GIGI

NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST she/her | 24 | brazil 100% a writer, a procrastinator & 97% an archaeologist i write things, usually smut & jack abbot stuff. requests are always welcome, but i make no promises MAIN ACCOUNT @gigiwritess-main

[gigiwritess]

NAVIGATION ︵﹆ . ⁺ . ✦ ﹒₊˚ ★﹒₊‧ ★・⸝⸝﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒₊˚・・ Hi, I'm GIOVANA, and welcome to my blog! requests are always open. check the links below. main blog is @gigiwritess-main

MASTERLIST | AO3 | SPOTIFY

ABOUT ME

︵﹆ . ⁺ . I'm 24, Brazilian, she/her and a writer since i was 11. I've always written original novels, but fanfiction has always had my heart. I LIVE for morally gray men who are usually way too old for me but I don't care (unfortunately my type is old men; I've already accepted that reality).

︵﹆ . ⁺ . Bisexual, cancer sun, cancer moon, leo rising. Baker-to-be & new into the gaming world. I'm an English-as-a-second-language teacher & currently studying Archaeology. English is my 2nd language, so there'll be some mistakes around. I struggle with depression, anxiety & undiagnosed back problems, so sorry-not-sorry that I take too long to write anything.

︵﹆ . ⁺ . Some of my favorite shows include: Medici, Black Sails, Station 19, Criminal Minds & currently loving The Pitt.

︵﹆ . ⁺ . Addicted to Formula 1; Lewis Hamilton & Charles Leclerc are my religion.

︵﹆ . ⁺ . i'd love to chat if you're interested.

ABOUT MY BLOG

﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒ I write mostly long stuff, +1k

﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒90% of what I write is smut and the rest is fluff and angst (rare, though)

﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒I write f!reader insert and sometimes original female characters (depends on the fic and my mood)

﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒ My requests are always open; I'm not used to writing short stuff so I'd like to try

﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒ I write for:

JACK ABBOT RICK FLAG BENNY MILLER WILL MILLER MICHAEL CORLEONE JOEL MILLER RUSTIN COHLE BUCKY BARNES DEAN WINCHESTER SAM WINCHESTER

gigiwritess || all work is my own. please don't copy, rewrite or translate any of my work on any platforms

[nondelphic]

Defending my stance on AI (I'm not pro AI-slop!)

Because this argument has been going on in the comments on one of my recent posts, I want to make an actual post explaining my take on AI, because apparently nuance has died, been buried, dug back up, and then fed into a machine-learning model trained on the corpse of media literacy.

I also want to preface: this post is not me saying AI should be above criticism. It is not me defending the current state of AI, the companies behind it, the environmental impact, the stolen datasets, or the way it is being used to exploit and replace creatives. Please read my entire post if you wish to comment on it.

So, I am writing this because some of the comments and private messages I have received have gone far beyond disagreement. Some of them have been genuinely vile. Some of them have hurt me. Some of them have scared me. And I know this is the internet and I know people love to act like being online turns everyone into an abstract debate topic, but I need you to remember that there is a real person behind this screen.

You are allowed to disagree with me. You are allowed to criticize me. You are allowed to unfollow me. But I am not a corporation. I am not an AI company, or a tech billionaire trying to replace artists from my evil underground bunker. I am a person trying to explain a complicated opinion as honestly as I can.

So please read this as what it is: me clarifying my position because I think nuance matters, and because I do not think anyone deserves to be dehumanized for trying to talk about that nuance.

Let me be very clear: I hate unethical AI use!!!!

I hate:

AI art that rips from artists

people using AI to write books, posts, essays, scripts, poems, or whatever else and then passing it off as their own work.

AI slop

companies using AI as an excuse to replace, underpay, or exploit actual human beings. 

that creative labour is being treated like an inconvenience to automate away instead of a deeply human thing worth protecting.

I genuinely wish I could be fully anti-AI. Because most people who use AI do use it unethically, or lazily, or in ways that make me want to walk directly into the sea. The other day, I hung out with a close friend of mine who casually bragged about making AI music, and I genuinely saw red, like: “are you hearing yourself right now?” way. I do not support that. 

And HERE is where people seem to lose me/misinterpret my opinion, because they hear me say, “I’m not completely anti-AI,” and immediately translate that into, “I love AI-generated slop and want artists to be unemployed” oooor “so you hate Earth.” Which is not what I’m saying.

I do not think AI as a technology is inherently evil. I think the current systems around it are often unethical. I think the companies behind it are often greedy, exploitative, and wildly careless. I think the way people use it can be insulting, damaging, and embarrassing. But I also think there is a difference between “this technology is being used in horrifying ways” and “every single possible use of this technology is morally identical.” 

I’ve met with so many cool people; engineers, scholars, and media professionals doing genuinely interesting things with AI. People using it to solve complex problems, streamline tedious processes, assist with research, improve accessibility and support human work rather than replace it. 

I think this distinction matters, because “make this creative thing for me so I don’t have to learn, think, practice, or pay someone” is not the same as “help me organize the thing I am already making.” Those are different sentences. Spiritually, ethically, creatively, they are not standing in the same room. 

I use AI for many reasons, and mainly because it has been genuinely life-changing for my ADHD. I don’t mean to use that as an excuse like “oh I’m so neurodivergent and helpless owo!”

My brain is 24/7 like a room where someone has opened every drawer, dumped the contents onto the floor, turned off the lights, and then asked me to find one specific receipt from 2017. I know the thoughts are there, I know the ideas are there, I know the structure is somewhere underneath the pile. I can sense them, but sometimes I cannot reach them on my own. AI helps me sort through that mess.

It helps me organize my thoughts when my brain is in chaos. It helps me ask questions I’m embarrassed to ask. It helps me understand terms I’m struggling with. It helps me research tags or concepts when I don’t know where to start. It helps me format my own plot outlines so they’re actually legible for MYSELF AKA THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO KNOW THE MATERIAL. It helps me get constructive criticism on my own private work so I can improve it.

That is not the same as asking it to create the work for me. I still have to write the story. I still have to make the decisions. I still have to develop the characters, the themes, the prose, the emotional core. I still have to sit there and do the work. AI does not make me a writer. Writing makes me a writer. Thinking makes me a writer. Caring about the work makes me a writer. At the same time, I’m not going to pretend that having a tool that helps me untangle my brain enough to actually access those things hasn’t helped me.

I think that, maybe, that’s the part people don’t want to engage with because it complicates the argument. I understand that even ‘ethical’ personal use is still tangled up in unethical systems. My use doesn’t exist in a vacuum. However, I believe there is a meaningful difference between harm reduction and active creative replacement.

It is much easier to say “AI bad” and stop there, and I understand why. Because so much of AI is bad. So much of it is being used in ways that are disgusting and shoved into places it does not belong. 

But refusing to acknowledge nuance doesn’t make the criticism stronger. Because then you end up treating a disabled person using AI to organize their own thoughts the same as a company firing illustrators so they can generate six-fingered promotional art for free.

These things are not morally equivalent just because they involve the same broad technology. A knife can be used to cook dinner or hurt someone. That does not mean every person holding a knife is committing the same act. And before anyone starts, no, this is not me saying “AI is just a neutral tool and therefore no criticism is valid.” Technology is never completely separate from the systems that create it. Tools have politics. Tools have consequences. Tools are shaped by money, power, access, and exploitation.

But how something is used still matters. Context matters, intent matters, impact matters. And yes, the environmental impact is a valid criticism. So are stolen datasets. So is worker replacement. So is corporate greed. So is the way people are using AI to flood the internet with meaningless content until everything starts to feel like it was written by a vacuum cleaner pretending to have a soul.

The water usage criticism is fair. The energy criticism is fair. The environmental cost of AI is not something I want to dismiss, minimize, or hand-wave away because it makes my argument more convenient. I do not want to encourage excessive AI use. I do not want people using it for every thought, every sentence, every minor inconvenience, every half-second of boredom. I do not think “AI helped me” should automatically become “therefore all AI use is fine.”

But I also need people to understand that I am not asking you to worship at the altar of ChatGPT. I am asking you not to villainize me as a person when you do not know me, my life, my brain, my intentions, or the way I actually use it. Have I used AI in ways I technically could have done another way? Yes. I’m sure I have. Someone might read that I used AI to ask for common Tumblr tags on writeblr and think, “Just go on Tumblr and compile them yourself.”

And maybe you’re right, maybe I could have done that. Or maybe spending hours scrolling, opening posts, checking tags, getting distracted, spiraling, and using my laptop and phone the entire time would have been less efficient and possibly not even meaningfully better from an environmental standpoint than one AI request. Or maybe the environmental calculation is not as simple as people want it to be. 

I’m not claiming one AI request is automatically better. I’m saying most of us are not doing a full moral audit of every digital action we take, and pretending this one thing is uniquely simple feels dishonest.

The thing is, I am allowed to criticize myself too for not being a perfectly moral person. I am allowed to say, “Maybe I could be more mindful.” I am allowed to say, “Maybe I should use it less.” I am allowed to say, “Maybe there are times when I reach for it because it is easier, not because it is necessary.”

But that still does not make me the same as someone generating AI music and bragging about it. It does not make me the same as someone stealing an artist’s style. It does not make me the same as a company replacing a writer. It does not make me the same as someone flooding the internet with hollow, automated garbage and calling it creativity.

We should talk about all of that. We should be angry about all of that. I am angry about all of that. But acting like every single use of AI is morally identical is not activism. It is not media literacy. It is not critical thinking. It is just flattening a complicated issue into something easier to yell about.

And I understand why people are protective. I am protective too. I care about artists. I care about writers. I care about musicians. I care about the fact that human creativity is being devalued in real time. I care that people are looking at HUMAN art, made with actual lived experience, and going, “But can I get this faster and cheaper?” That makes me furious.

Criticize AI slop. Please. Criticize unethical use. Loudly. Criticize the companies. Relentlessly. Criticize the people using it to steal, replace, plagiarize, and devalue human work. I am with you. 

Curate your space. Protect your peace. Follow people whose values and boundaries align with yours. If my position on this makes you uncomfortable, or if you do not want to engage with this kind of nuance, you are allowed to leave. I would rather someone unfollow me than stay here building a version of me in their head that they hate.

I am not going to flatten my own lived experience just to make my opinion easier to categorize, but let me clarify:

I am not pro-AI slop.

I am not pro-stolen art.

I am not pro-replacing creatives.

I am not pro-corporate exploitation.

I am not pro-using AI for everything just because you can.

I also feel like I have a responsibility here because I know I have a large following on this blog. I don’t want to be careless with the way I talk about this, and I don’t want anyone to walk away from my post thinking I am encouraging people to use AI thoughtlessly, excessively, or as a replacement for human creativity. That is not the message I want to spread. If anything, I want to be more careful because people do listen to what I say here, and I think that means I have to be honest about the nuance without pretending the harm does not exist.

I’m not dumb, I know intent does not erase impact. That is why I think AI use should be limited, transparent where relevant, and criticized when it crosses ethical lines. I’m not saying ‘my intentions are good, so no one can criticize me.’ I’m saying criticism should still be specific and proportional.

I’ve turned my asks off for the moment because I don’t have the mental fortitude to withstand harassment and verbal abuse. I understand that AI is an emotional topic, and I understand why people are angry. But anger at a system does not give you permission to dehumanize individual people. Criticise my argument if you want. Disagree with me. Unfollow me. But calling me names or sending vile, threatening messages is not activism. 

Sorry for the long, rambling, sometimes repetitive post, but I’ve been thinking about this for many days in a row now, and felt I had to speak on it.

[shawnyhatsvideos]

on set footage/behind the scenes of Shawn Hatosy as Dr. Jack Abbot entrance in season 2 episode 7 of The Pitt

credits and thank you to Johanna Coelho on her instagram, which is the director of photography on The Pitt, for this footage and for letting us see how this show and its magic comes to life.

[dearwalker]

i’ve been thinking about jack abbot’s stubble all day like msjdjjsndndjeksk i’m not going insane

Ahshsh that salt stubble >>> tickling places only he can access to 🫦💗

[afterdarkbydel]

Leave It On

Jack Abbot x Reader

Summary: You were only unloading Jack’s dishwasher. That was all. You were in his kitchen, barefoot and comfortable in one of his old shirts, waiting for him to come home from tactical training. Domestic. Normal. Safe. And then Jack walked in wearing tactical gear. The vest. The boots. The radio. The duty belt. The quiet, knowing look on his face when he realized you could not stop staring. You tried to be normal about it. Jack noticed. Of course he did.

Warnings: 18+ only, smut, established relationship, tactical gear/uniform kink, dom/sub dynamics, praise kink, light restraint, orgasm denial, oral sex, rough sex, kitchen counter sex, consent-heavy dominance, aftercare, Jack being smug and quietly devastating.

Author's Note: You’re welcome, readers. Tactical gear Jack has been in my head for far too long, and today I am making that everyone’s problem. This is for everyone who looked at that vest and immediately understood the vision. the boots, the radio, the command voice, the smugness, the “leave it on” of it all.

We did this together, and honestly? I think we should all be ashamed.

But we won’t be.

Xoxo, Del

MDNI 18+

You knew Jack’s kitchen well enough to know he had run the dishwasher. That was the first problem. The second problem was that you also knew Jack well enough to know he had absolutely no intention of unloading it before he left for tactical training.

You found the clean dishes by accident.

You had been at his townhouse for almost an hour, tucked into the corner of his couch in one of his old T-shirts and the soft lounge shorts you kept in the bottom drawer of his dresser. Jack pretended not to notice they had taken up permanent residence there. You pretended to believe him.

The TV murmured low in the living room. Your phone was facedown beside you. Late afternoon light stretched warm across the hardwood, catching on the coffee table, the arm of the couch, the spot near the entry where Jack always kicked off his boots, even though he complained when you did the same thing.

He had told you to let yourself in.

He always did now.

That was dangerous information if you let yourself think about it too long, so mostly, you didn’t.

You used your key. You kicked off your shoes. You curled up in his house like it had started making room for you without either of you saying it out loud.

Then you wandered into the kitchen for water, saw the clean light glowing on the dishwasher, and sighed as if this were somehow your responsibility.

“Of course,” you muttered.

The dishwasher door opened with a soft hiss. Warm air rolled up, damp and clean, smelling faintly like detergent and steam. The heat brushed your bare legs. Jack had loaded the bowls in the wrong direction again, because apparently, a man could be trusted with a trauma bay, tactical medical support, and other people’s lives, but not proper dishwasher geometry.

You started unloading it anyway.

Not because you were trying to be domestic. Not because the green mug already in his cabinet made something soft move behind your ribs. Definitely not because this had started to feel like your kitchen too.

You were simply a helpful person.

A generous person.

A person who had taken her bra off the second she got comfortable because Jack was not home yet, and you had planned to do nothing more strenuous than drink water, watch terrible television, and bully him into ordering Thai food when he got back.

You put the plates away first. Then the bowls. Then the mugs. The green one went on the second shelf, where Jack always reached for it in the morning, even though he claimed he did not have a favorite.

You were stretching to slide a mug into place when the front door opened.

You did not look over right away. “You ran the dishwasher and abandoned it,” you called, rising onto your toes. “I’m choosing to believe that was a cry for help.”

Jack did not answer. That was your first clue. Your fingers paused on the cabinet handle. The house changed when Jack entered it. You never knew how to explain that without sounding ridiculous. It was not sound, exactly. Not silence. Not even presence.

It was pressure. A subtle rearranging of the air.

You lowered yourself back onto your heels and turned.

Jack stood just inside the kitchen entry.

And your entire brain stopped. Not paused. Stopped. You had seen him in scrubs. You had seen him in old T-shirts and jeans, and the gray sweatpants he pretended were not specifically engineered to ruin your life. You had seen him half-asleep at this very counter, hair flattened on one side, making coffee with the grim focus of a man performing surgery on a French press. You had even seen him at work when he got sharp and calm, voice low, hands steady, the whole room rearranging itself around him because Jack Abbot had decided panic was not useful.

But this—

This was different.

Camouflage tactical pants tucked into boots. A tan quarter-zip stretched across his chest and shoulders, darkened slightly at the collar from sweat. Camouflage sleeves pushed up enough to make his forearms a personal attack. Protective glasses shoved into his hair. A radio clipped at his shoulder. A duty belt low on his hips, heavy with equipment you did not know the names for, and suddenly wanted explained to you in unnecessary detail.

And the vest.

God help you, the vest.

It was not sleek. It was not pretty. It was bulky and practical and worn in, half-unfastened, like he had started taking it off and gotten distracted. A black patch across the front read POLICE in block letters.

It should not have done anything to you.

It did several things.

Several immediate, humiliating things.

Jack’s gaze moved from your face to the mug still in your hand.

His mouth twitched. Barely. “You okay?”

You opened your mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

“Yeah.” Your voice caught. “I—yeah.”

Jack’s eyebrows lifted. Not much. Enough.

Heat rushed up your neck.

You turned back to the cabinet too quickly and shoved the mug onto the shelf. The wrong shelf. The green mug sat neatly beside his stack of bowls. The kitchen went horribly quiet.

Jack looked at the mug. Then at you. “That’s the bowl cabinet.”

Your fingers were still on the cabinet door. “I know.”

“You put a mug in it.”

“It’s visiting.”

Jack’s mouth curved. Small. Slow. Awful.

You shut the cabinet like that would erase the evidence, and bent for a plate from the dishwasher. A plate was normal. A plate was safe. A plate had never come home from tactical training looking like it could ruin your life with one raised eyebrow and a vest buckle.

 Jack stepped farther into the kitchen. His boots sounded heavy on the tile.

You stared very hard at the plate. “Training was good?”

Jack hummed. “Mm-hm.”

“Good.” You croaked. 

“Long.”

“Right.” You nodded too quickly. “Yeah. Long is… training often is that.”

Jack went quiet. That was worse than if he had laughed. 

You lifted the plate toward the cabinet. Wrong cabinet. Again. You froze with your arm half-raised. 

Jack did not say anything. He did not have to.

You could feel him looking at the cabinet. Then at the plate. Then at you.

“Don’t,” you said.

“I didn’t.” Jack replied. 

You couldn’t look at him. “You were about to.” 

“No.”

Somehow, that was worse.

You lowered the plate slowly and opened the correct cabinet with all the dignity available to a person actively losing a fight with kitchen storage.

Jack leaned one shoulder against the doorway. Still in the gear. Still quiet. Still watching.

“You’re flustered.”

You laughed. It came out too high. “I am unloading the dishwasher.”

“Badly,” Jack murmured. 

You exhaled, “You’re welcome.”

His eyes dropped. Not crudely. Not obviously. Just enough. Bare legs. Soft lounge shorts. His T-shirt. Your bare feet on his kitchen tile. You, too comfortable in his house to have expected him like this.

When his gaze returned to your face, something had shifted. Still amused. Still warm.

But darker now. More certain. “Oh.”

Your stomach dropped. “No.”

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You said ‘oh.’”

“I did.” 

You pressed your lips together, “Don’t.”

He pushed off the doorway and took one slow step closer. You looked at the vest.

Mistake.

Jack noticed. His hand rested briefly against the front of it, fingers brushing one of the buckles like he had all the time in the world and knew exactly where your eyes were.

You looked away so fast that your shin almost caught the open dishwasher door.

Jack’s mouth curved. “Careful.”

You gripped the counter. “I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

“Yep.” Too fast.

He came closer. Not too close. Close enough. The kitchen smelled like detergent, steam, and him now. Work and heat and Jack.

You picked up another mug. Then forgot why you were holding it.

His gaze flicked to it. Then back to you. “Need help?”

“No.”

“You sure?” He asked. 

“Yes.” You answered quickly. 

Jack glanced at the mug in your hand, “You’ve been holding that for a while.”

You looked down. You were, in fact, still holding the mug. 

“Oh my God,” you muttered.

Jack’s smile deepened. Small. Unbearably pleased.

You shoved the mug into the correct cabinet this time and immediately wished you had not looked proud of yourself for completing a task toddlers could master.

Jack caught that too. “Good job.”

Your face went instantly hot. The words were mild. Too mild.

That was the problem.

He had said them like he was talking about the mug, but his voice had gone just low enough to make your pulse stumble.

You turned to him. “Don’t do that.”

His expression stayed innocent. Too innocent. “Do what?”

You glared, “You know.”

“I don’t.” Jack shrugged a shoulder. 

“You absolutely do.”

A beat passed.

His eyes dropped to the way your hand curled around the counter edge.

When he looked back up, his voice was quieter. “You like the gear.”

Your mouth went dry. “I—what?”

Jack’s eyes held yours. “You heard me.”

You shook your head, “I do not.”

He raised a brow, “No?”

“No.” Your eyes betrayed you, straight to the vest.

Jack saw. The smugness sharpened.

You shut your eyes. “Damn it.”

A low sound left him. Almost a laugh. Not quite. “That’s what I thought.”

You opened your eyes.

He was close now. Close enough that you could see the dust on his boots, the tired edge around his eyes, the way the tan quarter-zip pulled across his shoulders beneath the vest.

You swallowed.

Jack watched your throat move. Said nothing.

Which was, frankly, rude.

“You’re enjoying this,” you said.

“A little.” Too honest. Too calm.

Your stomach flipped. “You’re supposed to deny it.”

“No.” The single word landed low.

Your hand slipped on the counter.

Jack’s gaze dropped to it. Then back to your face. His smile softened into something darker.

More focused. “Oh, baby.”

Your entire body went warm. “Don’t call me that right now.”

His head tilted. “Why?”

“Because I’m already—” You stopped.

Jack waited. His eyes stayed on your face, patient and pleased and quiet enough to make the silence feel like a touch.

You cleared your throat. “Because I’m unloading the dishwasher.”

He looked at the open dishwasher. Then, at the single spoon still sitting in the rack. Then back at you. “Almost done.”

You hated him.

You wanted him so badly your knees felt unreliable.

Jack stepped closer. Your back met the counter. He did not touch you.

Not yet.

His gaze moved over your face, taking in the blush, the uneven breathing, the way you kept trying not to look at the vest and failing every time.

Then his hand lifted. Slow enough that you could have moved away. You didn’t. His fingers brushed the loose collar of your T-shirt where it rested against your shoulder.

Barely. Not enough. Too much.

His voice dropped, “You want me to take it off?”

Your eyes jumped to his. “The shirt?” 

His mouth curved. “The vest.”

Oh. Right. The vest.

You looked at it again, because apparently, you had learned nothing.

Jack watched you look. Watched your breath catch. Watched your fingers tighten against the counter.

When you dragged your eyes back to his, he looked unbearably smug. Your voice came out smaller than planned. “Maybe don’t.”

Jack went very still. The kitchen went quiet around you.

His thumb brushed once against your shoulder. “Maybe don’t.”

You nodded.  

He waited. Right. Words.

“Yes,” you said softly. “Maybe don’t.”

Jack smiled then. Slow. Private. Absolutely lethal.

“Hands on the counter.”

Your breath left you. “What?”

Jack’s eyes held yours. “You heard me.”

The words were quiet. That was the problem. Jack did not raise his voice. He did not have to. The command settled into the kitchen with the same calm certainty he carried into rooms where people were used to listening when he spoke.

Your hand tightened around the edge of the counter.

Jack saw. His gaze dropped to your fingers, then came back to your face.

“You good?”

You nodded, then caught yourself because his eyebrow moved. Barely. Still enough.

“I’m good.”

Jack believed you. That was worse. Better. Both.

His mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile, not quite mercy.

“Then, hands on the counter.”

The kitchen seemed to shrink around the sentence.

The open dishwasher breathed out the last of its heat beside you. The single spoon still sat in the rack, ridiculous and bright beneath the kitchen light. Somewhere in the living room, the television murmured to itself, low enough to be forgotten but not low enough to let the house feel empty.

You turned because he told you to. That was the first thing. The second was that Jack noticed the exact moment you realized you liked it. 

Your palms met the counter. Cool stone. Smooth beneath your hands. You spread your fingers over it and tried not to think about how exposed the gesture made you feel. Tried not to think about the soft lounge shorts riding high on your thighs, the oversized T-shirt slipping loose at your shoulder, the fact that your back was to him now, and you could no longer use his face to prepare yourself for what he might do next.

Behind you, Jack did not move.

The silence was deliberate.

You felt it travel down the line of your spine.

Your skin prickled. “Jack.”

His boots sounded once on the tile. Then again. Slow. Measured. Not stalking. Not rushing.

Just coming closer because he had decided to, and because you had put your hands where he told you to put them.

He stopped behind you, close enough that the heat of him reached you before his hands did.

The vest touched you first.

A brush of hard tactical fabric between your shoulder blades. Warm from his body underneath, rough at the edges, practical in a way that made it feel more obscene than anything designed to be sexy ever could.

Your fingers curled against the counter.

Jack’s mouth came near your ear. “I didn’t tell you to move.”

You had not moved. Not really. But your hands had lifted by a fraction, your fingers starting to curl like they wanted to reach back for him before you remembered yourself.

You flattened them again. The counter was cold. Your skin was not.

Jack’s hand settled at your waist. Warm. Steady. A single touch, and your whole body went too aware of itself. The old cotton of his shirt against your skin. The loose waistband of your shorts. The bare line of your shoulder where the collar had slipped. The cool air in the kitchen. The hard vest behind you.

His thumb moved once against your side. “Good.”

One word. No flourish. No smirk you could see.

Still, your breath went uneven.

Jack heard it.

His hand stayed where it was, not moving higher, not moving lower, like he had all the time in the world and no interest in giving you anywhere to hide. “You like that.”

Your eyes shut. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His mouth brushed the side of your neck. Barely there. “Liar.”

It should not have sounded affectionate. It did. A shiver moved through you before you could stop it. Jack’s palm flexed at your waist, grounding you without letting you pretend he had missed it.

The kitchen smelled like detergent, fading steam, and him.

Cold air still clung to his clothes from outside. Beneath that was sweat, dust, soap, and the faint metallic edge of gear and training equipment. It was not cologne. It was not polished. It was Jack after a long day doing something physical and dangerous enough that your body had apparently decided common sense was optional.

His other hand came to your opposite hip. Now he had you between him and the counter. Not trapped. Held.

There was a difference. Jack knew it. Worse, he knew you knew it too.

His mouth touched your shoulder, a slow kiss just below the place where your shirt had slipped. The touch was soft enough to make your knees go weak. His hands tightened at your hips before you could sway.

Jack’s thumbs moved in slow arcs beneath the hem of your shirt, finding skin. Your breath caught. The refrigerator hummed. The dishwasher clicked softly as it cooled. Jack’s vest shifted against your back when he leaned closer, and the sound of it—fabric, buckles, the faint scrape of equipment—went straight through you.

His fingers skimmed your stomach. Not high enough. Not low enough. Just enough to make you feel the shape of his restraint. 

You started to turn your head toward him.

 His hand left your waist and came to your jaw, two fingers beneath your chin, guiding your face forward again. “No.”

Your pulse jumped. The word was quiet. Simple. Devastating.

You faced forward again.

Jack’s thumb brushed once along your jaw before his hand dropped back to your side. “Stay there.”

You pressed your palms more firmly to the counter. “That’s bossy.”

His mouth hovered near your ear. “You like bossy.”

Your face burned. “I did not say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

A frustrated sound escaped you before you could swallow it down.

Jack stilled. Then, softly, “There.”

Your stomach flipped. “What?”

“That sound.” His lips touched the back of your shoulder. 

The hand beneath your shirt slid slowly up your stomach, then stopped at your ribs. Waiting. Teasing. Holding back exactly enough to make you feel the absence of everything he was not doing.

You went silent.

Jack’s mouth moved along your neck. Slow. Patient. Awful. Every touch felt measured. Not because he was hesitant, but because he had figured out that patience ruined you and was immediately putting that information to use.

His palm flattened over your stomach and drew you back against him. The vest pressed hard into your back. The duty belt brushed the back of your thigh. You felt him there, solid and warm and controlled, and your body gave one helpless little shift backward before your mind could stop it.

Jack’s grip tightened. Not a warning. A response. His breath changed against your neck. For the first time since he had walked through the door, the smug control slipped just enough for you to feel the man underneath it.

You caught it.

Your mouth curved despite yourself. “There he is.”

Jack went still. The air changed. His hand stayed flat over your stomach, but his thumb stopped moving. 

You had gotten him. Only a little. Only for a second. But enough.

His mouth came close to your ear. “Careful.”

Your smile widened, shaky but real. “With what?”

His hand slid to your hip and pulled you back into him again, slower this time.

Your smile disappeared. Every thought went with it.

“Thinking you’re in charge because I let you have one.”

You swallowed hard. “That was one?”

His mouth brushed your neck. “One.”

The word should not have undone you. It did. You were suddenly aware of your hands again, of how badly you wanted to take them off the counter. To reach back. To touch the vest. The straps. His belt. His hands. Anything. You wanted to turn around and get your mouth on his, wanted to make him stop sounding so calm when you could feel he was not.

Your fingers flexed.

Jack saw. “Hands.”

You flattened them. 

He kissed your shoulder. A reward. You hated how fast it worked. You loved how fast it worked.

Jack’s hand slipped beneath your shirt again, slower now, knuckles brushing bare skin on the way up. His touch stayed to the edges: waist, ribs, stomach, the underside of wanting without giving it a name. He was not rushing toward the places your body begged for. He was making you feel every inch before then.

You let your head tip to the side. More room. You did not say it.

Jack did not need you to. His mouth found the space you gave him. His lips were warm against your neck, then his teeth grazed just enough to make your breath catch, and your hands press flat again against the stone.

“That’s it,” he murmured.

The praise sank into you slowly like heat. You had been embarrassed before. Flustered. Mouthy because it was easier to be difficult than honest. But somewhere between the counter under your palms and his vest at your back, the fight in you had softened.

Not gone. Changed.

You were still aware of how ridiculous this should have been. The open dishwasher. The last spoon. The clean mug sitting in the bowl cabinet. His kitchen lit golden in the late afternoon while Jack stood behind you in tactical gear and touched you like he had all night and no intention of wasting a second.

But the embarrassment had started to dissolve into something heavier.

Relief, maybe. Relief at not having to hide how much you wanted him. Relief at being told exactly what to do by someone who would stop the moment you asked.

Relief at Jack’s quiet certainty, at the way he gave commands like promises and praise like reward. His hands slid down to the hem of your shirt. 

You tensed, not from fear. Anticipation moved through you so sharply that your breath caught in your throat.

Jack felt it. His mouth touched the back of your shoulder. “Still good?”

“Yes.”

He trusted it.

His thumbs hooked beneath the fabric. “Arms up.”

The command was simple. That made it worse. You had been told to keep your hands on the counter. Now he was telling you to move them. The shift itself felt intimate, as if he were changing the rules and trusting you to follow.

You lifted your hands slowly.

The counter disappeared from beneath your palms, leaving you briefly unanchored. Your arms rose above your head. The position pulled the shirt higher, exposing the line of your stomach, leaving you open to him in a way that made your face burn before he had even taken anything off.

Jack watched. You could feel him watching. His hands rested at your waist for one long second, as if he was taking in the fact that you were standing there because he had told you to.

The silence made your pulse beat harder.

Then he began to lift your shirt. Slowly. The cotton slid up your stomach. Over your ribs. Higher. He did not rush. Of course, he did not rush. Jack had learned that patience ruined you and had apparently decided to make it your problem.

You made a small, impatient sound before you could stop yourself.

The shirt stopped. You froze.

Jack’s mouth came near your ear. “Something you need?”

Your eyes closed. Terrible man. “No.”

His fingers held the shirt exactly where it was. Not up. Not down.

A strip of kitchen air cooled your skin. 

“No?”

Your pride made one final, useless attempt at survival. It failed immediately.

“Please.”

Jack’s breath changed. Only slightly. Enough.

His mouth touched your shoulder. “Please, what?”

The word sat on your tongue, embarrassing and simple, and exactly what he wanted.

“Take it off.”

A pause.

Then his lips curved against your skin. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You’re still listening.” He lifted the shirt the rest of the way. 

The fabric dragged over your chest, your shoulders, your raised arms. For a second, it covered your face, warm cotton and the faint smell of him, and then it was gone, dropped somewhere behind you onto the kitchen floor.

The air touched your bare skin.

Jack went still. Completely. Your arms were still raised. Your breathing had gone uneven. The vest pressed warm and hard against your back. And Jack, who had been so smug, so pleased, so devastatingly in control, did not say anything. For one second. Two. 

The silence reached your pulse before his voice did. “You weren’t wearing anything under this.”

Your face went hot. “I was comfortable.”

His hand came back to your waist. Slow. Firm. “In my kitchen.”

“You weren’t home.”

His fingers tightened once. “I am now.”

The words landed low and heavy between you.

You started to lower your arms.

Jack caught the movement immediately. “Ah.”

You froze.

His mouth brushed your shoulder. “I didn’t say you could move.”

Your whole body went hot. Slowly, you lifted your arms back into place.

Jack’s hand slid over your waist, controlled, almost reverent, like he was taking a second to recover and refusing to let you see how badly he needed it.

Unfortunately for him, you knew him too well.

Your mouth curved despite the heat in your face. “Oh.”

His fingers paused.

You smiled, breathless. “Oh, baby.”

Jack’s grip tightened at your waist. “Careful.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough for your cheek to almost brush his. “Did you not know?”

His mouth hovered near your ear. His voice was low. Still controlled. Barely. “I know now.”

A shiver moved through you.

Jack felt it.

His mouth touched the side of your neck. “There you go.”

Your arms ached faintly from being raised, but you did not lower them.

He had not told you to.

Jack noticed.

You felt the exact moment he noticed: the way his hand stilled, the way his breath went rough, the way his body pressed closer behind yours until the vest brushed your bare back again.

He leaned in, mouth at your ear. “You’re waiting.”

Your eyes fluttered. “You didn’t tell me I could move.”

For a second, he was silent.

Then his hand spread over your stomach and pulled you gently back into him. “That’s my girl.”

The praise hit harder than you expected.

Your breath shook.

Jack’s mouth moved along your neck, slower now, rewarding every second you kept your arms lifted. His hand stayed at your waist, then drifted over your stomach, then back to your hip. Teasing. Learning. Not attempt to hide how much he liked the way you were listening.

Finally, his voice came low against your skin. “Hands down.”

You lowered them slowly. Relief moved through your shoulders. 

Before you could decide what to do with your hands, Jack spoke again.

“Behind your back.”

Your pulse jumped. The kitchen blurred softly at the edges. You turned your head a fraction.

Jack was waiting there over your shoulder, eyes dark and steady, giving you time because he always gave you time.

Your hands slid behind you. Slowly. Obediently.

His mouth curved. “There she is.”

The words were soft. Too soft for what they did to you. Your hands stayed behind your back, fingers curling around your opposite wrist, because you had no idea what else to do with them. The position pulled your shoulders back and left you open to him, skin still warm where his mouth had been and cooler now beneath the kitchen air.

Jack did not touch you right away. He looked. You felt the weight of it move over you. Down the side of your neck. Across your shoulders. Along the line of your spine where the vest had been brushing you. The kitchen felt too ordinary amid the silence: the open dishwasher, the clean spoon still abandoned on the rack, the soft ticking of cooling metal, the fading detergent steam caught beneath the sharper scent of him.

Then he stepped closer. The vest touched your back first. Hard fabric. Warm underneath. A scrape of tactical gear against bare skin that made your stomach pull tight.

Your breath caught.

Jack heard it. His hand moved behind you, slow enough that you could have stepped away, and closed around both of your wrists. Not tight. Not rough. Just firm. Certain.

Your eyes fluttered shut.

His thumb moved once over the inside of your wrist, and the carefulness of it almost made the whole thing worse. He held you like he meant it. Like he knew exactly what you were giving him and had no intention of taking it lightly.

“You good?” he asked against your shoulder.

Your answer came out quieter than you expected. “I’m good.”

His grip settled.

His free hand came to your waist, palm spreading warm against your skin. Then he drew you back by degrees, not pulling hard, not forcing, just guiding until your spine met the vest and your hips met the solid line of him behind you.

Your lips parted.

The air left the room.

Jack’s mouth touched the side of your neck. Barely.

You felt it everywhere.

He kissed you slowly, once beneath your ear, then again lower, where your pulse had become embarrassingly easy to find. His hand slipped from your waist to your stomach, flat and steady, holding you against him while his mouth learned what made your breath change.

You tried to swallow. It came out as a sound instead.

Jack’s grip around your wrists tightened. Not a warning. A response.

He liked that.

You knew because his breath shifted against your neck. Because the calm line of him behind you went a little less calm. Because his hand pressed you more firmly back into him, making sure you felt exactly what listening to him had done.

Your eyes opened. The kitchen cabinets blurred in front of you. The cabinet with the mugs. The bowl cabinet with the green mug still sitting in the wrong place because neither of you had bothered to fix it.

You should have found that funny.

You would have, if Jack’s mouth had not opened against your shoulder. If his teeth had not skimmed just enough to make your knees loosen. If his free hand had not slid to your hip and pulled you back again, slower this time, letting you feel him through all that gear, all that restraint.

“Jack.” His name came out thin.

He hummed against your skin. Not a question. Not yet. He knew what you wanted. That was the problem. He knew, and he was taking his time with the knowledge. His hand dragged slowly over your stomach, then back to your waist, then lower to the band of your shorts. He did not go beneath it yet. He only rested there, fingers spread, the heel of his hand warm against the place where your body had gone tight with waiting.

You pulled against his grip without meaning to. His hand around your wrists did not move. The reminder went through you like a spark.

You were not trapped.

You were held.

There was a difference, and Jack knew exactly how to make you feel it.

His mouth came to your ear. “Tell me.” 

Only two words. Soft. Rough at the edges.

You closed your eyes.

The old instinct rose—joke, dodge, say something difficult enough to make the wanting less obvious. But your shirt was on the floor. His vest was against your back. His hand was at your waistband. And you were tired of pretending you were not shaking.

“Touch me,” you whispered.

Jack went still for half a second. Then his mouth pressed to your shoulder. A reward. His hand slipped lower into the waistband of your shorts. Slowly. The first real touch made your whole body lock. Jack held you through it. One hand around your wrists, the other moving with maddening patience, his mouth warm at your neck, his breath uneven now.

He did not ask again.

He trusted the way you leaned into him. He trusted the way your head tipped back against his shoulder. He trusted the way your fingers curled helplessly in his grip instead of pulling away.

And because he trusted you, you gave him more.

A breath. A sound. His name, softer this time.

Jack moved as if he were learning you by touch and already knew he would remember every answer. Every shiver. Every little hitch of breath. Every helpless attempt to chase his hand when he slowed down.

“Easy,” he murmured.

Your body listened before your pride could object.

A low sound moved out of him, almost a laugh, pleased and dark and far too close to your ear. He liked that too. He liked it when you listened.

You could feel it in the way his grip tightened around your wrists. In the way his mouth became less patient at your neck. In the way his body leaned heavier into yours for one second before he reined himself back in.

“You’re doing so good.” The praise sank into you, warm and devastating.

Your head fell back against him. The ceiling light caught in your vision. Soft gold. Too bright. Too ordinary for this. His kitchen. His counter. The open dishwasher still breathing out the last of its heat.

Jack’s hand moved again. The world narrowed. The hard vest. The radio is brushing your shoulder. The duty belt against the back of your thigh. His mouth at your throat. His breathing is no longer even.

He brought you closer slowly. So slowly, you almost did not recognize what he was doing until your hands tightened in his hold and your legs started to tremble.

Your breath broke. “Please.”

The word slipped out raw.

Jack stopped kissing your neck. Everything in him seemed to listen. His hand did not stop.

Not yet.

“Please what?”

You made a sound that was not quite an answer.

 He slowed. Cruel. Controlled. Patient enough to ruin you.

Your forehead nearly dipped into the counter in front of you. “Jack.”

His mouth touched your shoulder. “That’s not an answer.”

Your face burned. Not shame. Something warmer. Something that made the wanting sharper because he was making you stand inside it and speak.

“Please don’t stop.”

His breath left him rough against your neck. There. That got to him. 

The knowledge made your knees weaker.

Jack gave you what you had asked for, and your whole body went soft and tight at once. Your wrists strained in his hold. His grip steadied you immediately, keeping you exactly where he wanted you while his mouth returned to your neck and his fingers worked over you in slow, tight circles.

You were close enough now that the room started to slip.

The tile beneath your feet. The cabinet in front of you. The hum of the refrigerator.

All of it blurred around him. His hand. His vest. His voice in your ear. “That’s it.”

You shook against him.

He felt it. 

He gave you more. 

Then, just as your body started to tip toward the edge, just as your breath caught and stayed caught, just as your fingers curled helplessly behind your back—

Jack stopped. Completely. 

For one impossible second, you could not process the absence. Then you made a sound so desperate it should have embarrassed you.

It didn’t.

You were too far gone for that.

Your body tried to follow his hand.

Jack’s arm came around your waist immediately, holding you still, holding you up, his mouth pressing to your shoulder in something almost tender. “Easy.”

You let out a broken breath. “Jack.”

“I’ve got you.” He murmured.

“You stopped.” 

His mouth curved against your skin. “I did.”

You pulled at your wrists, helpless now, frustrated enough that your eyes burned. “Why?”

His hand rested flat over your stomach. Still. Warm. Maddening.

His lips brushed the shell of your ear. “Because you begged so pretty.”

Heat rushed through you, full-body and humiliating. 

“And I want to hear you do it again.”

For a second, you could not answer. You could only stand there with your hands still held behind your back, Jack’s vest pressed against your bare skin, his arm firm around your waist, his breath warm at your ear. The kitchen felt too bright for what he had done to you. Too normal. Cabinets. Counter. Open dishwasher. The last spoon was still sitting in the rack like neither of you had any intention of finishing what you started.

You whispered his name.

Jack’s mouth touched your shoulder. “Turn around.”

Your pulse jumped.

His grip loosened around your wrists. For a second, you did not move. Not because you did not want to. Because the absence of his hold made you feel strangely weightless, like your body had forgotten what to do without his hand telling it where to stay.

Jack noticed. His fingers brushed once over the inside of your wrist before he let go completely.

“Slow.”

One word. You obeyed. You turned carefully, bare feet shifting against the cool tile, counter at your back now, open dishwasher to your side, Jack in front of you.

He looked almost unfairly composed for a man whose breathing had gone rough against your neck moments ago.

Almost.

His vest was still half-unfastened. The tan shirt beneath it clung to his shoulders. His hair was mussed from the protective glasses shoved into it. There was dust on his boots. A shadow along his jaw. His eyes moved over your face first, then lower, and the effort it took him to bring them back up made your stomach twist.

“There,” he said softly.

Your fingers found the edge of the counter behind you. “What?”

Jack stepped closer. His hands settled at your waist. “I wanted to see your face.”

The sentence should have been tender. It was. That made it worse. His thumbs moved once over your skin, slow and warm. He watched you take the touch. Watched your lips part, your shoulders lift, the way your body could not decide whether to lean into him or brace against the counter.

Then he bent slightly.

“Jack—”

His hands tightened at your waist. A warning. A promise.

Then he lifted you.

The counter was cold beneath you.

You gasped at the sudden shock of it, the stone pressing against the backs of your thighs, cool enough to make your whole body jolt. Jack stepped between your legs before you could close them, his gear brushing you, his hands still steady at your waist.

The house was quiet around you. Too quiet. The television in the living room had gone to some muted commercial you could not place. The refrigerator hummed. The dishwasher clicked again, cooling metal, soft and domestic and absurd.

Jack stood between your knees like he belonged there. Like he had always intended to put you there.

Your hands moved toward him before you thought better of it.

He caught your wrists. Fast.

Your breath stopped.

Jack looked down at your hands, then back at your face. “Not yet.”

You made a soft, frustrated sound.

His mouth curved. “Hands on the counter.”

You stared at him. “You just let me turn around.”

“And now I’m telling you where to put them.”

Heat crawled up your neck. “You’re very bossy.”

Jack guided your hands to the edge of the counter on either side of your hips.

His fingers pressed over yours until you gripped it. “Hold here.”

Your hands curled around the counter. The stone was cold under your palms.

Jack waited until he saw your fingers tighten. Then he let go. “Good.”

The word went through you with humiliating ease.

Jack saw that too. His gaze sharpened. “You’re going to be a problem now.”

You tried to breathe normally. “You already knew I was a problem.”

“I knew you were mouthy.” His hands slid to your knees. Slow. Firm. “This is different.”

Your heart kicked hard against your ribs as he eased your legs wider. Not rushed. Not rough. Just certain. Every inch of space he made felt deliberate.

Your fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. “You love my mouth,” you said.

Jack stopped. For half a second, the entire kitchen went still.

Then his eyes lifted to yours. Dark. Amused. Worse than amused. “Yes.”

The answer was immediate. Too immediate. Your pulse stumbled.

Jack’s thumbs moved once over the inside of your knees. “But right now,” he said, voice low, “I’m interested in what it does when I tell you to be quiet.”

Oh.

Your mouth parted. Nothing came out.

Jack’s expression warmed with satisfaction. “There she is.”

Your face burned. “That was mean.”

“No.” His hands moved higher on your thighs, slow enough to make your thoughts scatter. “That was honest.”

The kitchen air felt cool against your bare skin. Jack felt warm everywhere he touched you. The vest shifted when he leaned down, hard fabric brushing the inside of your leg before he caught himself and adjusted.

Still controlled. Still careful. Still somehow making every careful thing feel worse.

His fingers found the waistband of your shorts. You went still. Jack noticed. His gaze lifted to your face. “You good?”

Your throat worked. “I’m good.”

His thumbs slipped beneath the soft fabric. “Hands stay.”

Your fingers curled harder around the counter.

Jack drew your shorts down slowly. Not because they were difficult. Because he wanted you to feel every second of it, the fabric dragged over your hips, your thighs, catching briefly beneath you until he lifted you just enough to ease it free. The movement was smooth and effortless, one hand at your waist, one at your thigh, his body still between your knees, the vest brushing your skin whenever he leaned close.

You stared at the ceiling because looking at him felt impossible. That did not help. The ceiling was too ordinary. The kitchen light was too warm. The dishwasher was still open. Your shorts slid down your legs and fell somewhere near his boots.

Jack did not move for a moment. He just looked. 

The quiet of it made your pulse beat everywhere. “Jack.”

His hands settled back on your thighs. “I’m here.”

The answer came immediately. Grounding. Ruinous. His thumbs moved slowly over your skin, and he eased your knees apart again, reclaiming the space he had made before.

Your breath caught.

Jack’s mouth curved. “Still with me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He lowered his head and kissed the inside of your knee.

Soft. Patient. A beginning.

Your head tipped back against the cabinet.

Jack’s voice came low against your skin. “You asked so nicely before.”

Your eyes fluttered shut. “I was desperate.”

“I know.” The smile was in his voice.

You hated that. You loved that.

His mouth moved higher. Still not enough. Your hands twitched on the counter.

Jack noticed without looking up. “Hands stay.”

Your grip tightened immediately.

The reward came as another kiss, slow and warm, higher than the last.

You let out a shaking breath. 

Jack looked up at you. Focused. The kind of focus that made rooms go quiet around him. “Then take it.”

The words emptied your lungs.

Jack lowered his mouth. 

The first touch made your whole body jerk. Your fingers clamped around the counter. The cold stone bit into your palms. Your shoulders hit the cabinet behind you with a soft thud, and Jack’s hands tightened on your thighs to keep you there, open and still and absolutely nowhere near in control. 

“Oh, my God.” The words broke out of you before you could stop them.

Jack paused. Barely.

You felt the shape of his smile against you. “Quiet.”

You inhaled sharply.  

Then he did it again. Slower this time. Like he wanted to feel the exact second you lost the fight with yourself. Your head tipped back against the cabinet. The kitchen light went soft and gold behind your closed eyes. Everything narrowed to Jack between your thighs, the rough brush of his vest against your leg, the pressure of his hands, the heat of his mouth, the way he seemed to listen with his entire body.

You tried to move.

Jack held you still. Not harsh. Firm enough. A reminder.

Your hands stayed on the counter. Barely.

His thumb stroked once over your thigh, approval without words, and the gentleness of it almost made you unravel faster than the rest. You made another sound. Smaller. More helpless.

Jack hummed low, pleased, and the vibration went through you like a spark.

Your eyes flew open.

He looked up. That was worse. His mouth was still close. His eyes were dark and steady, watching your face like he was reading every answer you gave him. “You like that?”

Your voice had vanished. You nodded.

Jack’s hands stilled.

 The silence pressed hot against your skin. Right. Words.

“Yes.”

His mouth curved. “Tell me.”

Your fingers dug into the counter. “I like that.”

He rewarded you immediately.

Your breath broke.

Jack’s hands slid beneath your thighs, adjusting you closer to the edge, and the movement made the counter colder, him warmer, the room smaller. You wanted to touch him so badly your hands ached around the stone. 

One hand slipped. Only an inch.

Jack lifted his head. “No.”

The word was quiet. Your hand froze.

He did not look angry. He looked pleased. Terribly pleased. “Where do your hands stay?”

Your face burned. “On the counter.”

His thumb stroked the inside of your thigh. “That’s right.”

He waited until your hand curled back around the edge.

Then his tongue found you again. A reward. A ruin. You were a mess within seconds. Not gracefully. Not prettily. Completely. Breath snagging. Thighs trembling. Shoulders pressed against the cabinet. Hands locked around the counter because Jack had told you to keep them there, and somehow that command had become the last solid thing in the room.

Jack took his time. Of course he did. He had learned that patience ruined you, and now he was proving it. Every time you thought you knew the rhythm, he changed it. Every time your body started to rise toward something, he softened. Every time you whispered his name, he gave you enough to make you do it again.

“Jack.”

His hands tightened. You heard his breath change. Felt it. He liked his name like that. You knew it now. 

You used it. “Jack, please.”

He lifted his mouth just enough to speak against your skin. “Please what?”

You let out a broken little laugh, almost angry with how badly you needed him. “You know.”

“I do.” His mouth brushed higher. Not enough. Not yet. “I want to hear you.”

Your head fell back. The cabinet was cool against your shoulder blades. Your own breathing sounded too loud in the small kitchen. “Please don’t stop.”

Jack’s hands flexed. There. He liked that. The knowledge made you ache.

 He gave you more. The room slipped sideways. The hum of the refrigerator disappeared. The TV disappeared. The open dishwasher, the cooling spoon, the late afternoon light across the tile — all of it blurred into sensation.

Jack’s mouth. Jack’s hands. Jack’s voice, when he murmured, “Good girl,” like praise, was another way to touch you.

Your hands started to loosen from the counter. You caught yourself.

Jack saw anyway. “That’s it,” he said, voice rougher now. “Hold on.”

You did. Your fingers curled around the edge until your knuckles ached. Your thighs trembled under his hands.

He brought you close slowly. Too slowly. You could feel it building, feel yourself tipping toward that bright, impossible edge he had denied you once already. Your breath came in pieces. Your body tried to move with him, tried to chase, tried to close around him.

Jack held you open. Held you still. Kept you there.

“Jack,” you whispered.

He lifted his eyes to yours. The sight almost ended you by itself. Still in gear. Still composed enough to look up like he knew exactly what he was doing to you. Not composed enough to hide the roughness in his breathing. 

“What do you need?” The question was quiet. Devastating.

You swallowed. The begging came easier this time. Too easy. “Please.”

His mouth touched your thigh. “Please what?”

Your cheeks burned.

You did not hide. Not this time. “Please let me.”

Jack went still. His eyes darkened. For one breath, all the smugness slipped, and what was left underneath was hunger so sharp it made your fingers tighten on the counter.

Then his mouth curved slowly. “There it is.”

He kissed your thigh. A reward. “Again.”

You shook your head once, breathless. “Jack.”

“Again.” His voice was rougher now. Less teasing. More affected.

And because you could hear what it did to him, because you could feel that he was not nearly as untouched as he pretended, you gave him the words.

“Please,” you whispered. “Please let me come.”

Jack’s eyes held yours. Then he lowered his mouth again. This time, he did not stop. Your whole body went tight. The counter edge cut into your palms. Your breath caught and stayed caught. Jack’s hands held you through the first shudder, then the next, one arm pressing over your hips to keep you exactly where he wanted you while the rest of you broke apart around him.

You heard yourself say his name. Once. Twice. Too soft to be a scream. Too ruined to be anything else.

Jack stayed with you through all of it. Not rushing. Not moving away. His mouth is softer now, his hands gentler, easing you down instead of dropping you.

Your body went heavy. Boneless. Your head fell back against the cabinet, and the kitchen came back in pieces.

The hum of the refrigerator. The detergent smell. The cool counter under your palms. The sound of Jack breathing. He kissed the inside of your knee. Then the lower part of your thigh.

Then he looked up at you. His hair was mussed. His mouth was wet. His vest was still on. And he looked unbearably pleased with himself. “You still good?”

You stared at him, chest rising and falling hard. “I think you know I’m not.”

His mouth curved. Warm. Smug.

So comepletely Jack, you almost laughed.

 “Yeah,” he said softly. “I do.”

He rose slowly, stepping back between your thighs.

His hands settled on the counter on either side of you, caging you in without touching you. He leaned close enough that the vest brushed your bare skin again, and you shivered even now.

Jack noticed. His smile deepened. 

You closed your eyes. “I hate the vest.”

“No, you don’t.”

Your laugh came out weak. “No,” you admitted. “I really don’t.”

Jack’s mouth brushed yours. Slow. Deep. A reward and a promise. When he pulled back, his eyes had gone dark again.

Your hands slid from the counter toward him. This time, he let you touch the vest.

For one second.

Only one.

Then his hand closed gently around your wrist. “Not yet.”

Your breath caught.

Jack’s thumb moved over your pulse. “I’m not done with you.”

The words landed low.

Your hand was still caught in his. Your fingers had barely touched the vest before he stopped you, and somehow that single second had made the wanting worse. Rough fabric beneath your palm. The hard line of the strap. Heat beneath it. Jack beneath all of it.

You stared at him.

Jack stared back. His thumb moved once over your pulse. Not soothing. Not really.

A reminder.

The kitchen still felt tilted around you. Your body was loose and shaking from what he had already done, your thighs still bracketed around him, the counter cold beneath you, the cabinet cool against your back. Everything smelled like detergent and sweat and Jack. The open dishwasher had stopped steaming now, but the clean scent lingered beneath the sharper edge of his gear.

Your voice came out thin. “You’re not?”

Jack’s mouth curved faintly. “No.”

Your fingers flexed in his hold.

He looked down at the movement. Then back at your face. “You want to touch me.”

It was not a question.

You swallowed. “Yes.”

His eyes darkened.

For a second, the smugness softened into something heavier. Hungrier. The kind of look that made you realize he had been holding himself together too. Not unaffected. Not even close. Just disciplined enough to make you think the ruin had been one-sided.

It had not.

The proof was in the tension along his jaw. The roughness of his breathing. The way his hand tightened around your wrist before easing again, like he had to remind himself not to rush just because he wanted to.

Jack leaned in. His vest brushed your bare skin.

Your breath caught.

He noticed. “Soon,” he said.

Your eyes fluttered. That one word felt like a promise and a punishment. “Jack.”

His mouth touched yours. Not a kiss. Almost. “Hands up.”

Your pulse kicked. “What?”

Jack’s gaze held yours. “Above your head.”

The kitchen seemed to go quieter.

You were still sitting on the counter, still trembling, still trying to recover from him, and now he wanted your hands where he could see them. Where you could not reach for him. Where he could take that final inch of control before giving anything back.

Your fingers curled once against his.

Then you lifted your hands.

Slowly.

Jack guided them the rest of the way, his palm firm around your wrists as he pinned them above your head against the cabinet.

The wood was cool behind your knuckles.

Jack’s body filled the space between your thighs. His gear brushed you everywhere. The hard vest. The duty belt. The heavy weight of him still mostly dressed while you were bare and breathless on his kitchen counter.

He looked at you like that did something to him. Like he had meant to keep the upper hand and had not accounted for the sight of you listening this well.

His mouth moved against your jaw. “Still good?”

You nodded once. “I’m good.”

His grip settled around your wrists. “Stay there.”

Your answer came out as a breath. “Okay.”

Jack kissed you then. Slow at first. Deep enough to make your hands flex above your head, your wrists pressing into his palm, your body shifting toward him before he had given you permission to move. His mouth tasted like heat and restraint and the ruin he had pulled out of you minutes ago.

Then the kiss changed. Something in him shifted. The edge of all that careful patience wore thin. His free hand slid down your side, over your hip, beneath your thigh, drawing you closer to the edge of the counter with one controlled pull. Your breath broke against his mouth. The counter dragged cool beneath you. His gear scraped softly, buckles and fabric and belt, the sound rough in the quiet kitchen.

Jack’s forehead touched yours. His breathing was no longer even. Not even close.

 “You sure?” The question was rougher now. Less composed.

 You looked at him. Really looked.

At the dark focus in his eyes, the strain in his jaw, the way he was still holding himself back because your answer mattered more than his urgency.

Your chest tightened. “Yes.”

His hand tightened around your wrists. “You want this?”

“Yes.”

Jack’s eyes closed for half a second. Like the answer hit him somewhere deep. When he opened them again, the smugness was gone. What remained was worse.

Need, disciplined down to a blade. “Say it.”

Your breath caught.

His mouth hovered over yours. “Tell me.”

You swallowed. The words felt different now. Less like begging. More like choosing.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Jack went still. The whole kitchen held its breath with him. Then he kissed you hard. Not careless. Never that. But harder than before, deeper, the last of his patience burning down to something urgent and raw. His hand stayed around your wrists, keeping them above your head while his other hand moved between you.

You heard the shift of his belt. 

The low rasp of a zipper.

Your whole body went tight.

Jack felt it immediately.

His mouth brushed your cheek. “I’ve got you.”

“I know.”

He pushed his pants and boxers down only as much as he needed. No more. The gear stayed. The vest stayed. The boots, the belt, the tan fabric pulled tight across his shoulders. He was still dressed like he had walked in from training and found you in his kitchen, and that fact made everything feel sharper. More desperate. Less polished.

Jack’s hand came back to your hip.

He looked at you. Waited.

Your wrists flexed above your head. “I’m good,” you whispered.

His gaze softened for one breath. Then he moved closer. He pushed into you slowly, stealing the air from your lungs. Your head fell back against the cabinet.

Jack stopped. Completely.

Every muscle in him seemed locked with the effort of it. “You okay?”

“Yes.” The answer came immediately. Breathless. Certain.

Jack’s mouth brushed the corner of yours. “Good.”

Then he moved. Slowly at first. Controlled even now. He gave you time to feel every inch of the change, the stretch of being held open to him, the pressure of his body against yours, the hard edge of his vest against your chest every time he leaned in to kiss you. You tried to move your hands down on instinct, needing to touch him, needing something to hold onto besides the cool cabinet and his command.

His grip tightened around your wrists. “Not yet.”

A sound left you. Frustrated. Needy.

Jack’s mouth found your neck. “I know.”

He moved again, deeper this time, harder, and the whole room tilted. Your legs tightened around him. His breathing broke. A real break. Low and rough against your throat.

You caught it even through the haze. “There,” you whispered.

Jack lifted his head enough to look at you. His eyes were dark. “What?”

Your lips parted around a shaky breath. “Right there, Jack. Please.”

He drove into you again, harder, and the words disappeared from both of you. The counter creaked softly beneath you. The cabinet knocked once against your wrists. The spoon in the dishwasher shifted with a tiny metallic sound that should have been funny and was not, because Jack was moving now like the control he had used to wreck you had finally turned on him. 

Still measured. Still focused. But rougher. More urgent. His mouth found yours again, catching the sounds you could not swallow. His hand kept your wrists pinned above your head. His other hand gripped your hip, dragging you closer, holding you exactly where he wanted you while the vest brushed and pressed and turned every thrust into another reminder of how this had started.

You were shaking again.

Already.

Jack felt it. His mouth curved against yours, a flash of smugness cutting through the roughness. “Already?”

You would have snapped at him if you could breathe. Instead, you made a broken sound and pulled against his grip.

He held you there.

“You did that on purpose,” you managed. 

“I did.” His voice was rough. Pleased. Not nearly as steady as he wanted it to be.

That made you smile despite yourself. “You’re not as calm as you think.”

Jack’s eyes lifted to yours. For a second, the room narrowed to that look.

Then his hand released your wrists. “Touch me.”

You did not need to be told twice. Your hands came down fast. One grabbed the edge of the vest. The other slid to the back of his neck, fingers pushing into his hair, finally, finally holding on to him the way your whole body had been begging to since he walked through the door.

Jack groaned.  A real sound. Low. Uncontrolled. The sound ruined you.

Your fingers tightened in his hair. “There he is.” 

Jack caught your mouth with his. The kiss turned messy. Hotter. Less careful around the edges. His hand slid beneath your thigh and hitched you higher on the counter, changing the angle until your nails dug into the back of his neck and your whole body jolted against him.

The gear scraped against your skin.

His vest. His belt. The rough line of fabric and equipment. The hard, practical pieces of him still on while his control came apart under your hands. He was still dominant. Still the one setting the pace. But now you could feel what it cost him. Every breath. Every rough sound against your mouth. Every time his rhythm faltered because your hands found another strap, another edge, another place where his body was warm beneath the gear.

“Jack.”

His forehead pressed to yours. “I’ve got you.” The words came rough. Almost broken.

“You keep saying that.”

His hand tightened on your hip. “Because I do.”

Your chest pulled tight. For one second, the heat went soft at the center. Then he moved again, and you lost the thought completely. The kitchen blurred. Your hands clutched at him, one fisted in the vest, one at his neck, holding him close as he drove you higher. The refrigerator hummed somewhere far away. The counter was cold beneath you. His mouth was hot against yours. His breathing filled your ears.

 His praise came low and rough, no longer polished, no longer smug in the same way. “That’s it.”

Your eyes closed.

“Good girl.”

Your fingers tightened.

“Just like that.”

Your body answered every word.

Jack knew it. He used it. He kept one hand at your hip and brought the other to your jaw, making you look at him when your head started to fall back.

“Stay with me.”

Your eyes opened.

He was close. You could see it now. In the tension around his mouth. In the way his breath caught every time you pulled him harder against you. In the way the rhythm turned rougher, less perfect, more honest.

“Jack,” you whispered.

His thumb brushed your cheek. “I know.”

“I’m—” You tried. 

“I know.” His mouth touched yours. “Let me feel it.”

The words tipped you over. Your whole body went tight around him, hands clutching at the vest, mouth open against his, his name breaking somewhere in your throat as the room disappeared in a rush of heat and sound and Jack holding you through it.

Jack’s forehead dropped to yours, his breath breaking hot against your mouth.

“Oh, fuck.”

Your hands tightened in the front of his vest. “Jack.”

His grip dug into your hip, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to tell you he was there with you, right there, as gone as you were.

“I’m gonna come,” he said, voice wrecked now. “Oh—fu-fuck.”

The sound of him losing control almost tipped you over again.

His mouth brushed yours, messy and barely there.

“God, you’re doing so good,” he breathed. “So good for me.”

You clung to him, his vest rough beneath your hands, his body tense and shaking against yours.

“Jack,” you whispered again.

That was what did it.

His eyes closed. His breath caught. His whole body went tight, and then he buried his face against your neck with a rough, broken sound.

“Fuck,” he whispered against your skin. “Good girl. Good—God, baby.”

His hand tightened once at your waist. Then loosened. His body stayed pressed to yours, still shaking in small aftershocks he could not quite hide. For a moment, there was no command. No teasing. No smugness. Just Jack breathing hard against your throat, vest rough beneath your hands, his body warm and heavy and finally, completely undone.

His mouth pressed to your skin. His body went still.

For a long moment, there was only breathing.

Yours. His.

The hum of the refrigerator returning slowly. The cooling dishwasher. The ordinary kitchen gathering itself around the wreckage of what had just happened on the counter.

Your hands stayed on him. One in his hair. One curled into the vest.

Neither of you moved. Then Jack laughed once. Soft. Rough. Disbelieving.

His forehead stayed against your shoulder. “You okay?”

Your laugh came out weak. “I think my soul left my body.”

His shoulders moved with a quiet laugh. The sound warmed your skin. “Still good?”

You nodded against him. “I’m good.”

His hand, no longer commanding, slid slowly up your back.

Gentle now. Careful.

The dominance loosening into care before you could fully come down from it.

He lifted his head and looked at you.

His face had softened. His hair was a mess. His mouth was warm and swollen from kissing you. The vest was still on, crooked now, one strap half-loose, the POLICE patch no longer centered.

You reached up and touched it with two fingers.

Jack looked down. Then back at you. His mouth curved. Smug again. Barely. “You still hate the vest?”

You stared at him. Then at the vest. Then back at him. “I need you to understand that I am currently too vulnerable to answer questions.”

Jack laughed, low and warm. His thumb brushed your cheek. “That bad?”

You let your head fall back against the cabinet. “Worse.”

His smile softened. “Come here.”

“You are already kind of in my personal space.” You exhaled a laugh. 

“Come here anyway.”

This time, there was no command in it. Just him. You leaned into him, and Jack gathered you carefully against the front of all that gear, one arm around your waist, one hand cradling the back of your head. The vest was still hard against your skin.

Somehow, in his arms, it felt softer.

He kissed your temple. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth.

“You did so good,” he said quietly.

Your eyes closed. That praise hit differently now. Not sharp. Not dangerous. Warm.

You let out a slow breath against his neck. “Don’t be smug.”

Jack’s mouth brushed your hair. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“A little.”

You laughed, boneless and breathless.

He held you tighter for a second, like the laugh mattered.

Behind you, the dishwasher clicked one last time.

Your eyes opened.

“The spoon,” you whispered.

Jack went still. Then he started laughing against your shoulder.

You felt it more than heard it. Deep. Quiet. Helpless.

You smiled into the side of his neck. “Your dishwasher is still open.”

“I know.”

“You’re breaking kitchen safety rules.”

Jack lifted his head enough to look at you.

His eyes were still dark, but softer now. “You want to finish unloading it?”

You looked down at yourself. Then at him. Then at the vest. “Absolutely not.”

His smile came slow. Warm. Entirely too pleased. “Good answer.”

You ended up in Jack’s bed after. 

Not right away. 

There was the shower first, warm water and his hands gentler than they had been in the kitchen. He washed the places where the counter had pressed into your skin. He kissed your shoulder under the spray. He wrapped you in a towel without making a joke about how unsteady your legs still were, which you appreciated enough not to mention how smug he looked about it.

Then one of his shirts.

Then water.

Then bed.

The room was dim by then, the late afternoon light gone blue at the edges of the blinds. You were curled against his side, cheek resting over his heart, one leg tangled with his beneath the sheet. Jack’s hand moved slowly over your back, up and down, steady enough that your breathing had started to match his without you meaning for it to.

He had been quiet for a while. Not distant quiet. Jack had different kinds of quiet. You knew them now.

This one was warm. Settled.

His fingers paused at the center of your back. “Hey.”

You lifted your head enough to look at him.

His face was softer than it had been in the kitchen. Hair damp. Jaw relaxed. No gear. No vest. No command in his voice now.

Just Jack.

“Hey,” you said.

His thumb moved once against your side. “You okay?”

You smiled faintly. “I’m good.”

He nodded. No hovering. No second-guessing. Just belief. Then his gaze dropped to where his hand rested against your back. For a second, you thought he might make a joke. Something about the vest. Something about the spoon. Something dry enough to pull you both back onto safer ground.

He didn’t.

His voice was low when he spoke. “Thank you.”

Your brow softened. “For what?”

Jack’s hand stilled. His eyes came back to yours. “For trusting me like that.”

The room went quiet around the words. Not empty. Full.

Your throat tightened before you could stop it.

Jack looked almost careful now, like the sentence had cost him more than any command he had given you downstairs. Like this was the part where he had less armor. No tactical vest. No smugness. No easy way to turn the weight of it into heat.

Just him, telling you he knew what you had handed him.

You shifted closer, your hand settling over his chest. “I do trust you.”

His jaw moved once. “I know.”

His fingers resumed their slow path over your back, but his voice stayed rougher than before. “I just don’t want to ever take it lightly.”

Oh.

That landed deeper than you expected.

You pressed your cheek back against his chest, listening to the steady beat beneath your ear.

“You don’t.”

Jack’s arm tightened around you.

Not much.

Enough.

You felt his mouth touch your hair. “Good.”

You closed your eyes.

For a while, neither of you said anything.

The house was quiet. The kitchen was downstairs with its open dishwasher and its abandoned spoon and the counter you were still not emotionally prepared to think about. The vest was somewhere else now. The boots. The belt. All the hard edges stripped away.

But Jack’s hand stayed warm on your back.

And when he kissed the top of your head again, it felt like the softest part of everything he had meant all along.

@nosebeers, @moonz33, @littlewolfbird, @tubby23, @gandalfthegoatsblog, @melslavalampapp, @marauvderss, @supernaturalcat7,@jennataurus, @itwas-maroon16 , @nizzasspot, @meadow0434, @chezze-its, @callmefatherr, @amacphet, @imabapical, @offsavingtheworld, @ifyoubewooedingoodtime, @justreadinghere7, @rabbotseatcarrots, @vicky066, @manly-man-whore, @rosiepoise88, @alittlerayof-pitchblack,@woodxtock, @mafercita101, @kiatjuddae, @lacy1986, @cajunebugg76, @kittenmittensssworld, @generation-zero, @taniamiller, @countryandsweetbabygirl, @fantasyreader130, @thehockeynerd30 @angelryex, @michasia24,

[spikedfearn]

DELIVERED

ONE-SHOT

pairing: jack abbot x resident!reader summary: After accidentally sending your attending Dr. Jack Abbot a nude, you delete it, panic-text an apology, and spend the rest of your shift waiting for a response that never comes. Jack doesn’t say a word until he gets you alone in his office—and by then, the apology texts are the least incriminating thing between you.

wc: 7.8k

a/n: shoutout to @in-ky and pinky (lol) for beta reading and confirming that yes, unfortunately, this is exactly what should happen when you send your attending a nude by accident. saw jack abbot on his phone and immediately made it everyone’s problem. enjoy the HR violation.

warnings: power imbalance, attending/resident relationship, inappropriate workplace behavior, explicit sexual content, dirty talk, accidental nude (then on purpose >:)), semi-public sex, fingering, handjob, orgasm denial-ish, praise kink, jealousy/possessiveness, hair pulling, biting/marking, cumplay/eating, clothed/semi-clothed smut, no piv, age gap dynamics, no use of y/n

MASTERLIST

You didn’t know a mistake could feel intentional until Jack Abbot stopped replying.

For almost a full minute after it happened, you couldn’t move. You just stood in the staff bathroom with your phone in your hand, the harsh white light buzzing overhead, your pulse slamming so hard behind your ears that the whole hospital seemed to muffle around it. The sink was still running because you’d forgotten to turn it off. Water rushed uselessly into the drain while you stared at the thread on your screen and tried to convince yourself that your eyes had rearranged the letters.

They hadn’t.

Jack Abbot sat at the top of the conversation in clean, merciless text.

Below it, the blank space where the photo had been.

You’d deleted it almost instantly, but instantly didn’t mean unseen. Instantly meant your thumb had moved faster than your brain, faster than your lungs, faster than the sick drop in your stomach when the picture appeared in the wrong thread. It meant you’d watched one of the most obscene photos in your camera roll land in your attending’s messages and then vanish under your panicked attempt to erase evidence.

Not erase memory.

Just evidence.

“Oh, no,” you whispered, and the words sounded too small for the scale of the disaster.

The photo had been from two nights ago. Your apartment, your bed, the lamp beside your mattress giving everything that warm, dirty glow. Not soft. Not tasteful. Not a picture you could call accidental in spirit even if the send itself had been. You’d taken it because you were alone and turned on and feeling reckless enough to admire yourself, body angled deliberately across twisted sheets, hair messy, eyes on the camera like you knew exactly what kind of thought you wanted to plant in someone’s head. There was nothing clinical about it. Nothing coy. It was the kind of photo that said look, want, imagine.

And Jack Abbot might have seen it.

Jack, who had corrected your charting that morning with a tired flick of his eyes.

Jack, who had stood behind you at the board, close enough for you to catch the smell of coffee and hospital soap, and said, “Try again,” when your answer hadn’t been specific enough.

Jack, who was older, gruffer, sharper around the edges than anyone had any right to be while still being that unfairly attractive.

Jack, who was your attending.

You turned off the sink with shaking fingers and immediately made the situation worse.

You:

oh my god that was not meant for you please ignore that i deleted it i’m so sorry please delete it if it still shows up i’m actually going to resign and move states

You stared at the messages, then at the empty space above them, then at the messages again. Your face burned. Your throat felt tight. Any other person might’ve replied by now. Any normal person might’ve hit you with a confused question mark, a reassurance, a threat, a joke. Something.

Jack gave you nothing.

No typing bubble. No acknowledgment. No read receipt. Just that awful, professional silence.

It was very Jack of him, which somehow made it worse.

A knock hit the bathroom door. “You dying in there?”

Mel’s voice. Thank God and also absolutely not.

You shoved your phone into your scrub pocket like you’d been caught with something you weren’t supposed to have. “No.”

“You sure? You sound weird.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re needed in three. Abbot’s looking for you.”

For one second, your entire body went cold.

Then hot.

Then somehow both.

“Great,” you said, and if Mel noticed that your voice came out like you’d just swallowed a battery, she was kind enough not to comment through the door.

You took one last look at yourself in the mirror before leaving. There you were: wrinkled scrubs, tired eyes, badge clipped slightly crooked, mouth pressed into a line that looked almost professional if no one knew you were internally preparing to fling yourself into traffic. You were a doctor. You were an adult. You could walk into a room with Jack Abbot and not immediately confess to everything like a criminal under interrogation.

Probably.

The hallway outside was too bright. Too loud. Too full of witnesses. The hospital had the particular cruelty of continuing to function during personal catastrophes, monitors chiming and carts rattling and nurses calling over their shoulders while your entire nervous system stood at attention. You passed Whitaker near the supply cart, who gave you a distracted little nod. You passed Santos at the board, half-listening to Robby. Nobody looked at you like they knew.

Then you reached trauma three, and Jack looked up.

He was standing at the foot of the bed with one hand braced on the rail, the other holding a chart, short sleeves leaving his forearms bare and his watch stark against his wrist. Stubble roughened his jaw, his hair was slightly mussed from the kind of shift that had been bad before noon and would only get worse, and his expression was exactly what it always was: tired, focused, unimpressed by the existence of chaos.

No guilt. No surprise. No flicker.

That was the first real blow. If he had reacted, you might’ve known how to feel. If he’d avoided your eyes, you could’ve built a theory around it. If he’d looked at you too long, you could’ve hated him or wanted him or both with more certainty.

Instead, he just watched you enter like you were late with labs.

“Nice of you to join us,” Jack said.

Dana, at the monitor, winced under her breath. “Damn.”

You forced your mouth to move. “Sorry.”

Jack’s eyes stayed on you a fraction too long. “Are you?”

There was no reason for it to hit the way it did. The words were ordinary. Dry. Annoyed, maybe. But you heard every unanswered text underneath them. You heard the deleted photo. You heard the question he wasn’t asking in front of Dana and a patient with a bleeding scalp.

Your stomach folded in on itself.

“What’s the situation?” you asked, because medicine was safer than silence.

Jack handed you the chart. “Fall from a ladder. Brief LOC. Walk me through what you’re ordering and why.”

You could do this. This was easy. This was normal. You’d done this a hundred times. You moved through the exam, named imaging, neuro checks, wound care, the things you needed to rule out. Your mouth worked. Your hands worked. Your brain mostly worked.

Your body, unfortunately, remembered that your phone remained unanswered in your pocket.

Every time Jack shifted near you, you became aware of him all over again. The low gravel of his voice. The way he stood close enough to take the chart back from your hands without asking. The blunt competence in his movements. The fact that he didn’t soothe, didn’t explain, didn’t give you even one quiet aside to release the pressure building under your skin.

He let you suffer.

Worse, he made you work.

For the next several hours, Jack Abbot became a masterclass in professional cruelty. Not actual cruelty. Nothing anyone could report. Nothing anyone would even notice unless they were living inside your body and could feel the way your pulse kicked every time he said your name.

He asked you questions in front of Robby.

He corrected your note beside the nurses’ station.

He handed you a printout without looking at you and said, “More specific,” in that gruff, flat tone that made you want to argue and obey at the same time.

He touched your elbow once, only to move you out of the path of a gurney, but the contact burned through your scrub sleeve because now there was a version of you in his possible memory that had nothing to do with the hospital. Not capable, not composed, not holding a chart or presenting a patient. You in bed. You in low light. You looking at the camera like you wanted someone to imagine being there.

And Jack still didn’t reply.

At some point, Santos appeared beside you at the counter while you were pretending to review labs and absolutely not refreshing your message thread.

“You look terrible,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Like you’re waiting for a disciplinary hearing.”

“I’m busy.”

She leaned closer, lowering her voice as if delivering a diagnosis. “You and Abbot have been weird all day.”

Your grip tightened around the tablet. “We have not.”

“You have. He’s doing that thing where he gets quieter when he’s mad, and you look like you’re being hunted for sport.”

“I’m not being hunted.”

“Mm.”

“Santos.”

“What? I’m observant.”

“You’re nosy.”

“That too.”

Across the department, Jack stood with Robby near the board, arms crossed, head tilted as he listened. He looked exhausted. Unmoved. Utterly unreadable. Then, as if he felt you looking, his eyes lifted and found yours.

You looked away first.

Santos made an obnoxious little sound. “Loud.”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it loudly.”

She grinned, entirely too pleased with herself, and moved off before you could throw something at her.

The shift dragged on. Or maybe it flew. Time had gone strange, measured less by the clock and more by every non-reply from Jack, every glance that might have meant something and might have meant nothing, every brush of proximity that left you a little more humiliated by your own reaction. By the end of rounds, panic had curdled into something hotter and harder to name.

You still wanted to disappear.

You also wanted to know exactly what he’d thought.

That was the unforgivable part. The part you couldn’t blame on the photo or the send button or exhaustion. Under the mortification, there was want. Ugly, bright, undeniable want. The kind that made you wonder whether he had paused when he saw it. Whether his jaw had tightened. Whether he had deleted it right away or looked long enough to regret it.

You were finishing a note when his shadow fell over your workspace.

You didn’t look up immediately. You knew.

“My office,” Jack said. “Now.”

The words were quiet. No one else would’ve heard them as anything but an attending giving an instruction. Dana barely glanced over. Robby kept talking to Mel. The world did not stop.

Yours did.

You stood carefully. “Okay.”

Jack turned without waiting to see if you followed. The walk to his office felt like a march toward sentencing, except sentencing probably wouldn’t have made your thighs feel weak. He didn’t touch you. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back. That made it worse, because it meant he knew you would follow.

His office was dim, cramped, and cluttered in the way all hospital offices became cluttered no matter how hard anyone tried to keep them human. A desk lamp threw warm light over a stack of charts. Half-closed blinds cut the room into narrow bars. His mug sat beside the keyboard, coffee gone cold. The air held the stale sharpness of the hospital layered with something that was just him: clean sweat, soap, coffee, fatigue.

Jack closed the door.

He left it unlocked.

That detail lodged in you. The unlocked door meant this was still a conversation. Still professional, technically. Still something you could leave.

Or something he wanted you to know you could leave.

He leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms crossed loosely, and looked at you for long enough that you started talking just to make him stop.

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I know I already said that in the texts, probably too many times, but I really am. It was an accident. Obviously. I deleted it right away, and I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you saw it before then, but I swear I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop.”

You stopped.

Jack’s gaze stayed steady. “Explain.”

You blinked. “I just did.”

“No. You apologized.” His voice was calm, which was somehow worse than anger. “Explain what happened.”

Your face burned. “I sent the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

“What thing?”

“Jack.”

His expression didn’t change. “Say it.”

The floor seemed suddenly fascinating. You looked at a scuff near the leg of his desk and wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment after all.

“A nude,” you said.

The word changed the room.

Jack didn’t move, but something in his face tightened. A small thing. Controlled. There and gone.

“I saw it,” he said.

You closed your eyes for one second. “Okay.”

For a moment, that was all there was. The confirmation. The silence after. The awful, humiliating knowledge that the image had reached him before you could take it back.

“I didn’t keep it,” he said.

Your eyes opened. “You didn’t?”

“No.”

The relief was sharp enough to hurt. It should’ve ended there. It should’ve made everything clean again, or at least survivable. He had done the right thing. He had refused to keep what hadn’t been meant for him. You could apologize one more time, leave his office, and spend the rest of your life avoiding direct eye contact.

But Jack was still looking at you.

And his voice, when it came, was lower.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t look.”

Something low in you pulled tight, panic and arousal twisting together until you couldn’t tell which one had hit first.

He pushed off the desk, not moving closer yet. Just standing straighter. “Who was it for?”

“No one.”

“No one.”

“I took it for myself.”

Jack’s mouth twitched, not amusement exactly. More like disbelief with nowhere innocent to go. “You take pictures like that for yourself?”

There were a dozen sensible answers. Defensive answers. Clean, professional answers that would’ve made this easier to survive. Instead, you heard yourself say, “Sometimes.”

The tiredness in his face thinned, and beneath it was something intent, almost indecently awake—a look that moved over you with such slow, controlled heat that your body reacted before your pride could stop it. Like the picture had burned itself into his retinas and left him standing there with nowhere innocent to put his hands.

For the first time all day, you saw the effect. Not much. Jack wasn’t a man who gave much away for free. But there it was in the pause, the shift of his jaw, the hand he dragged briefly over his mouth before dropping it again.

“You’re not helping yourself,” he said.

“I thought I was being honest.”

“That’s the problem.”

The words should’ve embarrassed you further. They did. But they also did something else, something low and hot, because he sounded less like your attending now and more like a man trying very hard to remember he still was one.

You took a careful breath. “Why didn’t you answer?”

Jack looked at you for a long moment, and the silence wasn’t empty anymore. It had weight. The shape of all the things he’d refused to put in writing.

“Because if I answered then,” he said, voice lower now, “I would’ve said something I shouldn’t.”

Your mouth went dry. “Like what?”

“Don’t.”

“You brought me in here.”

“To handle it.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

His jaw worked once, and for the first time, his control looked less like indifference and more like effort. “I’m trying.”

“Trying to handle me?”

That did something. You saw it in the brief drop of his gaze, the pause before he pulled it back to your face.

“Trying not to,” he said.

There it was again—that small crack in the professionalism. Not a confession, not exactly, but close enough to make the room feel suddenly too small. Close enough that you felt it move through you before you had time to decide what to do with it.

Jack saw that too.

Of course he did.

He stepped closer, not quickly, not carelessly. Slow enough that you could move back if you wanted. Slow enough that the choice stayed yours.

You didn’t.

“You sent me that,” he said, voice low, “then walked around my department for the rest of the shift like I could just forget it.”

“I didn’t know if you’d seen it.”

“You knew.”

“I hoped you hadn’t.”

“No.” His gaze held yours, steady and merciless in a way that made your skin feel too tight under your scrubs. “You hoped I had, and you were scared I had. Not the same thing.”

You hated him a little for being right. You wanted him more because of it.

“That’s not fair,” you said.

“I didn’t say it was.”

He was close enough now that you could see the fatigue at the corners of his eyes, the rough shadow along his jaw, the controlled set of his mouth. Still Jack. Still gruff and older and dangerous mostly because he looked like he’d spent a lifetime refusing himself the stupid thing, the reckless thing, the filthy thing that would feel good for exactly long enough to ruin him.

“You wanted to know what I thought,” he said.

Your throat tightened. “Did I?”

His gaze dropped to your mouth for half a second before returning to your eyes. “You tell me.”

The worst part was that you couldn’t. Not honestly. Because you had wanted to know. Under the embarrassment, under the panic, under every frantic apology you’d typed too fast and regretted immediately, there had been that awful, helpless need to know what he’d seen when he looked at you afterward. If he’d been angry. If he’d been disgusted. If he’d imagined it again.

If he’d wanted to.

Jack watched the silence work through you, watched your breath catch, watched your face give away what your mouth refused to say.

Then he stepped back half a pace.

The loss of him was so immediate your body nearly followed before you could stop it.

“Tell me to forget it,” he said, “and I’ll forget it.”

“You just said you couldn’t.”

“I’ll act like I can.”

That was very Jack. Honest enough to hurt. Restrained enough to be decent. He had refused to keep the photo. He had left the door unlocked. Now he was putting distance between you, giving you a clean exit with the kind of brutal practicality that somehow made you want him worse.

You should’ve taken it.

Instead, you said, “I don’t want you to.”

The room went quiet in a new way.

Jack’s face barely changed, but your body took the look like contact, nerves flaring under your scrubs as if he’d reached across the room and found you bare. For one dizzy second, the clothes felt pointless—like he was already picturing what was underneath and remembering exactly where to look.

“Be clear,” he said.

Your throat felt tight. “I don’t want you to forget it.”

His hand moved to the door.

The lock clicked.

Small sound. Huge consequence.

Not loud. Just final. The kind of sound that doesn’t ask permission. Jack’s hand left the deadbolt, but he didn’t turn around right away. He stood there facing the door, shoulders rising once, falling once, like he was giving himself a countdown.

You were already backed up against his desk. Metal cold through your scrub pants. You watched his back. The way his scrub top pulled between his shoulder blades. The gray hair curling at his nape, damp from twelve hours of running a floor that wouldn’t stop coding.

He turned.

His eyes had changed. Not tired, not distant—fixed on you now with a hunger he’d spent the whole shift forcing down. It had been there through rounds, through the silence, through every clipped order and every time he’d looked at you and then looked away like one more second would give him away.

“Stand up.”

You did. Your thighs hit the desk edge behind you. He crossed the space in two strides and then he was there, close enough that the heat of him hit your skin before his body did, close enough that you could smell the antiseptic and coffee and something underneath—just him, just warm skin and a long shift.

His hand found your hip. Not gentle. Not rough. Just certain. His thumb pressed into the bone there and you felt it in your teeth.

“You sent me a picture,” he said.

His voice was low. Not the attending voice. Not the one that cut through chaos in the trauma bay. This one was quieter. Worse.

“I know.”

“You tried to take it back.”

“Yes.”

“I saw it anyway.” His thumb moved—just a fraction, just a small circle against your hip bone through the thin cotton. “You know I saw it.”

Your throat was dry. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Bullshit.” The word landed soft, almost kind. “You knew. You watched me not look at you for six hours and you knew exactly why.”

You couldn’t answer. He was too close. His other hand came up, slow, and his fingers found the edge of your jaw. Not gripping. Just resting there, his palm warm against the side of your throat, his thumb tracing the line of your chin like he was memorizing bone.

“Describe it,” he said.

“What?”

“The photo. Tell me what you sent me.”

Heat crawled up your neck. Your chest. Your face. He felt it—his thumb was right there on your pulse, and you watched his eyes flick down to your throat, watched him feel every beat of your heart slamming against his palm.

“I can’t.”

“You can.” His grip didn’t tighten. It didn’t have to. “You took it. You sent it. Say it.”

You swallowed. His thumb rode the movement. “It was—I was on my bed.”

“Go on.”

“On my stomach. The camera was—it was angled down. You could see my back. My shoulders.” You stopped. Breathed. He waited. “My ass. I was wearing—”

“Nothing,” he said. “You were wearing nothing.”

The word hit your stomach and clenched there. “Yes.”

“And your legs were spread.”

Not a question. He’d seen it. He’d looked at it long enough to know exactly how you were positioned, exactly what was visible, exactly what you’d offered up without saying a word.

“Yes.”

“And between them.” His thumb traced down your throat, just a whisper of pressure. “What could I see.”

“Everything.”

He exhaled. It was the first crack you’d seen—just a shiver of air through his nose, his jaw tightening, his eyes going darker. “Everything,” he repeated. “You sent your attending a photo of your pussy and you want me to believe it was an accident.”

“I panicked. I deleted it—”

“After it delivered. After I saw the notification. After I opened it in the middle of rounds and had to stand there with a patient’s chart in my hand and your pussy on my phone.”

Your knees nearly buckled. He said it so flat. So clinical. Like he was naming an anatomical structure, except his voice dropped on the word, roughened, and his grip on your hip tightened once before releasing.

“Jack—”

“Dr. Abbot.” His eyes snapped to yours. “In this hospital, I’m Dr. Abbot. You don’t get to call me Jack until I tell you to.”

Your breath stuttered. "Dr. Abbot."

"Better." He stepped closer. Your bodies touched—chest to chest, his scrub top against yours, the heat of him bleeding through the fabric. His thigh pressed between your legs and you made a sound before you could stop it, small and humiliating and honest.

"There it is," he murmured. His mouth was near your ear now, stubble scratching your temple. "That's the sound. That's what you wanted me to hear."

You grabbed his arm. You didn't mean to—your hand just found his bicep and held, fingers digging into muscle, and he let you. His arm was solid under your grip, hard from years of compressions and lifting and holding bodies together while they bled.

"I'm sorry," you said.

"Are you." He pulled back just enough to look at you. His face was close—you could see the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, the gray threading his stubble, the way his mouth was set in something that wasn't quite a frown. "Or are you just scared I know what you look like when you want someone."

You didn't answer. Couldn't. He was right and you both knew it.

His hand left your jaw. Slid down. Found your wrist and lifted it between your bodies, his thumb pressing into your pulse point, feeling the blood hammer under your skin.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I know."

"Good."

He kissed you.

It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. His mouth hit yours with the same certainty as his hands—hard, demanding, his stubble scraping your lip and his tongue pushing past your teeth before you'd even registered the impact. He tasted like black coffee and something sharp, something that burned going down, and you opened for him immediately, helplessly, your whole body sagging into his grip.

His hand left your wrist and grabbed your other hip. Both hands now, fingers digging into the meat of you, pulling you against him so hard the desk edge bit into your thighs. His cock was hard already, pressing against your stomach through his scrub pants, and the knowledge of it—the fact that he'd been hard, maybe this whole time, maybe since he saw the photo, maybe since he locked the door—made you moan into his mouth.

"Quiet," he said against your lips. "The walls are thin."

You bit his lower lip. Harder than you meant to. He inhaled sharp and something flashed in his eyes—surprise, and then heat, and then his hands were moving, one sliding up your back under your scrub top, palm rough and hot on your spine, the other fisting in your hair and yanking your head back until your throat was exposed.

"You bite me again," he said against your pulse, "and I'll make you regret it."

"Maybe I want that."

His teeth found your neck. Not a kiss—a bite, real pressure, his incisors denting the skin just above your collarbone. You gasped and your hips bucked against his thigh and he held you there, teeth still clamped, tongue pressing flat against the mark he was making.

When he pulled back, his mouth was wet. His eyes were wrecked. "You want it," he said. "You want a lot of things. That's the problem."

Your hands moved. You didn't decide to—they just went, desperate, grabbing the front of his scrub top and pulling until the V-neck stretched, your knuckles brushing the sweat-damp hair on his chest. His skin was hot. He was hot, all of him, furnace-hot and solid and real against you.

"Touch me," you said. It came out wrecked. "Please."

"Please what."

"Please—fuck." You couldn't think. His thumb was rubbing circles into your spine, his other hand still fisted in your hair, his thigh a solid line of pressure between your legs. "Please touch me. Dr. Abbot."

His eyes flared. "That's right. That's my name. You remember that."

"Yes."

"And you remember who you're with. Not some resident. Not your ex. Me."

The jealousy landed like a slap. Your mind flicked back—the photo, who it might've been meant for, who he thought it was meant for—and you opened your mouth to explain, to tell him there wasn't anyone, but then his hand was sliding around to your stomach, fingertips tracing the waistband of your scrub pants front to back, and words dissolved.

"I don't share," he said quietly. "Whatever this is. Whatever you thought you were doing. You don't send something like that to more than one person. You don't get to."

"I didn't. It was only—"

"Only me." His fingers dipped under the elastic. Not far. Just the first knuckle, the rough pad of his index finger dragging through the hair below your navel. "Good. That's good. That's how it stays."

You nodded. You would've agreed to anything. His finger moved lower, just a centimeter, and your hips lifted toward his hand like a reflex.

"You're soaked," he said. Not surprised. Not smug. Just observing. "I haven't even touched you yet and you're soaked through your pants."

"I know."

"Say it."

"I'm—" Your face burned. His eyes didn't leave yours. "I'm wet. Soaked. Is that what you—"

"That's what I wanted." His finger withdrew. You nearly cried. But then both his hands were at your waistband, thumbs hooked in, and he was pulling your scrub pants and underwear down together, one sharp motion, the fabric scraping your thighs and pooling around your ankles.

He didn't look down. Not yet. He kept his eyes on your face while his hand found your knee and pushed—firm, steady—until your legs fell open, his hips slotting between them, the rough fabric of his scrub pants brushing your bare cunt.

"There," he said. "Now you're exactly where you should be."

You grabbed his shoulders. Needed to. Your fingers dug into the muscle there, the solid bulk of him, and he let you hang on while his mouth came back to yours, still brutal, still messy, teeth and tongue and the scrape of stubble that would leave your chin raw.

His hand dropped between your bodies.

First touch: his middle finger sliding through your folds, just parting you, just feeling. The sound it made—wet, obscene—filled the tiny office. He groaned into your mouth, a low vibration you felt in your chest.

"Jesus," he breathed. "You're dripping. You've been dripping all shift."

"For you."

"I know." His finger circled your clit—once, light, barely there—and your whole body jerked. "I know you have. Every time I looked at you. Every time I didn't."

He did it again. Slow circle. Then again, harder. Then his finger slid lower, found your entrance, and pressed in.

Just one. Just to the first knuckle. You clenched around him instantly, a helpless spasm, and he laughed—low, dark, right against your ear.

"Tight," he said. "Tight little pussy. And you sent me a picture of it. What'd you think would happen."

"I didn't—I wasn't—"

"You were." His finger pushed deeper. All the way in, slow, until his knuckle pressed against your entrance and his palm cupped your clit. "You wanted me to see. You wanted me to know. You wanted this."

He curled his finger.

Your vision whited. Your head fell back, throat bared again, and he took the invitation—mouth on your neck, sucking hard, his stubble a bright burn while his finger found that spot inside you and pressed.

"There," he said. "Right there. That's what you wanted me to find."

"Yes. Yes. Fuck—"

"Quiet." His voice was steel. "I said quiet. You can be quiet or I can stop."

You bit your own lip so hard you tasted copper. His finger pumped—once, twice, slow and deep, the wet sound of it filling the room. Then his thumb found your clit, pressed down, and you nearly screamed into your own mouth.

"Good girl. That's good. You can listen."

He pulled out. Your cunt clenched on nothing, empty and aching, and you made a noise of protest that he ignored. His hand came up between your faces, his finger glistening, slick coating his knuckle all the way to his palm.

"Look at this," he said. "Look at what you did."

You watched him bring his finger to his mouth. Watched his lips close around it. Watched his eyes flutter shut for just a second while he tasted you, his tongue cleaning his own skin with an obscene thoroughness that made your stomach drop.

"Sweet," he said, pulling his finger free. "I knew you'd be sweet."

"Please. Please, I need—"

"I know what you need." His hand was back between your legs before you finished, two fingers this time, sliding through your slick and then pushing in, stretching you open, filling you so fast your breath caught and held.

"Breathe," he said. "Breathe through it. You can take it."

You could. You did. His fingers were thick—surgeon's fingers, strong and precise—and they knew exactly what to do. Pumping deep, curling, finding that spot again and again while his palm ground against your clit and his mouth covered yours to swallow every sound.

The kiss was sloppy now. Desperate. You were breathing into each other, sharing air, his tongue pushing past your teeth at the same rhythm as his fingers. You could taste yourself on him—salt and musk and something sweeter underneath—and it made you wild, made your hips buck against his hand, made you ride his fingers like you'd die if you stopped.

"That's it," he growled. "Fuck my hand. Show me how bad you want it."

Your fingers clawed at his shoulders. Found his neck. Dug into the short hair at his nape and pulled, and he hissed, and his fingers drove deeper, faster, the wet slap of his palm against your clit turning filthy and loud.

"You're close," he said. "I can feel it. You're clenching—yeah, like that. You're gonna come on my fingers. Right here on my desk. And you're gonna be quiet while you do it."

"I can't—"

"You can." His lips brushed your ear. His breath was ragged now, finally losing that iron control. "You can because I'm telling you to. Because you're a good girl. Because you want to be good for me."

The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere you didn't know existed. Your cunt spasmed around his fingers and he laughed again, dark and pleased, and then his thumb pressed hard against your clit and circled and his fingers curled and—

You came.

Silent. Or close enough—a gasp that died in your throat, your whole body locking up, your cunt milking his fingers in rhythmic pulses you couldn't control. He held you through it, hand steady, murmuring something low against your temple that you couldn't hear over the roar in your ears.

When you came down, your forehead was pressed to his shoulder. His scrub top was wet—sweat, tears, spit, you didn't know. His fingers were still inside you, still, just resting there, letting you feel the fullness.

"Good girl," he said again. Quieter now. Almost gentle. "That's my good girl."

You lifted your head. His face was inches away, dark eyes searching yours, and for a moment the mask slipped—just a second of something raw, something that looked almost tender before he blinked and it was gone.

"Now you," you said. Your voice was wrecked. "I want to—let me."

He didn't stop you. His fingers slid out of you, slow, and you felt the loss like a physical ache. Your hand dropped to his waist, found the drawstring of his scrub pants, and pulled.

His hand caught your wrist.

You froze. Waiting. His grip was tight but not painful—just stopping you, holding you still while he looked at your face like he was making a decision.

"This has to be quick," he said. "Someone's going to notice we're both gone."

"Then quick."

He held your eyes for another beat. Then his grip loosened. "Go on."

You untied the drawstring. Your fingers were shaking—from the orgasm, from the adrenaline, from the sheer impossibility of this moment—but you managed. His scrub pants sagged, and when you pushed them down his hips together with his boxers, his cock sprang free, thick and flushed and already leaking at the tip.

He was bigger than you expected. Not just long—thick, the kind of thick that would hurt in the best way, the kind that made your cunt clench just looking at it. His shaft was veined, curving slightly toward his stomach, the head a deep angry red and slick with pre-cum.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm admiring."

"Admire faster."

You wrapped your hand around him. His breath caught—loud, sharp—and his hips jerked into your grip before he controlled himself. His cock was hot in your palm, silk-soft skin over iron-hard flesh, and when you squeezed, a bead of pre-cum welled at the tip and dripped down over your knuckle.

"Fuck," he breathed.

You stroked him. Slow at first—learning the weight, the shape, the way he twitched when your thumb pressed against the underside just below the head. His hand came up and fisted in your hair again, not pulling, just holding, like he needed an anchor.

"Faster," he said. "Come on. Faster."

You sped up. Your wrist found a rhythm, twisting on the upstroke the way you knew felt good, and his head dropped forward, forehead pressing to yours, his breath hot and uneven on your lips.

"You've done this before."

"A few times."

"Not to me." His hips were moving now, fucking into your fist, uncontrolled in a way that made heat pool low in your belly all over again. "Not—like this—"

You squeezed harder. Twisted faster. His hand in your hair tightened, the other slamming down on the desk beside your hip, and the sound of his palm hitting wood was loud enough to echo.

"Look at me," you said.

His eyes opened. Glazed. Desperate. His mouth was wet, lips parted, and he looked nothing like the cold controlled attending who'd locked the door. He looked ruined.

"I want to watch you," you said. "I want to watch you come in my hand."

"Jesus—"

"Come on." Your voice dropped, mimicking his from earlier. "Come for me. I want to see it."

His hips stuttered. His cock pulsed in your grip. And then he was coming, silent, jaw clenched so tight you could see the tendon stand out in his neck, his cum spilling hot over your fingers and dripping down your wrist in thick white ropes.

You stroked him through it. Milked every pulse, every spasm, until he was shuddering and oversensitive and his hand shot down to grip your wrist and stop you.

"Enough," he rasped. "Enough."

You stopped. Your hand was a mess—his cum coating your palm, your fingers, dripping between your knuckles. You could smell it, salt and musk and him, and without thinking, without planning, you lifted your hand to your mouth.

He watched.

Your tongue touched your palm first. The taste was sharp—bitter and salty and undeniably male. You licked a stripe up to your wrist, gathering the slickness, and then you wrapped your lips around your own index finger and sucked.

His pupils swallowed what was left of the thin blue rings.

You pulled your finger free with a lewd pop and licked your lips. "Tastes like you."

He didn't say anything. Just stared, chest heaving, cock still wet and softening against his thigh.

Then he kissed you. Not fast this time. Not punishing. His mouth dragged over yours with a filthy kind of patience, tongue sliding in like he was tasting himself there and hated how much he wanted more of it. His hand stayed at your jaw, thumb pressed beneath your chin, holding you still while he licked into your mouth again, deeper, making the kiss feel less like an ending than a promise he had no business making in his office.

When Jack finally pulled back, it wasn’t because either of you had cooled off. It was because whatever sense he had left had finally clawed its way back to the surface.

You stayed on the edge of his desk, breath wrecked, fingers still curled in his scrub top. He looked almost composed, which would’ve been insulting if his mouth weren’t swollen from yours, if his chest weren’t moving with too much effort, if his gaze didn’t keep dropping to all the places he had just touched. For a second, he only stared at you, taking in the mess he’d made: your loosened scrubs, your bare thighs, the flush crawling up your throat, the way your body still hadn’t figured out how to stop wanting him.

Then he reached for his phone.

You went still.

He saw it immediately. Of course he did. Jack caught everything.

“No,” he said, voice rough but steady. “Not unless you say so.”

The phone stayed low in his hand. He didn’t lift it. Didn’t angle it. Didn’t take anything just because he could. That was the worst part, maybe—how badly he wanted and how clearly he still made it your choice. He stood there with his scrub pants retied badly, his hair mussed, your taste still on his mouth, and waited like permission mattered more than whatever filthy thought had put the phone in his hand.

“I got rid of the first one,” he said.

“I know.”

“It wasn’t mine.”

Your throat tightened.

His gaze moved over you again, not detached, not clean, not pretending. “This one would be.”

The words went through you with a fresh, obscene little twist. The first photo had been panic and accident, a naked image thrown into the wrong hands. This one would be different. You were still open on his desk, still marked by his mouth, still shaking from what he’d done to you and what you’d done to him. This wouldn’t be a mistake sitting in a thread. This would be proof. Permission. Something given on purpose.

Jack watched your face. “Say no, and I put it away.”

You looked at the phone, then at him. “Yes.”

His jaw tightened. “Full sentence.”

Your face burned, but you didn’t look away. Not after everything. Not with his cum still barely wiped from your skin and your body still aching from his fingers.

“You can take a picture of me.”

For a second, he didn’t move.

Then he lifted the phone.

He only took one.

That made it worse somehow. Hotter. No posing you over and over. No making a show of it. Just one photo in the dim office light: you perched on the edge of his desk, wrecked and unmistakably touched, your scrubs shoved out of place, his hand visible at your thigh like a signature he had no right to leave. The first photo had been you alone in your bed, naked and deliberate. This one had him in it without showing his face—the watch at his wrist, the edge of his sleeve, the possessive press of his fingers against your skin.

Jack looked at the screen.

Whatever he saw there hit him. You watched it happen in the clench of his jaw, the pause in his breathing, the way his thumb hovered before he locked the phone like he needed to put the image away before he did something stupider than taking it.

“That one stays?” you asked.

His eyes lifted to yours.

“That one stays.”

The words settled low and dirty, right where his voice had already ruined you.

After that, he fixed you with the same practical attention he gave everything else. Scrub top straightened. Badge adjusted. Hair smoothed back into place, though his fingers lingered for half a second longer than necessary. It should’ve felt clinical. It didn’t. It felt intimate in a way that made your chest ache a little.

“You okay?” he asked.

You nodded.

His brows drew together. “Words.”

A small, breathless laugh escaped you. “I’m okay.”

He studied you for another moment, then handed you the water bottle from his desk. “Drink.”

You did, because saying no felt pointless when your legs were still unreliable and he was looking at you like he would stand there all night if that was what it took to make sure you could walk out without falling apart. When he was satisfied, he took the bottle back and set it down.

Then the mask started returning.

You watched him pull himself together piece by piece. The rough edges tucked away. The heat banked. The attending sliding back over the man who had just ruined your ability to think clearly. By the time his hand reached the lock, he almost looked like himself again.

Almost.

Before opening the door, he turned back. “No more accidents.”

Your pulse jumped. “No?”

His gaze dropped once to your mouth. “You want my attention,” he said, low enough that only you could hear, “you ask for it properly.”

Then he opened the door, and the hospital rushed back in.

The fluorescent light felt obscene after the dimness of his office. Voices, alarms, wheels, footsteps, the relentless machinery of the department grinding on like nothing had happened. Jack stepped out first. You followed a few seconds later, trying to look normal with your pulse still everywhere it shouldn’t be.

At the nurses’ station, Mel glanced up. “You good?”

You picked up a chart mostly to have something to do with your hands. “Yeah. Fine.”

Across the department, Jack didn’t look at you once, but that almost made it worse. He didn’t have to. The proof was already in his pocket, locked behind his passcode, tucked against his body while he moved through the rest of the shift like nothing had happened. You watched him speak to Robby near the board, watched him take a chart from Dana, watched him disappear behind the curtain of trauma two with that same gruff composure he’d worn all day, and all you could think was that there was a photo of you on his phone now.

Not the accidental one. Not the one he had deleted because it hadn’t belonged to him.

The other one.

The one you had given him.

That thought followed you through sign-out and the locker room and the cold shock of night air when you finally stepped outside. It sat low and warm in your stomach on the ride home, getting worse every time you remembered the way his jaw had tightened when he looked at the screen. By the time you unlocked your apartment, the silence felt different from the one he’d given you earlier. Not cruel this time. Anticipatory.

Your apartment was dark except for the lamp by your bed. The same bed from the first photo waited at the end of the room, sheets still rumpled from the morning, low light spilling over the fabric in a way that made your heart skip. Last night, that room had been private. Tonight, it felt altered, like Jack had already been invited into the idea of it.

You dropped your keys into the bowl by the door and stood there for a second, still in your scrubs, looking at the bed.

Your phone buzzed.

You turned it over.

Jack Abbot:

Home?

Your mouth went dry.

You:

Yes.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. You stood in the dark with your scuffed Dansko clogs still on, heart beating too hard over a text message from a man who had spent all day saying nothing. Then his reply came through.

Jack Abbot:

Good.

A second later, another message lit the screen.

Jack Abbot:

Next time, I want a better angle.

[gigiwritess]

oh my god. this is, LITERALLY, one of the best things i've ever read in all my 24 years of life. true perfection. i'm blessed to be alive at the same time as this MARVELOUS writer

[justagirlwhosbored]

I've always loved a man in a uniform

[gigiwritess]

just a girl enjoying a saturday night, having a glass of white wine, smoking a joint and working on my jack abbot stuff ❤️‍🔥💖

[lauraneedstochill]

talk you through it

pairing: Jack Abbot x surgical resident!reader summary: your work’s been leaving you exhausted, but you’re struggling to fall asleep, you barely can relax. Javadi recommends you an audio erotica app. and it does help you unwind. until you realize that the orgasmic raspy voice in your headphones belongs to one of your attendings — none other than Jack Abbot.

warnings: implied age gap (that you can ignore); mutual pining, Jack isn’t that good at flirting when he catches feelings. he compensates for it with his other talents 😏 smut {dirty talk, masturbation, praise kink, teasing, fingering (with two hands, idk if that’s a thing?), piv, aftercare}; Park is an unintentional wingman, Javadi is the bestest of friends / words: 13K / author’s note: this was suuuper unplanned, I wrote the whole thing in a couple of days. is the smut too detailed? maybe. idc ♡ READ ON AO3 / MASTERLIST

Late in the evening, the cafeteria makes for a perfect place for naps.

With day and night shifts overlapping, everyone’s busy with the paperwork and greetings, and that’s when you prefer to slip away. You aren’t alone at this uncommon hiding spot — Santos already dozed off at a table further off, earbuds in, hood up. She can sleep anywhere and anytime. But you aren’t that lucky.

You spent ten minutes genuinely trying — deep breaths, and meditation, and counting sheep. Now you’re just sulking, helpless against your permanent exhaustion. You catch the footsteps first — quick, quiet, a woman on a mission. The door creaks just a little when it opens.

Closes.

You know the quiet won’t last long.

“I can feel you staring. You’d suck as a spy,” you say, grudgingly opening one eye to see Javadi leaning on the fridge door.

She shakes her head — half disapproval, half concern. “You know, each time I see you here, I’m not sure if you’re asleep or dead.”

“And they let you talk to suicidal people like that? Maybe I plan on walking out of the nearest window.”

“You won’t make it that far,” she chuckles and hands it to you — her peace offering: a frozen Butter Pecan Swirl, topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with crushed nuts. It’s like an orgasm in a cup (a huge one), which you are happy to accept.

Javadi sits right next to you, concern still very present in her deer-like dark eyes. “I think even the patients on a psych hold look better than you do.”

“Wow, that comparison really cheered me up. You should be thankful, by the way,” you’re savouring the icy, jarringly sweet drink. “If I didn’t look like death, you’d still be dreaming about getting into surgical residency. My eyebags changed the course of your life. You’re welcome.”

“I am forever in your debt. I’ll pay it off with coffee,” she smiles and leans back on the wall, stretching her legs out — black scrubs pants, grey sneakers, a sigh of relief.

And you think — suddenly and stupidly, because that’s how your brain’s now wired — of that one time Jack brought you the same drink. Sat with you on this same spot. Looked at you with his eyes crinkled at the corners, his usual smirk turned into a softer smile. You don’t even remember what he talked about, but the feeling stayed: of just how calm his presence made you. How comforting it was.

For a good minute, your coffee loses taste.

You blink. Take another sip. Look up — and see him walking through the door. And then it feels like you’re losing it in general. You pinch yourself. He doesn’t disappear.

“Long time no see,” Jack says, very much real. Casual. He goes to look for something in the fridge, a crumb of time for you to get yourself together. Then he looks back at you. “Tough shift?”

Tough week. Or month. Actually, life’s been pretty tough since you stopped working by his side. But you remind yourself that it was your decision.

“Bearable,” you say, pretending to take interest in the thick swirls of syrup on the inside of your cup. Hoping he’d take a hint. And yet, despite him being good at many things, Jack is perpetually bad at leaving you alone.

You left him first. You thought he’d hate you.

Instead, you hear his voice tinged with warmth:

“Didn’t you just patch up the guy with a ruptured aorta? That was badass.”

His compliment feels like a glass of water, and you’ve been parched with thirst.

“Yeah,” you meet his gaze, because you’ve missed him terribly. He’s looking at you like he hoped you would. And you can’t help the smile. “I guess it was.”

He doesn’t stop there. He comes a step closer, crossing his arms over his chest — unreasonably, sinfully buff arms — and stares straight at you:

“Remind me where’d you learned that clamping trick?”

He’s being smug now, and you have missed this too. Slowly, the room is narrowing to the small space he takes. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I might have more tricks up my sleeve. Can teach you somethin' else.”

He holds your gaze. Pins you to the spot with his. And just as always, he makes you feel like no one in the world exists except you two —

But you aren’t really alone.

You catch movement out of the corner of your eye. No doubt, it’s Javadi wishing she could blend in with the wall. And when you snap back to reality, Jack follows.

He clears his throat, taking a step back. “Teach you in the ER, I mean. If you want to or—or if you ever decide to come back, you know. But no pressure or anything.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Dr. Abbot,” you tell him, in the politest tone that you can master. Already grieving that small moment you knew could never last.

Javadi can barely wait for him to leave — before her face breaks into a smile. “Aw, he has a crush on you.”

“Which you have told me a dozen times, and I’ll continue to reply that no, he doesn’t,” although your own face treacherously heats up.

“He flirted with you just now.”

“He flirts with everyone. He’s like an energy vampire, that’s why he doesn’t look his age.”

Trinity groans somewhere behind you. She takes her earbuds out and sits up, stretching her shoulders. “To be fair, his flirting isn’t that impressive.”

“I think half of the ER would disagree,” Javadi eagerly retorts. If there’s one thing these two don’t ever get tired of, it’s bickering.

“Oh no, he is charming. With everyone but her,” Trinity turns to you with a shit-eating grin. “With you, he’s awkward. Which, don’t get me wrong, is hilarious to witness. But Crash does have a point — he’s totally into you.”

“Did you two just agree on something? I must be hallucinating.”

Javadi rolls her eyes. Santos just huffs a laugh. She grabs her backpack, smartphone and an already opened silvery-blue can.

“He’s also been very moody since you moved to the upper floor. Just saying,” she winks at you and walks out, loudly gulping her Red Bull.

Your mood hasn’t been good either. It gets a little worse once you realise you reached the bottom of your frothy drink. And somehow, your second wind didn’t kick in.

“Can you develop a high tolerance to coffee? I feel like I should be way more awake. This cup is literally the size of a newborn.”

“Babe, you know there’s barely any coffee in it,” Javadi says, no judgment, just a little bit of pity. “You just crave sugar because your body needs some fuel to continue functioning.”

“But what if coffee isn’t working anymore... What’s the next best option? Cocaine?”

“You can’t afford cocaine.”

“I’ll sell a kidney.”

“Can’t do that either, you need them both.”

“I didn’t say I would sell mine.”

The laugh she gives you sounds half-hearted. Her face looks serious when she notes. “I know that humour is your defensive mechanism, but sometimes it’s okay to actually talk about what’s bothering you.”

“I’m very bothered by the amount of unsolicited therapy you keep bringing into our friendship,” you quip. And your regret is instant. “Sorry, I genuinely don’t remember the last time I slept for more than five hours.”

“Has Park been riding you too much? You know you are allowed to take breaks, even if he doesn’t think so.”

“No, it’s not that I don’t have free time, I just— I can’t fall asleep. I drag my feet and doze off ten times a day, but the second my head hits the pillow — nothing. My body is not... bodying or whatever the fuck it’s called.”

And then you watch her worry bleed into a different expression. She looks at you, a little coy, a little bit excited.

“I might have an idea. But I need you not to laugh at me.”

“Vic, I am physically closer to a zombie than to a human being. If there’s any way to help me fall asleep faster, I’ll try it.”

“Okay, there’s this app... With a collection of audios. Recorded by men and women, you can pick. They sort of play out different imaginary scenarios, like meeting you for the first time and getting to know each other. And maybe, like, kissing or —”

“Just to clarify, you recommend that I listen to some porn?” you’re trying to drag out some of the whipped cream with a straw.

“It’s not porn!” she hisses, adorably ashamed. “I mean, not always. They aren’t all explicit. The ones I’ve listened to, they were... Really immersive. And it just feels nice. Helps to take your mind off things. I don’t know, I kinda thought you’d be into it.”

“Masturbation? I feel like I should be offended.”

“No, the whole... Talking thing.”

With your mouth full, you raise a brow at her, somewhat confused.

“I mean, isn’t that why you liked working with Abbot? He was explaining everything to you, always talked you through the procedures and stuff. And now you are super annoyed because Park barely speaks. Just glares at people.”

“I assure you, I’m not at all annoyed that my attending does not turn me on.”

Javadi giggles, leaning toward you. “So what you’re saying is that... Abbot turned you on?”

“You know what, now I actually want to kill myself.”

“No, you still have an hour of your shift left. And then,” she rubs your arm with small, comforting circles, back to her serious self. “You will come home, take a scalding shower, just as you like it, pop in a couple of melatonin gummies, and get some sleep.”

“Those gummies don’t do shit. I ate four last time and then stared at the ceiling for two hours.”

She playfully nudges your shoulder with hers. “Well, there’s always another option,” Javadi laughs at your grimace and gets up. “I need to go back to other unstable people. Text me when you get home. I’m serious.”

“Will do, mom.”

She flips you off on her way out.

Whatever little caffeine’s been in your drink, it helps you look less dead and more like a person who can be trusted with a scalpel. The OR floor is quiet and cool, and from afar, Park can be mistaken for a statue: a tall body made of sharp lines and muscles, staying completely still as he looks through a patient’s file.

He waits for you to reach the nursing station. Gives you one quick look, his eyes deep blue, cold like ice.

“Got enough coffee to keep you standing? Don’t want to scrape you off the floor.”

You give him a dry chuckle. “When have you ever scraped me off the floor?”

One corner of his mouth moves up, merely an inch. “Fair,” he says, his gaze back to the tablet. “I’d like for it to stay that way.”

“So who’s the last one for today? Anything exciting?”

“Male, 63, a proximal humerus fracture. It’s all in his file. I’ll see you in ten.”

Big fucking thanks for the detailed reply.

“They say that brevity is the soul of wit, but no one tells you it’s also such a mood killer,” you mutter, not bothering to keep your voice down.

Park makes a sound that’s more of a long hum than a real laugh. He throws the words over his shoulder: “I’ll let you do the CRPP.”

“Thanks, I’m smiling on the inside.”

He never really smiles. Or says more than he needs to. And sometimes you’re thankful that he doesn’t: it unironically makes him almost the perfect mentor for you.

Unlike the previous one.

You may never admit it out loud, but you’ve come to enjoy working with Park. He’s harsh at times, yes, but he is also quick and talented and not that bad at teaching. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t talk much. You don’t mind doing your own research, and you’re actually okay with him being closed off.

The real problem is Jack Abbot. Who has been driving you insane.

At first, there were no signs of trouble.

You picked the night shift for your rotation because you’ve always been more of a night owl, and you enjoyed the challenge that comes with the variety of traumas. You two clicked from day one — Jack carried just the right amount of confidence to seem trustworthy, but his male ego didn’t get offended by someone else’s talent. He smiled at you and made small talk and always offered answers to your questions. He also smiled and talked to literally everybody else, so you didn’t think much of it. At least, you tried not to. You told yourself that you came to the ER to learn, that you wouldn’t allow your feelings to interrupt your job.

Even when said feelings turned into a crush. That felt like an addiction.

It started with you waiting. Wanting. More of his words, his gaze, his flattering attention. Jack always knew exactly how to land a compliment — his words were short, sure. Accompanied by that hint of a smile. He’d stand close, just on the edge of inappropriately close, his steady voice providing guidance. He’d push you when he knew that you could handle it. He’d tell you all the necessary steps and walk you through them and somehow make you feel like you succeeded on your own. “Yes, that’s the move.” “Look at you taking risks, kid.” “Good” —

— “girl”, you wanted Jack to add.

So good for him, you wanted him to think.

You wanted him. God knows, you wanted him so badly.

It didn’t help that Shen soon started calling you “Jack’s favorite”. Sometimes in front of Abbot, who hasn’t denied it once. Ellis discreetly (so she thought) tried leaving you alone with him more often. And even Crus once told you that you were the only resident Jack paid so much attention to.

It could’ve been a picture-perfect start of a love story, if only not for one crucial piece missing: Jack never crossed the line.

Even after you’ve caught his gaze lingering, his hands reaching for you, his warmth grazing your shoulder or your spine. On more than one occasion. And still, it led nowhere. There were no accidental touches, no flirting outside of the ER, he didn’t even try to get your number.

Inevitably, it made you feel self-conscious. Stupid. Pathetic even. What’s worse, his presence was distracting, and losing focus was the one thing you absolutely couldn’t do.

So you looked for a way out that’d let you save your dignity and your career. Switching to surgery helped you with both. Despite the fact that you had to restart your year. Despite seeing the very obviously hurt expression on Jack’s face when you informed him. He didn’t try to stop you, though. You didn’t tell him why exactly you were leaving. Instead, you dived right into work: from dealing with small fractures and arthritis to sports injuries, torn muscles, spinal disorders and crushed bones. It was in no way easy, but it felt empowering — knowing that you could fix something so strong and weighty, the living tissues made of minerals and collagen, the bony structure that allows people to move.

And on the rare occasions your paths crossed, Abbot kept being friendly. But you kept your distance.

Even if deep down, you still missed him.

His gaze, his guidance. Most of all, his voice.

It takes you two more days to finally give up and ask Javadi about the app.

Hey, so that app that’s totally not audio porn... Can you please give me the name. And then forget I asked.

Actually, forgetting might not be enough. Next time you come over, I’ll need you to swear on the Bible.

There’s no way you have a Bible at home.

Well, another option is a blood oath.

I’m this 🤏 close to admitting you into our psych ward.

Just say you miss me and want to see me more often. There’s no shame in it!

Please, get fucked (literally 😛).

You click the App Store link she sent, then press on the newly downloaded icon on the screen.

The layout is pretty simple — pale colors, normal-sized fonts, a short video guide. You don’t waste time and tap on the male voices' section to look through their audio titles. They aren’t at all exhilarating. A Trip to the G-spot (thanks, been there), Hold on to my nuts! (yikes), Your Daddy’s Home (double yikes), The Song of Praise and Cum (this calls for a lobotomy). You spend another minute on it, already battling frustration — and you’re about to log off, when finally a title catches your attention:

A Helping Hand.

“Okay, a little on the nose,” you mumble to yourself.

It is a series of recordings, about half an hour each. It seems that he is relatively new, but he’s got great reviews. His nickname is Nightcrawler. He has no profile photo. His bio says: “I guess, this is my new hobby.”

You’re positive that it won’t work on you.

You take a shower, put on your pajamas and your noise-cancelling headphones. You sit in bed, your back against the pillows. With zero expectations (except maybe to find it all ridiculous and cringe).

You press play.

At first, there’s just silence.

And then he starts, his voice unhurried like a rustle of the wind:

“Hi, baby. You look so tired,” he murmurs. “You’ve had a hard day, I can tell.”

You pause immediately. But not because you hate it. It startles you — how much you like him from the get-go, how just a sentence of this stranger’s voice made heat flash in your stomach.

You try to sit a little straighter. Then press play again.

“All that tension in your body, that slight soreness of your muscles... We really need to do something about it, honey. I can’t have you going to sleep so tense.”

Yeah, you don’t want that either.

His every quiet word strikes home: your limbs are heavy with exhaustion, your mind is clouded with it. You let out a breath you didn’t realize that you were holding. And you don’t think that him saying all that is a hell of a coincidence. Instead, it actually feels nice: for someone else to talk about your struggles. For it to sound like understanding.

“Don’t worry, I can fix that. You just lie down and listen to my voice.”

So you slide lower in your bed, the pillows now behind your head and shoulders. And when he asks to close your eyes, you do.

You follow every single one of his instructions. His raspy, gently voiced commands: he’s telling you to take deep breaths, to slowly stretch out your arms and legs, to draw small circles over your temples, to put your hands lower and massage your neck. He’s telling you he wishes he was there to help you. That he would know exactly where to rub and press. And that his fingers would’ve felt much better.

Then he’s instructing you to put hands on your chest, to run them up and down your body to get your blood flowing. You do just that. And soon you feel your skin prickle with warmth.

“Need you to relax, to shut off that beautiful brain of yours,” he says, with a controlled and hushed insistence. “Don’t think about anything. It’s just you and me, sweetheart.”

Your thoughts are light; there’s nothing on your mind but him. Your muscles pliantly unravel as he continues speaking. About how warm your skin must feel, how pretty you are looking — laid out for him on your bedcovers. And there’s another feeling that feeds off his voice: a spark of fire that grows and spreads and makes you ache for more.

You hear him telling you to move your hands down to your stomach. He says he wishes he could touch you there, to slowly drag his fingers down to your navel —

“Wish I could feel how wet you are right now.”

Your eyelids flutter open.

You probably should’ve predicted this turn of events. And truthfully, you aren’t as opposed to it as you thought you would be. You’re just not sure it will work. But when you slide your hand beneath the waistband of your panties —

you find the fabric in between your legs already soaked.

All that from someone talking to you nicely?

There must be something in his voice.

That same voice whispers:

“Touch yourself.”

Barely a second passes before you do.

This isn’t your first time, but somehow, it feels very different. More satisfying. Way more intimate. Pads of your fingers move against your clit, exactly how he tells you:

“want you to go slow for me, baby. rub it in circles, ju-ust like that,”

“apply more pressure with your index finger — feels good, yeah? c’mon, don’t stop,”

“now move a little lower, feel what a mess you’re making. I know you must be dripping”.

He’s right, you are. And then your eyes fall shut again, a whimper tumbling from your lips.

“I bet you’d feel so tight around my fingers,” he says hoarsely, making you clench around nothing.

If he was here, in your room, you’d shamelessly beg for more. A long-forgotten pleasure starts coiling in your stomach.

“Want you to put a finger in,” he orders. “Imagine that it’s mine.”

You start with one. Just one, and yet, it’s getting difficult to focus on his words. And fleetingly, with your chest heaving, you wonder what his fingers would feel like. As if he reads — or guesses — where your thoughts are wandering, he tells you, a smirk heard in his voice:

“But mine would be a lot thicker, so I need you to add another one,” — you slip the second finger in, and he lets out a hum, like he can see you, — “There you go. Don’t rush it, we’ve got time. I’d never rush it with you, honey.”

Despite you trying to move slowly, you’re getting dangerously close to cumming. You want to drag it out, you do, but he is making it too hard. When he is whispering to spread your legs wider. To set a rhythm, to start moving your hips a little. When he is telling you that you’re doing so good.

When he wants you to use your free hand to touch your nipples. When he says, teasingly, how much he wishes he could put his lips on you.

When you can hear him sigh, like all this also turns him on.

“Want you to go faster,” his words come out in low grunts. “Yes, keep going, don’t stop. Keep fucking yourself. Need to get you loosened up and ready for me. Fuck, your cunt would feel so perfect wrapped around my cock —”

Your orgasm crashes over you, sudden and shuddering.

You’re gasping, too loudly to hear what he is saying, your body floating in the waves of bliss. It takes a moment for you to catch your breath.

The audio ends abruptly on his own heavy breathing.

You are left stupefied and sweaty. And satisfied beyond description. Your headphones end up thrown across the bed, but you’re too tired to move an inch. It is a very pleasant kind of tired.

Before you know it, you are fast asleep.

What’s meant to be just a one-off soon turns into a habit. And you don’t really feel ashamed about it.

There is a certain thrill to it — having a secret you don’t want to share, the one thing you can’t wait to get home to. It does help you to take the edge off, yes: with just his words, he makes your tension melt away, makes all the worries disappear. Leaving you dazed and gasping at the thought of how good he’d fuck you.

But sometimes, as you come down from your high, your thighs wet and hands trembling, and he is soothing you back into consciousness — the stranger’s voice reminds you of Jack’s.

It can’t be him, of course.

You wish it was.

You also wish you could move on. Unstitch him from your memories that he’s been woven into, his face and arms and words seemingly always on your mind. They shouldn’t be, not when your feelings are so obviously one-sided.

So, since you’re able to wake up well-rested, you start to pile on more work.

You take your time to learn about non-invasive treatments: you get to know the PTMC’s physician and psychiatrist, you print out studies about injections and post-operative care, you spend your breaks leafing through the countless pages. You learn fast. You grab at every chance to practice. You ask to scrub in on some of Garcia’s cases, you’re lucky to assist Javadi’s mother a few times. And even though you feel that Park’s a little bit suspicious of your ardor, he asks no questions.

You don’t see Jack. He’s still on nights, and you are mostly up in the OR, and even when you do come down, you do your best to stay away. You hope that a tight schedule and your daily orgasms will be enough of a distraction. That at some point, your crush will quietly die down.

It’s no surprise that you’re working on the 4th.

And it’s predictably a shitshow: the waiting room is packed with patients, swamped with the summer heat, every new injury is worse — and way more gruesome — than the other. You deal with fractured, broken bones, you get to help with torn-off fingers, bashed-in skulls and penetrating wounds. You rush from one OR into the other. You barely get time to take a breath. And once you finally do, you get called down to the ER.

“Look who it is. Since when does surgery send its best residents to us poor mortals?” Robby puts on a smile to greet you.

“Garcia is still operating on Howard, Park’s dealing with your water slide case. I’m just happy to treat someone with intact bones for a change.”

“Can’t promise it will be a pretty sight.”

“Didn’t count on it.”

He cackles, his gloved hand pointing toward the sliding doors the gurneys come through. “Here’s the reason we called for a consult. Yours is the one with Old Glory jammed in his chest.”

And in the next second, your own chest tightens, anxiety bruising your ribcage like a seatbelt in a crash. Because the aforementioned patient is rolled in by Jack.

He doesn’t see you yet. You can’t help but notice — the tension roped around his back, the sheen of sweat around his forehead, faint sleepless shadows spilled under his eyes. Reflexively, you step out of the way so he can move down the hall without bumping into you. So you can stay unnoticed.

The injured man is in the middle of a screaming match with some guy whose cheek is slashed in half.

“I’m gonna take that thing out of my chest and shove it down your ass!”

“You hit me with a fucking Rolling Rock, man!”

“Because you are a cheater! And now my chest fucking hurts!”

“You’re the one who broke the rules! You know every detail must be —”

“Take yours into trauma 2 before I go deaf on one ear,” Abbot mumbles to Ellis, then tries to shush his patient. It isn’t working.

And you can tell that Jack is low on patience.

He grips the gurney with both hands and pushes it into the room, his voice coming out low and clipped:

“Sir, we are gonna get you more pain meds, but you need to shut your fucking mouth.”

It is a quick remark, maybe a little out of his character — too blunt, too rude; although acceptable under the current circumstances. And in the never-ending noise and busyness of the ER no one would ever waste their time on lecturing him. You aren’t even sure they heard.

But you freeze. As if a bomb just went off. The world around you is momentarily devoid of all the other sounds.

It isn’t the specific words, but the emotions you could hear behind them — intensity Jack usually reigns in, the punctuated heat of anger that slipped through his “shut” and “fucking”. You aren’t surprised he said those words. Or used that tone. Or lost his self-restraint for a few seconds.

You’re struck by the realization that you have heard him talk like that before.

“If his heart was damaged, he surely wouldn’t be yelling,” Robby comes up to you, eyeing the rowdy patient. “But the stabbing’s definitely within the cardiac box. What do you think?”

“Cardiac box it is. I’d bet on a pneumothorax,” you say, on some miraculous autopilot. But you aren’t looking at the patient.

Jack grabs the scissors to remove the man’s clothes, his hands working around the wooden stick he is impaled on; his gaze grazes you. On accident or maybe out of habit Jack hasn’t managed to unlearn. He turns to throw away the ruined, blood-stained fabric — then stops. And then his eyes come back to you, this time with purpose. He meets your gaze, his own confused a little, one of his brows crawling up. Because you’re staring at him, and he has no idea why.

It’s almost funny to imagine how you’d explain to him your stupor. Hey, Jack, is there a chance you like recording steamy audios? 'Cause I believe that I’ve been getting off to the sound of your voice.

But at the moment, you aren’t laughing.

You make an effort to drag your gaze away, your heartbeat loud in your ears. This can’t be happening. It cannot actually be him.

“Do an ultrasound to get a confirmation, I’ll go up to prep the OR,” you say to Robby flatly, eager to leave the room, to have a minute to yourself.

You take the stairwell, thoughts rushing as your feet are. And very quickly, your shock gives way to irritation. Surely, Jack is allowed to do whatever in his free time. But now that you suspect it’s him — his low voice that is so masterful at saying all those dirty things — you don’t think you’ll be able to relax. It would also be kinda inappropriate to continue listening to that.

But then you spend another seven hours on your feet. Three surgeries, two breaks (about ten minutes in total), a lot of blood and bones, a few of Park’s dry words. You miss the fireworks, the get-together with your former colleagues, the friendly chatter that maybe could’ve helped you to unwind. And by the time you cross the hall of your apartment, you find it hard to care about propriety.

You put the headphones on, fully aware that you’re about to hear Jack.

It doesn’t ruin things for you. It only turns you on instead.

Because it’s not some random guy — it’s Jack who puts you on all fours. Jack who tells you to put your fingers in your mouth. To suck them, to then take them deeper, to gag on them, just like he could’ve made you gag around his cock.

“Ass up for me, baby,” he instructs, his every word now carrying more weight — you cannot stop imagining him being here, whispering it all into your ear. “Bet your pussy is wet enough to take two fingers right away. C’mon, be a good girl. Show me.”

You never even think about reaching for your toys. You don’t need to: not when his voice alone makes waves of heat roll through your body, makes you pulsate with want, moan with longing.

“Want you to think of my cock slowly stretching you,” Jack rasps, “Because it’s all I think about,” and you’re imagining his chest pressed to your back, the sounds he would make while thrusting deep, deeper, relentless movement of his hips, his lips grazing your neck, “I know you’ll take my cock so well. Like it was made for fucking you.”

His big hands roaming over your body. His hot breath on your skin. Him, him, it has always been him.

“I’d make you feel so good. Until you drip all over my cock. Until you’re sobbing for me to fill you up,” he whispers heatedly. “I will. Just so I can fuck my cum back into you when we go for round two. I know my girl is always greedy for more.”

And he is right, you would be.

“Like you were made for it. For me.”

You cum as hard as always, breathless and shaking. And this time, with his name helplessly gasped against your pillow. A few long seconds after that, in your sweet postorgasmic haze, you get a very clear thought: you still want Jack, now more than ever.

And you two really need to talk.

You press Call before you can come up with yet another argument for why this is a bad idea. She picks up in four seconds, but you don’t let her say a word.

“Hey, so do remember when you guys went out last time, and I couldn’t go because of that leg amputation thing, and you told me you ended up in some new bar, with those big plants or whatever, and Abbot was there too?”

“Wow, are you already on cocaine?” Javadi laughs.

“No, I just had a good night of sleep, so please keep up. You’re coming to the same bar this Friday, right?”

“Yep, that’s the plan. You decided to join us?”

“I’m thinking about it. But I’m gonna be at least an hour late, cause I’d have to get home to change and then —”

“Or you can just come right after work. The place isn’t that fancy. You can do casual.”

“I don’t want casual. I wear jeans 360 days a year, it’d be nice to actually feel pretty for once.”

“Oh, cut the crap, I know you’d look great in anything!”

“That’s very kind of you to say, but I’m not calling to discuss my wardrobe. I was wondering if you can... If by any chance Jack shows up again —”

“O-ooh.”

“No, don’t oh at me. You don’t even know what I’m about to ask.”

“If Abbot shows up, I’m gonna tell him that you are coming too, so he’ll stay and wait for you.”

“Okay, you can add mind-reading to your resume, you witch.”

“You’re both kinda predictable,” Javadi notes with a chuckle. “When he came last time, he left immediately after he found out you weren’t there.”

“Or he just remembered he left the stove on and didn’t want his flat to burn down. It’s not like he explicitly told you why he was leaving.”

“He didn’t need to,” she argues. “He came in, went straight to the bar where we were hanging out, ordered a beer and managed the small talk for barely a minute before he flat-out asked if you were there. Looked like a kicked puppy when I told him you didn’t come. Wished us a good night and took off, didn’t even take his beer.”

That does sound like he came to see you. You find it cute. But only for a moment — until you get a stinging thought: if he wanted to see you outside of work, why has he never asked you out?

“I’ll text you when I’m done,” you say, trying to sound unconcerned, unruffled by the possibility of your months-long feelings being reciprocated. “The spinal fusion should take about three hours.”

“Ugh, it sounds so cool when you say it, but then I remember what that process actually is like.”

“It is pretty cool.”

“And I am very glad you think that,” she’s quick to reassure. “Go fuse some vertebrae, so we’ll have something to drink to!”

The surgery takes four hours.

It is a slow, meticulous procedure accompanied by Park’s curt advice and your own strategic guesses — and usually, something like that would leave you drained. Hardly in the mood for socializing. But this evening, you step out of the OR with a wide grin.

“Good call about rotating the metal plates,” Park says, his voice emotionless. Like he’s not sure himself that it’s a compliment.

Still, you take it.

“Thank you, I did some reading beforehand,” you tell him, throwing away your dirty gloves and gown. “Should help with healing, too. But knock on wood, we’ll see what his post-op scans show.”

And you’re already doing some non-work-related calculations in your head. 10 minutes on filling out the patient’s file, 10 more for ordering a cab and waiting for it, then if you’re lucky, you’ll be home in 20 —

“Abbot was right about you.”

That makes you stop. Makes an uncomfortable feeling settle in your stomach. You haven’t seen Brendon and Jack talk once. And you cannot imagine them talking about you.

You turn to Park, not smiling anymore:

“Care to explain?”

“He wrote you a recommendation letter. Didn’t he tell you?” he casually clarifies. “Not that I asked for it. But he delivered it himself, four pages in Times New Roman,” the straight line of his mouth curves a little. Almost a smirk, but not unkind. And he does seem sincere when he adds, “Abbot was right, you are great. Glad to have you on our team.”

“Hold on. I just want to get a few facts straight,” and your tone is astonishingly calm, despite it feeling like your blood is simmering. “So he came to you. With a printed-out letter. And then what, you guys talked?”

“Yes. About the letter.”

“About me, you mean.”

“The letter was about your competence and skills. What else was there to discuss,” he deadpans. “Is this interrogation over?”

“Oh, come on, that was only two questions. Don’t act like I am waterboarding you,” you huff, hands on your hips.

Park breathes out through his nose, then shakes his head. You’re half expecting him to grouse about it some more. But he does what you expect the least.

“He talks about you, you talk about him,” Park muses coolly. “You guys just need to fuck it out.”

He shoves his own gown in the trash, turns on his heels and leaves.

And under other circumstances, you would’ve been so glad to hear it. Jack talked about you! Jack seems to care!

Except, he had a perfect chance to actually show you that. But on your final day in the ER, he barely said a word. It stayed stuck in your memory, the last nail in the coffin where your hopes were buried: Jack’s weird avoidance, no jokes, no flirting, none of his usual penchant for eye contact. He spent the whole shift painfully indifferent to your departure. Only once you started saying your goodbyes, he came by to wish you luck. To say that he was sure you’d do great. Two sentences was all he managed.

And yet, he had no trouble talking about you with Park?!

You’d really like to get a fucking explanation.

You don’t go home to change. You come straight to the noisy bar, in your plain jeans and baggy shirt. And wrapped up in anger. You scan the crowd for familiar faces and spot Victoria from afar: some tipsy guy is cornering her, wildly gesticulating with his hands. She doesn’t really seem scared, mostly annoyed. But you are in no mood for being civil.

You unceremoniously walk up to them and grab the stranger by the shoulder to pull him back.

“Her face clearly suggests she’s not interested. Get lost.”

“Hello to you too,” he whistles, leering at you. “You wanna be our third, babygirl? I’m always down for... some new experiences.”

“I can help you with that. You ever heard about a comminuted fracture? It’s when a bone is broken in two or more places. Which you are about to experience if you don’t leave in 10 seconds.”

“You’re into human anatomy? That’s hot,” the man grins drunkenly, but his flirting sounds less sure.

“I’m an orthopedic surgeon. There are 3 long bones in your arm, 27 in your hand. Which one would hurt more when broken, how do you think? You’ve got seven seconds. Six —”

“Geez, fucking chill, girl,” he mutters and steps back to hastily retreat.

Javadi snorts a laugh. “Thank you, he was so annoying, I just didn’t want to make a scene. You’d think the "Let’s go, lesbians!" t-shirt would help him get a hint but —” and then she takes you in — your searching gaze and furrowed brows and pursed lips. “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Abbot?”

“It depends. Am I gonna be an accomplice to murder if I tell you?”

“You may be a witness.”

“I don’t think that’s any better,” but luckily, she knows you well enough to figure out that there’s no point in questions. Javadi holds both hands up in surrender. “Okay-okay, last time I saw him, he was at the bar.”

You go for it, barrelling through the crowd like an icebreaker through the frozen water. You notice Trinity, Dennis, Mel, Frank and Jesse nearby. You only have eyes for one man in particular. But at the long table where the drinks are being poured and paid for, there is no sign of Jack. You stop and wait; one minute, two, three pass by. And just as quickly, your determination crumbles.

You wanted him to tell you that he needed you to stay, all these days back, in person. You wanted him to wait for you today. Both times, he didn’t.

It makes you feel self-conscious again. Stupid. Even more pathetic.

You turn around, suddenly too overwhelmed by your own feelings.

The music is too loud now, the smell of alcohol mixing with sweat and perfume, and making your head hurt. You faintly hear someone call out your name, but you don’t stop, too desperate to get back to the exit. Too tired of waiting for the one thing that clearly isn’t meant to be.

The street is quiet, and the air is cold; it doesn’t help to cool you down. You’re walking a thin line between infuriated and upset. It gnaws away at you — that you spent so much time delusionally sure that Jack felt something for you. Cared for you. You think about his watchful gaze on you, the tension hung between you two, his hands he kept a little bit too close, his words that guided you through surgeries and orgasms, his goddamn voice —

You are so deep in your frustrations, you miss the sound of the door opening, the footsteps rushing toward you.

“Hey,” he says it carefully, and yet, you flinch. You turn around to find Jack standing at arm’s length already. Black jeans, grey t-shirt and black denim jacket; he looks unfairly handsome. He also looks concerned. “Is everything alright? The way you left got me worried.”

“Yeah, everything’s just peachy.”

But Jack ignores your sarcasm — or rather looks right past it, reading the very clear displeasure on your face. “Is it Park? Did something happen?”

And his concern doesn’t sound feigned.

It all comes to your mind at once — the unsaid words, unresolved tension, the longing gazes thrown at each other, the shamefully short distance your bodies never crossed. It roars your emotions to a boil.

“Why does everyone assume— You know what? Park is actually perfect,” you snap at him. “He barely speaks to me in the OR, he hates small talk, he is allergic to long sentences and, I suspect, to any sign of real human emotion. So I just clock in every shift to spend 15 hours trying to help people with very little to no guidance. And turns out, I still rock! Even when my mentor is as emotionally evolved as a toothpick!”

“Ok-kay,” Jack draws, “I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing?”

“It’s freaking amazing. Especially compared to the alternative,” and then you step to him, your palms angrily pushing against his chest. “Because you made me feel like I couldn’t breathe!”

Your hands don’t hurt him. But your words do. His eyes go wide, he’s speechless for a moment. Then slowly, very quietly, Jack says:

“Wait, what?”

“You wrote me a recommendation letter, but you couldn’t say a word when I was leaving? After the months we worked together, all you could manage was good luck? The hell is wrong with you?!” and his shell-shocked expression only spurs you on. “You act all nicely, you’re glued to me in the ER, with your advice and your attention and your— your smirking! And what’s with the intense eye contact? How was I supposed to work with you looking at me like that? You know how hard it was for me to focus?! It’s not like I was holding scalpels half of the time!” you huff angrily.

Still, he isn’t moving.

“Sure, it didn’t mean anything to you, you don’t like me like that. And I love surgery, I’m glad I transferred, I wouldn’t want to waste my time on someone who is emotionally mute. But then I find out — oh, you’re actually very talkative! And it’s not like I wanted to find out, I just needed something to help me unwind, anything, because it’s been so damn exhausting — not just the job, but also you and your mood swings and your stupid voice and—” you cross your arms over your chest and add, with an unbridled boldness, “And honestly? After everything, I should be the one you lend a helping hand to.”

The dim streetlights can offer some discreteness — but not enough to cover the flush of color that spreads over Jack’s cheeks. You don’t back off — instead, you take your phone out and click the app’s icon to show it to him on the screen. His gaze flicks down to it. Then back to your face.

You stare at each other.

And then you think: he is about to tell you you’re an idiot. A sleep-deprived one, because it wasn’t really his voice. He has no clue what you just talked about, he obviously isn’t on any apps nor is he —

Jack breathes out a laugh.

He clasps his hands behind his back, the muscles of his chest pulling his t-shirt tight. His gaze is locked on yours. Then it falls lower — to your lips, then your neck, your chest and stomach, leaving a hot trail down your body.

“It got that bad, huh?” a corner of his mouth twitches up. Not condescending but amused. And then his voice drops — to that exact honeyed murmur that dragged so many orgasms out of you. “F’course, I can help you out. Should’ve asked me sooner, sweetheart.”

The sound knocks the anger out of you. The air, too.

You knew he sounded good on audio, when his words reached you through the headphones, when he so charitably helped you reach your high.

But in reality, he’s lethal.

When this same voice is paired with his gaze, with the intensity and confidence that you’re disarmed by. Entranced by. When Jack comes closer, you stay frozen.

“Mine or yours?” he asks calmly.

“W-what?”

“My place or yours?”

You catch small specks of golden light lost in his hazel eyes. You blink twice to stop staring. “Mine is about 40 minutes away.”

Emotion flashes across his face — surprise that’s borderline on worry. He lets it slide. He takes your hand in his, firmly, putting his fingers between yours.

“I live much closer. My car is parked around the corner,” Jack notes and leads the way, carefully pulling you along.

You let him.

You know it’s impolite to gawk, but you can’t help it — you’re pretty sure his hallway alone can fit half of your flat. It is a spacious, very minimalistic place: tall walls, a lot of lights and very little furniture. You guess that he hand-picked each piece — from wooden shelves and cupboards to small colourful pouffes. You also don’t think he spends too much time in here.

“So how many roommates do you have?” you ask cautiously as you get out of your shoes.

“None,” Jack chuckles. “It’s my apartment.”

“You live here by yourself? This place could fit a football team,” your own chuckle is nervous. As is your involuntary blabbing. “I’m serious, 11 full-grown men could stay here, and half of them won’t even see each other. Is there a bowling alley somewhere? A golf course? Ten jacuzzis? —”

He wraps his arm around your waist, pressing your back into his chest. Solid and warm, and rendering you silent.

“How about I do the talking,” his breath scatters against the side of your neck. Both of his hands find your hips, and very slowly, he turns you to face him. His eyes look a shade darker when he says, “I’ll walk you to the bedroom.”

And then his mouth is on yours.

There is no build-up and no hesitation — he kisses you so hungrily and deeply, like he’s been starving this whole time. Just like you were. Your shuddering breath turns into a moan. His lips move seamlessly, matching his insatiability to yours, in a deliberately slow pace that leaves you dizzy, heated, panting. Your memory is wiped clean of every other man you’ve kissed before him.

You can only crave more.

Jack starts walking without breaking the kiss. He gently pushes you forward, his hands maneuvering your body around the furniture and into doorways — you’re blindly following his lead. Until he stops you.

He tsks against your lips. “Careful, you almost ran into a wall.”

“Well, it’s not like I can really see —”

Jack silences your protests with another kiss, one of his palms laid flat over your spine to steady you. Not once do you take a peek at your surroundings, entirely too focused on the movement of his mouth, and with his every touch, your heart grows louder.

All of a sudden, your legs bump into something — and in a second, your back hits layers of bedcovers, the fabric silky to the touch. You exhale shakily, taking a couple of seconds to collect yourself. The task proved to be impossible under his heavy stare.

The room is dim, drowned in the colors of the sunset that sinks in through the big uncovered windows. He took the jacket off somewhere along the way, and you watch as the coppery light sneaks into his curls, contours the lines of veins and muscles of his arms, his body standing right next to the bed, legs almost touching yours.

You guess that he is stalling in case you want to stop.

“Aren’t you gonna tell me what to do?” you want your words to sound like a challenge — instead, they come out as a plea.

You don’t mind. There’s nothing on your mind but him.

Jack gives you just a ghost of a smile, a low hum coming from deep in his chest.

“Ask me nicely,” he says, in that gravelly voice that makes desire spark up in your bloodstream.

And he already knows that he won’t meet resistance — Jack leans over the bed, palms firmly gliding up your thighs until he finds the zipper of your jeans. He takes the slider between two fingers but doesn’t pull it down. And you’re glad that you aren’t standing, because the way he’s staring at you makes your whole body weak, your bones and muscles turning liquid.

“Please, I’ll do anything,” you whisper.

You do not need to ask him twice.

Jack yanks the slider down and pulls your jeans — down to your knees, then fully off. He parts your thighs with his leg, his gaze drawn to your panties, to where the fabric is already dampened with your arousal. You watch him slowly wet his lips, your body shivering in anticipation of his touch. And then he’s climbing on the bed, his body propped up on his arms, his weight between your thighs. He doesn’t hover over you — because he’s equally impatient: instead, he leans down to eagerly capture your mouth with his.

His lips trap you in place — while his hands undress you: his fingers are unbuttoning your shirt to take it off, then sliding beneath your cotton tanktop, dragging it up over your ribcage —

then Jack sucks in a breath.

His words are muffled, his lips brushing yours:

“No bra?”

“I don’t— don’t like the feeling of it,” you explain bashfully.

That earns you a pleased smirk. He actually pulls back to take a look, to hastily pull your last piece of clothing off. Then Jack ducks his head.

“And how’d you like this?” he asks before catching your nipple into his mouth.

You cry out at the sensation, and Jack uses one hand to pin you to the bed. He pulls more sounds out of you, swirling his tongue around your nipples, biting and sucking at them, his hunger mixed with admiration. Your heartbeat’s pounding in your ears, the pleasure surging through you like a heat wave —

But unexpectedly, Jack pulls away.

He reaches out to click the lamp on the nightstand. The light is faint, warm, draping your shadows over the silk. Jack lies down on his side, keeping his face close to yours.

“Show me how you do it.”

“You— Um. You want me to show you how—”

“Touch yourself for me,” he orders.

Blood rushes to your cheeks. But you comply, too eager for his praise. For all of his recorded promises to finally come true.

Jack watches raptly as your hand moves lower, slowly, just like he taught you the first time — until your fingers dip under the fabric of your underwear. You bite your lower lip, stifling a whimper, feeling the arousal leaking out of you. You spread your legs wider, the thin cotton not leaving much to the imagination as you start toying with your clit.

Jack swallows noisily, his breath uneven. But his voice stays measured. “I want these off. Need to see you, baby.”

You hook your thumbs under your panties and tug them off, a bit too hastily, but Jack makes no attempts to slow you down. Although unvoiced, his own desire is so palpable, it sets your nerves on fire. And when the cool air grazes your wetness, you can’t help but moan.

You do not wait for his command — you spread your legs further apart, your fingers drawn to rub your aching clit. You feel Jack’s cheek pressed to your shoulder, his gaze glued to your hand.

“So what’s the preference? Do you like circling it or just the up-and-down motion?” he muses with a grin. “I see, I have some room for improvisation,” and then his breath skates up your throat, the words mouthed against your pulse point, “You’re doing so good for me. You can pick up the pace.”

You do immediately, your movements quick and frantic, and Jack’s not keeping his hands to himself. He cups your breast, pinching your nipple into a peak, rolling it expertly between his fingers, his lips wrapped tightly around the other one. Your back is arching into his touch, heat pooling in your lower belly, your fingers gliding faster up and down your slit — and then one slips inside.

Jack pulls his mouth off with a pop. “Would you look at that,” his voice is low, teasing, “Your pussy’s drooling all over the bed.” And then he smiles, hungrily baring his teeth, grazing your collarbone with them as his palm lies flat on the inside of your thigh. “Go ahead, make yourself cum.”

He is still clothed, and the material of his t-shirt rubs constantly against your naked skin as he continues his arousing, agonizing torture. You feel him everywhere — Jack’s warm breath on your neck, your cheek, his mouth placing kisses along your jaw. His hands are steadying your body as your two fingers plunge into your cunt, as you’re so diligently coaxing yourself into an orgasm. But something’s missing.

“What’s wrong? Your fingers aren’t enough?” Jack taunts. “Does my girl want me to help her?”

You nod desperately, rocking your hips into your hand, trying to get some extra friction, trying and failing to reach that sweet high on your own. He easily catches your wrist, forcing you to halt all movement, your moans reduced to needy cries.

“Tell me what you want,” Jack whispers, lips to your ear.

“I w-want your fingers. Need your fingers inside me, please —”

But just as you’re about to pull your hand away, he covers it with his.

His wide palm firmly cups your mound, pushing your fingers back into your clenching hole. Jack drags his index and middle fingers through your folds, collecting your creamy arousal. And then he eases his slicked digits into you.

He watches as your lips part in a silent moan, your thighs twitching involuntarily as you’re adjusting to the fullness. With two of your fingers already in, it is a very tight fit.

“Relax for me. I know you can take all four,” Jack coos, although his voice gets a bit strained as he feels your walls clamp down around him.

Your hand stays limp, so he pulls his thick fingers out — then ramms them back in, knuckles-deep. A choked cry leaves your mouth; but you don’t try to crawl away from the intrusion. He puts your fingers between his and starts moving them all together, unhurriedly, carefully stretching your wet cunt, the heel of his palm grinding against your clit, your juices trickling down on the bedcovers.

Before you even realize you’re doing it, you push your hips back against his palm.

“Yes, just like that,” Jack murmurs. “Feels good, doesn’t it? About to get even better.”

This time, only his hand is moving while he’s staying still, drinking you up — your body quivering, skin bathed in a sheen of perspiration, your pussy slurping around the unrelenting fingers. The sounds you’re making are downright obscene, loud moans mixed with incoherent pleas as you’re getting lost in the pleasure he gives you so freely.

Jack’s other hand comes up to turn your face to him:

“Eyes on me.”

And as you look at him through lidded eyes, he curls your own fingers inside you, pushing them up against your G-spot. The sudden pressure drags you into a climax, so powerful, you’re blinded for a second, your lungs emptied with a long-drawn exhale as you keep soundlessly mouthing his name.

Jack pulls out his fingers first, then yours. Your hand is drenched and numb, and you barely register as Abbot brings it to his mouth. He licks your fingers clean, one by one, and you are coming to your senses at the sight: his mouth sucking in your digits, your wetness smeared across his lips, his gaze piercing as he keeps eye contact. And just like that, it threads through your veins and bones: your craving for him you’re yet to satisfy.

Before you can even ask him for a kiss, he leans in to give it to you.

It’s hot, it’s messy, his tongue darting between your lips, your hands tugging at his t-shirt, then sneaking under it to feel him tense under your touch. One of his hands grips your hip, the other moving back between your legs, where you’re still sensitive, making you whimper into his mouth.

“Wanna get a proper taste,” he mumbles, his lips already trailing lower.

But you have something else in mind. You close your legs and clutch his t-shirt, your fingers roughly crumpling the fabric, making him meet your gaze again.

“Jack, I’m very grateful for the offer, but I need you to fuck me,” you don’t bother hiding your impatience. “And please, take your damn clothes off.”

He grins, and this is a command he is willing to follow. Jack brings a hand behind his neck to grab the collar of his t-shirt and pulls it up over his head in one swift motion. Your eyes rake over the broad planes of his chest, his toned arms, his freckled skin flushed pink. Before he can think of his next move, you straddle him, leaning to nibble at his neck, your fingers tracing his flexing muscles.

“Someone’s very eager,” he notes with a chuckle.

And yet, the gravel in his voice is thinned out by his own keenness. When your gaze drops down, you see his cock straining against the coarse fabric of his jeans.

“Makes two of us,” you note cheekily and palm him through the denim.

His chuckle turns into a low, long groan. Like he is breaking character, like it is not as easy for him to keep his feelings under control.

You hide your smile, taking his jeans off to throw them on the floor, barely half a minute before you’re climbing back onto his lap. The bulge is now even more prominent beneath his boxer briefs: he’s thick and big, way bigger than you thought, than you imagined, than you’ve ever had. Your mouth parts on the inhale; you are dazed just from the look of it. You feel yourself already getting wet again.

Your words are stumbling out, while your brain is still somewhat functioning:

“I have an IUD, I’m clean. Haven’t been with anyone for a while.” 

“Me neither. For way longer than you probably,” Abbot admits in a half-whisper, watching you attentively. Getting as drunk on the anticipation as you are.

Your fingers go for the waistband at his hips when you catch faint light glinting off the metal. Your palm briefly lies under his scarred knee.

“This okay?”

Him leaving the prosthesis on, you mean. But it is getting harder to put words into coherent sentences.

Jack gets it. “Yeah, m’fine. You want me to...?”

Remove it, is what he wants to say.

For just a moment, it comes up to the surface: his lack of confidence, not necessarily in himself but maybe in how he can be perceived, in what he looks like in your eyes. Being so close, so open, naked.

But this has always been exactly what you wanted.

“I couldn’t care less,” you whisper and tug down his briefs to free his cock.

Then you look down, and your breath hitches.

He is thick, fully hard, the tip red and already weeping. And instantly, you wonder how he tastes. How warm, how heavy he’d feel in your hand. When you reach it impulsively to wrap around him, Jack stops you, his voice a low warning:

“We both know I don’t need that.”

You almost want to whine. But you smother your discontent and move your hands up to his shoulders, holding your hips up, hovering just above his girthy length. A sigh spills from your mouth when his cock brushes your slick entrance —

And right then, Jack’s hands clamp around your thighs. His grip not bruising, but it is firm enough that you can’t move. Can’t lower yourself on him.

“Now, where are your manners, sweetheart?” he asks, playfully cruel.

He knows you’re trapped. You know it too. To prove his point, he rubs his tip against your clit, more slickness gushing out of you at the mere contact. You do let out a miserable whine, your thighs are shaking. But he stays unmoving.

And so you beg. Just like you thought you would.

“I want you, please, I want you so fucking much,” your words pour out rushed and heated, all in one breath, “Want you to fuck me, Jack, please, been thinking about it for months. Before the app, when we were still working together, each time you— you stood next to me or leaned closer during surgeries or talked me through them or— fuck, it was anything, everything, I could barely focus, only kept thinking how much I wanted you to touch me, please-please-please—”

Jack hums. His hands relent. He repositions them so he can guide you instead of stopping you.

“Months, huh? I know the feeling,” he murmurs, with unexpectedly raw honesty.

It lingers. It almost sounds like a confession. But you do not get time to catch the meaning of his words before he starts pushing his cock into your throbbing warmth.

You gasp. He’s easing you down slowly. As your nails dig into his shoulders, his grip tightens; but he keeps composure. Jack’s watching you — your eyes screwed shut and brows pinched together, your body shifting, mouth gulping air as you’re allowing him to stretch you open. He moves one of his hands to draw light circles on your clit, to help you take him, all of him, until you’ve bottomed out.

Your body stills. He feels you clench around him, your pussy gripping him so tightly, he chokes back a groan. Your forehead dips forward, helplessly.

“You are— s’big, so-o —”

“Breathe for me,” Jack instructs, both palms secured at your hips, sounding a little out of breath himself. He watches as your chest rises and falls, the uneven cadence of inhales and exhales. He mercifully gives you a minute to adjust. “Need you to start moving, baby. Yeah?”

You scramble for an answer, all your words slurring out into whines, your body barely used to the stretch. But you want to be good for him. And so you lift your hips. Just a few inches. Then sink onto his cock again, trembling at the overwhelming ache of being stuffed so full.

The pause lasts for barely three seconds.

Then your hips start moving up and down on their own, because it feels too good to stop, because the ache is quickly dissipating into pleasure.

“There she is.”

He lets you find and set the rhythm, at first more grinding and slow, your pussy swallowing him whole each time. As you let the sensation build, as it spreads and turns searing. Euphoric. And your head tips back with a moan.

“Look how well you’re taking me,” Jack praises, his voice husky with lust. “Just like I knew you would.”

His hands grip harder at your hips, and without warning, he starts bouncing you on him. His pace is quicker, harsher, the fat head of his cock rubbing against the spot that makes your vision blur. Jack leans closer to rasp the words into your ear:

“Who do you think I thought about—” his fingers move down to open your legs wider, “While making all these audios—” and he plunges deeper, “For my favorite girl—” and your moans pitch louder, “After her tiresome shifts?”

You’re too cockdrunk to even think of a reply. You’re only capable of moving your hips in time with his, nails scraping at his sweat-covered skin, your slick oozing down to his balls.

“I’m— I’m close,” you mewl. “M’gonna cum, Ja-ack.”

“Think I should let you?” he says through gritted teeth, his own control already slipping.

“P-please,” you stutter out weakly as his hips snap up, “Wanna cum, wanna— want you— t-to make me cum, please.”

A grunt escapes him, and Jack adjusts his hold, his chest heaving against yours, skin rubbing against skin. His mouth latches onto your throat, each word punctuated with a trust:

“That’s a good — fucking — girl.”

His hands drop lower to cup your ass, giving it a squeeze — and then the world around you spins as he effortlessly flips you on your back.

Your legs fall open for him, and he manages to keep his cock nestled so perfectly in your fluttering hole. He doesn’t slow down for a second: Jack shifts his weight on his left leg, angling his hips a little to hit that spot inside you over and over, making your eyes roll back in your head. The room fills with your breathy moans, your cunt squelching around his thick length, your body caged under his weight. In stark contrast, his lips are weightless — against your chest, your collarbones, your arm, mouthing pet names or more praises — or just the letters of your name, you honestly can’t tell. The meaning of his words escapes you.

“Yeah, that’s right. Need your head empty,” Jack groans, breath ragged, his pace relentless. “Need you to only think about how good I’m fucking you.”

He surely is.

Your whole body tenses.

You are so close.

And then you feel his forehead against yours, a pressure of his fingers on your clit, a command given with the utmost softness:

“Let go, baby. I got you.”

The second orgasm tears through you, white-hot and all-consuming. You cum with a sob falling from your lips, your fingers scrabbling at his shoulders as your pussy spasms wildly around his cock. He fucks you through it, he does try to last a little longer, but the combination of all this — the way you look, feel, finally his — pushes him over, his own pleasure so intense, he’s powerless against it. Jack’s hips jerk as he cums, filling you up, his broken groans pressed into your neck.

The room is still.

You wait for your breath and heart to calm. His hand brushes a loose strand of hair out of your face, and he whispers, still a little breathless:

“You good?”

You nod first. Then open your mouth:

“That was—” you have to swallow the slight hoarseness of your voice, “Literally the best sex I’ve ever had.” Three heartbeats later, you add with a tired laugh. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

“Too late.”

You feel him smile against your cheek before he places a kiss there.

Jack pulls out carefully, leaving you empty — you have to stop yourself from reaching for him, from chasing his familiar warmth. You quietly watch him clamber off the bed and pull his briefs up, then close your eyes so he won’t catch you staring. You listen to him walk out of the room, and suddenly, a realization kicks in: his footsteps sound uneven.

Like he is limping.

Jack comes back with a wet towel and gently cleans you up, then helps you put your panties on and brings you a glass of water. And every time you look at him, your gaze catches on how he is obviously leaning on his healthy leg.

You slowly stretch your neck and shoulders, then tap on the spot next to you. “Come here.”

Jack sits down, a little bit unsure where this is going. And very much tense in the exact place you thought he would be. You move your hands to his right knee and feel his hamstrings flex involuntarily.

“You spend too much time on your feet,” you say, working your fingers over his muscles. “And you put too much pressure on it. Your leg feels like it’s made out of concrete.”

Without even looking, you can tell that now he’s tense all over.

You have seen Jack take the prosthesis off, short moments of reprieve that he allows himself too rarely for your liking, only after particularly long shifts. He isn’t shy about his disability, but he doesn’t like bringing attention to it, you’ve noticed. Like living with it isn’t hard, like it’s not that big of a deal. You also know that he’s got no one to take care of him.

You take your time massaging the scarred tissue, mostly applying pressure with your thumbs as they move from the socket up, then back down. And you know that it’s working when you hear him exhale, his breath a little ragged. Relieved.

“I try to take breaks, but you know how it is. We’re always busy,” Jack counters, with that same boyish stubbornness you can’t possibly be angry at.

“Shen’s an attending now, which is supposed to make your job easier. Don’t act like the ER’s gonna blow up if you sit down for 10 minutes,” you turn your head to look at him.

Jack doesn’t meet you with defiance — he’s sitting with his shoulders slumped and gaze mellow, way too relaxed to hide it. The sight is so endearing, your heart lurches behind your ribs. You fight the urge to kiss him. Instead, your fingers glide down to the edges of the prosthesis’s socket. You do not push it; you let him decide if he wants to be this vulnerable with you. Jack just gives you a nod. A small, barely noticeable movement. Also an immeasurable sign of trust. You carefully remove the artificial limb, then take the sock off to let his skin breathe. Your touch lingers: you lightly trace the white uneven scars, faded reminders of something horrible he managed to survive.

He lets you.

Silence fills up the space between you two, and you don’t know what to do next. Technically, you only needed sex, and Jack didn’t say that it would happen more than once. This would be the perfect moment for you to thank him and head out.

So you remove your hands —

Jack puts his arm around you, firmly. His lack of hesitation helping yours to fade away. He scoops you back, until you’re pressed to him, your back met with his bare chest. His chin is placed on your shoulder, his words warm:

“You really like it in surgery, don’t you?”

“I do,” you answer honestly. “Way more than I thought I would. I was afraid it’d be too challenging, too much pressure, too many new things to learn... But it’s not that hard. And I love learning.”

He laughs, a soft low sound you love just as much. “Even with an attending who’s as emotionally evolved as a toothpick?”

“I think us working together is mutually beneficial, actually. Park’s teaching me how to mend bones, I’m giving him lessons on how to hold a conversation for longer than a minute.”

Jack’s smile is tickling your neck as he pulls you back into bed, so effortlessly, like he has done it many times. You readily curl up against him, resting your palm over his chest. He tugs the blanket up to cover you, his fingers gently moving from your shoulder to your collarbone.

But then your eyes meet his, and it is a discovery you never thought you’d make: he looks self-conscious. He is the one searching for words to put his feelings into.

“You said I made you feel like you couldn’t breathe,” Jack recalls.

“I didn’t mean literally... I guess I was a little bit dramatic,” you avert your gaze. Okay, maybe you should’ve found a better way to tell him how you felt. Preferably without it looking like a crash-out.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—” his hand cradles the side of your face, gentle and reassuring. “From the first day you came to the ER, with your humor and your curiosity and your quick thinking... To me, you were like a breath of fresh air,” he skims his thumb over your lower lip, his touch light, his words heavy with the emotions he’s been holding back for months. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I was working up the courage.”

His heartbeat is hushed under your palm. Steady with certainty. It radiates from him like light, your insecurities melting away under his gaze like snow under the sun.

After a moment, you speak up: your voice is teasing. “Funny how you had just enough courage to record raunchy audios.”

“My therapist said I needed a hobby. Unfortunately, I suck at golf,” Jack leaves a kiss on your forehead. “But you were the one who gave me the idea.”

“Um, for all the great ideas I am famous for, that one definitely wasn’t mine.”

His chest vibrates with laughter. “You don’t remember it? Your third week in the ER, the nightcrawles on a night out. I walked you out to wait for your cab, and you said — and I quote — that I’ve got a very soothing voice. That I should narrate audiobooks or something.”

You cover your face with your palm, groaning. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I said that out loud. I had five shots of tequila. I hoped you would forget.”

“I didn’t,” Jack says and pulls your hand away. “Everything you do and say is very memorable to me,” he presses his lips to your wrist. Then puts your hand back on his chest and holds it there, his thumb brushing yours. And out of nowhere, very nonchalantly, he asks. “So, does it actually take you 40 minutes to get to work?”

“Yeah. Give or take,” you tell him vaguely.

He doesn’t buy it. “And if we’re being more specific?”

“Closer to an hour,” you admit reluctantly. “But the rent is pretty low, and most of my neighbours are nice, and I finally got my shower fixed last week so —”

“You can move in here.”

Your words die down in an instant as you stare at him, trying to discern a hint of humor, of pity, of anything to suggest he doesn’t mean it.

“You aren’t serious,” you mumble, but his unblinking gaze confirms that he is. “No, I really— I can’t.”

Jack props his head up on one hand. “Why not?”

“Because it’s your apartment. You’re living on your own, and I wouldn’t want to bother you or— or take up too much space.”

“Didn’t you say this place can fit a football team? So unless you’re gonna bring another 10 people with you...”

“No, it’s just me,” you say timidly and hesitate for a few seconds. But since you’re out of arguments, the only thing you’re left with is the truth. “I don’t want you to regret it later on.”

“I won’t regret it.”

“You barely know me.”

“I know you plenty. We worked together for half a year.”

“Yeah, but that was us in the hospital. Which isn’t exactly informative, because I can be a total mess in my everyday life. What if you come home to find my clothes lying around everywhere? What if I’ve got questionable coffee preferences or weird food habits?” you absentmindedly draw circles on his skin, stumbling over the excuses you are nervously coming up with. “And then we’ll start getting into fights because I was too tired to iron the bedsheets or I accidentally took your favorite t-shirt or ate your favorite ice cream because I got my period and acted bitchy or —”

Jack tilts your chin up, the small movement making you close your mouth. A smile pulls at his lips, soft just the rest of him — now, in this moment, with you: soft touch of his strong hands, soft grey curls, a little ruffled (totally your fault), soft gaze that is a vortex of green, amber and gold. His voice carries the same softness when he says:

“You usually take your coffee black with just a splash of soy milk. But when you’re tired, you go for these obnoxiously sugary drinks that barely have any caffeine in them,” his smile grows wider. “You do not throw things around, not when the inside of your locker is strategically organized by shelves. Your only weird food habit is thinking a protein bar can be considered a full meal. I don’t iron my bedsheets, you can wear any of my t-shirts, and I’ll make sure to stock up on ice cream. I’ve never seen you being bitchy, but you can get a little uncooperative when you’re upset or nervous. Which I can handle,” but there is no pressure behind his reasoning — instead, he adds with hope, his eyes not leaving yours, “I know enough, and I’d love to learn the rest. If you let me.”

The feeling rolls all over you, familiar and very long-awaited one: of calmness that his presence always brings you. Of just how comforting it is to be with him. Jack makes it sound too easy for you to harbour any doubts.

“Okay,” you manage quietly.

And when your hands cradle his face, he leans in first to close the distance.

You kiss him slowly, like you are trying to spell out your gratitude, your ever-growing fondness, your feelings you are still afraid to name. He holds you close like he can understand exactly what your lips are saying. You want to drag this moment out for longer; but then a yawn bubbles in your throat.

“You’re not leaving this bed until you get at least eight hours of sleep,” Jack notes, more caring than stern, his nose bumping into yours. And you can tell his eyelids are already drooping. “What time do you need to wake up?”

“M’not working tomorrow. Turned off my alarm already,” you mumble.

“Good,” he nods with his eyes closed, wrapping both arms around you — and then adds in a tender whisper, “Good girl.”

You smile into his chest, happily and drowsily, and you know you’re about to fall asleep. And just before you do, you think:

no, this definitely isn’t a one-time thing.

✧ dividers by @/strangergraphics, @/saradika-graphics, @/omi-resources, @/cafekitsune; ✧ I usually don’t like diving a fic into shorter “parts”, but it felt right in the moment, and I hope it didn’t ruin the pacing of the story? ngl I was super horny when I wrote the smut part(s), so maybe I went a liiittle overboard... also, yes, this fic was supposed to be shorter, but then I added a shit ton of softness at the end, I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF! ✧ English isn’t my first language, so feel free to message me if you spot any mistakes. reblogs and comments are very appreciated!

[junk-thunder]

i've survived far worse. i've also died to far less though so who knows

[sourdough-seal]

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[000l]

[shrewreadings]

like to charge, reblog to cast.

[deathreverse]

hey if you ever get round to writing for jack abbot could I request a fic where maybe he and reader have been dating secretly for a little while and finally decided to tell everyone? thank you!

A/N: thank you for the request!! This is my first time writing anything for Jack so I can only hope I wrote his character okay!!

WARNINGS: includes mentions of erectile dysfunction and sex.

BLURB REQUESTS ARE OPEN!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

“Oh, one more thing, although cleared for discharge, Room 4 might be occupied for a while. 23 year old male just found out he’s got erectile disfunction… he’s pretty upset.” You grimaced at the day shift as you swung your backpack over your shoulder, fingers returning to tap on the nurses desk.

Langdon blew out a breath. “Yeah, that’s pretty devastating news at that age.”

You hummed. “Unfortunately, that’s what happens when you take six tabs of Sildenafil from a random street dealer in the space of thirty minutes.”

Whittaker frowned, his hands involuntarily crossing over his crotch. “What’s uh— what’s the average age for that to start naturally?”

You pursed your lips to conceal your amusement and looked down at your booted feet. Santos waved a hand. “You’re safe for now, Huckleberry. It’s most commonly associated with men over forty.”

Your head didn’t move but your eyes slid up to watch everyone else’s gaze turn to Robby and Jack. You had to bite the inside of your cheek harder, swallow down a laugh that was threatening to bubble up your throat.

Robby nodded once—a bit self-deprecatingly—at his residents and students and lulled his head to look at Jack. “Yeah, we’re not far off.” He muttered.

“Speak for yourself,” Jack replied in a low tone, eyes still on the monitor as he finished up his last report.

The sound did something to your lower belly, much like his low tone usually did. You couldn’t wait to get back home with him, to be able to feel his touch and presence and not have to keep a professional amount of distance between you for at least twelve hours.

You both declared your relationship to HR almost seven months ago, when you knew things were getting serious. And despite their acceptance of the situation, you still hadn’t told the team.

It was by no fault of theirs. But you…enjoyed having it to yourself, having Jack to yourself. And he’d made it very clear that he felt the same. You didn’t want them in your business, in your intimate life.

More than that, you were afraid of what people would think. Scared for special treatment allegations, inappropriate behaviour reports, and the rumours that you were nothing more than a young piece of ass that Jack would eventually get bored of.

And Jack.. he had been nothing but attentive and reassuring when he suggested telling the board and you voiced your concerns. He’d showed you in more ways than one how deeply he felt for you. That this was not temporary, that he wanted a future with you.

So you reported your relationship to HR, admitted you’d been together six months already and no one had any suspicions. You kept it professional, kept it normal.

You knew tonight would be the start of the change. It was only this morning when you awoke to his head between your thighs that you finally relented, agreeing to tell the others in ED about you.

Dana raised a brow, lips curling into a grin as she read the underlying message that he was seeing someone. "Good for you, Abbot," she drawled, nodding her head once in a form of approval.

Langdon crossed his arms over his chest, brows furrowed with a taunting twinkle to his eyes. "Even more reason to stock up, man. Can't be leaving your woman unsatisfied."

Your eyes clocked Jack as he leaned back and shrugged his arms into his jacket, hurling his backpack over a shoulder as he approached you. Casually enough that no one seemed to bat an eye.

Until he slung an arm around your shoulder as you snaked yours around his waist.

“Oh, you don’t have any complaints, do you, sweetheart?” He asked, craning his neck to look down at you, brows slightly raised.

He shared a look with you, every ounce of love and adoration he felt glistening in his eyes.

Your heart hammered against your ribcage, heat creeping up your neck to sit on the tops of your cheeks. There was a crooked grin tugging on the corner of Jack’s mouth, an expression you couldn’t help but mirror.

A year of keeping your relationship a secret, six months of HR knowing, and now day one of your colleagues.

“Oh no, I’m more than satisfied.” You averted your gaze from Jack and to your colleagues, trying to catalogue their wide eyes and shocked expressions to memory.

The apples of your cheeks swelled as you smiled, big and wide and happy. Jack pressed his lips to the top of your head before turning you both toward the exit, his hand waving above his head as he walked you both out.

"Have a good shift, our phones are turned off." He called over his shoulder.

[abbotly]

please

Jack Abbot x senior resident!reader

Summary: Abbot’s mildly annoyed when he doesn’t seem to be his favorite resident’s favorite attending — he’s pissed when he finds out she’s considering leaving the Pitt.

Warnings: general medical things, mentions of a past MCI (not detailed), did Some Research for this but I’m sure it’s still all wrong

Author’s note: Long live Shen and his dunks!!! 🥤hooah!

—

It starts the way things on night shift at the PTMC emergency department often do — with Dunkin’ Donuts.

Dr. Jack Abbot is speaking to an MS3 who’d just arrived for his first rotation when he sees the other attending on shift, Dr. John Shen, stroll in through the ambulance bay doors with his usual pre-shift coffee.

It’s hardly a rare sight at the Pitt, and Abbot only nods in greeting as he goes back to running the new kid, Wells, through what to expect on his first night shift.

What does surprise him, however, enough that he almost doesn’t hear what Wells asks him next as he head snaps back in the direction of the bay, is that you’re smiling at Shen’s side, a matching pink and orange cup in hand.

“Dr. Abbot?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jack says, shaking his head, back to the task at hand. “Sorry, dude, what’d you ask?”

“Will it be a while before handoff?”

Jack checks his watch. “Probably. We get started when all of the residents are here. Have you done any rotations in an ED before?”

“This is my first. I just got done with derm, IM and peds,” he says, then smiles. “Love peds.”

“Well, you’re very lucky to be learning from all of these guys. But you’ll probably be overwhelmed,” Jack says, honest. He almost can’t believe they sent a first-timer to nights; it must be a busy rotation. “Try to keep up best you can, eat whenever you have a millisecond. Let me or any of the residents know if you need help.”

Wells nods, looking serious suddenly. “Yes, sir.”

Jack opens his mouth to tell him to cut that shit out immediately, almost forgetting what had called his attention only a few seconds ago until it appears at his side.

“You and me tonight, Jack?” Shen says, shattering that illusion as he sips from his coffee. “And who’s this?”

“Dr. Shen and Dr. Y/l/n, this is Student Doctor Wells joining us on his first emergency med rotation,” he says. “Dr. Shen is the other attending on shift, and Dr. Y/l/n is our senior resident tonight.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” you say, immediately shaking his hand. Jack saw your eyes light up the moment you heard there was a new student on shift. You loved working with the new kids. “Welcome to the Pitt.”

“Thanks,” he says, shaking Shen’s hand enthusiastically s well. “Aw man, Dunkies? That’s such a good idea.”

Jack rolls his eyes outright, feeling his mouth screw to the side in annoyance while you sip from your cup.

“Dr. Shen bought donuts for everyone, too. They’re in the break room,” you say, checking your watch, a strand of hair falling out of your ponytail with the motion. “C’mon. I can show you before we start handoff.”

Wells looks at Abbot, who shrugs. “Like I said, eat when you can.”

You laugh at that, before your eyes find Wells again, tipping your head in the general direction of the break room. “He’s right. Let’s go.”

Abbot watches the two of you leave before directing his attention back to the chart of the patient he’s taking over from Robby in Trauma 2, familiarizing himself with the results from the tests they’ve been running on day shift.

He hears Shen put down his coffee, the offending cup bound to leave a ring of water on Jack’s preferred charting station at the central hub. It’s never bothered him before — the ED is messy enough as it is — but everything about it is pissing him off tonight.

“Is that something I need to know about?” he asks quietly.

“What?”

Jack looks up. “You and Y/l/n. Coming in here holding hands after a coffee date.”

Shen glitches for a second, frozen where his backpack is halfway off his shoulders.

Then he scoffs.

“It was not a coffee date,” he says. There’s amusement in his eyes.

“Hm,” Abbot says, holding onto his stethoscope while he rolls out his neck, tablet forgotten on the desk. “If you say so.”

“Uh, I do,” Shen insists, still entertained.

“I’m just saying, I’d rather know now, y’know, before upstairs buries us in paperwork,” he says, sniffing, glancing around his department. Robby beckons him from Trauma 2. “See how we can get ahead with admin. That’s all.”

“Jesus Christ, Jack,” his co-attending laughs. “Nobody is doing any paperwork. She just wanted to talk about, like, career stuff.”

Jack’s eyebrows furrow. “Career stuff?”

Shen shrugs, tugging a few pens out of his bag, clipping his badge onto his scrub pants. “She’s applying for fellowships right now — you know this. She just wanted some advice. She’s going around to all the attendings — I’m sure you’re on the list somewhere, dude. Chill.”

“Abbot. Shen,” Robby calls. “I’d really love to leave before puck drop.”

“Coming!” Jack says, before turning back to Shen. “I am chill. I just wanted to know if — hold on. She’s going around to everyone, and you somehow beat me in the order?”

Shen grins around his straw, already bitten beyond practical use, as slimy condensation ring on the desk right next to Jack’s phone. Then he shrugs. “I probably just give off better mentor energy than you do.”

“Right now, I need you to give off attending energy for this handoff,” Jack bites. “Can you do that?”

Shen laughs again, passing Jack on his way to Trauma 2. “You’re on one tonight, old man. Wells better stay out of the way.”

—

A pediatric broken arm comes in only half an hour into your shift.

You grab Wells, who follows you obediently while Olive wheels the 8-year-old to the room number Lena calls out, speaking with her mom about the injury.

The child’s cries are awful, and you briefly doubt if this was something to bring a med student in on so quickly. Kids were hard for you at first.

“What’s this?” Dr. Abbot says from behind the central desk.

“Broken arm. Playground,” you say over your shoulder.

“Wells stay on it. I’ll be in there to check in a few,” he says, nodding at you. You nod back, pursing your lips in the absence of a smile given the scenario, feeling reassured all the same.

“We are a teaching hospital, Mrs…” you trail off, waiting for mom to supply her name as Wells and Olive help her daughter onto the bed in Central 11.

“Redford,” she says. “You can call me June, though. This is Penny.”

“And what’s your name?” you say to the younger boy who’d been clutching his mother’s hand the entire time, tucked behind one of her legs. You crouch to his level.

“Aaron,” he says, his eyes bloodshot.

“Nice to meet you, Aaron. I’m Dr. Y/l/n and this is Student Doctor Wells. We’re going to take real good care of your sister, okay?” you ask.

He nods, sniffling into his mother’s Lycra pants.

“Okay,” you say, standing back up. “Like I was saying, this is a teaching hospital, so I’ll have my med student here with me today, if that’s alright with you, Mom.”

“Sure,” she says, smiling tightly at Wells, her worry still evident, nodding nonetheless. “Is it broken?”

Turning your attention back to Penny, her left arm is lying limp and awkward. “We won’t know for sure until we do some imaging, but we’ll give her something for the pain and bump her as far up the list as we can if she needs an x-ray, okay?”

Mrs. Redford breathes. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Sound good, Penny?” you ask. She nods.

You speak with Olive about starting ibuprofen and an order for an x-ray. Wells seems to be doing okay at Penny’s bedside, his eyes already scanning her injury.

“What would we do next?” you ask, joining him bedside.

“After pain management, X-ray?” he asks.

“We could,” you say, smiling at both Penny and her mom as you both turn away slightly to deliberate. You look at him expectantly. “But pediatric fractures are also a great candidate for…?”

Wells is still locked in on her arm, but then he looks up for a second, a look of recognition passing on his face.

“Ultrasound,” he says. “Of course.”

“Right,” you say, smiling again. “Good job. Didn’t wanna spoil it, but Olive probably already sent for a machine.”

“Nurses, man,” he says, appreciative.

You finally settle on the stool at Penny’s bedside, getting a closer look.

“What happened?” you ask, looking between both of them.

“I fell from the monkey bars,” she says.

“The monkey bars?” Wells asks, his tone light and happy. He did say he had some peds in him. “Oh no! Were you racing your brother?”

You roll to the side as Wells keeps talking to Penny, and her mom directs her attention to you. “I was watching them, I swear I was, but her dad called, and she’s just so fast—”

“It’s alright,” you say immediately. You weren’t at all worried about this case from a social perspective — both children presented clothed, well-fed and clean, and mom was caring and cooperative to start. You could keep an eye out through the rest of the exam, and you catch Wells’ eye when she’s not looking.

But with Penny comfortable and the room calmed down slightly, Aaron sitting at the end of her bed, you let June know she could take her son to the family room if she wanted.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll stay with her at least until her father is here,” she says.

“Okay,” you nod, watching Olive pull back the curtain to wheel in the ultrasound machine.

A blur of movement and an audible commotion near the hub catches your ear, but you and Wells remain focused on the task at hand.

Olive is leading him through the set up of the ultrasound, so you keep your ears open, staying aware of your surroundings, noting already where Dr. Abbot’s standing in front of the board at the central hub.

Then it’s Lena’s voice, followed by a man’s.

“Sir, you can’t just barge back here—”

“My daughter’s back here! June? Penny?”

A man enters the bay suddenly, his chest heaving and eyes wild, pushing past Olive on his way to Penny’s opposite bedside. Father.

“Oh, Pen,” he sighs, shrugging off his suit jacket. “What happened?”

“I fell off the monkey bars,” she says, a fresh round of tears springing.

“Is it broken? Has she been for an x-ray?” he asks, shifting his attention to you.

“Hi, Mr. Redford,” you start, nodding for Wells to begin smoothing the gel over Penny’s arm. “We’re beginning the ultrasound now. I’m Dr. Y/l/n, and this is—”

“Ultrasound?” he says, his face screwing up immediately. His suit jacket discarded in his wife’s lap at some point, he loosens his tie. “Isn’t that for babies? Her arm is fucking broken.”

The atmosphere in the room changes on a dime, you feel Wells still beside you, and Olive freezes, too, where she’s checking Penny’s chart at the monitor again.

“We suspect so,” you say, taking a measured breath. You make sure Wells has a good enough view of the monitor, handing him the wand with a reassuring nod. “We’re doing the ultrasound to see what kind of break it is so we can properly set it, then recommend her a cast or a brace depending.”

“How long has she been waiting here in pain while you guys are fiddling with this machine?” he asks. He turns to his wife, who has also fallen silent at this exchange. “Babe, why didn’t you push for an x-ray?”

June looks to you, suddenly helpless. “Well, she said—”

“No, no,” Mr. Redford cuts her off, his eyes squinting at you. “I want a different doctor in here right now.”

Wells, to his credit, is focused completely on the machine, moving the wand over her arm. You lean in closer.

“Keep going. Try to identify the type of fracture,” you say softly, before turning your attention back to the father.

“Mr. Redford, on fractures such as your daughter’s, an ultrasound gives us a quicker diagnosis, and then we don’t have to expose her to radiation,” you explain. “On injuries like this, where the hand goes out to catch the fall, ultrasounds are very common.”

But you see this all the time. Tensions run high enough in the ED, way before a kid is involved. You can tell nothing you’ve said has carried any weight as his frustration grows.

Abbot is still visible over his shoulder, now focused on a chart on his tablet but inched a few feet down the counter at the central hub, marginally closer to the bay you’re in.

“What is this place?” Mr. Redford says, his volume growing. Olive looks to you, a question in her eyes, and you nod. “My wife rushed my daughter here an hour ago and she’s still not in a fucking cast?”

“We’ll get her in a cast as soon as Student Doctor Wells and I—”

“And you’re letting a student touch my daughter?”

“Greenstick,” Wells says quietly. You pull your attention away, checking the monitor, and nod at him.

“Good. We’ll want Ortho down here to be sure,” you say.

“Hey!” the father shouts suddenly. Your eyes shoot to both of his children, their faces scared. His wife is standing at his side, a hand on his arm, pleading, but he surges on. “I’m fucking talking to—”

“S’there a problem here?”

Jack appears with Olive behind him, his jaw set as he looks around the room. His eyes don’t go to Mr. Redford first, but to you. He glances at Wells, too, who still has his head down, even if at some point he had moved himself slightly in front of you, in between you and the father.

Only then does Dr. Abbot speak, pointing at Mr. Redford. “Dad, out here with me. Now.”

Mr. Redford scoffs. “Oh, are you in charge? Do you want to explain to me why you’re letting college kids run rampant around your ER?”

“Buddy, I wasn’t asking,” Jack says. “Or I can get security involved if I need to. How’s that sound?”

That seems to register with the man, who finally detaches himself from the beside, stalking over to where Dr. Abbot grips the bay curtain. Which is promptly shut as soon as he’s on the other side, but not before he meets your eyes one last time.

“You need to calm down. You’re scaring your daughter, and your son, too, for that matter,” you hear him say.

“I’ll calm down when she’s been properly seen—”

But Jack cuts him off. “Your daughter is in the care of a very talented, knowledgeable and experienced senior resident, and your wife consented to a student doctor on the case.”

“I didn’t consent to that.”

“But you weren’t here, and that’s none of my business,” Jack says. “What is my business, is my ED and my staff. And you cannot talk to my staff that way unless you want to be removed. Got it?”

Silence for a bit longer, and then the curtain wooshes open again. Dr. Abbot lingers, hands tucked behind his back, as Mr. Redford returns to his daughter’s bedside, looking dejected.

Jack nods at you.

“Okay,” you sigh, a smile on your face again, trying to breathe a bit a life back into the room. June is beet red. “Olive, can you please call an Ortho consult?”

“I did earlier,” she says. “They’re sending Park.”

You whistle. “Lucky you, Wells, meeting Park the Shark your first day.”

—

After you explain the next steps to both parents, Dr. Park arrives to assess the fracture, fist bumping Dr. Abbot, who then takes his leave, one more nod at you. You wave him off.

Park ultimately agrees with Wells’ diagnosis, telling him not to get too excited over a simple pediatric greenstick under his breath when Wells smiles at you proudly.

Park orders Penny moved up to Ortho to cast her, noting that the swelling isn’t too severe and that she can go home with a new cast tonight. And that yes, that she can pick whatever color she wants.

Kids always bring out a a different side of even the most intimidating doctors, and you smile when Park promises to have the pink options set out for her.

“See ya, bottom dwellers,” he says, snapping his gloves into the trash once Penny and her family have been moved out of the room and sent upstairs.

“Thanks,” you say sarcastically. “That one is all yours. Dad’s a lot. You were warned.”

When he leaves, you check in with Wells, who seems a bit overwhelmed by everything that just occurred as you both sanitize.

“Is that kind of thing normal?” he asks. “You were so… calm.”

“Sadly,” you say. “Yeah, it is. You just have to focus on the patient. Escalate if you need. You’ll learn.”

He follows you to the board, brand new Hokas squeaking along the floor. “Dude’s a badass.”

“Who, Park?” you laugh. “Yeah. He knows it, too.”

But Wells shakes his head as he joins at your side. “No, Abbot.”

You quirk a brow, thinking back to the scene, hating that you have to force yourself to relive it to remember the details so quickly, because you’re that used to those kinds of things happening to you.

You’ve gotten so good at packing it up and picking up the next patient, to the point that it almost scares you sometimes.

Maybe not the exact wording you’d choose, but Dr. Jack Abbot is a badass.

Because it’s true, that you’d sought his reassurance on bringing Wells into the room almost as soon as you’d decided to do it.

That when a man entered the picture with a raised voice, aggressive posture and foul language, you ran through escalation procedures in your head and looked around for anyone who could help, but your eyes were really only looking for him.

That when Olive had raised her eyebrows at you, you knew she was silently asking if you needed Dr. Abbot, not anyone else, and that you were nodding before you could even properly consider it.

That when he did arrive, seconds later, you felt steady once again, properly able to focus on treating Penny as quickly as possible while still letting Wells learn when it was appropriate.

That when Abbot called you talented and knowledgeable, it wasn’t even the first time you’d heard it from him — because he was usually saying it to your face — but hearing it for the benefit of someone else had doubled its impact on you.

And that when Jack lingered until Park arrived from Ortho, caught your eyes one last time while you began presenting to the surgeon, you felt yourself trying not to preen.

And most of all, that all of these things point to one irrefutable fact that you’ve spent weeks, months trying to ignore, white knuckling your way through brushed shoulders, reassuring words and touches to the small of your back, only feeling like you can breathe again when it’s time for your next elective elsewhere — which is that you have the biggest, most inconvenient, unprofessional and distracting crush on one of your attendings.

“Yeah, he’s — he has our backs,” you say, considering your next words carefully. “So does Shen.”

“He just came in there all ‘you, with me, now,’” Wells imitates, which succeeds in making you laugh, forgetting your grief momentarily. “Shut him up real quick. So sick.”

“Yeah,” you sigh, rubbing a hand over your face, looking back to the board for the newest arrival waiting for a doctor. “So… so sick.”

—

Hours later, Jack finds you finishing up charts at your favorite desk, on the north side by the family room. You hadn’t seemed rattled earlier by any means, but he still had to check on his resident.

“Hi,” he says softly, tapping his fingers on your desk as he approaches.

“Hi, Dr. Abbot,” you smile. You stretch your arms over your head, your scrubs exposing a strip of skin as you lean back.

He looks away, pretending to suddenly study the chart on his tablet, clearing his throat. “How are you? How’s the kid doing?”

“Penny?”

“No,” he laughs. “Sorry. Our MS3.”

“Oh. Wells is doing good. Great on peds. We’ve been needing that on nights,” you say, your smile growing. “He was with me and Shen on that MVC, and now I think Parker has him with her on scut.”

Jack nods. “Good. I’m gonna tell him to stick with you, if that’s alright.”

You nod enthusiastically before you go back to typing and he keeps looking at his own charts, a beat of silence shared between you two before he speaks again.

“You handled that really well earlier.”

Your smile from earlier diminishes as you sigh.

“Thanks, I guess. He didn’t leave us alone until the big scary attending came in.”

“Men like that don’t always tend to respond to receiving expert medical advice,” he says. “You know that. But you sent for help and kept the exam rolling, keeping the rest of the family calm and making sure your student got some time. You did everything right.”

Your smile is back, and he feels his own face fit to match yours against his better judgement. The feeling evaporates when you reach for your Dunkin’ cup only seconds later.

It’s quiet for another moment as you sip and tap away at your keyboard, Jack still fiddling with his tablet, beginning to think about handoff. He’d really love to be able to admit both cases in BH upstairs before Robby gets in.

“You still thinking of that pediatrics fellowship?” he asks, setting his tablet down, resting his hip on the desk. “You know there’s an attending offer coming.”

“I don’t know,” you say, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Kids are great, but parents are… I think I might be too soft.”

“You are not soft. Did someone tell you that? Who told you that?”

You look surprised, and Jack wonders if he’s said the wrong thing or came across as overbearing — just as soon, he realizes he doesn’t care.

But you just shrug, tucking a leg under you in your chair. “Nobody said anything. Fellowship’s still on the table. I’ve just got a lot to think about.”

“Again. That offer is coming,” he reminds you. “If you’re sick of school.”

He expects a quip back. Maybe ‘never’ with an offended face.

But you just nod seriously, logging out of the computer. “Yeah. That’s a whole other thing to think about.”

“Hey. Let me know how I can help, yeah?” he asks, tracking your movements, the way you wipe your hands on your pants as you stand.

“Thanks Dr. Abbot,” you say, reaching for your tablet. “I’m sure I’ll come knocking for a letter of rec or two.”

“Right,” he says, still stuck at your desk, even as you walk past him, heading toward the nurse’s station. But you stop, his hand reaching out for your shoulder before he can decide on a better tactic.

You pause, looking up at him, no idea how fired up he is over that coffee.

“If you ever wanna just, like, talk. I’m here for that, too,” he says, hoping it comes across nonchalant, laid-back. The exact opposite of how he feels saying it.

But you don’t say anything, just nodding with a slightly confused expression as you leave him, his hand falling from your shoulder as he tries not to turn and watch you go.

“Oh, that was painful to watch.”

Jack whips his head toward Shen, who’d supposedly been watching the interaction from the nurse’s station, with that stupid coffee still in hand.

Jack had skipped the box of donuts in the break room earlier purely on principle.

“Will you finish that fucking coffee already? It’s been hours.”

—

The next blow is arguably worse, because it comes from his best friend.

“I had coffee with your resident over the weekend,” Robby says offhandedly, just a footnote at the end of sign-out.

Jack raises his eyebrows. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Robby laughs, tucking his glasses into his jacket pocket and slinging his backpack over his shoulder, handing the tablet he was carrying over to Jack. “You supervise how many residents and you’re not even gonna ask me who?”

“I know who,” Jack grumbles lowly.

Robby grins tiredly. “She said she was asking all of the attendings, some of the seniors — talking with other specialities, too.”

Jack feels his jaw tick, glad you were requested for a follow-up at triage first thing and aren’t anywhere near this desk right now.

“Jack,” Robby says.

“What?” he bites out, frustrated. Why couldn’t his resident just fucking talk to him?

“I didn’t know she was considering other fellowships,” Robby says.

Jack shakes his head. “If she does one, it’s peds. We talked about it last week.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Robby says, sucking his lips to his teeth, his knees bending. He feels awkward.

Abbot looks up from his tablet, not saying anything.

Robby continues quietly, “Ultrasound. She even threw out crit care. And I told her she should ask Langdon about education.”

Jack sets the tablet down on the hub with a thunk, collecting his thoughts silently for a second, his eyes not leaving Robby’s.

“We don’t have any of those here.”

“No,” Robby says slowly. “But Presby has ultrasound and education.”

Three years at the Pitt, an attending offer with your name on it, and you wanted to go to Presby?

Jack sniffs, turning away as he looks back at the tablet. “Well that’s news to me. Who even has crit care? Westbridge?”

Robby shakes his head.

“Oh,” Jack says in realization, his attempt at looking at his charts useless.

Not PTMC, not Presby or Westbridge.

Not Pittsburgh at all.

“Brother, I hope you know what you’re doing with that one,” Robby sighs.

“I can assure you that I fucking don’t,” Jack says lowly. “I don’t get why she won’t just come talk to me.”

Robby shakes his head. “You’ll figure it out.”

As he watches Robby leave, a pitying smile on his face, he catches him nodding in greeting to you near the Chairs entrance, your hand thankfully free of the offending Dunkin’ cup tonight.

But as welcome of a sight as you are, it does nothing to quiet the voice in his head telling him that in a few short months you might not even be here. That he might not be treated to the sight that he’s come to realize is more than half of what gets him out of bed at 5pm every day.

His dilemma — teetering so hard toward the personal that he’s beginning to forget it was ever professional in the first place — all fades away as soon as Jack sees you talking with another man, recognizing him immediately as the agitated father from the pediatric broken arm the other day.

Someone, he hasn’t the faintest idea who, tries to get his attention behind him. “Dr. Abbot—”

“One sec,” he says, already pushing his way past nurses, his steps quick to the other side of the central desk.

The closer he gets, he sees that the daughter is with him, too, and he slows his pace. Everything looks calm, but he waits near the edge of the hub.

“Penny was hoping her doctors would sign her cast,” Mr. Redford says. “Her doctor upstairs said you guys would be back around this time.”

Jack busies himself reassigning charts to night shift on the station he’d ended up in front of, busy work that he can do while still listening, unable to remember if he’d given the stomach pain in South 18 to Parker or Nazely as he listens to your every word, his fingers slipping while he splits his attention between his monitor and your interaction.

“We’d love to!” you say, bending partially out of his sight in order to sign her cast. “I love the color you chose. Very pretty. Wow! You got Dr. Park sign, too?”

Jack makes eye contact with Mr. Redford while you’re distracted talking to Penny, who’s in much better shape than she was last week. To his minor, minuscule credit, the man looks sheepish.

“And also,” he says, looking back to you and clearing his throat. “I wanted to apologize. To you and your student, if he’s around. The way I acted was unacceptable.”

“Oh,” you say, and Jack hears the surprise in your voice, watching you tuck Penny out of the way as a gurney comes racing by. “Thank you for saying so. It happens. It’s scary to be in here for your kiddo.”

Don’t dismiss it, Jack thinks. Don’t let him off.

“I’m really sorry,” he says again, his hands back on his daughter’s shoulders. Nowhere near you.

Jack breathes.

“I hope you can remember this in the future, whenever you interact with healthcare workers,” you say, so quiet that Jack can barely catch it over the noise in the ED. Probably so Penny can’t hear. But it’s firm, and your voice doesn’t waver. “This is a very stressful system, but we all just want what’s best for the patient.”

Jack hears you direct the man and his daughter toward where Wells should be, and fully locks back into what he’s been pretending to to be doing for the entire interaction.

He definitely assigned that stomach pain to Henderson, now that he thinks about it.

“You saw that, right?” you ask, peeking over the front of the desk, bringing a whoosh of your perfume over his senses.

“I saw,” Jack nods, clearing his throat before taking his time looking up at you fully.

When he does, you’re almost breathless, beaming with pride, your nails tapping on his desk.

He’d sooner die than let that smile go to Presby.

“Told you,” he says, weighted. He shakes his head. “You’re not soft.”

—

“You’ll definitely get in.”

“Yeah?” Crus says, pressing the crosswalk sign, the two of you slowing to a stop as you wait for the signal. The air’s nippy for April, your fleece pulled tight around your shoulders. Your hand freezes where it’s clutched around a plastic cup of cold brew. You’d never give up your iced drinks, weather be damned.

You’d asked Henderson for coffee before tonight’s shift, and he’d recommended meeting at his favorite spot that was walking distance from the hospital. The coffee was alright, but the cinnamon buns were just as good as he said.

“I appreciate that,” he continues. “I’d miss this place, though. What about you?”

You sigh, rolling your neck out as you see the top floors of the Pitt over the trees, a chill going down your spine, and not from the weather. “Million-dollar question these days, isn’t it?”

“I thought you wanted peds. You thinking of going straight to community?” Crus asks, his expression curious.

“Not really,” you admit. “I could. But I still want to do something else. I just don’t know what anymore.”

“So not peds, then?” he presses.

“Peds is… I love it. But it’s so hard sometimes,” you sigh, your lip worried between your teeth. You don’t need to speak the reasons why out loud — it’s obvious. Crus has been by your side since you started, and he’s been gloved up with you for some of your worst cases. “So I just wanted to look around.”

“What else are you thinking, then?” he asks, eyeing you suspiciously — like it’s absurd that Dr. Y/l/n could land anywhere but at PTMC’s emergency pediatrics fellowship next year.

“Well, you’ve fully tanked my ultrasound chances at Presby,” you joke. “But that’s okay. I’ve thought about critical care, too.”

“I don’t know. I heard you were coming for my spot on that broken arm a few weeks back,” Crus laughs, the two of you finally making your way across the street once the walk sign flashes on.

“I learned that from you.”

“We learned that. From Abbot,” he corrects.

You don’t respond, the two of you quietly walking lockstep down the ramp to the public entrance. You revel in the last few moments of normalcy before everything starts to scream at you for the next 12 hours.

“I’m surprised you haven’t considered emergency med education,” Crus says. “You couldn’t do it here, but. We’d see each other around at Presby, I’m sure.”

You look up at him as he holds open the door for you. “Yeah?”

“Wherever we go, co-res. I hope we stay in touch,” he smiles. You feel a surge of fondness for him — feeling slightly less anxious after everything you’ve discussed. That was the point of these talks, anyway, to hear from the people who know you, who’ve taught you everything or learned alongside you these years.

There’s just one you know you can’t bother with, even if it kills you.

You both flash your badges toward security as you bypass the line, and you smile at your favorite guard working the screening today.

“I would miss this place, too,” you say.

“Can you imagine us ever saying that on our first day here?” he asks.

You think back to yours and Henderson’s first day as interns. You’d been a ball of nerves, fresh out of med school in Virginia. If he was as nervous as you, he didn’t show it.

“Hm. Would it have been before the debridement or after the MCI?”

He winks.

“We better head in. Abbot’s gonna be all over me if I make you late,” he says, waiting for you to scan your badge into the ED before he does. “Shen said he gave him a hard time the other day.”

You stop walking at his words, hugging the wall just inside the doors, suddenly nervous to even catch a glimpse of the aforementioned attending now. “What do you mean?”

Crus chucks his empty coffee in the trash and crosses his arms, his voice dropping low around his next words. It’s not hard to go unheard in a room this loud and busy, but it’s just as easy to accidentally be overheard. You lean closer.

“You could talk to him, y’know,” Crus says. “He knows you the best. He could tell you what he thinks.”

You shake your head, the idea impossible. “I already know what he thinks. He wants me here.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” Crus mutters.

You have no time to ask him to expand, unsure if you’d even want to, your stomach so turned over at every underlying implication. You hadn’t eaten enough before shift and you were starting to get shaky from the caffeine, your hands clammy.

“All this coffee coming in these days, and yet nobody is asking for my order.”

The source of your anxiety had arrived through the ambulance bay doors at some point, his backpack slung over his shoulder as he stands staring between you and Crus, his eyes trained on your cup, before he looks to your face, eyebrows raised.

His scrubs don’t even match today, and he’s gone and worn the top that’s just a bit too big for your liking — the one that doesn’t accentuate his arms like they deserve. Maybe that’s a godsend today. Your eyes trail over his freckled forearms anyway — it’s useless.

“They don’t serve break room sludge at my spot,” Henderson says, before turning back to you. “Y/n/n, think about what I said.”

Crus walks off, and you smile tightly at Jack as you attempt to walk past him as well, but he starts to trail just a pace behind you.

“What’d he say?” he asks.

“Just helping me talk through some fellowship apps,” you answer, stopping at the central hub to glance at the board. He stops too, leaning his arm on the desk.

“Yeah? How’s that going?”

“It’s… fine,” you nod, hiking your own bag up higher on your shoulder. “Finishing up soon. Hopefully.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s good. Deadlines coming up, right?”

“You keeping an eye out?” you joke, but your hand twitches around your cup.

“You’ve just been… drinking a lot of coffee lately,” he accuses.

Your mouth falls open in protest. “What do you —”

“You’d let me know, right?” he asks, turning to you. “If you needed any help? And I don’t just mean a letter, Y/l/n. Seriously, anything.”

You’re nodding on autopilot, even if his words have hit you in the deepest part of your chest. His words so earnest, you’re attending so unaware of the impact he’s even having on you because that’s just who Jack Abbot is. He looks out for everyone in his department no matter how long he’s known them, and he gives his heart over and over to patients until he has nothing left in him but a trip to the roof at daybreak.

It’s ironic, in a sad way, that watching him all of these years has made you unable to even let him in like he’s asking you to. Because he just doesn’t know what it means to you, and he never will.

“I know, Dr. Abbot,” you say. “Thank you.”

If he’s convinced by your answer he doesn’t look it, and he sighs as he unzips his backpack. “Go drop your stuff. Sign-out is in five.”

Dismissed, you toss your half-full cup of coffee in the trash on your way to the lockers. Your nerves are shot enough.

—

Abbot is overseeing you, along with your now near-permanent sidekick in Wells, on a traumatic amputation later that night. Motorcycle accident turned nearly deadly — he files a mental note to sign this patient out to Robby.

He lingers where he usually does when you’re leading on a patient, hands tucked behind his back near the doors, in a paper gown that you’d tied on for him in case he needed to hop in, even if he knew he wouldn’t. Once Ortho had come down for a consult, he felt even less of a need to be actively involved. You could do this in your sleep.

“You a third year?” Park asks, watching Wells flush the limb with saline.

Wells looks bewildered. “Who? Me?”

“I’m looking at you, aren’t I?” he spits.

“Yeah, I am, um — is this not…” he gestures toward the limb, shaky. “I’ve never done a saline flush before.”

Park nods. “It’s fine. Come back for an ortho elective next year.”

Jack watched as Wells looks over to you immediately, and you just raise your eyebrows at him, nodding. Jack can practically feel the pride emanating from you like a force field around the kid.

“Uh, yeah,” Wells says, turning back to Park, then back to the limb. Back to Park again. “I hadn’t thought about it. But I will.”

“You stealing my med students, Park?” Jack quips, hands on his hips. “Arm’s not even reattached yet.”

“Your residents, too,” Park grins, before turning to you. “We still on for — what’d we say, tomorrow?”

Jack’s stomach sinks.

You sigh, still holding your gloved hands up. “Uh, shoot. Can we do Thursday instead?”

Park cocks his head. “Before nights? Sure.”

“I was thinking we could just hit the caf? It’s easiest, especially if we’re already coming in earlier,” you say.

“Re-attachment’s favorable,” he tells one of the OR nurses who appears in the room, ready to bring the patient up. “Can you call up and book the OR they were holding? Wells, you coming up?”

“Hell yeah,” he says, standing quickly, the stool he’s sitting on skidding into the wall behind him. You stifle a giggle, and Jack can feel you turn to him, but he can’t bring himself to share in your amusement.

“Okay, well make sure you bring that,” Park says, pointing at the arm. He turns back to you. “I’m not doing the caf. Get my number before you leave in the morning and we’ll figure it out.”

Jack doesn’t hear the rest, shedding his PPE into the corner bin and shouldering the trauma door open with force, muttering an excuse toward one of the OR nurses that’s inadvertently stood in his way, aggressively rubbing sanitizer into his hands as he stalks back to the central desk.

He stares at the board as new arrivals filter in, but he can’t process any of it.

Because — fucking Park? It sits in his stomach like a rock — the knowledge that you’d sooner turn to an attending on a different floor, in a completely different speciality, than you’d come to him for anything.

Robby and Shen had hurt, too. Henderson he didn’t even mind — he was glad his residents had a close relationship, happy that you had an equal to turn to. Because Jack prided himself on his mentorship. It’s been one of the most rewarding things of working at this hospital, the never-ending parade of new kids coming to check a box for med school that ended up discovering their passion. It was few who’d actually have the chops to stay.

But you were always supposed to be one of them. From the day he’d met you, he knew he wanted you to want to stay. He’d held his breath every time you came back from an elective, bright-eyed, explaining everything you’d learned with a new-found enthusiasm he was worried the Pitt had long ago stolen from you. And then he’d feel selfish, realizing his biggest fear is that you’d fall in love with something else and leave him and this place behind, when he knew he should just want you to be the best doctor you can be.

So Park feels like a slap in the face, like ice-cold water poured over him in the middle of Trauma 2.

Jack had spent three years watching over you — he knew your tells. He knew you were stressed the last few months, your anxiety not impacting your performance, but definitely his own mood. Maybe it made him feel inadequate as a leader that his resident was clearly struggling and wouldn’t talk to him about it. Or maybe it just worried him in a way that he’d realized long ago that he shouldn’t be worrying for you.

—

Nearing the end of his rotation, Wells had become a presence you realize you’ll miss having around. But you have a sneaking suspicion he’ll be back.

“How’d you feel last weekend?” you ask, walking with him toward the break room.

“Oh,” he says holding the door once you swing it open. “Yeah. That sucked.”

“Did you end up getting to talk to your niece?” you ask him quietly, the two of you loitering at the coffee pot now. Not really enough time to sit down, but just enough to duck away for a second after walking him through some sutures.

“Mhm.”

“Did it help?” you ask.

He shrugs, titling his head side to side. “Maybe? I think a little.”

“Good,” you nod. “It’s good to have people you can reach out to outside of all of this that remind you why. Even if we’re here for you, too.”

Wells talks about his next rotation, in psych — which he’s told you many times by now he’s not particularly excited for. But you told him it might surprise him; you remember enjoying it back in your MS4 year, after you’d avoided it as long as possible.

“You’re coming back for that Ortho elective though, aren’t you?” you say, idle chatter.

The NP that had been taking their lunch leaves, and it’s just the two of you after a while. Wells immediately angles his body toward you.

“Listen. I have a question. It’s kinda embarrassing,” he starts.

“Oh?” you blink, shaking away the cobwebs that crowd your mind in the dead hours of this shift. The microwave tells you it’s almost 6am.

“What are the moral implications of me asking out a nurse? Even if she’s on day shift?”

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you.

“Is it that bad?” Wells asks, distressed.

But you cover your mouth, clearing your throat to stop your laugh but unable to fight your smile. “It’s Emma, isn’t it?”

“How’d you know?”

“I have eyes.”

His cheeks flame red, a feat considering how pale he’d just been. “Well, yeah. It is her. Is that, like, kosher? Is there a policy?”

You pat his shoulder. “Oh, Wells. If a doctor got in trouble every time he hit on a nurse around here we’d be a skeleton crew.”

“So it’s fine?” he says, his tone hopeful.

“Sure. Some personal advice, though,” you wince, thinking back to an elective last year when an EMT asked you out your first day. You’d avoided the ambulance bay for four straight weeks after you’d kindly rejected him. He was cute, built in the way that a lot of EMTs are, and he never held it against you. Your heart was just a little locked up at your home hospital. “Wait ‘til after your rotation ends.”

He nods seriously. “Got it.”

“C’mon, loverboy, we should go,” you tell him, reaching for the door handle as you make for the exit.

“Thanks, Dr. Y/l/n. I figured you’d know.”

You pause, your hand releasing, letting the door shut again as you turn back to him, skeptical. “Why?”

Wells tilts his head down at you, his eyebrows furrowed. “‘Cause you’re… dating an attending?”

Your heart begins to hammer in your chest. He hadn’t specified, but you know who he’s talking about. And if an MS3 can clock you after a few weeks on shift, you were worse off than you’d thought.

“I’m not dating anyone,” you say, simple denial that you hope he’ll buy.

You curse the casual relationship you’d built with Wells over the last few weeks, because he knew by now nothing was out of bounds. He knew he could talk to you — something you’d have been proud of an hour ago. Something you were proud of when he asked you about hospital dating policy.

“Wait, so you and Abbot aren’t…”

“Wells,” you say quietly. “No.”

“I’m sorry!” he whisper-shouts, his eyes wide. “I’m so sorry, I just figured — the way people talk about it, I just — ”

Your body goes cold, your back finding the wall of the break room. “What do they say?”

“Uh,” he says sheepish. “Just that — ”

But you raise your hand, cutting him off when Shen walks in, nodding to you both on his way to the fridge.

“Actually, no. Um,” you clear your throat, trying to collect your thoughts, painfully cognizant of the other attending who’s now within ear shot of your on-set panic. “Anyway. Like I said, wait until you rotate. Or don’t. You’re fine. You’ll be fine.”

You’ve probably gone as pale as you feel, as pale as he’d been at the beginning of this conversation, because Wells looks concerned. “Dr. Y/l/n?”

“I’m gonna step out for just a sec,” you mutter, avoiding eye contact with Shen, who now seems curious over Wells’ shoulder. “Check back in on our South patients. Then Shen can take you. Or find Ellis.”

“Y/l/n,” Shen calls. “You good?”

“Just gonna get some air,” you say over your shoulder, opening the door again, not waiting for Wells or, god forbid, Shen to follow you out as you let it swing shut, hoping more than anything you can make it up to the roof without running into Jack Abbot.

—

You manage to avoid him, even if you almost barrel full-speed into Crus on the floor and are forced to share an elevator with Park on your way up to the roof, mad at your past self for just trying to make connections with your coworkers, who can now recognize when you’re in the middle of an existential crisis and horrifyingly both ask if you’re alright.

It’s cold on the roof, even as the sun rises in pink and orange tones. You don’t cry yet, but you feel it coming, your elbows resting on the railing, palms pressed into your eyes. You think you might need to sit down soon.

When the door squeaks open a few moments later, you don’t turn, but you recognize the gait of the footsteps before they’re even halfway to joining you at the railing.

“I’d ask you what’s wrong,” Jack starts, and his tone is steeped in frustration. “But would you even want my help?”

You’re bewildered, lowering your hands, turning to see him, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest with one of his eyebrows raised. “What?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs. “Just feels like my senior resident has gone around to every doctor in this hospital before coming to me even once.”

“Dr. Abbot—”

“You know I begged Robby to let me have you on nights?”

You’re slow to stand up straight. “What?”

“You came to me as an intern, Y/n,” Jack says. “I saw what you were capable of the first time you swung shifts.”

“But I—”

“Night shift is hard,” he continues. “Pacing is weird. Patients are weirder. It’s not for everyone. But I watched you, and I just — I knew you could find your place here.”

It’s a streak of pride, you realize, underlying all of that tension.

“And you have. So what I can’t work out is why you’re going to leave Pittsburgh without even talking to me about it, when you and I both know…” he continues, he tears his eyes from the sunrise, looking unsure suddenly, finally meeting your eyes. “You know you have a place here with us, don’t you?”

He’d made that clear enough since you started your third year. Unfortunately for you, that was right around the time the line had started to blur.

“But that’s it, Jack, I don’t — I don’t know anything anymore. Because this place is — it’s you,” you accuse. “I’ve tried so hard to make my own lane and you’re just all over it.”

He balks at that. “It’s my fuckin’ shift. I brought you on it so you could make that lane. And you have.”

“But you’re my attending,” you say, begging him to understand. If Wells could read between the lines after four weeks, surely Jack had, too. Maybe he had been doing that all along if the hospital really was abuzz about it. You cringe, thinking about him discussing this with anyone else.

“Right. So you come to me when you need help,” he says, his hands on his chest. “Not Robby. Not Shen. Surely not fucking Park.”

“I can’t,” you plead, feeling tears brim at the back of your eyes. “You know I can’t.”

“Why not?” he says, moving closer. You wish he wouldn’t — you wish he’d go downstairs and just let you freak out like you’d been needing to for weeks.

You wish above all that you didn’t have to leave the place you loved so much because you love the man in front of you more.

“Why?” he repeats, his hand reaching for you. Your breathing stops, your eyes finding his again. His eyes are dark as his hand rests on the side of your jaw, making sure your gaze doesn’t stray again. “Just talk to me for once. Please.”

You feel a giant tear leaking out of your eye, racing a hot path toward his calloused palm. He catches it with the side of his thumb.

“I always thought that I’d move right back to Texas after residency. And then I came here,” you admit. His left hand finds the other side of your face, and you realize you’re fully crying only by the movement of his fingers. “And I met you.”

Realization across his face, his brow unfurling, his lips parted — to be quickly followed by his touch gone from you, you’d assume. Maybe an awkwardly offered tissue and a promise to forget all of this. Another reminder about getting a letter of rec before the door swings open and closed again.

But the whipping cold doesn’t bite at your cheeks. You actually only get warmer as his body moves closer, your chest touching his; you’re worried he’ll feel your heartbeat soon if he presses any closer.

“Y/n,” he says slowly.

“I love this place, Jack,” you continue, swallowing around a new set of hot, ugly tears that fall anyway. He tracks the movement of your throat. “It breaks my heart every single day but I love it. And I looked up one day and realized I hadn’t even considered a program outside of Pittsburgh in years.”

“No. Don’t bullshit me anymore,” he says, shaking his head. “Robby said you wanted to leave.”

“Because of you, Jack,” you whimper. “Because—”

“No,” he says again, shaking his head with more vigor. “No. You take me out it. Now.”

“What?”

“I’m here. I’ll be right here after you’re done,” he says, his voice steady and his words precise, like he’s walking you through a procedure or explaining to a patient their options. “I’m yours, whether you stay here or not. Wherever you go. I’ll be here.”

“Jack,” you breathe. “What are you doing?”

He moves closer, his breath fanning over your face; the warmth welcomed as the cold cools your tears. His hands tilt your head up slightly.

“You still need me to spell it out for you sometimes,” he asks, not an ounce of mirth or amusement, not longer just asking. Begging. “Don’t you?”

You nod.

“You’re an amazing doctor,” he says with conviction. “I don’t know if this is gonna help your situation or not. But…”

His nose nudges against yours, and his ribcage heaves against your chest. Your eyes flicker to his lips, and you don’t know if this will help you either.

“Please,” you say anyway.

Jack Abbot is a bit of an asshole — the edge to his personality that he needs in order to run a place like this bleeds through on some nights more than others. He can be stern, more stubborn in the midnight hours.

And he kisses you just the same. You pull away after a moment, somehow finding the mental space to be worried people will notice you’re both gone.

“Jack,” you breathe into his mouth, your head spinning. “We should—”

“Nuh-uh,” he speaks through spit-slicked lips, his mouth finding yours again quickly. “Come here.”

—

“You’re not getting out of a coffee chat with me. You know that, right?”

Jack watches you freeze where you’re digging through his dresser, your hands paused on an olive green t-shirt. You hold it up to him in question and he nods.

“What do you mean?” you ask, pulling it over your body, kneeing your way back up the bed, settling back at his side. Your hand finds where his is outstretched.

He checks his watch where he’d discarded it on his night table after shift, your PTMC badge right next to it. “Coffee pot’ll go off in like two minutes. And then you’re gonna talk to me about your fellowships.”

“Yeah? That’s what this all was?” you ask, your eyes trained on where your fingers trail up the inside of his forearm, tracing the lines of his veins. He grabs your hand when it’s back within his reach.

“Talk me through it,” he says.

You rejoin him in bed minutes later, carrying two cups of coffee from his kitchen. You’d asked him how he liked it before you went down the hall, wrinkling your nose when he says black with a little sugar from the tin on the counter. He’d enjoyed the view anyway as you sauntered down his hallway, bare except for his old ARMY shirt.

“No almond milk for me?” you accuse.

“I’ll add it to my list for next time,” he says, sitting up against his headboard, accepting the cup offered to him. You hand him your cup too, which he sets to the side with confusion.

He notices then the black leather notebook tucked under your arm, that you must have grabbed from the bag you’d discarded in his entryway last night.

“What is that?”

“Where I keep all my notes,” you say, bashful, flipping it open, a PTMC waiting room pen jammed between its pages. “From talking to people.”

He’s silent for a moment.

“What? You said—”

“No. Go ahead,” he says. “You’re so hot right now.”

He bends his leg, which you immediately lean on, hiding your smile in his knee. “Stop.”

“Go.”

You sigh, flipping through your pages, biting the pen between your teeth. “Ultrasound at Presby is out. Crus’ll get that for sure.”

“Nope. I haven’t finished his letter of rec yet,” Jack says. “I’ll tank his chances if you say the word.”

“I didn’t even want it,” you admit with a one-armed shrug. “It’d be really cool, but…”

“Not your thing,” he finishes. You nod.

“Then, I talked to Park about peds,” you say. “I knew he did a peds fellowship. For ortho, obviously. At PTMC, too.”

“What’d he say?”

“That I’d be stupid not to do it,” you deadpan.

Jack grumbles. “He’s right.”

You flip to the next page, giggling. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

“Trust me. He will never hear it in my ED.”

A glint in your eyes, like you see right through him. You remember that interaction that had knocked him off-kilter a few days ago. You see it differently now.

“And then, oh — Robby, Shen and Crus all talked to me about emergency med education,” you say. “Robby’d write my letter.”

“I already wrote your letter,” Jack admits. “I’ve been waiting for you to bring that fellowship up for weeks.”

Your pen falls to the pages, your mouth twisted in confusion as you tear your eyes away to look at him. “Why didn’t you?”

“You’re smart enough. And I knew you’d love peds just as much,” he says, tugging your notebook out of your grip, the pen, too. He tosses it aside. “But only one of them is at my hospital. And I didn’t wanna… It’s all yours for the taking, baby. Anything you want.”

He sees your eyes trail his bare chest, the skin of his legs where his thighs are peeking out from beneath his boxers, still tangled up in the sheets. “All of it?”

“You mean me?”

You nod.

“For a long time now, Y/n,” he says. “And you don’t need to write that down.”

“Why?” you ask, rising up to your knees, his free hand finding the back of your thigh, helping you swing it over his lap.

“‘Cause I’ll never let you forget it,” he promises, tilting his head up to you.

“Put your coffee down,” you command, settling in his lap, your hands finding his cheeks.

“Why?”

“‘Cause I’m gonna spill it,” you warn.

He turns his head, nudging your discarded phone out of the way with his mug to make room. Your things all intermixed with his so naturally, he feels silly thinking back to how this all even started. “How does my wisdom measure up to the other—”

You cut him off mid-sentence, your lips slotting over his open mouth. You taste like his toothpaste and the shitty coffee he buys pre-ground at the grocery store. The skin on the back of your thighs is so damn soft, but he already knew that. Your jeans are in his living room.

“They don’t even compare,” you murmur.

“No?”

You shake your head, before eyeing the cups of coffee on the side table. Your face twists.

“But we have to get you a new machine, Jack. What the fuck are you drinking?”

—

A few weeks later, you walk into work with Jack, a cold brew with almond milk in your hand and a drip coffee with one raw sugar packet in his.

The closing baristas had already memorized your pre-shift orders at the shop you’d found near Jack’s place that has quickly become his favorite spot — not Crus’, Robby’s or Park’s.

And for the love of god, not Dunkin’.

The matching logos leave no room for mistakes to be made by anyone who’s paying attention — and as Jack had recently discovered, they’re all paying attention.

You leave him at the central hub for the lockers, just a smile in parting. You were professional enough. And you’d already kissed him enough in his car, his lips still tasting like coffee and your coconut lip balm.

You received two fellowship offers earlier that morning, only a few hours after shift. Peds at PTMC or education at Presby.

Both in Pittsburgh.

But the choice was yours, which he made sure you knew before he helped you celebrate properly.

“Is that something I need to know about?”

Jack looks up from where he’d been yanking pens out of his bag, depositing them into his scrub top pocket. Your pen had somehow made it into his backpack; he could tell from the bite marks.

Shen is leaning against the back of the central desk, slurping the remnants of his coffee through his straw loudly. Lena is pretending, very poorly, not to listen.

“What do you mean?” Abbot says, unamused.

He takes another much-needed sip of his own coffee — you were so far proving detrimental to his post-shift sleep schedule.

He turns his head from Shen to find you across the room at West 12, already seated bedside, nodding along to whatever Langdon is saying about the patient present.

You catch Jack’s eye, your lips pulling up around your words, and he decides he’ll be fine even if that smile goes to Presby.

Because it’s still coming home to him.

“It’s just,” Shen continues, waving his cup around, his grin mischevious as Jack turns back. “I just seem to recall there being a concern about — what was it, being buried by paperwork?”

[redheadspark]

Forget Part Two

Summary: Jack promises to make you forget your ex, and he delivers.

Warnings: SMUT SMUT SMUT! If you are under 18+, kind move on, this is your warning! I hope you like it!

A/N : Shawn Hatosy has a hold on me now and I LOVED writing this! Let me know what you think! This is a sequel to Forget Part One

“J-Jack… I…FUCK!”

“I know. I got ya, baby.”

The last thing you expected was to be in the position after a long shift, but you weren’t thinking about it too much at the moment. All you were thinking about was how you were feeling so much pleasure while riding Jack in your bed, both of your clothes thrown to the side as you were holding onto his hands, for dear life as they were framing your hips. The bed was squeaking with every roll of your hips, his cock rock hard inside of it, and it was snug and perfect in the right spots. You were thankful that your next-door neighbor was on a weeklong vacation to Hawaii, merely because your moans were loud and downright sinful.

But they were nothing compared to the whines and grunts right below you from Jack.

He was watching it all happen, his hands gripping your hips both deliciously and possessively while you were in control and rolling your hips deeply and lustfully. You felt nothing but hot pleasure from where you two were connected and in how you were moaning with each thrust he was willing to give. Your eyes were closed in bliss, your fingers clenching and unclenching, your breath was short, and you could feel a sheen of sweat coming through. Jack gave one particular thrust, you mewled as you leaned forward, the move itself almost knocked the wind out of you. But Jack reached up to cradle your neck and jaw, you two touching foreheads as you were still rocking in his lap and on his cock. Jack was gasping too; you could hear him moaning as he leaned up to kiss you deeply before rolling his hips hard. You moaned in his mouth.

As soon as Jack said he could make you forget about your ex, you had no idea that was what he had in mind.You thought that maybe he was going to take you out to a diner, a bite to eat, not for him to take you back to his apartment and fuck you senseless. It happened so skillfully, quickly, and with no abandon: pushing you carefully up against the door as soon as it was closed and you two were inside your apartment. He locked the door while his tongue was massaging you, and you were lost in the bliss as he was walking the pair of you to the living room while still pressing his lips against yours. This was difference with your ex and Jack: timing. Your ex was young and restless; he wanted to go quick and get his rocks off since it felt so good. Sometimes you would list in the shuffle as you two would follow already or get off quickly, not that it sucked at the time. It still felt rushed, needy, almost desperate.

Not with Jack, not while he sprawled you out on the couch and stripped you of your scrubs with tenderness and care. You were lost in the moment as he was discarding each piece of clothing with precision, as if he was an Attending back in The Pitt. For some reason, you couldn’t take your eyes away from him as you were slowly becoming bare on the couch, sprawled out in front of him as if you were on display for him to feast on. But he wasn’t looking at you in that way, not like a honey teenager who was too nervous. No, he knew what he was doing.

Yet he surprised you as he then placed himself between your legs, hovering above your pussy and reaching over to take your hand into his salt and pepper hair while his dark eyes were trained on you.

“Hold on, baby,” He mumbled before he dived into your folds, making your eyes roll to the back of your head as the first waves of pleasure hit you so hard. It was just the beginning.

“God, I love you,” Jack moaned into your mouth as your hips were stuttering while you were still rising him, you moaning as an answer, as a chuckle and moan mixed together, “I could fuck you all day if I could, and I would never get tired.”

Just the thought of Jack taking you over and over all day long alone made you moan louder as he snapped his hips a few times just to keep you on your toes. It reminded you of the first time you two had sex, after a lengthy talk together about what you both liked and didn’t like. Jack was more considerate of you and your preferences, as well as letting you know of some of his limitations because of his amputated leg. You didn’t mind it, thinking it was going to be good either way since you loved Jack at that point. 

You had no idea he was going to rock your world from the inside out.

“You feelin’ good?” He asked in a breath as you were taking in a gasp for air. You nodded your head, though that was not enough as Jack was keeping his dark eyes on you, “Talk to me, baby.”

“It’s….fuck….s-s-so good.” You gasped out, finally finding your voice for a brief moment.  Yet when you locked eyes with Jack, it was almost like it was not enough for him in how he was gazing at you. Like he was studying you and figuring you out, like bringing you nothing but pleasure. You didn’t really read into it since you felt like you were getting higher and higher.

Yet suddenly, he placed his hand on your hip with his other hand on your neck, controlling your gaze on him as he stopped your thrusts. Your hips stooped, and you looked at him in blissful shock. Why did he stop? You were feeling so good, and your senses were on fire.

“J-Jack?” You asked in worry, “What—“

Within seconds, his cock slipped out of you, and you gasped from the sensation and feeling. You were empty, about to protest with Jack about what changed and if something went wrong. Yet within a millisecond, he moved his hand from your hip to be against your pussy. Two fingers sunk in, your eyes going wide, your voice lost, and you were out of breath as he locked his gaze on you. You two were frozen, his fingers deep in you with his Thum hovering over your clit like he licked his lips and stared at you like you were the only being on earth. The new pleasure hit you like a freight train; his fingers were thick enough side by side to fill you so good that it was a different “stuffed” feeling than his cock.

“I don’t want this to be good,” Jack said in a raspy tone, yet it was controlled as he searched your eyes. You were frozen, his fingers still buried in you and yet he was showing you that you were in control at the same time. You loved it when he had control in these kinds of situations; he never went overboard. But he let you hold the reins too.

“I want this, right here, to be the best thing we’ve ever had,” Jack explained, still keeping you still and on your toes. You were watching on bated breath as he leaned up a bit. His fingers moved as he did, you moaning hotly as he smiled from the sound, “There, that’s what I want. I want you to feel everything, feel so good that nothing else is in that gorgeous brain of yours.”

His fingers were slowly moving now, at a leisurely pace.It was almost like torture, the high you had moment before was back to a simmer, but was now building again. But it was a good slow build, like momentum. As much as you wanted to bed or plead for him to go faster, you knew he wouldn’t. He knew how to push your buttons in the right way, how to make you loose your voice from all the moaning and scream, and even how to go limp in his arms after you’d cum.

Now he was doing it again.

“No matter how many times we’ve done this, I still can’t get enough,” Jack hummed as he drank in the sight of you, “You’re fucking perfect to me. From that brilliant brain of yours,” He passed, leaning up to kiss you on the forehead as his fingers were still pumping in and out of you deeply and slowly, “To this beautiful body,” he moved to place kisses along your breast. While he was doing that, you reached up to dig your fingers in his hair to hold onto something as your other hand was on his arm, moving along his wrists as he was pumping at a continued pace.

“I wanna bring you pleasure every day, make you cum every day….make you mine…” he growled against your chest, “The hold you have on me….goddamn I don’t want anything else. No one else can have you…. Only me.”

His fingers were pumping a bit faster now as you were still holding on, moaning louder and hotly against his hair as his voice was getting into a gravelly tone. His hand on your neck made you look down at him as he looked up at you, almost like he was worshiping you. He was, fingers inside of you and making you want to cum on his fingers.

“You’re gonna look at me in the eyes while you cum,” He said in a gentle yet firm command, his fingers getting faster your peak was climbing more and more, “I wanna see it, I wanna feel it. Even more, I want to taste. Are you gonna do that for me? You gonna cum for me with just my fingers in you?”

You nodded dumbly, though you bit your lower lip as he kissed your neck.

“If you cum on my fingers,” Jack paused, tracing his breath along your jawline as he then hovered his lips over yours. You felt his thumb slip over your clit, you gasping as he spoke again, “I’ll cum so deep inside of you that your head will spin,”

He rolled his thumb as you slammed your mouth into his. The new pleasure searing inside of you was making you so close to hitting your orgasm. Jack must have felt it as his fingers were going in and out, in and out, and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

He had stamina. He had been doing it from the beginning of the evening, from eating you out on the couch before carrying you to the bedroom bridal style and having you ride him at your own pace. You wondered if the military was the reason for it, but you were grateful for it.

“Cum on baby, let go for me,” Jack said in a plea as he could tell your moan was getting higher and you were clinging to him tighter, “Let go, I wanna feel all of it and see it on your beautiful face,”

As if on command, his thumb pressed hard on your clit, and you fell.

You collapsed against him, moaning so loud that it was suffocating you as he held you close. The sensation of Euphoria was everywhere in you, like you were flying as you were still riding your orgasm with shivers and a blissed-out look on your face.

You could never see from Jack’s angle how you looked beyond beautiful to him: walls down, open for him to love you. You made him laugh again after becoming a widow, made him see hope when his PTSD kicked back in, and made him want to live every time you stood by him and never once retreated from him.

Once you were coming down from your orgasm, everything was heightened tenfold both along and under your skin. Jack never once let you go, moving his fingers out of you carefully and not too quickly.

You blinked slowly, leaning back to be nose to nose to Jack as he was staring at you as if you were some kind of siren calling home, love on his face and adoration in his eyes. You smiled widely, which alone made him look relieved, as you then kissed him hotly. He kissed you back, framing your face in his hands as you leaned into him more, as some energy came back. You felt some of your wetness against your cheek from his fingers, yet you were thinking of something else.

“Fuck me, Jack,” you begged against his lips, kissing him once more as he searched your eyes, “Fill me up. Fuck, please—“

It was like something inside of Jack snapped. He wrapped his arm around you smoothly, pressing your chest to chest as he reached down to slip his cock back into you in one go. He groaned, a full-out groan of both relief and pleasure at the same time. As much as you loved that he was taking care of you, he needed some of that pleasure as well. Though he would never say it, you had fun bringing it out of him. The feeling of his cock inside of you, right after your own orgasm, made you shiver and moan in his ear as he was now rolling his hips hard and deep. This time, he was mostly doing this for himself.

His arm went up your spine from the back, holding the back of your neck as he kept going and mumbling in your ear, whining a bit, and whispering how you feel so good. The always cool and calm Jack Abbot seems to be unwinding as the seconds go by, which makes you feel a pinch more powerful than before. He could run the Night Shift with a simple gaze and a cool tone, hell, he could do that with his S.W.A.T team as their combat medic. He never showed negative emotion under pressure or stress; he was collected. 

There he was now, about to have his own ride of pleasure and letting you feel and hear every inch of it.

You could tell he was close to cumming, it felt it in the way his hips were getting rigid in their thrusts, and his moans were getting more brutal. You felt his lips move down to near your collarbone, kissing there a few times before he finally, and with carefulness, bit on your skin. It didn’t break the skin, but it was enough for you to jolt in pleasure. You tugged at his hair and squeezed around his cock.

That did it: Jack came in a loud grunt of a moan against your skin as you felt his warmth inside of you. You did the same for him as he did for you: holding him close and feeling him shake through every second of his orgasm. He clung to you like a life line, the pair of you tangled up together, and nothing else seemed to exist. You loved it that way. After what you two went through, you just needed each other.

Jack carefully laid you both back down on the bed, still wrapping you in his arms while he carefully pulled out of you. Though you felt empty again, you were satisfied in how your limbs were almost boneless, and your heart was full. With his head next to yours, you felt him taking in deep breaths as if he was trying to recenter again. You laughed, staring at him as he was gasping for air and looking up at the ceiling with his hair stuck to his sweaty forehead.

“You okay there, old man?” You asked in a light tone, Jack grinned and looked back at you. His eyes were so bright, his skin was warm, and his own body language was enough for you to know the answer. He sat up and leaned over to kiss you, you humming and kissing him back as he was perched over you.

He pulled away and looked down near your collarbone; a look of concern was there on his face. You looked down too, barely seeing it, but the small mark he left on your collarbone. A hickey was forming for sure, a small bit of darkness on your skin was distinct since you were more on a paler side.

“Damn, I did a number on you,” he mumbled. He leaned down and kissed right where the mark was seen, being so tender as you rubbed his arms lovingly, “I’m sorry—“

“No, nah uh,” you replied, gently coaxing him to look back at you as he searched your eyes for reassurance. All you did was place a hand on his stubbled jaw. You showed him your smile, the way you felt safe with him, in how your body was calm and compliant being that close to him.

“Jack, I’m okay,” you reassured him, “That was…..I don’t have the right word for it…But I know it’s amazing.”

Jack’s smile came back, almost bashfully, as you nodded to show you were telling the truth. You loved that about him: even after having so much control and change, he had to make sure you were still content and okay. Being the thoughtful partner that he was .

“I love you,” you declared to him, kissing his cheek and lips one more time before he finally gave in and lay back with you. throwing a bed sheet over the pair of you, rubbed your arms soothingly as you could feel yourself getting tired.

“I love you too,” He said back.

“And just for the record: I did forget,” You whispered before slowly slipping your eyes shut. Jack felt his heart jump a bit, and a smirk was on his lips. Seconds ticked on, then minutes. Jack was still awake, but he felt you falling asleep in his arms. He could watch you for hours if he could, seeing how safe you were in his hold. If he could spin every night like this, he would in a heartbeat. No other obligations or drama to deal with, just this. But a minute later, your phone went off on the nightstand near Jack. You didn’t hear, still sleeping with your head on his arm, as Jack carefully grabbed your hopes without waking you.

It was your ex. But this time, Jack texted back:

This is Dr. Jack Abbot, her current boyfriend. If you contact her again without her consent, you and I will have a talk. Face-to-face.

He sent the text and placed your phone on the nightstand, smiling as he tucked you in a bit more, fell asleep with the satisfaction that the pubescent boy was in the past, and Jack was your future.

The End

[whosjunglejim4322]

Warnings and a brief description: Smut, YALL FUCK RAWW!!!! Age gap, fem! Reader. Both down ridiculously bad, Descriptions of both genitalia, descriptions in general so be warned if you’re squeamish, Jack had a big dick <3, yes he TALKS YOU THROUGH IT AND yes you cry because it feels so good, sorry!!!, desperation is heavy in this one, there is a plot but mostly just smut, readers age is not specified but there is at least a 25 year age gap, yearning and longing because what would I be without it, mentions of prosthetics, Abbot is a handyman if you didn’t know (just kidding) Jack is suffering from a moral dilemma because canonically he just cannot stop suffering apparently, big emotions + crying (work related), lots of descriptions of fear and the struggle on both parts about the whole crushingonattendingwhos20yearsolder thing, forgive me for my lack of medical jargon

He said that if you needed anything, anything at all. He’d be there. This didn’t help your pathetic crush on your older, heart achingly handsome attending- not one bit. The more irrational part of your brain didn’t know whether or not what he said was an offhanded, flippant comment to quell your panicked state at the time - or if it held genuine truth.

That’s your own issue, but nonetheless.

Abbot is somewhat reserved - doesn’t give too much away, but kind, in an assertive and startling way. In a thorough way. You have grown to know it, but not the intensity in which he stares down at you so unwavering and immutable. From saving lives, to adequate charting, to handling intensity with well practiced steady hands and a clinical brain- his belief in your capabilities has always been palpable.

Like you could hold it in your palms and feel it between your fingers.

You believed him in that moment - two months ago, five hours into your excruciatingly painful shift and one whole year into your ED residency. Trembling shoulders, a quivering gaze, tear stained cheeks.

You hadn’t meant for it to be a whole thing. Even having to take a moment at work to decompress or have a mental breakdown felt like betrayal - to your team, to yourself, and most of all - your patients.

And then he appeared. Like a fucking mirage, or a daydream, and you felt small. Like a child being found cowering in a corner. He recognized it instantly, like the well trained veteran, doctor, lived in human he is. To him, whether standing on the roof of the hospital and contemplating the past 24 hours, or a break room cry - felt very normal. Sometimes, it’s needed. He’s been there. And he hadn’t seen you fall apart at all.

Your resilience was becoming worrisome.

Jack observed you heavily from the moment you arrived. He knew it was going to be a…problem. For him personally, not for you. Obviously younger, and obviously beautiful in a way that made the pit of his stomach ache when you laughed or crinkled your nose is disgust or gave Santos a hard time for constantly being interrupted from her charting- he packed you in a neat little box inside of his head and told himself no, absolutely not.

A year of admiring from afar, of keeping himself at a distance that read: mentor, encouraging but firm attending, a teacher, someone to guide you. Someone almost old enough to be your father. God, was he that guy now?

And then he found you there in the break room, knees to chest with your head against the white dry wall and a silent cry that soaked your cheeks and your neck and the light grey shirt you wear underneath your scrubs.

You’d heard the door shut, and lock. And when you looked up through bleary eyes your heart sank to your ass - because this is exactly what the universe would do to you at a time like that. Of course Jack fucking Abbot would walk in, it couldn’t be Robby, or Samira, or Mel. Of course not.

A sound between a croak and a whimper left your throat out of sheer humiliation. Your body saying, oh great, perfect. You made a futile attempt to get up and off the floor, but he was down at your level before your hand could slip against the wall and bring you back to the ground. Knees aching against the cold floor.

“Hey hey, slow down kid.” His voice was hushed, calming and direct. Steady.

Your fists balled, and the back of your knuckles dug into your eye sockets to wipe the tears away. You felt juvenile, and utterly stunned by the gentle tug of calloused hands around your wrist, drawing your own hands away from your face. He was hot to the touch.

“What we do isn’t easy, it’s not meant to be and that’s why we’re the ones who have to do it.” His hands still held your wrist, and he could feel your pulse thrumming a mile a minute.

You tried your best to not focus on how disheveled you surely appeared, or how much you were shaking. Or the reverberation of his voice moving through you from the close proximity and the gentle hush of his tone. But through all of the terrible, wretched emotions moving through you, it was there in the back of your consciousness.

“Then why am I falling apart like this? I’ve been doing so good.” You cried, wiping away the wetness seeping from your eyes.

He felt that ache in his stomach move to his chest, right behind his ribcage, threatening to break his taught resilience. He cocked his head, hazel eyes gentle, and moved to grip your hands instead - squeezing them softly between his. They encompassed both of yours easily.

“Because you don’t give yourself a moment to feel like a human being, and you troop through all of it over and over again until something small happens, or big, and then it all comes crashing down all at once.”

He felt, in that moment, that he was speaking to both you and himself, it came spilling out so naturally because he knew exactly what you were doing to yourself and the emotional toll it inevitably took. The familiarity he felt with you was almost cosmic.

Your breathing slowed, and your heart started to feel like it wasn’t going to burst through your shirt at any second - staring into him, the warmth radiating in not only his demeanor but his physical self - you were almost completely soothed.

“Wow, you’re good.” You laughed. Laughed, and elation filled his veins, his mind, his spirit. “I think I can cancel my next therapy session.”

You both smiled, and a quiet acknowledgment filled the space between you two. The urge to reach out and fiddle with your hair, wipe the remaining wetness from your cheeks, it almost overtook him. He stiffened, patted your steady hands with one of his own.

“If you need anything, anything at all, you call me. I’ll be there.”

He meant it. Despite the fact that maybe it was unethical given his complicated sense of fondness for his resident.

You try to hide the surprise that you feel written on your face, and you try to prevent your expression from becoming anymore reverent.

“Give me your phone.”

And you do. He squints like an old man when he types his name into your phone.

‘Jack’ is the contact name.

Four days later, and you do need something. And maybe it’s because after that day in the break room - something shifted. Something big and ugly and deep seated. Something insatiable like desire, and something tender like adoration.

Of course Jack is attractive - he’s also older, much older, and your attending, and you’re co workers, and- You want to be in his presence, want him to be in yours. And that’s not healthy.

So naturally, when your kitchen sink pipe starts leaking and semi flooding your cupboard underneath, well - he said if you needed anything, anything at all.

One thumb hovers over the contact, and the other is in your mouth being gnawed on. You’re just going to ask for advice, an at home remedy because a plumber isn’t an option when you’ve got student loans to pay back. And truthfully, you don’t have anyone else in your life who might know about kitchen pipes failing.

Okay, sure- Robby, but your ethical dilemma and inappropriate crush isn’t on Robby. And you’re sleep deprived, overworked, stressed for numerous reasons- maybe it makes it easier to rationalize it. The worst that could happen is that he ignores the call, or tells you he’s never fixed a pipe a day in his life - but when your thumb hits the call button, you know you’re wrong. You can feel it.

“You okay? What’s going on?”

You feel your insides burning up, a searing heat beginning to pool in your cheeks. His immediate concern, the gruffness of his voice like he’s just woken up.

“I’m sorry, I uh- oh my god are you sleeping? I totally should’ve thought about that before I called.”

You palm your forehead, squint your eyes shut and force yourself not to just hang up and quite literally pretend this never happened. How could you not have taken that into consideration? How could you -

“It’s my one day off every two years, it’s fine” his voice is lighthearted enough, he’s joking, no sign of your call being a disruption - your chest doesn’t feel like it’s being squeezed from the inside out as much.

“you didn’t answer my question, are you okay?”

The worry in his tone is back, shuffling sounds on the other side put images of him in his bed, in his home, surrounded by his things. Bad idea.

“Yeah I’m fine, I just…this is stupid. My kitchen sink, it’s leaking, badly. I just, uhm, needed some advice on what I could do to fix it?”

Hearing the words actually come out of your mouth makes you wince. You want to scream, bash your head against a wall, run around your quaint apartment and slip on the linoleum so that you have a reason to not come into work tomorrow and face him after calling him for a fucking pipe. Fuck.

A shaky breath comes through the line, you wonder if you’re imagining the airy chuckle.

“Well, is it clogged? Is it leaking from the bottom and from the drain?”

More heat floods your body, your veins. He’s genuine, through and through, curious and ready to help. Of course he is. Of course. You almost fix your goofy smile until you realize he can’t see it.

“Uhhh, both - so it’s leaking from the big pipe underneath, not draining at all and it’s bubbling from the drain.”

More shuffling, heavy footsteps. You wonder what his home looks like. You hear a series of thunks and clunks, scuffling, sounds like he’s putting his boots on?

“Uh huh,”

breathy groans, he’s definitely putting shoes on. You can picture him placing the phone on his knee, pulling the footwear on and tying them quickly.

“sounds like you might have some rubber seals missing and a clogged pipe. You call a plumber, kid?”

It shouldn’t make you blush, shouldn’t make you feel wobbly in the knees and off center in your own space. Yet here you are, steadying yourself against your kitchen island.

“I, um, can’t afford one right now - something about thousands of dollars in medical school loans a month that leave little room for plumbers in the budget.”

You’re honest, even if it’s embarrassing for you. You feel, once again, extremely juvenile with him like this. Like at any moment he could laugh at you and not with you, tell you to call a father or a brother or someone else entirely.

He doesn’t.

“If you want, I can come take a look at it. Been sleepin’ all day, need to walk around a bit anyways.”

Surely he’s joking. But he’s not, you know that, you know Dr. Abbot and the lilt in his cadence when he’s giving someone a hard time. This isn’t that. And suddenly, with widened eyes and a quickening pulse, you realize that he’s dead serious.

“That wouldn’t be too much trouble? I mean really, if you have any ideas on what it might be I’ll just go and get the supplies-“

“No trouble at all, told you if you needed anything, you call me. I’m just fulfilling my duties. Remember?”

He’s got you there. You are scared shitless and riveted that your theory was correct. He is true to his word. Now you’ve got to put your big girl panties on and commit. Don’t shy away now.

But Jack Abbot in your apartment? Fuck.

“Yeah, yeah you’re right, sorry I’ll text you the address? My address.”

Of course your address, who else’s?

He actually chuckles this time, and the sound moves through you like his voice did in the break room. Settles in your muscles and bone marrow.

“No sorry’s, not with me,” His voice is so low, so soft. It’s hard not to have a visceral reaction.

“already have my boots on. I’ll be there in 10.”

15 minutes. That’s how close he lives to you, that he’s been to you this whole time. Two raps against your door, rough knuckles against old steel. Your ribcage could break with the pounding underneath.

You don’t expect it to make you feel so disoriented. You hope your poker face is better than usual, because seeing Dr. Abbot standing outside your home is like a sucker punch to the gut, almost more so than seeing him in regular clothing - as mundane as a black tee shirt and camo cargos are.

Maybe that’s why it makes your lower belly do flips. The humanness of it all. Not Dr. Abbot and yourself, but Jack. The person, the man.

“Hope I didn’t take too long, had to make a stop.”

This brings your attention the hardware store bag clutched in his right fist, and you instinctually step to the side to welcome him in. When he walks past you, the scent of his shampoo still clinging to greying curls and faint hints of cologne with a twinge of aftershave - it makes you dizzy.

He doesn’t even realize you’re staring. He’s too preoccupied. For a millisecond, he pauses, tries to keep his gaze as appropriate as possible instead of soberly roistering in the fact that you’re in baby blue sleeping shorts and a grey hoodie - presumably from college by the graduation date plastered across the front - that’s three sizes too big.

You look seraphic, a glorious and unreal gift.

Your home smells like you, and it covers him like a blanket. Several lamps light the small space he enters, no big lights. Nothing obtrusive. It’s soft, warm, decorated like you find safety in odd ball art pieces from the thrift store down the street, and fluffy throws that you’ve wrapped yourself in on the beige couch.

“I can pay you back for the supplies, you didn’t have to, really.”

It breaks him from his daze. He forgot where he was for a moment. Who he was. He hopes he wasn’t reveling for too long. Hopes he didn’t make it weird.

“You gotta stop saying stuff like that, no re payment necessary - might make the problem worse if I’m down there for more than 30 minutes anyways.”

His smile almost reaches his eyes, you notice the creases on his face anyways. Worn lines from a lived life, a hard life, a fulfilling life. Kissing his face crosses your mind - running your thumb down his cheek. You wipe a hand over your face for no other reason than to self soothe.

“I say add it to your resume anyways, veteran, ER surgeon, and most importantly resident plumber.”

You hope you sound lighthearted, that your humor isn’t indicative of your nervousness. Or stress, because truly, this pipe is a problem. Though you have much bigger ones. Like the broad shoulders you can’t stop staring at.

He glances towards the kitchen with a soft smile, hazel eyes kind and inquisitive. You nod, silently granting him permission to take a look at the problem area and trialing behind him.

He’s broad. You’ve stopped trying to stop yourself from admiring, maybe it’s because it’s your own home but the surrealism aspect has settled into a head rush that feels more real than anything. So yeah, you stare at his shoulders, and the thickness of his bicep when his arms move, or the shape of his waist and even the gait he walks with due to his prosthetic. It’s all incredibly endearing.

He gets himself down to the floor by his hands, sits down sideways to open the cabinets underneath the sink. He pulls something from his pocket.

A flashlight.

“I’m gonna put you to work,” he begins.

“Are you putting me on flashlight duty, Abbot?”

He snickers, and so do you. He reaches up to hand it to you, and you take it with a fake scowl.

“C’mon, you’re a team player - help an old man out.”

Your fingertips brush as you grab the light. Sappy. Cliche. Boring. And yet your flesh still feels like it’s lit aflame there.

And so you get on the floor, beside him but at an angle where being on flashlight duty would actually be beneficial and not blind him instead. You wince upon seeing the full extent of the leak, the soaked wood that will surely mildew if you don’t stop the leak and allow it to dry. The mess of plastic bags stuffed under the sink.

He pushes them out of the way, smiles to himself.

“If I hadn’t known any better, I’d think you were my mother will all of these Walmart bags, Jesus.”

“Rude, you just referred to yourself as an old man so making fun of my old lady tendencies isn’t fair.”

He gives you a sideways glance, smirk still tugging at the corner of his lips. His canines appear from behind pink flesh. How many mouths have kissed his, you wonder?

He starts taking supplies out of the hardware store bag, pulling tools you hadn’t even seen from his jeans. Readily prepared.

“Lots of things aren’t fair, like your landlord not coming to fix this sooner - got years worth of damage in here - shine it to the left,”

You do as he asks, and he makes a clicking sound with his tongue against the side of his mouth.

“Bad news sweetheart,”

The flashlight trembles. That’s embarrassing. But that’s one that you didn’t expect to hear. It came out so effortlessly that you don’t even think he’s fully aware.

And he isn’t. Not until he sees the far away look in your eyes, or feels the startling heat radiating from your body due to your proximity, or the way his chest has started tightening because he did not mean to say it out loud. Too late now.

“I won’t be able to fix it, don’t have the tools with me right now, but I can do what I can to lessen the severity of the leak. Might be able to save your granny bags.”

Your laugh hits him like far too many drinks, like the sun after months of rain and chronic overcast. You drop the flashlight into your lap. Bare legs and skin that looks unbelievably pliable to the touch. Reel it in.

“I appreciate you so much Jack - I’ll get it fixed eventually, really I will. It’s just been tough s’all.”

He wonders if you did it on purpose. Trying to get back at him for getting you so discombobulated. You’ve never called him by his name before, his first anyways.

I appreciate you so much. Fuck, it gets him And now he’s the one flustered, blushing at the tips of his ears and the aged apples of his cheeks. His chest would be splotched with red if you could see it.

He also doesn’t say it out loud, but he’s one hundred percent calling a plumber for you now that he knows where you live - and is getting this issue taken care of.

“I get it, I’ve been in your shoes before, very nice by the way it looks like you skinned a chinchilla,”

You feign shock and betrayal, clutching your chest while you glance down at your slippers. He smirks, and continues.

“But I’m more than happy to help in whatever way I can. How’s your head, hmm?”

You forget for a split second that you had a momentary relapse in sanity at work four days ago. You’re still caught up in him noticing your house slippers. You really should’ve put actual clothes on.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. I had a therapy session the other day and uh…got a lot off of my chest. It helped, tremendously, but so did you.”

You’re getting brave. But not brave enough to acknowledge the fact that your knees are touching his thick thighs, that you’re so close you can properly admire every line, every wrinkle, or freckle that adorns his face. He’s so handsome, and it’s not a surprise. But getting to slow down and really look, it does something terrible to you. Something you know you can’t come back from.

He shakes his head.

“I didn’t do much, kid. It takes strength to pull yourself out of something like that. You did that part yourself.”

You pull at the skin beside your nail beds, glance down at your lap. You’ve never been good at hearing stuff like this.

“Yeah, I guess.”

He could kiss you right now. He truly could. He feels it like it already happened, wishes he could taste all the frustration and pain and doubt you have within yourself and swallow it whole. Keep it inside of him forever so that you’d never have to feel it again.

“Can I ask you a question?”

You meet his eyes and you see it then. And he knows he’s breaking, he knew this would happen. Being here, in your apartment and here with you and the entirely fucked up domesticity of it.

You hold his gaze, and see so much swimming inside of his blown out pupils and grey irises that you have no choice but to pique your own curiosity. It’s a beckoning, one you can’t refuse because your subconscious won’t let you.

“Well yeah, yes of course.”

He takes a shuttering breath.

“You’re close with Robby, I mean he hasn’t shut up about his favorite resident who came from the VA with Mel since you started,”

You’re burning up. Bordering on a fever. You’ve got teeth sunk into the inside of your bottom lip, and he hates himself for making you nervous. Not you. He hates it because in some ways, it’s relieving.

He’s not the only one being so deeply fucked by the feelings swarming the air, buzzing in his ear.

“so why me? And no, no it’s not a burden, me helping you out. Not at all but, your hands are shaking. Tell me why.”

He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t pry at your emotions in the way that he’s doing, he knows it. And it’s even more fucked up that he could be fucking everything up for your work life.

What on earth are you doing to him?

You don’t look at the floor, or your hands. You stare back, like he should know all of your dirty secrets by now, like he’s smart enough to figure it out. Your head tilts, and your eyes get low and your voice becomes hushed. Like everyone in the world is listening.

“I can’t. Jack, I can’t.”

His features soften, he’s melting into your sad expression, keening at your soft voice. You palm your forehead again like you’re checking for a fever, a sickness. He shifts towards you absentmindedly.

“Don’t be scared. It’s just us, It’s not a death sentence.”

Is he talking to you, or himself?

You begin to stand up. And he’s petrified. Genuinely, to the core, horrified that he just fucked everything up. What a fucking idiot.

You pace around your kitchen for a second, slippers scuffing against the floor because you don’t pick up your feet enough when you walk.

“It’s unprofessional, god, I can’t say it out loud, Jack. I just can’t.”

You don’t notice that he’s hobbled himself back up onto his feet, that when you turn around he’s leaning against the counter by his palms and hanging on to every word you say with rapt attention and jaw half slack.

You’re so used to saying his name now, second nature. It makes him lightheaded.

It’s unprofessional. You feel it too. If he believed in god he’d be praising him right now. And begging for unrelenting mercy.

“Come here.”

It comes out weak, like a man full of defeat welcoming his final blow.

You turn around, and like a moth experiencing an existential crisis drawn to an immortal flame, you move towards him. Until you’re so close if one of you moved even closer your noses would be touching. It doesn’t feel real.

“I’m here.” You almost whisper.

You never thought a single hand could change everything, all at once. But when he lifts it to touch the back of your cheek with his knuckles, your eyes close and you lean into the touch like you haven’t felt anything like it in years.

It’s done. He knows. You know.

It’s completely undeniable and there is absolutely no going back. A car without brakes. An avalanche. The rotation of the earth.

He looks pained, eyebrows furrowed and lips downturned. He holds your face with an open palm now, his other joining the opposite side till he’s holding you gently by soft cheeks and barely restrained longing.

“It is unprofessional. It’s not right, maybe it is and I’m just too fucking old so I should know better - but I’m right there with you sweetheart. Right there with you.”

Fear is a concept, one that you’re so used to that it’s only natural you reach out to grip his shirt in your fists. That you move closer, closer, till the softness of your bare chest is pressed against his strong and sturdy one - separated only by your sweatshirt and his tee. The tops of your thighs meet the rough material of his pants, your mouths hovering.

You look like you might cry, or burst from excitement, or all of the above.

“Could lose your whole career, could lose mine.”

Your mouth looks so soft, so unbelievably inviting. He can’t believe he’s feeling you like this, pressed against him, warm and whole. You smell so sweet, knows you taste even better. He can’t think straight. Not even a little bit.

The corner of his lip twitches, smiles softly down at you with hearts in his eyes. You move your hands to his rough face, feeling his firm jaw and the scruff against your aching palms. You slide them across the sides of his neck, such warm skin, to his nape where your fingers become acquainted with short, soft curls.

“It would be an HR nightmare, Robby would know, but not the end honey, never that. Won’t let that happen to you.”

He swipes a thumb against your bottom lip, and you shiver against his form, fight the urge to take it into your mouth. Your eyes are all low now, that far a way look is back and he doesn’t know if it’s your pulse or his that is thumping thumping thumping.

“Please, please.”

You’re begging for something, everything, nothing all at once. But he sees it swimming in your eyes, in your body language. It’s like the entire field around you is pulsing and he hasn’t felt someone palpably desire him like this in a very long time.

It makes him feel like he’s starving.

“I gotta hear you say it, have to.”

Your mouths are almost touching now. You’re gripping his thick shoulders, reveling in the fact that you’re touching him like this, feeling the muscle underneath his shirt and the tensing, the twitching.

“Kiss me, please kiss me, Abbot.”

He can’t refuse you. Not when you ask so sweetly and he’s broken every imaginary rule he’s ever given himself.

He’s not sure why, but he leans and teases himself with the anticipation- hovers just for a second, as if grounding himself to the actual experience. Understanding how soft you look up close, how your brows are furrowed just like his snd your soft bottom lip is almost trembling.

He gives in, quickly.

It’s not really a fight for dominance, the kiss. It’s two people with years of built up admiration for one another, who’d convinced themselves that this could never happen, finally done fighting the inevitable.

You taste so much, feel so much. His scruff against you, the hotness of his tongue as yours and his meet inside your mouths. He twists his head and works the bottom, then the top - slowly, sweetly, but determinedly. You both groan into the kiss.

He’s got his big hand on the back of your neck, almost massaging the area as his mouth works while the other barely ghosts past your shoulder - you feel the hesitation in his touch, the wanting to go lower, to feel you the way you’re openly feeling him.

“You can touch.” You breathe out fast. His own breath shakes.

“Yeah? You want me to?”

You can’t believe he’d ask such a silly question, but it’s Jack. Of course he would, and you nod your head fervently - hoping the pressing of your body against his convinces him that it’s okay. More than okay.

He ravishes your mouth again while eager, trained hands explore. He moves over your shoulders delicately, to your back where he sweeps two open palms down the space, squeezing a bit as he goes until he’s reaching soft hips. He groans into your mouth again, a soft, desperate sound. You’ve genuinely never felt the the type of arousal that builds between your legs now - it’s tight, tense, warm, pulsing. You squeeze them together.

He notices it. Makes his heart rate that much faster, his dick that much harder. Honestly you’ve been so swept up in the fact that you’ve got your attendings tongue in your mouth - Jacks tongue in your mouth, that you don’t notice till this very second.

It intensifies your aching by ten fold.

It’s clear as day, pressed against your lower stomach, straining against camo cargos. And you’ve been practically rutting yourself against it this whole time with your hot and heavy squirming. It feels even more real than it did before.

You don’t mean to do it. Genuinely, your body has a visceral reaction and you, well, you press yourself closer and rub against it.

“Ohh fuck.” He says the last word like your desire is foreign. Mostly, he can’t actually believe you just did that. To him. On him.

Yes, he’s making out with his resident in her apartment. Sure. But the fact that you’d want to touch him there? Do something about his cock being unbearably hard? It’s enough to make an old man weep. In the back of his mind, he didn’t think you’d want a man of his age. As cocky as he can be, it just didn’t fully click.

Boy was he wrong.

You seem to light up, whether you realize it or not, at his vocal reaction. Your pupils are even more blown out than before, your temperature has risen, he feels your pebbled nipples against him. God. He wants his mouth on them.

“Can I take you somewhere? The bedroom? Is that what you want honey?”

He moves hair out of your face as he says it, tilting his head, licking his lips and panting like a dog. He’s searching your eyes for an answer cause you’re so visibly aroused - devoured by youth and lust and adrenaline. He wants you to be sure. Sure like he is.

“My room is down the hall to the right,” you kiss his scruffy, sun kissed face, and he wants to take care of you forever. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

The last words have a whine to them, and the statement itself is enough for him to start seeing stars. He walks you backwards, kissing your face back, massaging your arms and palming at soft flesh. He’s in mild disbelief, although the brash part of him just confirms that every little suspicion he had was true.

Somehow he’s prevented you both from stumbling, you’re so enraptured in Jack that you don’t notice you’re in your room till he’s grabbing the backs of your thighs and hiking you onto the bed.

You’re surrounded by a bed spread that is undeniably you, your intimate space comes alive with you now in it - and him. God, it hits him like a freight train now. He’s mouthing at your neck, leaving trails of warm saliva in his lips wake.

And he keeps getting flashes of your face, the pretty blankets that surround you that you sleep with every night - it all smells so deeply, and so sweetly of you.

Your legs wrap around his waist, instinctively. You need him close, as close as possible is preferred.

You’re exploring him now, unable to resist now that he’s in your arms and between your legs and in your bed. You’re grabbing at him rather hastily - mapping the differences between taut, broad shoulders - the expansive breadth of his back and then the softer pliability of the area just above his hips.

You don’t realize you’ve done it until you’re doing it, slipping down over his belt buckle, palming his dick through his pants and grasping the length of his twitching shaft. The thick cargos do nothing to hide its full mast.

Your mouth forms a little o, just as a choked sound leaves his throat. He looks down for a split second, and twitches against you again.

“You’re big Jack.”

He chuckles, half amused and half shocked by how quickly you’ve reduced him to being lost in this lust filled haze. The words are one thing, your soft voice another, and your hands the entire world.

He ruts against you before sitting up, reaching over his shoulders and pulling his shirt off. He tosses it to the floor and you’re already ogling with intensity at his body so bare in front of you.

You should be embarrassed by how quickly your hands on are on, literally feeling him up. You drag them across his stomach, his firm chest and thick biceps - freckles create an entire constellation across his flesh that’s rough in some places from sun exposure, softer in the areas that are constantly covered.

He gives you your moment, lets you feel him freely. He can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like this. An old man like him, by a beautiful girl who’s too young for him by every standard except your own. It’s doing something dangerous to him.

Rough hands slip under your sweatshirt, right at your soft hips where he kneads the flesh, thumbs circling.

“Can I take this off?”

His voice is more desperate than he’d like, more breathless than he expected. You sit up with a nod, throwing your arms in the air and while the garment slips over your head he smiles to himself, a genuine, adoration filled smile.

It’s his turn to stare. His chest is heaving up and down with the intensity of his heart beat, soft eyes taking you in as much as possible.

“You are so,” he leans down, mouthing at your jaw. “so,” then your jugular, and down to your collarbones, till his scruff is tickling the valley between your breasts. “beautiful. Wow.”

He drags his nose against your skin, moving to the left breast and you’re already arching against him, nipples hard and sensitive from arousal. He lets his breath ghost over it before he takes it into his warm mouth - humming with furrowed brows while his tongue swirls around the bud.

Two large hands knead the soft fat of your tits for leverage.

Your own take ransom in his hair, fingers lost in greying curls. His mouth leaves your tit with a pop, before he moves to the next one and repeats the same ministrations.

Your body is on overdrive at this point, you feel it everywhere so intensely it’s almost unbearable. You tug gently at his hair, and he looks up at you with low, intense eyes. You realize you’ve never gotten to see this look before, the lust, the adoration, an expression that only comes from someone wanting you, bad. From Jack Abbot? It’s too much.

“I need you inside of me, now. Please. Please.”

He hears the fervency in your voice, and desperate tears brewing in the waterline of your eyes.

He grasps your face, kisses it gently.

“I got you, I got you. Not going anywhere honey, I’ll give you what you need, yeah?”

His gaze is locked on yours while he sits up, starts undoing his belt and excitement builds in your belly along with the heat. He winces, and wobbles just a bit, and all at once you sit up with him, realization breaking through the urgency.

“Your leg Jack, I totally forgot, wait wait.”

He pauses, and something fills him that he’s tried to hide for a long time. It’s not exactly embarrassment, but he was willing to fight through the pain - to forget about it too, and now you’re looking up at him with so much tenderness it makes him want to run.

He doesn’t.

You grab his broad shoulders, attempting to push him on the bed where you were just lying. He sees that you want to take care of him, that unbearably kind heart aching to make sure he’s okay. He complies, for you - reluctantly, despite the fear. Despite the judgment he knows you aren’t giving him but can’t help but to prepare for. Just another reason he doesn’t deserve you. You read it all over his expression, and you kiss him as sweetly as he’s been kissing you as he gets on his back.

Having you on top of him isn’t anything to complain about in the slightest, even if he wanted to fuck you into the mattress until you can’t walk. But if this is what you need, god, he’ll give it to you as many times as you want. That eagerness is back, your fingers grasping the undone belt and pulling it through the loops. It’s discarded with your shirts on the floor.

You unbutton his pants and he lifts his hips so you can shimmy them off of him, and you can’t hide your expression when you see the outline of his cock straining against his black briefs, you swear that despite the dark color you can see precum seeping through the fabric. You want your mouth on it, but you need him inside of you so bad.

His hands reach out, tugging at the flimsy shorts you have on along with the panties underneath until you’re halfway out of them and then leaning over him so that he can pull them over the swell of your ass and off your legs.

He can’t stop staring. You’re stunning everywhere, it’s a little unfair. He doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve you. He sees everything - wants to suckle on your clit and taste you in his mouth. He saves that thought for next time. God he hopes there is a next time.

His briefs are next, your face saying all the things your mouth can’t at the moment. You lean down to kiss his stomach, his navel and the trail of hair there. He looks up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath. He looks back down at you while you pull them off - feels your breath against his sensitive tip. He swears he sees a little bit of drool threatening to spill from the corner of your pretty mouth.

You’re both stunned. His dick slaps against his stomach, and it’s pretty. You don’t know what you expected, but of course Jack would have a pretty cock.

It’s thick, the tip the same shade of his lips, greying hair neat and trimmed at the base. It sits perfectly between his two thick thighs, and you both touch each other at the same moment.

You’d giggle if you weren’t so wet, he can feel it leaking on his lap, your essence.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” one hands grips your ass, smooths over the swell and down the back of your thighs. The other is between your legs, two thick fingers slipping between your lips and gathering all that wetness to smear it over your swollen clit. Your jaw is slack with shock and arousal.

“You’re leaking for me? Need me that bad, sweetheart?”

He’s astounded, truly. Shameful, maybe, that he’s pictured how you look down there. Knew you’d have a neat layer of hair, the shape it would be, the color. Knew you’d felt soft and sweet and sticky.

You take his manhood in your hands, and it’s so hot, so heavy in your palm. You scooch closer, till your ass is resting against his balls and your mound is right against his shaft. He grunts, hips jerking to feel that slickness against him.

It all feels utterly surreal.

“I wanna feel it like this Jack, m’on the shot and you’re the first person I’ve slept with in like a year and-“

You’re scrambling, he stops it with a soothing hand behind your neck - bringing you down to his mouth. He soars your tongue for a moment before he reassures you.

“I’m clean honey, I trust you. If you want it raw I’ll give it to you, don’t have to beg me. Ever. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

It’s so honest, it’s almost painful.

He reaches between your bodies and grasps himself, pauses to take your hands and place them on his shoulders. He drags himself through your folds, soaking himself with you in the process. The sounds you’re making are forever catalogued in his brain - etched in there like runes.

He’s caught between your face and the expressions you’re making, and the leaking between your legs. He’s sure you can feel his heart beat through his chest.

“Up a little, that’s it,” he instructs. “gonna go in slow, ohhh fuck, sink down on me just like that. Fuuuuck.”

You whimper and grip at his shoulders, in disbelief you’re hearing him so undone like this, feeling him as he slides in you halfway. The stretch is delicious, makes your eyes water. He’s so hot inside of you, the perfect fit - sliding inside of you little by little while your soft walls squeeze and pulse around him.

You kiss him haphazardly until you’ve taken him to the hilt, pubic mound against pubic mound. You’re both panting into each others mouths, you can feel him throbbing in tandem with yourself - he’s nuzzled perfectly against your cervix. It’s too much.

And then he’s pressing his feet into the mattress, two hands on your ass for leverage, while he pulls himself back out halfway and drives himself back in - stealing the moan in your throat and leaving a fucked out hiccup in its wake.

“Oh god, feels so good Jack, ohhhh.”

You hide your face in his shoulder, knees on either side on his waist. He holds your head against him, makes sure your hips are positioned so that he can really fuck you like this.

And he does.

He knows you need it bad, and honestly he needs it worse. So his pace is somewhere between rough and rushed, but more so an example of his body giving in to yours, of you giving into him.

“You like it like this, hmm? Taking me all the way baby, I’m all the way in there.”

His voice is shaky, but he needs this to be good for you, needs to make you fall apart. The sounds are already absurdly lewd. You’re so wet now that you’re smeared along the length of him that the glide is easy.

“Love it like this, harder, please. Fuck me harder.”

You’re gonna be the end of him completely. But who is he, if not for you? So he fucks you harder.

If your tits weren’t pressed against his chest they’d be bouncing against him like the rest of you, soft and pliable. Even the sound of his balls slapping against you gets to him - he feels the warmth leaking all over him, against your thighs and his.

You feel so full. Of him. Completely. You try your hardest not to suck any marks against his throat, your squeaks and sounds evidence of how he’s making you feel even if your body wasn’t responding the way it is.

And the feeling of him inside of you is a sensation you hope you don’t have to miss for too long after this. You can feel every ridge, every vein, the mushroom tip of his cock prodding your insides over and over again.

Your hips begin to match his pace, and you sit up just enough to look down at his face. It causes you to squeeze around him so hard, he almost can’t fuck you as hard as he is. You touch his face, thighs trembling and your thumb ghosts across his lips.

He takes it into his mouth, eyes connecting with yours, and if your jaw could drop anymore it would. It’s a frenzy of sorts, the way you’re fucking. His eyebrows are scrunched, lips curled and chest and neck splotched red from both exertion and arousal.

You plant two hands on his strong chest, meeting him with each thrust. He peers down between your bodies and a string of expletives leaves his tongue. He kisses your palm as it departs.

“Shit, baby look at you. You’ve thought about this huh? Thought about how good I’d fuck you, yeah?”

You whine at this, lost in the sensation.

“Answer me, use your words. I need to hear you.”

You’re dizzy, perspiring and trying to find the strength to talk. He reaches a hand down to rub at your clit, circling and circling the hardened bud while he fucks himself into you.

“Y-y-yes,” each word is interrupted by a thrust. You keep going. “touched myself all- oh godddd, touched myself all the time thinking about it. Please don’t stop.”

He chokes a little bit, hips stuttering. He feels himself getting dangerously close to the edge.

“Oh baby, made yourself cum t-thinking about me?”

It’s selfish of him trying to get these answers while he’s balls deep inside of your heat, but he can’t help it. He needs to know, needs to hear the words roll off your tongue.

You nod, looking down at his big hand and how your wetness is pooling in his palm. How you can see him disappearing with each hard thrust.

“All the time Jack. Wanted you since I saw you.”

He decides that he doesn’t care if it makes him sore later, he needs to be on top of you, needs to hold you and feel you tremble underneath him. The flip is a quick show of his strength, and he managed to stay inside of you as he does it. Your head hits the pillow and he scoops the back of your thighs underneath his biceps - pushes your knees up to your chest.

The angle has you crying out, clawing at his thick forearms, those tears brewing in your eyes again and threatening to fall over your cheeks.

This angle has you feeling even more than before, and you can truly watch how he fucks you. It’s so nasty, so real, right here in front of you.

“S-so deep.” You stutter. He kisses your knees, your thighs, scruff scratching your skin. You feel a warmth in your belly that feels so good it’s almost scary, vulnerable in the spreading of your legs and the exposure. A thin veil of sweat coats him, and he uses his thumb to circle your clit again.

“I know baby, I know. Gonna make you cum around me, okay? Gonna take care of you.”

And you believe him. You’ve never felt it coming this fast, but it’s brewing. Spreading slowly throughout your body. Looking at him makes it worse, he’s so lost from pleasure, just like you are. But more so, he’s determined, experienced, you can tell just by the way he’s rubbing you and how he’s rolling his hips into you with a slight curve so that you feel him everywhere.

You can’t talk anymore. He knows that, he sees it and feels it. Your pussy is weeping for him, and the slickness has developed a translucent white film from your arousals mixing. He’s getting you so close. Selfishly he hopes no man will ever make you feel like this. Just him. His. All his.

He doesn’t realize he’s saying it out loud, till you’re saying it back.

“All yours Jack, m’all yours.”

It’s all you can manage, and it’s enough. It’s all he needed to hear.

“All mine, hmm? Awe baby, shh I got you. That’s it, doing so good - just like that huh?”

He’s closer now, has slipped between your thighs and let them clasp around his waist so that you’re bringing him as close to your body as possible. He’s still rubbing your clit, kissing you softly while he strokes you deep, right where you need it. Barely moving in and out fully. Those tears of pleasure have fallen, he kisses them away, holds your face.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he pants softly, sweetly. “So good, I know honey. Let me make you cum. I feel it, you gonna cum for me sweetheart?”

He nods with you as affirmation, keeping the pace. He sees your eyes rolling back, that jaw falling open a little bit more than before, your body tensing more and more and more.

“Let go for me, I’m right here. You can let go, ohhhh yeah just like that. Cum for me, cum for me.”

It’s so intense you don’t know what to do with yourself. It starts in your stomach, spreads through your limbs and between your legs. Everything feels so tight and you pull him down so you can muffle your cries in his shoulder as your orgasm viciously rides over you.

“Oh god ohgodohgod.”

You’re spasming around his dick so intensely it almost hurts, bucking your hips up to meet his slow, hard thrusts - and he holds you tightly while you jerk against him, makes sure you’re not going anywhere. He feels your wetness increase by tenfold.

“Please cum in me, please Jack, fuck I need it.”

That undoes it for him. He gives you what you want, having to remove a hand from your face to grip the sheets beside your head, muffles his groan in the mattress while his balls tighten and his own orgasm hits him.

He stills and pushes himself impossibly deeper, your name is all he can really say, like a mantra or a prayer, while his release spurts in thick ropes inside of you - his own body twitches while it’s happening, he can’t think, can’t speak. It’s like his hips have a mind of their own, rutting all that cum into you while his half hard cock is drained, your pussy still milking him with the aftershocks of your release.

“Jack, Jack.” You pant softly, nails still embedded in his back, legs still ensnaring him inside of you.

It’s got to be three whole minutes that you lay like this. Breathing heavy, tears drying, body coming down from the vigor of what you’ve both just done and how leg shakingly intense your orgasms were. You feel him soften inside of you, feel your legs fully giving out and unable to grip him anymore.

You see his face in front of you with one blink. He’s moving hair out of your face, wiping your mouth the back of his hand. He’s staring at your hazy expression, hopes he hangs on to the memory forever. He’s gonna start getting worried if your breathing down slow down - you looked utterly fucked. He’s positive he does too, but he can’t bring himself to feel bashful about it. He did that.

“Hey, you still with me?”

You almost forget how his voice sounds when it’s not wracked his desire. You never thought that would ever happen. A stupid, lopsided smile spreads across your face, and it’s like the fucking break of dawn. His heart skips a beat.

It’s wicked, and perfect, what you’re doing to him.

“Barely, Doctor Abbot.”

He chortles, buries his face in your neck. You feel his grin against your skin, and your fingers brush through his disheveled hair.

“Don’t say that, might make me hard again.”

You tug his face back up, feigning shock.

“Oh my god, Doctor Abbot does it for you?”

He kisses you, then. So passionately you could almost cry. Again. He pulls away, rubs his nose against yours, and his stare is all consuming. He cups your cheek, kisses you again and again and again.

“No, sweetheart. You do it for me. You’re it for me. You know that?”

You’re breathless for 100th time in one day.

“Yeah? Well you’re it for me old man.”

You’re probably the only person who could say that, and it mean everything, absolutely everything.

[pedroscurls]

eye contact (one-shot)

summary: jack likes seeing you get all flustered when he stares into your eyes.

pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader content warning(s): established relationship, flirting at work, neck kisses, jack grabs your ass, no use of y/n. word count: 956 a/n: ok, this story was truly inspired by @ozarkthedog's gifset (here) of abbot making eyes at everyone and i couldn't get this thought outta my head bc of it. anyway, this isn't proofread and it was mainly for me to just get my thoughts out bc the way this man has in me a chokehold isn't even funny anymore lmao. hope y'all enjoy <3

“Stop,” you said, looking up at him.

“What?” His lips curled upwards, eyes gazing down at you, hands in his pockets. “What am I even doing?”

“You’re looking at me.”

“Should I not be looking at you?”

“Not like that,” you sighed.

“Like what?” 

“Jack—”

His smile grew. 

Jack stepped closer. 

“Want me to look away?”

“Well, no.” 

He lowered his head slightly. Jack watched the way you bit your lower lip. 

“Can’t I look at you?”

You rolled your eyes and moved a hand to his chest, slowly pushing him away. “You’re distracting me.”

“From what? Charting?” He continued.

“Yes, from doing my job,” you answered. 

“Maybe I like looking at you, is that so wrong?”

“Not when you look like that.”

He chuckled. 

Jack was amused.

Then, you lowered your voice. “You keep looking at me like you want something.”

“So what if I do?” 

“We’re at work,” you whispered.

“Makes it more fun,” he answered. “Don’t you think?”

“You’re torturing me,” you said. “That’s what you’re doing.” 

Jack leaned in closer. 

His lips hovered near your ear as he whispered, “Look at you,” he said quietly. “Getting all flustered.”

You cleared your throat and slowly pulled back to look up at him. Luckily, there was a lull in the night shift that gave you time to catch up on your charting, which meant giving Jack time to distract you all he wanted.

“Stop,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I’m not flustered.”

“I think you are,” he chuckled. 

“We are at work,” you repeated. 

“And we’re working.”

“I’m working. You’re distracting me.” 

Jack leaned back again. 

Then, his eyes took in every inch of you from top to bottom and back up. 

“Jack,” you warned.

He chuckled. “What?” 

Feeling defeated, you moved away from the computer and began walking away, knowing that he was going to follow you very closely. 

“Okay, wait, hey—”

Jack thought he might have crossed a line. He was close on your heels, following you through the emergency department into one of the supply closets towards the back. His brow furrowed when you opened the door. 

“What—”

Then, you stepped inside and pulled him in with you. It was a small room, cramped without much space to move around in, which meant Jack was so close now.

Chest pressed against yours. 

His large hands reaching out to rest on your hips. 

And it was dark too. 

Until he reached for the light switch and turned the light on. 

Yet again, his eyes were solely on yours. 

Jack grinned because he knew that look in your eyes now. 

A dark gaze, filled with lust. 

Your tongue darted out to lick your lower lip.

He felt his lower half twitch in excitement.

“There you go again,” you whispered. “Looking at me like that.”

Jack stepped closer until your back pressed against the wall, trapping you between him and the wall now. “I can’t help myself,” he whispered, leaning down to brush his lips across your own. 

“Well, you have to try,” you said quietly, moving your hands from his chest to rest on his broad shoulders.

“I can separate my personal life from work,” he said, moving his lips down your jawline and the side of your neck lightly. He heard you inhale sharply, which made his grip around your hips tighten just enough to pull you closer against him. 

“I don’t think you can,” you answered, eyes fluttering shut when you felt his lips brush along your neck. Your hands moved to the back of his head, fingers combing through his salt and pepper hair. 

He chuckled against you. 

Jack peppered light and open-mouthed kisses on your skin, one hand moving from your hip to your ass, squeezing it roughly into his palm. 

You pulled him closer as a response, tightened your arms around him and holding him against you. 

“You can’t blame me,” he muttered, teeth grazing the skin at your neck. “I like looking at you.” Jack squeezed your ass again and you let out an involuntary whimper. “Shhh,” he whispered, pulling back to look down at you. “We can’t have everyone know what I’m doing to you, can we?” 

You cleared your throat and moved your hands to his chest. He flexed his pecs underneath your fingertips and you shook your head, trying to snap out of whatever was going on in your mind right now.

You were both at work.

You needed to focus. 

So, you gently pushed him away.

Tried to make some room between both your bodies now. 

And still, he had his eyes locked with yours and a smug fucking grin on his lips.

“You’re in trouble when we get home,” you warned.

He bit his lower lip in anticipation.

“Do you promise?” Jack chuckled. 

He stepped closer. 

“Jack,” you said. 

“I love it when you work the night shift with me,” he smiled, one of his hands now moving to your cheek. 

He always kept his eyes focused on yours. It was one of the first things you noticed about him—how easy it was for him to keep direct eye contact with anyone he was talking to. It was like he was giving the person in front of him his undivided attention. 

But with you—it was different with you.

“How many hours do we have left?” You finally asked.

Jack smiled. “Few more hours.” His thumb brushed along your cheek as he leaned forward to rest his forehead against yours. “I’ll try to keep my eyes to myself,” he sighed dramatically.

“Thank you,” you whispered, leaning into his touch.

“But the minute we get home,” he said quietly, slowly moving his head to brush his nose with your own. “You’re mine.”