jack.”
The relief that crosses his face is so raw it steals your breath.
Then he kisses you.
Slowly this time.
Tenderly.
Like he’s sealing something sacred between you.
When he slides the ring onto your finger, his hands are shaking slightly.
You notice.
So does he.
“You’re nervous,” you whisper.
“You’re terrifying.”
You grin.
“Good.”
Jack huffs out a laugh against your mouth before kissing you again.
You get married six months later on a cloudy autumn afternoon.
Small ceremony.
Close friends.
Hospital staff taking over half the guest list because apparently trauma bonding is real.
Carmen cries through the entire ceremony.
Jack pretends not to notice while visibly emotional himself.
You catch him staring at you during the vows like he still can’t believe this is real.
Like he’s waiting for someone to wake him up.
When it’s his turn to speak, his voice goes rough immediately.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says simply.
Dead silence.
Half the audience crying instantly.
Jack keeps looking only at you.
“I spent most of my life believing love was something temporary. Conditional.” His thumb brushes over your knuckles carefully. “Then you walked into the ER and ruined my entire personality.”
Laughter breaks through the tears.
You’re crying too hard to care.
Jack smiles softly.
First at you.
Always at you.
“You make every terrible day survivable,” he says quietly. “And every good day better.” His eyes shine. “I would choose you in every lifetime I get.”
By the time you kiss him, half the room is openly sobbing.
Including, horrifyingly, several surgeons.
Jack never lets go of your hand afterward.
Not during the reception.
Not during the dancing.
Not during the drive home.
And years later, after impossible shifts and ordinary mornings and grief and joy and long nights tangled together in bed, he still reaches for you first thing every morning like he’s checking you’re real.
Like loving you remains the easiest decision he’s ever made.
no revenge because I KNOW that one day we’ll get confirmation from the d*ffers or the other writers that byler was planned but they chickened out last minute.
