Here are the last twitter requests!! I had so much fun doing all of these, I will only be taking requests from my kofi, i wanna be able to do art full time one day, so i hope yall understand why the sudden change! <3
hey yall this was my submission for the mohabott monday birthday bash entry!! I loved seeing all the art and fanfics everyone!! This drawing was for @/nocapesdahling on twitter!!
Guys !! I forgot to post on here but here is the amazing popemira sketch that i collabed with @kingeorgey!! we had so much fun with this concept so be sure to check out their fanfic!!
18+ | the pitt x animal kingdom crossover | tags: no beta we die like mrs. abbot, popemira, mentions of past animal abuse but the animal is safe and healthy now, Andrew "Pope" Cody is Down Bad, Fluff, Angst, J Cody never existed, Short Chapters, Fic is Already Written, Minific, POV Alternating, pope cody worships samira mohan, Getting Together
⤹ full chap below. likes, comments, kudos, rbs appreciated! ⤵︎
⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹
Pope could plan bank robberies, yet he’d fumbled a simple operation. He didn’t want the smart, pretty neighbor that he yearned to make life easier for, finding out he had woken up at 5:30am to place her mangled stray into the litterbox (he loathed having something as unhygienic as a litterbox inside his home, but hated the thought of her stray freezing to death even more) before getting aptly bundled up to go clear her windshield off. He’d set the other scraper brush at her door- it didn’t fit in her mailbox- along with the gloves before emptying the kitten’s bowl into a ziploc bag he stuffed into his pocket and heading to her car.
In true Pope manner, he was in the zone shovelling the sidewalks and clearing the car off. So much so, in fact, he missed the sound of her door opening and closing entirely.
“Hey!”
Pope froze and stood stock still from where he’d been brushing the very last spot: the driver’s side mirror. Despite the downy coat his blood ran cold to the bone at being caught, adrenaline pumping almost as much as it had that unfortunate day at the bank when Baz had driven off and sent him to prison. Don’t speak. Don’t move. Maybe run? No, maybe she’ll forget you were there-
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Her voice wasn’t angry, but it sure wasn’t chipper. Quite frankly, if this was the doctor woman (and he guessed it had to be) he was terrified of her. Slowly, he turned to face her from where she stood on the salted stoop in front of her door.
She was very pretty, he thought, and waiting for an answer. Seeing as how he didn’t have one, and it would’ve died on his lips anyways at the sound of her voice, directed at him, coming from the face he’d only seen from one story up- he cleared his throat and tried to conjure up even one good sentence to put her mind at ease.
“I, uh,” Pope licked his lips. When, aside from his words to the kitten last night, had he really spoken to another person? Had it been weeks? Two full months since his move? He went on: “I’m cleanin’ my car off.”
“That’s my car,” Samira looked up and down the street, and around the small lot attached to the apartment building, “And it’s the only red car that’s ever here.”
And he didn’t have anything to say to that because, true to her intellect, she was right. Pope didn’t say anything, just shuffled several steps away from her car. They stood, unmoving, locked in an unspoken stalemate. Then;
“I’m… not mad, and thank you, just… people are creepy, you know? I can’t afford a new car so if you did something to it please just tell me so I can Uber. And there’s nothing worth stealing in there, trust me. Just tell me if you’re gonna take my engine when I’m sleeping so I leave enough time to grab the bus?”
The eyebags under her eyes made sense, and not just because of the inhumane hours she worked. She sounded like a woman at the end of several ropes. Pope wanted to know every single person responsible for driving her to that point. Instead, he looked up from where he’d been staring at her tire. Never at her. Never even near her.
“I ain’t gonna steal from you. I… you’re a doctor, I dunno. Shouldn’t have to… and the sidewalks… and that scraper you had, gonna scrape your windshield.”
Salt crystals crackled under her shoes. He saw them come into his view, not far from the tire, but did not look up or to the side. Better to stare at the tire than see her reaction to him.
“So this was you?” The gloves waved into his line of sight and then back out of it. He didn’t move, nor did he reply. It seemed to give her all the information she required.
“Are you the new neighbor?” She tried instead. Pope shifted his weight to his other foot awkwardly and, having figured this deserved some response, gave one singular nod: up, and then down, almost imperceptible. But she noticed and a hand came into view wearing the gloves he’d purchased. “I’m Samira. Sorry it took me so long to-”
“You work a lot,” Pope blurted before she could finish the utterly unnecessary apology. He finally allowed himself to look almost up and, from the new angle, he could see her face at the top of his vision without risking any eye contact. “Don’t say sorry.”
“Yeah, I… I really do appreciate this, but please don’t feel like you-”
“You gotta warm up your car. I could do it if you slide your keys-” Pope stopped himself. Creepy. Creep. Stop being creepy. Stop being scary. You know how you are. “Your car shouldn’t make the noises it does. I can check it out when you’re back, but… let it warm up, y’know? So you don’t break down. Cold starts aren’t good.”
Her eyebrows raised. They were pretty. Their shape was pretty. Her eyes were so big and beautiful, and she had a dimple (which was weird because it meant she was at least kind of smiling) and a curl fell down from the edge of her coat’s hood. Samira was very pretty, and very nice, he thought, and he liked clearing off her windshield and would very much enjoy continuing to do so.
“I’m Samira,” She repeated and offered a hand out. Pope’s head tilted to the side.
“I know, you already said-” He mumbled, then blinked. Hard.
Stupid.
Weird.
“I’m P- Andrew. Andrew,” He stammered. Without warning he suddenly took a big step past her without shaking her hand, only stopping once she was behind him again to say: “I’m not going to do something bad to your car. I’m not like that. I just… wanted to help you. I…”
Pope debated saying the next part but, since everything else sounded exactly like what a creepy dude planning something sinister would say, he decided a grain of unfortunate truth was fair play. “I don’t have a lot to do. And you seem so busy, I just… just wanted to be neighborly.”
Pope disappeared inside before she could respond. He heard her car start and run for nine minutes before it pulled out of its parking spot.
“This kitten is a sweet little angel. Does she have a name?”
“No. Well, I- I mean, maybe,” Pope said. The vet poking and prodding at her with gloved hands waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, so she went on with the inspection. As she worked, he wondered what doctor neighbor Samira was like at work, wearing rubber gloves and scrubs and a mask and saving patients with needles and whatever the hell else doctors used. She was probably a good, smart doctor, if he guessed.
The vet was turning the writhing, shrieking cat on its back to observe its bubblegum-pink stomach when she spoke and broke Pope from his train of thought. “Well, Mr. James,” Pope cringed; that new name would take some getting used to, “Other than the obvious, she’s in about the best condition she could be.”
“The obvious? You can tell what happened to her?”
The vet’s eyes darkened with a brief flicker of sadness and she adjusted her mask. “You said this was a stray, right?”
Pope nodded.
“Well, it looks like she survived some pretty severe abuse as a newborn. Some surface level scars from a razor blade, intentional burn patches across the body,” Pope must have looked horrified. She added, “Unfortunately, with strays or newborn cats people don’t want… it’s not the first time I’ve seen it. She must have gotten put out quickly, and they probably left her to die, but lucky for her, she lived and found you. So, we’ll have to have her back in soon for a checkup and I’d like to prescribe some-”
Pope was only half listening. He was staring at the little kitten as it made itself as small as possible, shivering against the furthest wall of its carrier. Somebody tried to kill her and afterwards she had to accept food from other humans because she had no other choice.
What if she had ended up in any other alley? What if somebody stopped setting out food for her once they saw her body, mangled in scars, sliced off left ear, past malnourishment, patchy hair, and bald spots?
What if Samira had never been there?
Andrew set the carrier in his passenger seat and drove back from the vet in teary-eyed silence, one hand on the carrier the entire ride home.
18+ | the pitt x animal kingdom crossover | tags: no beta we die like mrs. abbot, popemira, mentions of past animal abuse but the animal is safe and healthy now, Andrew "Pope" Cody is Down Bad, Fluff, Angst, J Cody never existed, Short Chapters, Fic is Already Written, Minific, POV Alternating, pope cody worships samira mohan, Getting Together
⤹ full chap below. likes, comments, kudos, rbs appreciated! ⤵︎
⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹
His new fake documents said he was from Pennsylvania, there was a cheap apartment available, and there was no reason for anybody to suspect Pope Cody would end up in Pittsburgh. These three facts, combined, made it the perfect place to get away from his family once and for all.
The apartment itself was as shitty as the neighborhood it resided in- perfect to lay low in- with its leaking faucets and landlord special paintjob, providing him countless odd tasks to fulfill his overwhelming off time. Being in the apartment for too long without anything to do turned it into yet another imprisonment; Pope didn’t know who he was when he wasn’t tasked with something to do. So a broken lightbulb here, an in-unit dryer with a broken drum belt there? It was a small mercy amidst the hectic nature of his grand escape.
He missed his brothers. He missed surfing. He missed weather that wasn’t miserable or as everchanging as Pittsburgh’s. He missed Lena most of all. But, when he was free to do what he wanted, or not do something he didn’t want to? When he spent his first full day in a sparsely furnished apartment without a person in his ear treating him like an attack dog? The grief that came with the life he left behind melted into great relief. It was him and, sure, he was alone, but that was what he wanted and, most days, he felt it was certainly what he deserved. Alone, with more money than he knew what to do with, no threat to his life, and time to learn about himself. Time to live maybe, finally, in peace.
Peace was best found on the balcony. Of course, Pope enjoyed walks and runs through the parks as they crisped with late autumn’s arrival, or the serenity that came with a monotonous odd job around the apartment, or lifting weights and boxing. More than all that, though, he cherished the view the balcony gave him. It was the closest he got to reliving a shred of his before life. From the vantage point of the small, dilapidated balcony, he oversaw his domain in its entirety. He couldn’t help but memorize the cars that were there day after day, or start logging when one tenant might arrive versus another, or watch the process of the shops open and the nearby street parking fill up. He watched on more than one occasion as the landlord was handed rent in an envelope full of wrinkled bills of every denomination, making him thankful he wasn’t the only one to pay in that nature. He took note of every possible concern, anything of note; but, over the course of the month he had been living here, one balcony saga stuck out from the rest.
There was a stray cat. It was shockingly tiny, with patchy fur and, from his best guess at a distance, bald spots from being somehow mangled. It looked like it was a human’s doing. Pope felt bad for the cat, especially because of its apparent youth. Pope felt like any human that would hurt something so helpless deserved to be thrown into wet cement, alive, and left inside as it hardened. The little kitten was strong, too, if it was willing to come around a human street after whatever had been done to it.
The stray returned because there was also a woman. A doctor woman. A doctor woman who was always at work- made sense, with the whole doctor thing- and still made time, even after twenty four hours straight of working, to be the type of person who set small dishes of cat food in the alley outside their apartment building.
The doctor had big brown eyes and spoke a pretty language on the phone sometimes. She’d walk into the apartment with one hand holding the phone while her opposite arm carried a bag of premium kitten food indoors, still wearing scrubs because that was all she ever seemed to wear. On the days she was gone a full 24 hours that kitten would begin to linger in the alley, meowing around the 8 or 9pm point, until it would slink away with its head hung low. So, as his personal service to healthcare workers and not because it made him sad to think the kitten might not put on good weight despite the doctor’s best efforts, Pope ended up going to the grocery store and stalking the aisles until he arrived in front of a wall of brightly colored pet food. The next time the doctor wasn’t home by 8:30 he slipped outside and refilled it with the same kibble (the doctor had to know what was best for the kitten’s stomach, so he trusted her choice of food) and a slice of turkey breast from his fridge.
Then there was a week where she worked multiple double shifts. The hospital on her lanyard, the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, didn’t normally do 24 hour shifts for the emergency department according to the internet. So it had to be her covering extra shifts on top of her normal schedule, which he could only hope wasn’t the result of financial stress, since asking their landlord if he could secretly pay two month’s rent for her might put eyes on Pope that he didn’t want. Whatever the case, it left her unavailable to go grocery shopping, and it took her two weeks to go through the last bag and it had been three weeks since she’d brought one home. After several hours spent peeling the landlord’s flaking paint off of his electrical outlets he went back to the store, got a bag, and dropped it at her doorstep for when she returned.
Pope made sure to be inside at 7:30am when her car pulled into the lot, but he heard from below him the sound of her dropping the bag inside her apartment. Fifteen minutes later he heard the unmistakable creaking and squeaking of her shower turning on- an easy fix he’d handled his third day- and Pope took it as his cue to stop listening. He slipped outside and headed to the gym to work off the thrill in his chest.
Winter arrived early that year. Pope had been dreading it, considering that he was a California boy through and through- not one particle of the Codys was meant to be subjected to the snow. The days were growing drearier and the weather was taunting the city, approaching the point of snowfall on several occasions and then backing off just to leave layers of icy frost on windows and windshields. The first time sure enough, he woke up just before 6am in early November to a blanket of pure white covering Pittsburgh. He silently watched the weightlessness of the snowflakes as they gradually fell and covered the city in a blanket of pure white, but this wonder was rudely interrupted at 6:30am by an awful, grating sound coming from the parking lot.
Pope set down the jar of pomade he was about to finish running through his hair and stalked across the apartment to his window to see a horrible sight: the doctor woman, without gloves, struggling to scrape off her windows with a broken windshield brush. On top of that? There was no way her engine was warmed up and the car must’ve been even colder than outside, because he didn’t hear the car run for more than three minutes total before she drove off.
Pope Cody found all of these facts unacceptable. So, he went to the store and purchased two windshield scrapers with a brush on the opposite side, sidewalk salt, a snow shovel, insulated gloves, an animal carrier, and a cat collar with a bow. With the list acquired he did what he did best, and got to work until the sidewalk was clear. The snow had continued to relentlessly pile on as the day progressed so he went back out at 6:50pm to clear it again and his efforts paid off when the woman arrived to a reserved parking spot and walkway so clear of snow and freshly salted, she had half a mind to be suspicious. Pope watched, crouched and behind the safety of his bedroom window, as she slowly looked around and took in the fact that her sketchy apartment complex was the only place as far as the eye could see that was perfectly shovelled and salted. She shrugged after a few seconds, hugged her puffer coat closer to herself, and disappeared in the apartment below him. Pope even watched her traipse right back out to refill the cat’s bowl.
Pope finally pulled the curtain shut. He ate microwavable chicken and broccoli, showered, and smoothed his bed before pulling the comforter back so the corner became perfectly triangular. Finally, he climbed in, turned his lamp off, then on, then off again, and turned over to face the meowing cat carrier. Sticking a finger and rubbing the fun-sized, mewling animal, he said: “I’ll empty it in the morning, so she knows you ate. Then we gotta go get your shots at 9:30.”
The kitten, still upset at him for successfully luring her into the carrier for two hours, let out another squeaklike meow. They both fell asleep within the hour.
18+ | the pitt x animal kingdom crossover | tags: no beta we die like mrs. abbot, popemira, mentions of past animal abuse but the animal is safe and healthy now, Andrew "Pope" Cody is Down Bad, Fluff, Angst, J Cody never existed, Short Chapters, Fic is Already Written, Minific, POV Alternating, pope cody worships samira mohan, Getting Together
⤹ full chap below. likes, comments, kudos, rbs appreciated! ⤵︎
⊹˚₊‧───────────────‧₊˚⊹
His new fake documents said he was from Pennsylvania, there was a cheap apartment available, and there was no reason for anybody to suspect Pope Cody would end up in Pittsburgh. These three facts, combined, made it the perfect place to get away from his family once and for all.
The apartment itself was as shitty as the neighborhood it resided in- perfect to lay low in- with its leaking faucets and landlord special paintjob, providing him countless odd tasks to fulfill his overwhelming off time. Being in the apartment for too long without anything to do turned it into yet another imprisonment; Pope didn’t know who he was when he wasn’t tasked with something to do. So a broken lightbulb here, an in-unit dryer with a broken drum belt there? It was a small mercy amidst the hectic nature of his grand escape.
He missed his brothers. He missed surfing. He missed weather that wasn’t miserable or as everchanging as Pittsburgh’s. He missed Lena most of all. But, when he was free to do what he wanted, or not do something he didn’t want to? When he spent his first full day in a sparsely furnished apartment without a person in his ear treating him like an attack dog? The grief that came with the life he left behind melted into great relief. It was him and, sure, he was alone, but that was what he wanted and, most days, he felt it was certainly what he deserved. Alone, with more money than he knew what to do with, no threat to his life, and time to learn about himself. Time to live maybe, finally, in peace.
Peace was best found on the balcony. Of course, Pope enjoyed walks and runs through the parks as they crisped with late autumn’s arrival, or the serenity that came with a monotonous odd job around the apartment, or lifting weights and boxing. More than all that, though, he cherished the view the balcony gave him. It was the closest he got to reliving a shred of his before life. From the vantage point of the small, dilapidated balcony, he oversaw his domain in its entirety. He couldn’t help but memorize the cars that were there day after day, or start logging when one tenant might arrive versus another, or watch the process of the shops open and the nearby street parking fill up. He watched on more than one occasion as the landlord was handed rent in an envelope full of wrinkled bills of every denomination, making him thankful he wasn’t the only one to pay in that nature. He took note of every possible concern, anything of note; but, over the course of the month he had been living here, one balcony saga stuck out from the rest.
There was a stray cat. It was shockingly tiny, with patchy fur and, from his best guess at a distance, bald spots from being somehow mangled. It looked like it was a human’s doing. Pope felt bad for the cat, especially because of its apparent youth. Pope felt like any human that would hurt something so helpless deserved to be thrown into wet cement, alive, and left inside as it hardened. The little kitten was strong, too, if it was willing to come around a human street after whatever had been done to it.
The stray returned because there was also a woman. A doctor woman. A doctor woman who was always at work- made sense, with the whole doctor thing- and still made time, even after twenty four hours straight of working, to be the type of person who set small dishes of cat food in the alley outside their apartment building.
The doctor had big brown eyes and spoke a pretty language on the phone sometimes. She’d walk into the apartment with one hand holding the phone while her opposite arm carried a bag of premium kitten food indoors, still wearing scrubs because that was all she ever seemed to wear. On the days she was gone a full 24 hours that kitten would begin to linger in the alley, meowing around the 8 or 9pm point, until it would slink away with its head hung low. So, as his personal service to healthcare workers and not because it made him sad to think the kitten might not put on good weight despite the doctor’s best efforts, Pope ended up going to the grocery store and stalking the aisles until he arrived in front of a wall of brightly colored pet food. The next time the doctor wasn’t home by 8:30 he slipped outside and refilled it with the same kibble (the doctor had to know what was best for the kitten’s stomach, so he trusted her choice of food) and a slice of turkey breast from his fridge.
Then there was a week where she worked multiple double shifts. The hospital on her lanyard, the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, didn’t normally do 24 hour shifts for the emergency department according to the internet. So it had to be her covering extra shifts on top of her normal schedule, which he could only hope wasn’t the result of financial stress, since asking their landlord if he could secretly pay two month’s rent for her might put eyes on Pope that he didn’t want. Whatever the case, it left her unavailable to go grocery shopping, and it took her two weeks to go through the last bag and it had been three weeks since she’d brought one home. After several hours spent peeling the landlord’s flaking paint off of his electrical outlets he went back to the store, got a bag, and dropped it at her doorstep for when she returned.
Pope made sure to be inside at 7:30am when her car pulled into the lot, but he heard from below him the sound of her dropping the bag inside her apartment. Fifteen minutes later he heard the unmistakable creaking and squeaking of her shower turning on- an easy fix he’d handled his third day- and Pope took it as his cue to stop listening. He slipped outside and headed to the gym to work off the thrill in his chest.
Winter arrived early that year. Pope had been dreading it, considering that he was a California boy through and through- not one particle of the Codys was meant to be subjected to the snow. The days were growing drearier and the weather was taunting the city, approaching the point of snowfall on several occasions and then backing off just to leave layers of icy frost on windows and windshields. The first time sure enough, he woke up just before 6am in early November to a blanket of pure white covering Pittsburgh. He silently watched the weightlessness of the snowflakes as they gradually fell and covered the city in a blanket of pure white, but this wonder was rudely interrupted at 6:30am by an awful, grating sound coming from the parking lot.
Pope set down the jar of pomade he was about to finish running through his hair and stalked across the apartment to his window to see a horrible sight: the doctor woman, without gloves, struggling to scrape off her windows with a broken windshield brush. On top of that? There was no way her engine was warmed up and the car must’ve been even colder than outside, because he didn’t hear the car run for more than three minutes total before she drove off.
Pope Cody found all of these facts unacceptable. So, he went to the store and purchased two windshield scrapers with a brush on the opposite side, sidewalk salt, a snow shovel, insulated gloves, an animal carrier, and a cat collar with a bow. With the list acquired he did what he did best, and got to work until the sidewalk was clear. The snow had continued to relentlessly pile on as the day progressed so he went back out at 6:50pm to clear it again and his efforts paid off when the woman arrived to a reserved parking spot and walkway so clear of snow and freshly salted, she had half a mind to be suspicious. Pope watched, crouched and behind the safety of his bedroom window, as she slowly looked around and took in the fact that her sketchy apartment complex was the only place as far as the eye could see that was perfectly shovelled and salted. She shrugged after a few seconds, hugged her puffer coat closer to herself, and disappeared in the apartment below him. Pope even watched her traipse right back out to refill the cat’s bowl.
Pope finally pulled the curtain shut. He ate microwavable chicken and broccoli, showered, and smoothed his bed before pulling the comforter back so the corner became perfectly triangular. Finally, he climbed in, turned his lamp off, then on, then off again, and turned over to face the meowing cat carrier. Sticking a finger and rubbing the fun-sized, mewling animal, he said: “I’ll empty it in the morning, so she knows you ate. Then we gotta go get your shots at 9:30.”
The kitten, still upset at him for successfully luring her into the carrier for two hours, let out another squeaklike meow. They both fell asleep within the hour.
Here are some of the kofi requests ive done so far! Ill eventually do all the requests but if you support throught my kofi your request gets priority and you get more than just one drawing so check out my bio if ur intrested!!
Here is pope!! I like to think that the entire Cody family is from Chihuahua (the northern part of Mexico) and he’s norteño (I’m projecting heavy) I love mi vaquerito
“The hell is that?!” Jack spluttered, grinning to match Samira.
“Fried cotton candy Oreo and funnel cake beer.”
Jack blinked.
“I didn’t hear you say that.”
collab with @BillyNoHouse on twitter/ @gordisbilly. their accompanying fanart
samira mohan x jack abbot | wc: 3k | teen and up | tags: collab with @BillyNoHouse on twitter, Silly, Fluff, no beta we die like mrs. abbot, fanart/fanfic collab, Age Difference, kind of out of character but in a fun way, Karaoke, vague mrs. abbot mention, Established Relationship, Girls' Night Out, planned and written in less than 24 hours, cut me some slack pls, Mohabbot Monday, Title from a Madonna Song, title from "like a prayer" by madonna
⤹ full oneshot below. rbs, comments, etc appreciated! ⤵︎
Children’s screams were, just for tonight, a familiar and even welcome ambience. Instead of causing Samira’s heart to race and her medical-mind self to kick into gear, the shrieks fit perfectly into the surrounding chaos: a pig with one perfect curl for a tail oinking as its preteen handler tried to usher it out of a mud pit and into its pen; families splitting plates of fried dough coated in cinnamon and syrup; jankety rides hurtling by at too-high speeds; parents divvying out ride tickets; a teenage boy trying (and failing) to win a teddy bear for the other half of his first date.
“If I had better eyesight,” Jack remarked as the boy missed the sixth straight dart throw, “I’d win you that.”
Her eyes rolled far enough back to see the sickened participants of the swing ride at its peak. “Always the gentleman. Is that why you brought me here? You want to woo me-”
“I always want to woo you.”
“With teddy bears and cotton candy?”
“Woah, hey, the cotton candy’s for me,” He playfully hugged the monster sized cotton candy to his torso and away from her grasp, easing up enough for her to tear away a portion swirled with pink and blue. “That’s the reason we came to the carnivals every year, because you sure as hell couldn’t pay me to ride any of this shit. Come to the first carnival of the season, share a lemonade and an extra large bag of cotton candy, and look at the cows.”
“I should’ve guessed you were the type of manly man who was terrified of rollercoasters and carnival rides.”
“Hey!” When Jack whirled to face her, Samira’s face was already creasing with hardly contained laughter at his defensiveness. “Rollercoasters and carnival rides are totally different, and coasterphobia is real-”
“Coasterphobia?! You know the term?!”
“I’m a doctor! And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a prosthetic, so being scared of carnival rides-”
“Yeah, you’re right. Ferris wheels are famous for that sort of thing.”
“There is nobody on the face of this Earth that could get me onto that,” He jutted his empty hand to point at the ferris wheel they had, earlier, debated riding, with Samira deeming it the safest, most normal ride at the carnival. Evidently her boyfriend- who had concealed his phobia until tonight- disagreed. While they made their way to the central food court of the fairgrounds, he added, “I had a cousin who was a carny for three summers and he was the dumbest person I’ve ever met. Also the highest.”
“Oh, I was going to ask why you hung out with him if he was so dumb, but now I know.”
Jack’s defensiveness didn’t override the instinctive smirk at the memory of his high school days. “It was the eighties!”
“God,” She laughed, “How old are you?”
“Old enough for a beer. My arms are full- how about you get us drinks, and I’ll grab us a seat?”
Samira cast a look down his right leg where, underneath his clothing, his prosthetic was no doubt irritating him as it mixed with the sweat and heat of the night. Meeting his eyes again she nodded, accepted the wallet Jack wormed out of his back pocket, and took her place in line. As much as she adored Jack, or anyone else in this life, Samira craved safety in solitude.
Since Jack had come into her life, her attitude towards solitude had changed entirely. It had gone from a constant ache, caused by its unwillingness and her powerlessness to it, to something she could now voluntarily lean into. No longer did she spend weeks without saying another word to a human being outside of work; now, with Jack, she had come to view being by herself as a gift. Now, she got to pick and choose when to keep herself as her sole company, and treasure moments like this; the difference between alone and lonely had become a thing of beauty at the hands of Jack Abbot.
As the night was winding down, the beer truck had, evidently, been running dry. What started as a plan to get two beers had been thwarted; when she found the picnic table he was occupying she was holding one glass.
“They were out of basically everything,” She sighed, “So I hope you enjoy… this.”
Understandably, Jack’s brow lifted at her unsure tone. What was there to be unsure of? Beer was beer. In the time provided by his hesitation she took her seat and lifted the cup to his lips. It looked like beer, it smelled like beer; so why had she trailed off in that mysterious way? Why-
He gulped down a sip and nearly coughed it back up. “The hell is that?!” Jack spluttered, grinning to match Samira.
“Fried cotton candy Oreo and funnel cake beer.”
Jack blinked.
“I didn’t hear you say that.”
“Cotton candy oreos,” She explained, slower, “Fried, with funnel cake. All in one beer. Does it taste amazing?”
“I have never tasted anything sweeter in my entire life- well,” Samira scoffed as his eyes raked down to her lap. Immature. “And, there is absolutely no alcohol in that. Whatever that is, it’s not beer.”
“Well, I don’t want any, so drink up.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. That’s not fair. You- it’s basically juice, Mohan, it’s only fair you split it with me, c’mon-”
“Jack-”
“There you go,” He only set the glass down after she’d drank it. Expectedly, her expression cringed, twisting up with a hissing breath.
“I don’t like beer. That is not beer, but I still don’t like it.”
“Attagirl. But tell you what, I’m getting my money’s worth.”
Samira nodded, though he couldn’t see when he was mid-chug. “Economical. I like that about you,” She hummed, watching like a hawk as he licked a drop of the sickly sweet beer off his lips and handed her back the monstrosity of a beverage. “I feel like it should be pink, you know? If it tastes this crazy.”
“Yeah, that would fix it. Even though it tastes awful, is overly expensive, and has no alcohol in it.”
“For all this sugar, you’d at least expect a buzz.”
“I love bad fair food, but a shitty beer that doesn’t even get you drunk is where I cross the line.”
Twenty minutes later, Samira and Jack were discovering the joys of navigating a hectic carnival parking lot at closing time while being unexpectedly drunk.
“This guy’s a creep,” Jack said, “Get the next driver.”
“Every driver on Uber looks like a creep. Isn’t that what you’re there for?” She kept the slur out of her voice. Mostly. “Wait, wait, what?! I forgot he was doing this, this is perfect- here, what about-”
“Creep!” Samira gave Jack a look that could kill.
“That’s Dr. Whitaker, Jack. From the day shift.”
“He’s blonde and he drives a pickup truck. Next, or, we’ll just walk home-”
“Oh my god. Fine, what about-”
“Ma’am, do you need help? Is this guy bothering you?” They both turned on a dime to face the stranger rushing to Samira’s defense. She was half tempted to take up the offer and get rid of Jack, who tended to get extra clingy when tipsy. Once they turned around Samira quickly shed his arm from around her waist, taking three large steps towards the familiar figure of Parker Ellis.
“Ellis?! What are you doing here, you freaked me out!” She beamed, watching as Jack similarly playfully scolded her. Ellis gestured towards the carnival exit as it overflowed with sugarsick children and their parents, fending off migraines from the rides they had been forced to go on.
“I was supposed to pick up my nephew. He’s going to a friend’s, though,” Ellis said. She noticed Samira’s phone and the ride app displayed onscreen. “Need a ride?”
“This is why you’re my favorite,” Jack told her as they reached the parked sedan. While helping Samira down into her seat he added, “Don’t tell Shen.”
“I’m telling Gloria!” A familiar voice sang from the back seat. Jack ducked into the car and slapped Shen, sitting in the passenger’s seat, on the shoulder. Amidst the excitement the lemonade Samira had been placing into a cupholder jostled to the point of spilling several droplets onto her calf. When Jack withdrew to settle in his seat, he noticed her dabbing her jacket cuff on her leg. One inquisitive look and Samira gesturing to the lemonade caused a look of understanding to dawn on him.
“Shen! Come here. Santos is here, let’s each go to an exit and find her,” Ellis peeked back, “You two, stay in the car. I’lk turn the air conditioning on. Do not,” She eyed Jack, “Mess my car up, or do any gross stuff.”
“Nothing to worry about, Ellis. We’re just really good friends,” Jack murmured between himself and his girlfriend, ignoring Parker’s immediate eye roll (tonight, especially, he seemed to have a particular talent for eliciting those) and the closing of the car door as Shen left to do Ellis’ bidding. Left alone, Jack’s mind drifted to doing what Jack Abbot had always done best; causing trouble on the basis of a woman out of his league.
Samira glanced over to Jack at the feeling of his hand wrapping round her calf and lifting it up onto his lap over what little empty space existed between them. “Lot of it get on you?”
“No,” Her leg buzzed around the grasp of his fingers drifting down to her ankle and holding on to it, “Just the last few drops.”
With a low hum, Jack raked his eyes over the exposed skin of her thigh, down to her knee, then over the calf. After giving her ankle a few taps and a feather light tightening of his grip he lifted, slowly, waiting for any sort of protest. Samira gave none and, on the contrary, straightened her leg out to make it easier, asking, “If you lick my leg, I think I’ll get sick.”
“Think?”
She shrugged, a tipsy smile on display. “Maybe I’ll find it hot,” She said.
Any exploration of that possibility was interrupted by fingers tapping the window and a muffled, “Parker, they are!” or, “My eyes! My eyes!” or, “Abbot, you’ve corrupted her!” from Shen and Santos. Jack, without letting go of Samira’s ankle, rolled his window down with a shit-eating grin and chastised them. As they continued to cry out to Parker (and, coming into view alongside her, Garcia) of the horrors they were witnessing, Jack argued back. With the way-too-strong beer still empowering his more mischievous ways, Jack gave up all hope of controlling the situation and lifted her calf to his open mouth to playfully bite.
After a shocked yelp at the sudden action, Samira’s laughter multiplied tenfold, mixing with the cacophony of reactions from all but Garcia.
“Okay, as far as the seat situation is going, those two are getting their own seats. No more freaky shit in my car- don’t make me need to buy a blacklight,” Ellis opened all the doors on the passenger side and they all began to figure out the complexities of who would sit where, how. It ended with Jack, Samira, and Garcia in the backseat with Trinity on her lap. SHen resumed his spot in the passenger seat and, after Santos ducked to evade any law enforcement seeing their less than legal seating arrangement, they were off on the optimal route to drop everyone off where they needed to be.
If figuring out the seating arrangement and introducing Garcia and Santos into the mix had been chaotic, the ride itself defied description. Garcia was gossiping with Abbot about the rumored feud between Park the Shark and Walsh, Shen and Mohan were discussing how fucked the day shift was compared to the night shift and how silly people with claustrophobia were (a pinch in her side let her know Abbot heard even if he didn’t break conversation or eye contact with Garcia), and Santos updated Ellis on the latest state of Pittsburgh’s gay bars. Ten minutes after they’d escaped the traffic leaving the fairgrounds, Abbot heard Santos mention her favorite karaoke spot in the city.’
“I even took Mel there last summer, after,” She paused, glancing at the woman currently serving as her seat, her arms wrapped around Santos for stability, “After that awful shift on the fourth of July.”
“I won a karaoke competition in undergrad,” Abbot piped up. All at once, the conversation in the car died down until all that could be heard was the music Ellis had quietly turned on. Mohan was the first to laugh, but it was Ellis that planted the first seed of an idea.
“What song?”
No response.
“Abbot,” Shen turned to face him, smiling wide enough for him and Ellis both. “What song?”
“Well… there were three rounds.”
Santos’ mouth dropped, along with everyone else’s, and she murmured, “Oh my God,” as Garcia began to fight back laughter of her own.
“Round one was And I Will Always Love You; round two, I Need a Hero; and for the first place finale, ” He sighed, though nobody in the car knew how the two of those could be topped based on the shocked gasps that followed, “Like a Prayer. The… the Madonna song,” Jack trailed off over the immediate howls and shrieks of laughter. Other than Samira, not many living people got to see a bashful Jack Abbot; but sure enough, as they all tried and failed to catch their breath between raucous laughter, he turned red and faced out the window to clear his throat.
“I can’t believe Doctor- Doctor Jack Abbot, of the PTMC, once won a karaoke competition by singing Like a Prayer.”
“I was raised Christian. Besides, I didn’t win because of my singing,” Everyone hushed, turning to him once more. As it was a red light, even Ellis craned her neck around to witness what he was about to reluctantly admit. “I took my shirt off.”
“Oh my God,” Samira covered her mouth in horror as the car went ten times crazier than before.
“The judges were a bunch of sorority girls, and I was ripped in college,” He defended himself over their rowdiness.
“But you were also ginger,” Shen pointed out, “Tit for tat.”
“He’s still ripped,” Samira said.
Jack kissed her cheek. “Yeah, what she said.”
“Oh God. You being ginger explains so, so much,” Garcia said.
“I figured you came out of the womb with gray hair,” Santos added, ignoring the playful glare he shot her way.
Shen held a hand out to garner focus. “There’s a karaoke place right by my apartment, which is her first stop. Just saying.”
Maybe it was the spirit of shitty, overly sweet “beer” with much more alcohol in it than any normal alcoholic beverage had, or the fact that Santos guaranteed Mel would show up if asked. All anyone knew was fifteen minutes later, the karaoke bar beneath John Shen’s apartment was full of doctors who finally had a night off.
True to her word, Santos loudly announced the arrival of Mel right before dragging Abbot onstage for a tipsy reenactment of his “I Need a Hero” performance. Santos did most of the performing and- what would become a common theme as the night progressed- they all ended up onstage before the song ended. A solo from Shen; Something Stupid for Mohan and Abbot; a duet of a song Jack had never heard of from Garcia and Santos; in response the nearly empty bar occasionally clapped, or groaned at the song choice, but they were rowdy enough to compensate for their lackluster audience. The drinks were flowing- even Mel sipped at someone else’s amaretto sour here and there- and right when they agreed to call it a night, concluding they were all far too old to be drinking and karaoke-ing past midnight, Ellis held a hand up.
“Wait, wait. It’s only fair we end this night one way. Jack, finish your beer.”
Jack warily followed Ellis’ instruction. Right when he set the bottle down was when the first chord played of a familiar guitar riff.
“No. Absolutely n-”
Samira and Mel both cut him off, with the others all quickly joining in for the opening lyrics to the Madonna song that had haunted him since college. He reluctantly joined, though nobody made any move to get up from where they’d been gathering their belongings around a large booth. All seven of them sang an emphatic, off-key, drunkenly lousy rendition of Like a Prayer, and no shirts were removed, marking the first (and only) logical decision made all night.
Shen retired to his apartment with the offer of a couch to crash on which Ellis was quick to accept. Mel was sober enough to drive home, dropping Santos and Garcia off along the way. Sitting on a bench in front of the bar, it wasn’t until he saw their car drive off safely that Jack reached for his phone to book a ride home.
“Any of these drivers meet your standards, or are they too creepy?” Samira leaned into his side with a yawn.
“When I’m this beat, there are no standards. Looks like… Hannah will be meeting us at that corner in four minutes. Driving a lime green PT cruiser with a vanity plate,” He cocked his head, “Naturally.”
Pushing herself off the bench to stand in front of it, she offered a languid hand out to Jack and began to leisurely saunter to the pickup corner.
“I can’t believe we just did any of that,” Samira said. Jack used his free hand to take her bag from her free hand; luckily they didn’t have to carry the monster sized cotton candy, since the group had been picking at it over the last two hours. “I guess I forget how fun stuff like that can be. Normally, it doesn’t sound that fun at all.”
“Everything in moderation. I’m a bit too old to party like that, but once in a while, you find the people that make it worth it,” They came to a stop under the only street lamp that hadn’t flickered in the entire time they were outside. Samira rested her back against the post and kicked a leg up for leverage, a warm smile on her face as their eyes met. Each curl on his head glowed in the silhouette of the light overhead; a beautiful, heavenly glow surrounding him. For Jack it was even more glorious; when he angled his head just right she was cast in the golden hue that he always viewed her in, even if it was 2am under the harsh hospital fluorescents. She looked like an angel which, Jack thought, was how she looked all the time anyways.
Her hand rose to caress his stubbled jaw. It inched upwards to tangle in his hair, weeks untrimmed, the curls peeking through. She tugged him downwards and, when they both realized just how intensely the taste of cotton candy and novelty carnival beer lingered on their tongues, laughed against each other’s lips.
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