jocelyn

i want you more than any stupid song could ever say ᢉ𐭩 requests are open

[heaven4lostgirls]

you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love ᥫ᭡.

𝒿𝑜𝒸𝑒𝓁𝓎𝓃 ── .✦

𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝓎, 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓎𝒷𝑒𝑒

𝑔𝑜𝒹 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓀 𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝑒

𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒾𝓉’𝓈 𝓉𝑜𝑜 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝒸𝓇𝒾𝒷𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝒶 𝓌𝒶𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓁𝓈 𝒽𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓉

𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾’𝓂 𝓆𝓊𝒾𝑒𝓉, 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝒶𝒷𝓎, 𝒾 𝓅𝓇𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓈𝑒

𝓃𝒶𝓋𝒾𝑔𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 ── .✦

[mcybank]

Fired, With Love – Jack Abbot

⊹ pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader ⊹ summary: you have a mean jealousy streak, and jack’s favorite hobby is to set it off. when he mentions an ex, he figures he’s in for a good morning. for the first time, he takes it too far. ⊹ warnings: [ wc: 15k ] angst – Lots of it im sorry but it gets resolved! hurt/comfort but it’s very obvious (i hope!) that they love each other. established relationship, age gap. insecurity spiral (age gap related), jack’s got a made-up ex named diane but she never appears on page, reader’s having a Sucky morning; she’s also a little spiral-y, very self-deprecating thoughts (jealousy, comparison, fear of not being enough in relationship), she isolates, cries in the shower, jack messes up and Immediately Knows and is making up for it, mutual fears, they are very healthy communicators eventually, jack and reader are really really obsessed with each other, jack grovels + Hey did you know this was going to be a short fic ⊹ notes: writing this felt like giving birth!!! spent hours and hours and hours on it bc i couldn’t stop writing them thank you SO much for this request! a LOT longer than i intended buut it was so much fun to write + i’ve never been in an age-gap relationship but i imagine This exact thing would fix me !! i literally have a big fat crush on this - also probs one of the last longfics i’ll be able to write in such a short time bc i’m going back to school soon :/

Last month, Jack had ran himself into the ground trying to make sure you understood that there was no mystery woman on his phone. It’d lit up with a text from an unknown number – a scammer, really, trying to paint the picture of a generous human, taking advantage of his old age ‘Hello! It has been forever! Do you still have this number, Jack Abbot? – and Jack had spent one beautiful, incandescent hour being investigated. It’d felt like being back in the military, if he was being honest. He’d last been interrogated like this at a desert, and the girl was clearly better at it, because he’d happily surrendered his phone, his passcode, his call log, and his theory of the crime.

( “It’s a scam, baby. They take advantage of the old guys. But check for any women. You’re only gonna find yourself in there.” ) 

He’d watched you bite down on a smile as you tried to keep the act going, and Jack had fed you all truths ( that he’d picked up once, stupidly, and someone asked him for his SSN; they didn’t know what a smart man he was; that he loved you, and only you; that the scammers may have the number, but only you got the man; that his passcode was your birthday, which you’d known, which you’d set ) and you’d recieved each one, nodding, refusing to let the corners of your mouth win. 

( “You’re being charming,” you said to him, sternly. “It won’t work.” / “No, ma’am.” / “It’s working a little.” / “I know, ma’am,” he said, grinning. )

Then, you’d finally decided with reluctance that he was, in fact, “Free to go,” after making note of how scammers are becoming immensely mean, using buzzwords for people Jack’s age. “Forever,” you’d repeated, now disgusted on his behalf. “Who sends that to a veteran? That’s a targeted word. I should report the number.” 

If he was honest, the least your jealousy had shown that week. Jack had never considered himself to be a ‘get an inch, take a mile’ sort of man. Decades your senior, he’d figured himself past the age where he took liberties. He asked before he took; he gave more than he got; he was, by every account, a reasonable man. You’d made a liar of him. He’d become crazy, had started finding childlike joy in small trouble; the sort a boy makes by poking a hive with a stick, except the hive was you and the stings brought him immense satisfaction. Each one, after all, was proof that somebody in this world considered him worth protecting and keeping tucked to themselves.

And you were crazier. Not about him – well. Also about him. But crazier as a baseline condition, a factory setting. You’d woken him at three in the morning by sliding one of his eyelids open with your thumb because you’d dreamt that he was texting another woman and needed to check his phone while the wound was still fresh. He’d handed his phone over, half-blind, and you’d scrolled through it sitting on his stomach. When you found nothing, you’d flopped down onto his chest and gone straight back to sleep. 

It was, frankly, a lot of crazy to be on the receiving end of, and Jack – who’d spent much too long being the most even-keeled, unbothered man in most situations – had taken one look at your little feral devotion pointed square at him and thought that yes, he wants in on all of that.

He would gladly take that your whole storm wrapped up in a package, had done just that, and was not planning on letting go. 

Being loved by you was full-contact, hands-on, and all consuming. You bit and you climbed him on the kitchen while he was holding hot pans; you pulled his face around by the jaw when you decided his attention wandered. He let you, always, going soft-eyed and pliant the second your hands landed on him, and had long ago stopped pretending otherwise. 

That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t had his moments, especially when it came to his girlfriend. He was, in all senses of the word, protective over you.

He’d known enough men – had been a different man through each decade – to know that you in the wrong hands would have ruined someone, like you had him.

He’d considered himself lucky to have your devotion – a thing so pure, presented with such ferocity – pointed at him. The thought of it being pointed at someone else made him sick simply because he knew how difficult it was to not fall in love with your claws. He knew how it felt to have you scruff him by the collar and inspect him for another woman’s perfume that even you knew did not exist, how it felt to be counted and guarded and kept, and he knew there was no single man alive who could feel that and walk away sane.

He’d take a bullet before he let anything happen to you and consider it a fair trade.

Jack was nothing less than smugly, bone-deep, sure of you. And a man that sure, holding a jealousy that pretty, developed habits. He’d learned (through research he’d conducted, very selfishly, for his own benefit) exactly which levers produced the show.

A waitress lingering around him for a second too long; a squeeze of your hand going tight in his, and him spending the next thirty minutes in the parking lot outside the restaurant making up for another woman’s slow legs.

Mentioning, idly, that a pharmacutical rep had been ‘friendly today’; good for a whole evening of you cross-examining everything about him, her, her tone, his response. 

He knew the difference between small provocations and the premium ones, and he deployed them the same way he planned date nights. He would’ve gone as far as to say they were date nights, impromptu, functionally; every match he struck brought him an evening of you staking your claim with both hands, and then the long, sweet business of being claimed. 

He’d never once found the bottom of it. He’d never once thought to even look for one, where the jealousy cut off and turned inward. It had never once pointed that direction. Your claws faced outward, out at the world, never once you, carrying them.

He didn’t know there was a depth where that happened. It was why he poked the proverbial bear. 

When he’d gotten off his shift at seven in the morning, tugging his bag over his shoulder, he’d leaned his hip against the driver’s door and opened your texts. Some people had a cigarette after a shift. Jack had you, delivered in installments, and he stood there in the cold biting down his smile as he scrolled through the night’s yield.

( a photo of a cat that lived outside the bar; a voice memo at 1:30 he already knew was you narrating something you’d decided was urgent; a link to a lamp with no explanation, which meant ‘buy me this lamp’ (he did, immediately, Apple Pay and its joys of quick payment); a text at 2:47 that just said that your feet were cold; and finally, a goodnight! i love you! sent at 3:15 am )

He’d thought, not for the first time, that he was genuinely a lucky bastard.

After years of pagers and reports and envelopes, somewhere his correspondence had started to include a nightly paper trail proving that somewhere in Pittsburgh, you moved through your night with him present in it. They were simply dispatches you sent because things weren’t fully real to you until he’d been notified.

A man could be told he was loved a hundred ways, but there was no proof on earth like being your first call about nothing. 

If he were a better man, he would have told you about the name that had popped up on his message thread under yours the second he’d unlocked the phone – right there, sandwiched between your goodnight and a spam text about his car’s warranty, a name he hadn’t seen light up his screen in the better part of a decade. 

Diane: Hey stranger. In town next week for a conference - would be good to catch up if you’re around. Coffee? It’s been too long. Hope life’s treating you well. 

It was a strange sort of vertigo of a past life reaching out to tap him on the arm. Diane – Jesus. He hadn’t thought about her in years; it’d been long enough that the name landed without a hook. It was a faint mothball smell of a version of himself he’d long since folded up and put away. No, he had felt near to nothing for her name for the only one that popped up in his head was yours. 

Jack had spent months getting fat and happy on your jealousy; he’d learned there was no sweeter sound than you getting worked up over nothing.

Jack had, right there in the parking lot, a plan because Diane was – he’d assumed, for you – not nothing. No, Diane had history, and it was a real, verifiable history. If a stranger’s coffee order could get you draped over him like a bodyguard, then this – Jack immediately thought – was going to be a show.

Before he’d got in the shower to start his ritual of getting in bed with you – the shower, the hygiene of it all – he found you sprawled across the entire acreage of the bed with the blanket cycloned around your legs. He crossed over and crouched at the edge of you, heart beating gratefully at the sight, because this part couldn’t wait for hygiene. 

He settled for tucking the hair off your face – two featherlight fingers, hooking it back behind your ear – and your nose scrunched in your sleep before it turned into his hand.

“Hey,” he whispered, not to wake you (secretly hoping you would, anyway), and leaned in to press his mouth to your temple that made you make a tiny sound at the back of your throat.

Your fist unclenched from under the pillow and groped out blindly to his forearm, fingers curling around it without opening your eyes. 

Jack stayed crouched there a moment longer than his knee approved of, grinning down at you. 

“I know,” he murmured, working your fingers off his forearm one at a time and folding them back against your palm, pressing them there with a squeeze. “Ten minutes.”

When he tucked himself into bed beside you, arms instinctively falling over your waist to pull you flush against him, you were half-turning to him before you’d even surfaced. You made a tiny sound, unintelligible words – something about the temperature of his hands – and burrowed closer, one leg sliding under his waist and over the mattress, your cold feet immediately seeking out the warmest available part of him. 

“You’re cold,” you mumbled, not opening your eyes, wounded.

“I know, right,” he murmured, pulling you in closer to his chest. “You, though, are warm.”

You wrapped yourself tighter around him, hand finding its way under his shirt to flatten against his ribs. “You can borrow me.”

His hand moved up your spine, thumb catching each notch, and he pressed his cold nose to your temple just to feel you flinch and swat at him, which you did, gorgeously, with a wounded utterance of his name that made his entire body feel like it’d gone under the sun. “Missed you.” 

You smiled, tipping your face up, eyes still shut as your mouth searched. He met you there, pressing a slow, morning-soft kiss that just stayed. When you finally pulled back and sighed, boneless, he cradled you to him. 

“Hey, so,” he murmured, thumb still stroking your back, “old friend of mine’s in town next week. Reached out this morning.” 

“All your friends are old.” You hummed into his chest, still processing the words, and he felt your body still in his arms. “What old friend?” 

“Just an old friend, baby.” 

You lifted your head off his chest at that, one eye cracking open then the other, the sleep burning off you so quickly. He exhaled a sigh as he watched that beautiful, familiar spark catching behind your face. You propped your chin on his sternum and narrowed your eyes at him.

“This old friend doesn’t have a name?” 

“Mhm. Does.” He kept his face maddeningly neutral, thumb still sweeping your spine, savoring the little furrow in your brows and the way your hand had started gripping the side of his waist, staking a claim. He loved you. “Diane.” 

Your lips pursed as you processed the name, as if checking everything you know about Jack in real time. Then you shook your head a little, lips curving up into what he could only consider your angry-smile. “Who the hell’s Diane?”

“We go back a ways.” He shrugged easily, that confidence of having done this a hundred times and always getting sweet, sweet you packing up in him. “Dated, for a bit. Long time ago.” 

You took in a sharp inhale, snorting softly as your hands left him completely. He tried to bite down his frown from showing.

“Dated,” you said, through a small breath with wide eyes. “You dated and she texted you?” 

“She did.” Jack laced his hands behind his head and settled back into the pillow. “Wants to grab a coffee. Catch up.”

“Well, are you going?” You were up on your elbow now, the blanket pooling at your chest, as your brows went up to your hairline in thorough dissatisfaction. 

No, he wasn’t. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind. He’d read the text, and moved on to the far more interesting business of what it could do for this morning. The coffee itself was nothing; he had no interest in sitting across a woman who hadn’t crossed his mind at all to trade summaries of decades.

You existed. There was, now, no hour anyone could offer that beat an hour of you doing anything at all. 

He had sat through watching you decide whether or not you’d return a sweater for forty minutes; trying it on over and over again, the same sweater, then tucking it into parts of your existing clothes to test it (into jeans, out of jeans, under the jacket, sleeves shoved up, sleeves shoved down, “should i just cut the sleeves off?” with the scissors already located, and he’d told you “do the crime and you can’t return it,” and watched you reconsider, setting the scissors down). You’d kept it and worn it while sitting on the couch for the rest of the day, then never again. 

“Thinkin’ about it,” Jack said, hooking a lazy finger into the strap sliding off your shoulder and tugging it back up, a tending gesture entirely at odds with the trouble he was stirring. “Just coffee, angel. She’s only in town a few days.”

“Well, your girlfriend is in town all days,” you said, swatting his hand away. “You can’t just get little catch-up coffees with women you fucking dated, Jack. That’s not – it’s not a thing people in relationships do.”

“No? But it was so long ago.” 

You’d pulled yourself upright now, cross-legged in the sheets, the blanket in your lap and the one strap already sliding down again. “Doesn’t matter, Jack.” You jabbed a finger at his neck. “You’ve got a girlfriend. A very good one –”

“Best one I’ve ever had,” Jack agreed, catching your finger and kissing the tip of it, entirely pleased. “I like her. Love her, even.”

“Then why think about it at all?” you asked as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, thumb grazing your cheek. 

“Just surprised, baby,” he said, shrugging. “We go way back. Before your time. It was – a real thing, for a while.” 

Your eyes quickly flickered down to his chest, mouth opening, then closing again. “How long were you together?”

He clicked his tongue, brows furrowing as he genuinely tried to reel back the memory. It was funny the way time did that.

“Couple years,” he murmured. “Give or take, three. Yeah. Around three.”

Your eyes had gone slightly wide as you looked at a spot on the blanket with your bottom lip tugged between your teeth.

“Three years,” you murmured, more to yourself than him, huffing slightly through your nose. 

Your eyes flicked up to him, and Jack’s hand went still against your spine. They eyes were wide, glassed, and lost, blinking up at him with some unguarded confusion. You looked at him the way you did when a word went missing on you mid-sentence (your fingers snapping restlessly at the air like you could catch it, ‘you know the one, Jack, the word – the – the thing,’ while he supplied guesses just to watch you swat them away), except there was no word being hunted now. 

“That’s – a long time, right?” you asked him then, tilting your head to the side, looking at Jack like he had some sort of conversion chart on what three years were ought to weigh. 

Jack’s eyes landed on your fingers tugging closer to him on the blanket, not landing on him. They stopped an inch short of his ribs, curling back into themselves. 

His eyes went from your fingers, to your face, which was still waiting for his answer. He sucked in a small exhale, buying a second, though he couldn’t have said for what. 

There was some low-grade, humming static on his skin, and he forced himself to override it, because you’d asked him so gently, and he always answered your questions. You asked him things at all hours, in all states, with your mouth full, from the other room, half-asleep on his shoulder blade.

( What’s the worst thing you ever ate? You’d help me hide it, right? What’s your favorite planet? If we were both dogs, who’d be walking who? Am I the funniest person you know? Would you still love me if I couldn’t talk, only hum? Who taught you how to drive? ) 

He’d answer every single one thoroughly, treating them all like he would’ve a question for boards, because early on he’d discovered your asking was an act of love; you collected his answers, kept them somewhere in that beautiful head, stored him. Nobody had ever wanted his mind so thoroughly before. 

So when you asked, he answered.

It was who Jack was to you. It was maybe his favorite thing to be, just Jack. Jack and all the little things he thought about all the little things he’d given little to no thought to. 

“Felt both long and short, if that makes sense,” Jack mused, wandering back into it, because you’d asked and the memory was a harmless thing to ignite. It was cold hearth, ash-dead, nothing in it did a single thing to a single fold of his brain.

“We took some trips – did two weeks through Italy one summer.” He shook his head slightly, blowing out a short breath at that fact of his life. “And her sister’s wedding in Maine.” 

“Italy,” you said, lips curving around the little word. Your eyes flicked down to his chest, then his torso. “You went to Italy?” You breathed in softly, and your head tilted again. Jack wondered if this was where the claws came out – Italy. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Lots you don’t know about my misspent youth,” he said, lips curling in a casual smile. His fingers reached out then to catch yours and folded them in his palm, bringing them up to his mouth to press a kiss to the knuckles. 

“What was it like?” you asked, brows rising slightly. “I’ve never – I don’t really know what it’s like there.”

“Rented this Fiat, did the coast. Amalfi, Positano – she had the Italian, so she handled the talking. I just drove and pointed.” A huff moved through his chest where he’d trapped your forearm. “She’d order. I’d eat whatever showed up.” 

He waited for the strike. She ordered for you? Then your fingers would go to his throat. Nobody orders for you. What did she order? Was it good? 

Your lips had made this small shape of an ‘o’ as your eyes had snagged on him as he spoke, criss-cross and those small inches away from him on the bed. 

“What’d she – where’d you even find the time?” you said through a short laugh, shoulders coming up slightly.

“We’d come out of residency and the schedules just –” He’d left your fingers for a second to lace his own loosely over his chest in the air, two combs of a zipper missing. “Lined up.” He retrieved your hand automatically, repocketing it to him. “Traded calendars at the start of the month, find the overlap. Italy was a big overlap we got lucky with. Had a little cash for once, and somebody said to go now or never go.”

The word ‘residency’ had barely left his mouth when he heard you take in a small inhale, your lips jutting out slightly.

Now? Jack wondered dumbly. Now you’d get mad, say something territorial, something pretty and unhinged about schedules. I’ll make your schedule. He readied his face for it, schooling the grin down in advance so you wouldn’t catch him enjoying it. He also would have let you make his schedule, had you asked, even though he wasn’t sure how that would’ve worked. He’d have found some compromise between his job and you. He’d have nodded along solemnly, and asked you when it was effective.

“I didn’t know you’ve been to Italy,” you murmured, almost musing, as your eyes went to the desk beside the bed, past his shoulder. He followed your gaze to the little basket where you kept your folder of documents he’d made you organize last spring. 

“Long time ago,” Jack said, because it was. It was a very long time ago, and he felt the need to clarify that. He didn’t know why he was elaborating like he’d been accused. He hadn’t. You hadn’t accused him. “Very long time ago.”

His palm tightened over your fingers – a small, reflexive press – and got no answering flex back.

Your fingers lay there in his hand, warm, accounted for – like Jack always needed them to be – but absent. Jack found himself pressing again, interrogatively this time, you in there?

“That’s –” you started.

Jack’s eyes snapped back you again, like a dog hearing it’s name. Your mouth twisted, working like you were deciding on a seed and what to do with it.

You gave a small shrug – one shoulder, half-mast – and reached over with your other hand to roll a little lint of fluff off the blanket around your finger.

“That’s really far to go with someone,” you said, softer. “Italy. That’s like – a whole thing to do.”

“It was,” he said, absentmindedly, though, as he watched you.

There was something about the set of you he didn’t quite like, though he couldn’t have said what. The way your shoulders had come in a little? The way you seemed all gentle and docile now, when a minute ago you’d been jabbing him in the throat?

Jack prided himself on knowing you; he’d taken it up as a personal study. Your spine, usually all insolence, all sprawl, had gone considerate. Even your knees, criss-crossed under the sheets, had tucked in closer. 

“You okay, baby?” he asked, feeling that need to poke at it directly.

“Mhm.” You nodded quickly and looked up at him with a smile.

His fingers immediately reached up to settle under the hinge of your jaw, as if to hold your smile there, thumb laid along your cheek.

“Yeah, I just didn’t know it was – so serious. That’s all. I thought it’d be, like, some girl you dated a few months.” You let out a little breath of a laugh. “Not an – Italy person.” 

Jack’s brows furrowed. He didn’t really know what an ‘Italy person’ entailed, but he didn’t like how it sounded in your voice. 

You sometimes said things that made him want to burrow into your mind. They were little nothings, coinages, a whole private mint going on up there.

( It feels like a July day, when it was very clearly December and you were snowed in; he’s looks like a Tuesday guy, about a stranger at the DMV on a Friday; my feet are homesick, which turned out to mean you wanted to go to the beach, and also somewhere deserted sometimes, and a hike. ) 

He never asked you to translate. Half the time, it was impossible for you to do so, anyway; the words just arrived to you whole, and he’d learned to hold them up in the light until they made sense.

They always made sense, for there was always a ‘you’ inside of them. And he’d found that whatever came from you, it was worth keeping to dig into. 

( Sometimes, it made sense days later. Like when you’d said, one night in the car, engine off, “I like you when you park.” 

He’d laughed and asked, “As opposed to what?”

You’d had no answer, but he understood, days later, that you liked Jack in-between things. You liked him with the engine off, day done, night not started, with nowhere to be just yet.

He supposed it meant you liked the little pockets of nothing that every life has and nobody claims; idling, as opposed to mid-shift, the one where there was no overarching function making him do something. He’d found he liked those little pockets of nothing, too. )

He supposed that ‘Italy person’ would turn out to mean something exact, too. 

He waited, again, for the claws. What am I, then? with a finger at his chest, and he’d catch the finger and kiss it again and tell you what you were – everything – and you’d pretend it wasn’t enough, and demand he phrase it better, and he would.

Jack would phrase it better then better than that, mouth at your knuckles, your wrist, working up the arm between clauses. 

Mine, obviously, don’t be stupid. You’d hum, and he’d say it slower – mine, ob-vi-ous-ly – and you’d call him useless, and somewhere you’d end up bickering about whether Italy even had good food. He’d take your side on, traitor to decades in under a minute, and your sulk would die of neglect without either of you watching it. 

“I don’t know what that means, sweetheart,” he said, trying to force a casual smile through a small, chuckle. He shook his head confusedly. 

Your lips pressed together as you shrugged. “I don’t, either. Not really,” you said.

Before Jack could respond, you reached over and patted his chest twice and said, “Long night?” 

It took Jack a second. He heard actual sound, cogs audibly changing gears, because you’d been in Italy, and now you were in his shift, and the border between those two had been crossed with no warning. He’d been asked this normal question a thousand times; it was a fine question, a normal one. He’d answered it a thousand normal ways.

“Uh, yeah – middling,” he said, hand now coming to find your waist where you sat and tugging slightly, getting you back down into him. “Don’t wanna talk about the shift, though.” You landed against his chest and his chin fell to your head, some unscripted instinct in him kicking in. “Wanna talk about you.”

“Me?” You laughed slightly. “Nothing to report here.” 

“Disagree.” His hand started running over your spine, pressing his mouth to your hair for a second, breathing you in. “Missed you today,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Listened to your voice memo twice on the way back.” 

“Really?” 

His arm tightened around you, bring you up closer to his face, where he could reach your temple without any work. He pressed one, then another, and another kiss against them slowly, mouth lingering against your skin on the last one as he waited. For what? He had no idea. 

Your hand traveled up from his ribs to his jaw, cupping it, then running your thumb against the stubble once against the grain, the way you liked. It usually came with commentary (you’d make such a good beach, Jack; this is my favorite texture on earth; Jack, keep it like this always) and tonight he got none of it.

Jack turned his mouth to it on reflex and pressed a kiss to the middle of your palm, and felt your fingers curl slightly on the contact, gathering the kiss like you were keeping it. 

“Love you,” you murmured. “Go to sleep, Jack.” 

“Love you, too,” he said.

He couldn’t ignore how you’d practically shut off right in front of his eyes. So, he asked, “You tired?” he asked, feeling some base need to clarify.

“Yeah,” you whispered between your faces, and you did sound tired. Tired, Jack knew how to work with. 

“Good,” he murmured, softer, relieved to hear it was that. “We’ll be tired together, then we won’t be tired.” 

Your breath billowed softly over his mouth, something like a laugh, and his hand slid down to your arm to find your hand, tucking the whole laced knot of it down between your chests where it lived. Your head ducked slightly to go under his, burrowing in his neck, and he smiled as his chin came to rest at the top of your head. 

“Sleep,” he said gently, with all of the command he could muster whilst three-quarters gone himself. “We’re gonna sleep the whole day away.” 

You did. Sleep – that is. Or stayed in his arms until his breath went long and even and unmistakably out. When you were sure – when that deep untroubled weight of him told you he was really under – you extracted yourself out of the bed.

You didn’t want to, but sleep wasn’t coming easy with Jack tonight. It sucked; sleep always came easy to you with Jack. Getting out from under him, too, wasn’t easy. He slept like he meant it now, all of his weight poured over you, one heavy arm slung across you like a seatbelt. 

You lifted his arm by the wrist, an inch at a time, and slipped out from underneath it. He stirred and made a rough sound of protest and reached for the warm gap you’d left, patted once, then again, searching, and you winced at the sight of it.

You hurriedly fed your pillow to his arms and watched him gather it against his chest, watched him settle, thinking it was you. 

You should have gone outside now, like you’d planned, and instead you leaned in over the mattress, drawn back down by some law you had never once repealed.

Because – even now – you couldn’t leave Jack Abbot undecorated, you weren’t functioned that way.

Every time you left his vicinity, you’d paid a toll at the door; a kiss to the knuckles, the shoulder, the one time you pressed his closed eyelid so gently he’d told you about it during breakfast, thinking he’d dreamed of it, that it’d felt nice.

You picked the stubbled jaw and pressed the smallest kiss there for half-a-second, and he hummed just as you leaned away. His arms pulled the pillow tighter.

You felt heat build up behind your eyes at it. Jack was, somehow, reassuring you unconsciously, four fathoms down. You blinked at the ceiling, because this was just Jack sleeping with a pillow. Normal girls do not cry about things like this. 

When you successfully made it to the kitchen to make some coffee, which you didn’t end up making, you scrolled through your phone absentmindedly for a few minutes.

Your teeth were digging into your lower lip, and you were sure they could’ve left a permanent dent on them because of how long you’d been sitting on the countertop next to the coffee 

You were being mature. You were being so very mature about this.

Any second now, the maturity would kick all the way in and you’d feel it; the maturity, the security, the calm, grown-up ease that’d let you hear about your boyfriend’s beautiful doctor ex-girlfriend and their beautiful accomplished Italian holiday and simply nod. Maybe you’d be glad he’d had love before you, had something great enough it’d taken a tour across oceans.

You wouldn’t be this.

She was three years to your year.

You’d been counting since the bed, some sick little voice in the back of your head clicking away – that’s longer than you, so much longer, it’s double! and then one more!

She got a whole coast and you? Every time you tried to set the voice down, it just picked itself back up and started again.

You had – after a year – found the one proof that you’d always been, cruel-to-yourself, looking for. Jack Abbot had lived a life before you, several lives, and he’d had love.

So much time she’d had with Jack.

When you reached for your enormousness, for the claws, for the whole arsenal, you found your armor completely empty.

She predated you; you had no way to be big at her. You couldn’t bodyguard Jack from his own past, though you wished he’d have been a bodyguard to it from you. It was an insane thing to wish. All he did was answer your questions, because you’d come knocking.

An unfair, childish, foolish part of you wished he’d lied and decided the truth was too heavy for you and carried it himself. 

She had Jack, and she let him go. You could hardly let Jack go for the length of a shower. You’d have died.

What did she know that you didn’t? What was it like, being a woman who could afford to lose him? She’d walked away from Jack and was whole; if you’d lost Jack, there’d be nothing left.

You knew it was dramatic, that it didn’t work that way. It wasn’t true, but it sure felt like it. Jack had filled your life completely, and you didn’t ever want that space ever again.

Nothing about that is romantic. You’re just a girl who bet everything she had on the first big thing she saw. 

Jack had lived a whole entire grown-up love – the real kind, the serious kind – with her.

Your cruel brain wondered if there were others. You’d never heard about Diane before, what was one more name he’d never mentioned? He had decades you knew nothing about.

It all happened before you’d ever set your eyes on him and thought he was the only man that existed. It had happened before you’d seen him and thought he could be the one, then wished that he would be the one. He’d had that before.

You’d always known that, abstractly. But the idea of years and years of Jack being loved by great women who understood his work, women his own age, women who’d been there for parts of him you never got to meet. That a door swung open all the way tonight. 

You were the latest in a line you didn’t even know the length of.

You’d never even thought about Italy – it was so far away, and you didn’t even think you’d said the country’s name out loud until tonight.

Italy was – you always thought – a thing that happened to other people. It happened, you understood, to Jack. Not your Jack, another woman’s Jack, back when he was somebody’s whole future instead of their past.

He had been loved over there. He'd been to Maine with a family who’d probably thought he was the one.

You were holding the frayed end of a rope whose length you’d never wanted to measure, because you’d assumed stupidly, sweetly, that the rope started when you’d grabbed it, that Jack began the night he met you.

Stop. You’re being crazy – like always. A part of you always had known Jack liked getting a rise out of you, and you liked giving him one. Get a rise out of him, the petty, young part of your brain supplied. 

You laughed softly to yourself, clutching your arms around your waist as you folded over, forehead dropping to your knees.

With whom? If you looked for ammunition, you found no Diane.

The guy before the last guy whose last name you couldn’t even remember anymore; a handful of small-time relationships that had lasted one season and ended not because they were wrong but because they were nothing.

You had no great, grown love in your belt that you cold hold up to the light and make Jack ache over. 

You had Jack. Jack was your Diane and Jack was your Italy – your three years, your coastline, and your entire globe, probably even more – the biggest love you’d ever had by a distance so vast it was hardly a competition.

Jack knew about your entire life and every supplementary information about you that held no weight on you, or only very little.

Jack knew about your first pet’s name, and its cause of death, and the movie you still couldn’t watch because of it. He knew your worst subject’s grade and, worse, the teacher’s name, and had once gotten angry at that man on your behalf.

He knew the reason you hardly talked to your family; he knew it all by now, because you’d kept handing out pieces over this year, and somewhere around the eighth month you’d realized he knew the story completely now. 

He’d learned it all, greedily, like each fact was worth having. You’d hand him a dusty nothing – a camp story, a recurring dream since seven, your opinion on cilantro – and watch it get written down somewhere behind his eyes. Weeks later, he’d produce it at the right moment. No cilantro, she hates it.

It had felt like Jack had opened your junk drawer and thought of it as treasure.

Your life was small and short enough to fit into his hands entire. It was a carry on. He held all of it and had room left over for more. You just didn’t have any more to give him.

Jack had finished reading you.

You’d been collecting him, too, greedy in your own right, thinking you were getting, at the very least, to the hallway. Now, you were wondering if you’d only just walked up the porch to the door.

You could produce Italy in your brain now; Jack against some sun-warm railing over water; Jack driving a little car on the wrong side of the road with confidence; Jack looking longingly at a woman who was speaking a language he couldn’t understand, holding him up.

Some parallel-Jack, out in the corner of your mind, who’d married the doctor.

Jack who was, right now, in some other version of this morning, drinking coffee, happy, whole, entirely fine. Jack, who was talking about some case from a journal – in his fluent doctor-language with someone who never needed the glossary – never pausing to translate English into – well, English. He was never smiling patiently and having to shrink his work down to a bedtime-story size like he did you. That Jack’s wife could meet Jack in the dark after his bad shifts instead of standing at the edge with a flashlight, calling in.

You couldn’t even imagine parallel-Jack lonely with something missing at his table. Your imagination – which loved him, which had only ever been able to love him – refused to even draw him sad. It kept handing you Jack complete; a whole finished Jack, out there in the corner of your mind.

This Jack’s completeness had to require your absence. It needed you to put yourself out of this world and into the crevice of your mind that hated you.

You had to widen your eyes on the floor. Your heels knocked the cabinet.

No. No. Your Jack – the real Jack – was thirty feet away and had never once been anything but certain of you.

Jack had never once not been certain of you. You were sitting on the countertop in his sweatpants right now. Your fingers were curled into the cotton of the pants, holding it like it was his hand, because Jack himself suddenly felt like too much to deserve.

You were getting homesick of him, getting jealous of women in your own head, grieving trips that had already happened, creating an entirely one-girl production in your mind that was only cruel to you, and the man who’d done nothing to put it there.

Go to him, you tried to tell yourself. Go to Jack. Wake him up. Talk to him.

He never turned you away. You had come to him with nothing, a whole lot of nothings, and he had never once turned you away. 

( You’d had a terrible dream that your childhood house was empty. It was the whole dream. You’d walked through it, room-by-room, and everyone was gone and the furniture was gone and your voice didn’t work. It was classic dream-physics. You’d woken up with shaky breaths, body tensing up over, well, nothing. Over the fact that the wallpaper was gone. You’d lain there for four minutes being reasonable about it, then you’d poked Jack. 

Poked him once, then again. Then again – his hand caught your finger, eyes still shut, reflexes working. He folded your finger in his fist and kept it there, on his chest as one eye dragged open, looked at the little digital clock, looked insulted, then looked at you. 

“What?” At your silence and the sight of your small pout as your body went still, both his eyes opened, everything in his face shifting around not making this worse. “What happened?”

“Bad dream,” you said, and because he’d wait all night without asking, you added, “My old house. Everything was just gone. It’s stupid, it’s not even –”

“Not stupid.” His arm had come up to haul you down onto his chest in a drowsy motion, your ear landing conveniently over the slow bass of his heart as his hand rubbed over your skin. “Empty house,” he murmured, clicking his tongue. “Yeah. That’s not a great one.”

He always agreed with you. Then, he added, “This place has got everyone we both need in it. Go back to sleep.” )

Your mind had, finally, gone quiet. Finally. Even it knew overkill when it saw it. 

Fuck, maybe you were fucking crazy. Jack should have gone running. If he had any sense, he’d have looked at you and walked calmly in the other direction. He hadn’t. He had stayed.

This morning your enemies included a hypothetical, a memory, and Europe al-fucking-together. 

He hadn’t let you go, you had to remind yourself. He’d kept you. Had, a few times, put a foot on the door to keep you there.

You slid off the kitchen counter to make your coffee, almost distantly. You made it this time, too. By the time the machine started its slow gurgle, you’d forced yourself to wrestle the whole thing back where it belonged, blinking your eyes clear and dry. It was the deal you’d made with yourself, you supposed, when Jack had said Italy and that she was a doctor, just like him. 

You weren’t going to be the crazy, young girlfriend who spiraled over an old flame. You were going to be so graciously secure about all of it that Jack would never, ever know the morning had touched you at all.

You’d nearly convinced yourself of it, too, as you settled on the couch with the mug on the little glass table beside you as you scrolled through your phone. Then, you’d heard the bedroom door, and the soft knock of crutches against the floorboards as Jack shifted his weight. 

You felt your heart drop at the sound of it, and had to force yourself to look up at the ceiling for a few seconds before he materialized, because you had never – not once – felt that feeling in your body in the three-sixty-five and a few more days you’d loved him.

No, you had to tell your body. We don’t feel this way for Jack. There’s no need to start now.

He came around the corner a second later, crutches under his arms and squinting against the light, hair flattened up on one side of his head from all of forty minutes on the pillow. His eyes swept across the room quickly and landed on you, face easing slightly.

“There you are,” he said, voice rough with sleep. He stayed there for a second looking at you, head-to-toe, checking. “Woke up to a pillow,” he said, one brow going up, dipping his chin at you in soft accusation. 

“Jack –” You pushed yourself up off, padding over to him on instinct, because you were you, it was now nine in the morning and he’d hauled himself out of bed after only one tiny blink of sleep after his shift. Every single step he was taking on those crutches was a step he shouldn’t have been taking. “What are you doing up? Go back to bed –”

“Could ask you the same, baby. You’re never up this early.” When you got close enough, his eyes immediately came down to yours and stayed, moving over slowly. Then, he flicked his gaze to the entirety of the living room behind you.

“You get lonely out here? Something wrong? Should’ve come got me.” he fired off at once, so quickly that your mind had to catch up to process it.

“Not lonely. Nothing’s wrong. You needed sleep – ” 

False. False. True. You were a liar more than half the time today, and you knew you were making this bed all by yourself.

“I need lots of things.” His hand came up off the crutch grip – balancing himself there on one – and reached out to you, knuckles first, dragging down your cheek slowly as his head tilted to look at you. The touch was so, so tender it almost undid the whole act you had running. “Sleep’s like – fourth.” 

You leaned into his hand before you could stop it, and his face flickered for a second – relief, there and covered – and his thumb pressed in to hold it, keeping it. 

“I just couldn’t sleep,” you said into his palm, because half-truths were easier to say to his palm. “You can, though,” you said quickly. “You worked all night. I’d already slept before you came home.” 

He appeared to weigh this, and when your eyes finally moved back to his face, it was tilted slightly to the side, lost. Like a dog, hearing a new sound. It was a new sound, you realized the second it left you. It sounded like exactly what you had decided you were going to be – reasonable and considerate – and you had never once been reasonable about Jack going to bed. Sending him off to rest, so generously, without you, sounded – to you and him both – like another person’s girlfriend talking. 

He took in a small breath, a chuckle dying in his throat, and his head dropped closer, the stubble catching in the light.

“Counter-offer?” he murmured. His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, settling there. “Couch. Both of us. Nobody sleeps. Nobody does a single thing.” 

“Like gremlins,” you murmured. 

The crease in his brow lost a little bit of its altitude. “Exactly like gremlins, angel,” he said gravely, instantly. 

Your lips moved hesitantly, and your hands came up to his bare chest, pressing slightly. “You’ve been up all night, Jack,” you said through a short laugh, fingers skating around the breath of his chest to sit at his ribs, trying to turn him. 

“Stop it – please, no.” He stayed put, eyes flicking down to where your hands had come up and lips twisting in, what you could only describe as a snarl. “I’m not tired.”

It was such a bald, indefensible lie that you visibly shook your head at him. The evidence was all over his pretty face, the pretty, lying face. The curls were silvering mess flattened on one side and standing at attention on the other, and you had to physically stop your hands from going to them.

The morning stubble had come in along his jaw in that salt-and-cinnamon scatter you’d once spent a full minute petting against the grain while he sat there letting you, patient as a trained dog. Still, tired lived well on him. Everything lived well on him. You’d told him once, and he’d thanked you, because he’d found himself tired a lot and hadn’t quite found a way to ease it. He’d tried.

“Jack,” you tried, voice warming a touch.

“What?” he drawled, shaking his head at you now, like he was deciding to show how scandalized he was now by all of this. “I’m not allowed to sit with my girl?”

He started moving to the direction of the couch – crutches finding their rhythm – without giving you any time for defense. “Man works a night shift and isn’t allowed to sit with the prettiest thing he’s ever seen?” 

You huffed. “Thanks.” 

“Don’t thank me,” Jack called over his shoulder. “Come sit.”

You trailed after him, because what else could you do? Dig your heels in, tell him no? That would’ve been a tell the size of five fucking houses. The second you were in range, his arm left the cushion and hooked over your waist mid-step and hauled you onto his lap. Your yelp was swallowed by the drop, and you landed sideways across his thighs with his arm already snaked across your back. 

“Your leg, Jack – ”

“My leg’s thrilled.” His other hand collected your knees and folded them up toward his stomach, tucking you in closer, arranging you into the compact bundle he preferred, until you were sitting in the wide, warm bowl of him with nowhere to look that wasn’t him. His hand then came up to your back and pressed, instructively, until your cheek gave up and landed against his shoulder. He let out a long, slow breath at the contact, chin coming to rest on your hair. “There we go.”

You breathed in a lungful of air as you settled against him, his presence like fire and water over you right now. You were so scared of someday losing this, this exact thing. His chest hair scratching at your cheek; the weight of his head – carrying so much – on your head; the way he smelled like your soap because you’d asked him to once and he’d never gone back, and now this man walked around his emergency department smelling like pink fruit all day and let everyone at work deal with it.

It was so, so unbelievably simple to be with Jack, to be in this flowery presence of this gruff man, being his. Jack had come along and he’d made you put everything down – the checking, the second-guessing – and you had, you’d put everything down, and dumped both arms around his neck instead. 

“How do you wanna use our nights off today, hm?” he asked softly, moving his head to press a quick kiss to the top of your head. 

This was your event. You knew that was why he was asking, dangling it, because the planning was half the having for you and he’d learned to just hand you the whole day and watch you go. You always had opinions.

Before you’d tucked yourself into bed last night, you’d thought maybe you and Jack would go to the diner whenever you woke up, breaking fast in the afternoon like degenerates. 

Maybe the flea market afterwards, because Jack, at a flea market, haggled in such a nice, slow voice that made grown sellers fold like the lawn chairs they were selling. He’d followed you around from table to table for two hours, never once questioning why you were suddenly looking at doorknobs. You could’ve looked at gravel, and he’d have carried it. Then you’d come home, couch, a game on, his head in your lap – heavy, trusting, king of some small kingdom – while you messed with his curls.

It all seemed so unbelievably wrong now. It seemed nice at the same time, the same as before. But the diner. She probably never made him eat at diners. The flea market; she went to Positano. You had no idea what Positano even looked like, exactly. It was probably the most beautiful place on all of earth and Jack had stood in it, years before you existed to him, being well-loved, and you’d spent this morning secretly hoping it was ugly. 

You pressed your cheek harder into his chest and he hummed, appreciatively, and adjusted his arm to noodle you.

She got this, too.

You had to stop yourself from groaning at your own voice, from yelling at it altogether. The thoughts were just pushing you closer and closer to him, your cheek nuzzled against his chest, shifting slightly like the bare contact of his skin could just scrub it all out; your cure and disease were Jack. Every awful, awful thought sent you burrowing closer into his exact chest that had caused it, and he kept receiving you, warm and obliging, having no idea he, right now, was both your wound and bandage. 

You just wanted your day back. You couldn’t tell anyone how insane this was, least of all Jack. You’d have crawled inside his ribcage if it zipped.

You knew that Jack had been trying to get under your skin – you knew that he liked it – but you’d figured this game was one that was built for you to win. Every round was just Jack setting up an excuse to spend the afternoon demonstrating with his mouth, his eyes, his face, that there was no contest to even worry about.

Because you couldn’t very well go to Positano today, and because you suddenly felt like a kid handing over a macaroni necklace to someone who owned diamonds, you said, “I don’t know,” into his chest. “You decide.”

His thumb paused on your skin for a second, then it resumed.

“Me?” he murmured, chin tilting for a second to press his lips to the top of your skull again. “I wouldn’t have the first clue, angel.” 

“Try,” you said. 

He huffed slightly. “Alright, then. Bear with me – first day on the job. We stay here till noon, then the diner with your jams. Then that stretch by the river you like, lemonade from the good cart guy.” He squeezed your arm and pressed another peck to your head. “Home by dark and it’ll be the best outing in the world.” 

It sounded so perfect. You pressed your whole face down into his chest, even as you thought about how his outings were once grander, with people who’d done grander. With a doctor, no less. “Sounds perfect.”

For a moment, the two of you just breathed there. It may have been the fact that when it got quiet when you were with Jack – instead of quiet with just yourself – things seemed a little easier, but you found yourself saying, against him, “Jack?”  

“Yes?” he said instantly, chin lifting off your head and you felt his attention come down on you, whole and immediate, like he was summoned.

“Are you gonna get the coffee?” you asked. 

“Huh?”

“With her,” you said. “You know –”

Your words cut off as you shrugged, suddenly feeling stupid all over again. Saying it made it real again, and now you’d brought the topic to the couch. It happened on the bed, and you’d carried it to the kitchen, and now it was on this lovely couch. You were going to taint it all with it.

“You should probably go. To catch up.” You lifted your head up to meet his eyes, forcing your voice even. “I don’t mind.” It felt like it’d come out with steel; you almost winced at your own words. 

Jack blinked at you, then his head tilted, and the softest, most confused grunt left him. 

“Baby,” he started gently, amused, almost, reaching for the joke in it at first. His knuckles came up to brush against your cheek for one second. “I’m not going anywhere near that coffee – you’d have me chipped like a dog by Tuesday.” 

It was a gift, you could see his words wrapped and extended – him invoking your domestic insanity, holding it up like the reason the sky was blue – and all you had to do was accept it. The morning would become the, in all senses of the word, usual.

You would’ve preened at the portrait of you, and now you heard it from the morning’s new ears – he’s got an ex who speaks Italian and you think it’s fun to threaten him with 24 hour surveillance. 

“I wouldn’t, though,” you said quickly.

When his knuckles paused on your cheek, questioningly, you continued, “You should go. I won’t be mad at you.” Your lips pressed together for one second. “I promise.” 

Jack’s hands went to your hips and his jaw shifted from side to side, as he looked away from your face for a second. “Yeah. Okay. I’m not grabbing coffee with another woman.” 

“She came all the way. You guys are old –”

“Stop,” he interrupted with a laugh – disbelieving and no humor in it – as his head reeled back.

“Stop it – I don’t want this.” His hands flexed on your hips, then came up to wave in the general direction, then fell back down. He looked at you really, really upset, or baffled, or both. “Who cares how far she came? People fly places. I don’t want to have coffee with anyone.”

You shrugged, letting your head drop into his chest again. “If that’s what you want. You don’t have to do it because of me.” 

“I am absolutely doing it because of you.” His arm came around you, bringing you back close to him. “I’m not going ‘cause my girlfriend exists. That’s a whole reason. It’s a great one. So don’t talk me out of it.” He pressed his lips to the top of your skull. “Not your reason to give away. And you can get me chipped, if you like.”

You opened your mouth, then closed it. What could you even say to that? You felt him nod over you at the silence, felt some hesitance creep into his body, as he pulled you in. 

“Actually,” he said after a moment. “Let’s put a pin in the plan.” One hand lifted off you and made some small motion, you couldn’t see it but you felt the absence where it had been, before it came back. “We’ll do it tomorrow. Next week. River’s not goin’ anywhere.” His arm resettled around you, snugger than before. “Today we’ll stay in.” 

“Jack –”

“Blanket, couch, girl.” He counted your day off your spine, three soft taps of his fingers. When you made a sound of protest, his said into your hair, quieter, “I’ve got all I need. I’m not feeling the outside today. That okay?”

“No, it’s not – let’s go. I’m just tired right now. I’ll be up later.” 

You felt him breathe, then, the gust of air pooling into your hair.

“Then come to bed,” he tried weakly, and he sounded so broken you wanted to cry. You could hear him knocking at the door of you. “Sleep. Let’s sleep together, if you’re tired.”

“Not sleepy-tired,” you said, and heard how little it made sense even as it came out of you.

Then, you pushed yourself up off him, palms to his chest, trying to keep the motion casual. “I think I just need to wake up properly. Move around a little.” You stood, angling your face away, blinking fast as you looked at the dark TV screen. “I’m gonna get in the shower, if that’s okay?”

When you tried to look over your shoulder, he’d straightened up, palms falling down to his sides on the couch as he looked up at you. 

“Course it’s okay,” he said, hands following up then to settle for your hand, thumb passing over your knuckles. He gave your fingers the gentlest tug and pulled his head back, catching your eyes for a second before you could look away again, and the look on his face was so, so soft. “Do you want breakfast?” 

You nodded quickly. “Yeah – thanks.” 

He made a small sound, then pressed his lips to your knuckles, then let your fingers go one at a time. You made it four steps down the hallway with his gaze heavy on your back, and you couldn’t stand it.

There was a great, large, incessant bug in you that couldn’t stand Jack back there with his worried face and scared smile. So you half-turned over your shoulder, your eyes down at the baseboard, and called out, “Love you, Jack.” 

You’d told Jack you loved him at full speed, into his mouth mid-argument, into the phone before you’d even said hello, at grocery stores, at funerals, at red lights, six times a day minimum. It was the surest sentence you owned. This time, it went out like a paper boat, pushed onto the water with two fingers, and watched all the way across. 

“Love you, too,” he called back warmly, after what felt like a hundred years.

Jack had once spent a very, very long time to get you to believe that even if you held onto something good loosely, it won’t run away. He’d had to get you to believe that even if your grip on him loosened, even just for a second, even for a month, he would still be right there. Why was he feeling the need to hold you so tightly now? 

He set your plate at your spot, and his at his. He poured the coffee, saw the first coffee you’d abandoned on the counter, full and stone cold, and stood there looking for a second longer than the mug deserved.

He’d put on his prosthesis after plating the food, a part of him too large and hopeful – instead of its usual, content, un-worried hum – expecting you to come out of your shower wanting to do something, the diner, the river, after all, trying to change his mind.

He’d hoped you’d come out wanting to be carried somewhere on his back. He wanted to be ready, he always was now. He kept himself pre-approved for whatever you thought of next.

The inside of your head was a busy little harbor, boats coming in at all hours, and he’d been granted a standing spot on the dock. You’d let him become the first to hear about octopus, cats, furniture, which part of your body felt cold, warm, or lukewarm. A year of receiving your pretty cargo and he’d never once been bored. 

He, decades your senior, had seen the world be made interesting again by you just narrating it at him. He had the sneaking suspicion he’d follow your voice wherever it went, into traffic, a dock, into old age, and the shower.

The water kept running. He wasn’t the kind of man that’d track your showers, but years of working in emergency and emergency-adjacent situations had honed up his internal clock eerily well, smoothened out his pattern recognition.

He had to tamp down the urge to deploy it, to use this innate, terrible, awful instinct in his brain on you – you, who he felt more than monitored, who he’d only ever read with love, no grains of salt, no instruments. 

You were the girl who rearranged things in his cabinets by feeling and left in it a system he still couldn’t crack and refused to fix. Opening a drawer looking for a spatula and finding your hair ribbons had become one of the small startling joys of his one life.

He’d been a clinician for so long, and you’d built with him a corner of the world where he was just a man, holding a girl, and being completely in love with her.

Jack, bring me the towel even though it’s right there. Jack, come look at this bruise. Did I not wash out the conditioner out properly? Jack – Jack, Jack, come and just sit with me while I shower.

His knee bounced under the table, and he stopped it. 

Your eggs had gone cold, glossy, and began settling into themselves. The toast had lost its heat, and the jam sat unopened with its little lid on – the grape, the good one – and the jam was a small purple fact that he could not find himself liking to sit across from. You’d have opened it by now and started walking the length of the place, spoon in your mouth, talking. 

A year of you had taught him what mornings looked like when they were going right. He knew this one had gone wrong so quietly and terribly, that he’d been able to hold you the entire time it was happening. 

It was the bitter feeling of the surge he’d had in his chest this morning at the thought of your instincts.

He’d read a woman’s name off his screen and come home with it like it was a match to your pretty fire. He’d carried it into bed with you, and all Jack knew was that at this morning, his girl had been in his arms so sweetly, and minutes later, her fingers were hesitant to press into his skin. The only thing that happened in between was his own mouth, having fun. 

Jack wasn’t sure when he’d stood up, but he was walking to the bedroom now, to the ensuite bathroom. A year ago, this hallway had been a hallway. Now, it was a museum of you mid-motion, and he moved through it with his heart going at a pace he hadn’t earned sitting down, past the bed still holding the shape of the forgery you’d left him in, a pillow. He had to look away from it like the sun. 

He told himself that the bathroom door being closed was normal. Steam, privacy, nothing; all of it were real things. 

“Hey,” he said to the door lightly, knuckles going in two soft taps. It was the same knock he used with the you in the bath going pruny as he was happily serving you wine. “You fall asleep in there? S’been a minute.”

He tried to force his lips into something close to a smile even though there was a door between you right now.

Perhaps it was because Jack – even now, even morbidly confused – knew you, and knew that the door would be locked before he confirmed it with his shaky fingers. 

( You, who talked to him through the glass of the shower, sat cross-legged on the counter while he shaved – you missed a spot, no, the other spot, how do you have a medical license, genius – and stole his coffee between critiques and made him laugh hard enough he’d nicked his jaw and you’d gasped like the injured party, then kissed it before pronouncing him stable.

You, who had once flung the shower door open mid-rinse to tell him that you’d figured out what you both were in a past life. He never got to hear the answer. You’d seen him standing at the sink in his towel and lost the thread altogether, and the past lives were never mentioned again, and Jack had walked around for the next twenty-four hours unreasonably pleased about being distracting at his age to you. 

A door had, simply, never existed in your relationship. )

The key was right there. He’d put it there himself, two summers before he’d ever met you, the day the door had swung shut at its own draft and locked an empty bathroom. He’d forgotten it existed, but his hand went up and found it first try, blind, and came down holding this tiny cold thing. 

His fingers were unsteady fitting it in, which was new. He’d threaded needles into people in moving vehicles. Now, in his home, his fingers trembled over a privacy lock like a first year, because on the other side of the door was the whole of his one life, in falling water, hiding from him – him – and every second the key took was a second you sat in there believing you had to do so. 

“I’m coming in,” he said to the door, softer than an announcement this large should’ve been, like some part of him was afraid of the wrong reaction at your response to it. “Just me. I’m coming in, okay?” 

His chest caved – folded in on itself, turned over – because there you were, on the floor of the shower, curled up under the pour of the water, your knees to your chest and your arms wrapped around them, your face hidden down against them. His girl – the loud one, the strongest person he’d ever let himself love – made small and quiet and hidden on the floor of the shower. He had seen you in this place a thousand times and never once, not ever, like this.

“Oh – baby. No, hey –”

Your head snapped up at his voice, and just that sharp little movement of you made him tilt back slightly. Your face – wet and swollen, eyes red at the rims, gone raw and young and caught in a way he’d never seen it – did something terrible when it saw him in the doorway. It crumpled then hardened, both at once, a door slamming behind glass, and you scrubbed the heel of your hand over your eyes like you could take back the last thirty seconds if you were quick enough about it.

“No,” you said quickly, the word cracking out of you with a sharp edge under the thickness. Your hand came up between you, a flat little barricade under the steam. “No – get out, Jack – I told you I’ll be – please, get out –” 

You didn’t push him. This wasn’t a thing that happened. You pulled – you reeled him in by the shirt, you climbed into his lap, you fought tooth and nail for every inch of distance he’d tried to keep, whose entire love was a set of hands hauling him closer, closer, closer.

He had spent all this time being pulled by you, gladly, helplessly, and he did not have – had never needed – a single instinct for being pushed. 

“Hey – hey, no – don’t –” His hand came out to the glass, pushing slightly. “It’s just me. It’s me. Look –”

“I don’t want it to be you right now,” you said, and the words were so awful and completely jagged.

You turned to face away, like you were trying to push yourself out of his sight entirely. “Please. Please, just go and get out. I don’t want you here – please, Jack.” 

“No, don’t ask me that,” Jack said immediately, voice breaking clean in half as his eyes went glassy and desperate. “It’s me – you don’t hide from me – we’re not that –”

“Please,” you said, voice barely audible over the running of the water, and his nose burnt as he caught sight of you shaking. “Please, just give me a minute – a minute. I’m – I’m asking you to leave.” 

Jack’s hand hung empty in the air as he looked down at you, heart in actual pieces on the tile, and he understood – quietly – that the only thing you were begging him for was the single thing he’d have rather died than do, to turn around and leave you crying. 

So – because you’d asked, because pushing past a plea like that would only carve you open worse, because loving you had never once meant taking what he wanted when it wasn’t what you needed – he made himself.

“Okay,” he said, voice coming out in ruins. “Okay, baby. Okay. I’m going – I’ll go.” He reached up and took your towel off your rail and set it closer to the shower. “I’m right outside. I’m not far – I’ll be right there and you come get me the second you want me, you hear? The second.”

You stayed silent, so Jack, clumsy with grief in a way his body never was, made himself turn his back on you. At the door, he paused, eyes pinching shut to make himself not look over his shoulder. Instead, he said, “I love you.”

He pulled the door behind him, left it breathing half ajar with the steam sighing out through the gap, and pulled himself to sit at the edge of the bed, facing the bathroom. Like you were going to run from him, like some part of him needed both feet under him and the door in his eyeline needed to be ready. For what? He couldn’t have said. To catch you, he supposed. To get you the second you’d let him. To not be caught sitting down when you finally opened the door and needed him standing. 

He sat there with his elbows braced on his knees and his hands pressed together against his mouth and waited, and it was the longest ten minutes of his recent life.

Every second of it was stretched unbearably, because he was learning there is this particular hell in loving someone past all sense and being made to sit on the other side while they hurt. He didn’t know what to do with this feeling, had never had to think it was a possibility between the two of you.

When the door opened, Jack was on his feet before he’d decided to be. There you were, towel-wrapped, hair dripping onto your shoulders, face swollen and turned just slightly away, eyes on the floorboards. You crossed your arms over your chest, gripping the towel closed.

“Hey,” he said, breathing through it, his voice half-ruined, shaking. He caught it and hauled it down a register by force, into the very low, sure place his voice lived when everything depended on it.

He made himself stay planted – made himself open his arms instead of using them, wide, a whole doorway of him – while every muscle strained against its leash, because his body had exactly one theory about you crying and the theory was to go, and he stood on that theory with all his weight. 

“Come here,” he said instead, begging with a steady voice, a whole vacuum sealed into two words. 

Your eyes climbed as high as his chest and gave up there, arms tightening. You shook your head dimly, water flicking. He nodded to himself, made himself stay standing, without letting an ounce on his face where you’d have to carry it. 

“One step. That’s all I’m asking.” His arms turned palm-up at the ends of his open arms, still, though nothing behind his ribs was. “You don’t have to talk. Or explain anything. Not tonight, or ever. I’ll die curious – but I’m standing here figuring out I don’t work right until I know how you feel in my arms and I haven’t known for hours and I am asking you –” His voice strained, and the words came out bare, “ – Please, I am asking you to come let me hold you.” 

You let out a small sound, eyes pinching shut, and he watched a whole war happen on your face. Jack thought, uselessly, hopelessly, that he’d have stood there through a winter or as the building came down, holding a door ajar in himself for as long as doors took.

You crossed, though. Your body came to him hard, all at once, like you were dropped from a height, and Jack caught you with one arm crushed around your towel-wrapped back. The other flew to your wet hair, his palm rounding the whole back of your skull, pressing you into his heart, gathering you in and in and in, past where space existed, trying to find one more setting past where proximity itself existed. He let out a sound that was – dangerously – close to sob into your hair, finding himself completely undone for the first time in a very, very long time. 

“There you are,” he murmured, rocking you slightly as his mouth pressed to the top of your dripping hair. “I’ve got you. Got you now.”

You shook against him, and Jack winced at the feeling of it, gently reeling both of you down onto the edge of the mattress, then back, then over, until he had you sideways across his lap, your knees folded over his thigh, your face tucked into the crook of his neck, his arms locked around you like a cage. The towel gave up at under your shoulder, so he pulled the corner of the blanket up over the bare curve of it – wrapping you precious – and then his arm closed the last of the circuit and locked. 

For a while, he simply let his hand move up and down your spine while you cried into his throat, and every shudder that went through you went straight through him, too. He pressed his lips to your temple and left them there and rode it out with you, breathing slow on purpose, loud enough for you to borrow the rhythm off of his nose, an old medic’s trick he was running on the only patient he’d loved past all sense. 

Somewhere in the middle of it, with your tears running down his throat and pooling at his collarbone,

Jack thought, helplessly, that even this was somehow yours and somehow beautiful; you cried like you did everything, with your whole body, holding nothing residual, generous, so generous, even in grief. You’d never given him a partial anything, and Jack tightened his arms around the full, shaking entirety of you and thanked the universe, genuinely, that when you’d finally fallen apart, you’d walked the few steps and done it on him. 

When your crying wore itself down, Jack made himself stay silent. The questions, fully formed, seventy versions of them and redrafted since the kitchen, he swallowed, because he had a feeling he had pushed enough for one simple morning. He’d pushed this morning smiling. He held you and let the question live in him like a swallowed stone and, apparently, he was less subtle about it than he thought.

Your voice came up out of his neck, waterlogged and small, as you said, “I know you want to ask.” Your fingers moved faintly against his chest, a fidget with no strength in it. “It’s okay. You can.” 

Jack had to close his eyes at your first full sentence being a door held open for him; you’d crawled out of your own wreckage to check on the driver. 

“I do,” he said into your hair, honestly. “But I’m not gonna spend your turn. So here’s mine first.” 

He felt you go still against him – attention gathering, a tiny tilt of your head at his collarbone – and he breathed in heavy, big enough to lift you where you lay, to pay up. 

“I got really scared today,” he said, voice going into a whisper as he leaned down to talk to you. “I woke up to you not in my arms and my whole chest felt – wrong. I do this for a living, I’ve got all the words. It wasn’t – wasn’t sick. It felt wrong, you not being somewhere you’re supposed to be. First time in – forever, if I’m being honest.” He tapped you skin twice, to hold himself. 

“And when I found you, I couldn’t reach you. And now – seeing you –” He felt you stiffen up at that, and he nodded in understanding, skipping over. “I’m thinking of getting rid of all our doors.” His hand kept moving down your spine, and he faced your head then. “Bathroom’s the priority. Bedroom might be load-bearing, but. Front door stays. Everything else is beaded curtains by Friday.” 

You made a small sound against his neck, and Jack had to stop himself from crushing you into the tightest hug at the bridge of a laugh. He pressed his mouth to your temple for a few seconds instead. “Another thing while I’ve got the floor. Telling me to go get coffee with an ex – don’t do that again. I’m not gambling with you. I’ve only got one of you. So, I’m never going to coffee with anyone else again.” 

“You’re allowed to cry,” he said, setting the joke aside. “I’m sorry I made you feel you couldn’t do it with me knowing about it. That’s mine, and I’m gonna find it and fix it if it takes me the rest of my life.” 

“You didn’t do anything,” you protested, sounding wounded. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “That’s mine. That’s what I felt today. You don’t have to give me yours.” 

His arms adjusted, and some helpless, incurable corner of him – the one that had flirted with you through every disaster you’d ever handed each other – added, “But, if you wanted to trade, I can make it worth your while.” 

You laughed at that again, and the two of you stayed silent again for sometime. Your fingers crawled up his chest, up over his collarbone, curling loosely around his neck, your palm settling in like you needed contact to speak. 

“You went to Italy,” you said. 

Jack’s brain did one, full lap around the words, and came back with nothing. He did the only thing he could when you handed him a coin he couldn’t read, which was holding it up to the light and keeping his voice soft and not dropping it. 

“I did,” he said, carefully. “Long, long time ago, baby.”

“Was it nice?” you asked, the words coming out so small. In the same breath, like a small dam breaking, you added, “Do you miss it?”

Jack never had to look for a trap in your words, not like this.

There was none now, either. You’d asked about Italy like you asked him about bad days, ready to receive whatever came back, your thumb doing a nervous sweep against his neck like you were comforting him in advance. You’d found the one grief in the world with his fingerprints on it and your first instinct was to ask if he wanted it back. 

For an ugly second, he thought he could have lied. No, it was overrated, beds were weird, bad food. You’d have heard it, and Jack thought that it would’ve taught you that you couldn’t survive the truth. 

“It was nice,” he said quietly, hands moving up and down your spine. “I was young. Younger, anyway. Whole trip was –” He exhaled, shaking his head as he tried to hunt for the honest size of it. “It was a trip, baby. It was nice.” 

He pressed his lips to your hairline. “I don’t miss it. There’s nothing in there to miss. Like –” He clicked his teeth, searching for the words. “Driving past a house I used to live in. Half the time, can’t even remember which window was yours. You just keep going, ‘cause everything you own’s at the new place now.” His fingers tightened on you. “Think if I’d known what this was, back then, I’d have kept missing this, there.” 

Your breath shifted against his throat, and you nuzzled your face into his neck.

“What’s got you worried?” he murmured. He closed his eyes, letting his head lean to rest against yours, palms moving from your waist to your nape, then down. “I can get us to Europe by Thursday, just say the word. I’ve got PTO and miles I’ve been sitting on for years. I think they were for this.” 

“I don’t wanna go to Italy,” you said, smiling against his neck. “I think this is something I have to get through myself. It’s not anything you’ve done to me.”

Jack felt that familiar twist in his chest. It’d come to him for the first time today, and it kept coming up and up and up, and he couldn’t help but want to claw at his own mouth for his selfish, cruel little game, for every grinning careless word he’d dropped on you like they weighed nothing. And now you felt that you had to deal with it yourself, like it was yours to carry alone, off in a corner, someplace he couldn’t get to. Because he had done this. 

You were, simply, acting like the two of you weren’t the two of you; you had spent a whole year proving to him that ‘by yourself’ was a thing that, now, never existed. 

He drew you back, fingers threading through the back of your hair, trying to physically take you back from wherever – whatever – this by yourself was. He put your face in the light, wet-lashed, trying so hard to keep it together, and his thumb swept the damp while his own face did whatever it was doing, open and scared and thoroughly past the point of keeping it in check. 

“You don’t have a ‘yourself’ anymore, sweetheart. I don’t have that anymore. You woke me up at three in the morning to tell me how you fell off the monkey bars in third grade – remember? You didn’t think twice about it.” His forehead came down, brushing your nose with his. “And now you’re gonna sit here and tell me this – the saddest thing that’s crossed that pretty head all year – this one you’re keeping alone?” 

“Jack–”

“What is going on in that head of yours?” he interrupted, words soft but pointed, suddenly having given up all pretense of coaxing and gone straight to needling.

He watched you open your mouth as you took in a breath, and maybe it was the closeness or the way his thumb kept moving along your jaw, but you said, “I don’t know if I’m the real one.”

Jack’s brows furrowed, feeling heat build up behind his eyes as he looked at you with a pained, confused expression.

“I don’t know if I’m the one you do it for real with, Jack, or if I’m just – the young one. The one you get before – or after – I don’t even know how it works.”

Your hands came up between you, aggravated at yourself, at him, at the lack of vocabulary. 

“You’ve done so much. You’ve got countries. Experiences. So many of them. And I’ve got –” Your shrug came out tiny. “– you. You’re my biggest everything. You’re my Italy and I feel like I’ve been with you for three years and my – you’re all of it, Jack. I’m terrified I’m just the person that came after your big thing.” 

You blinked, and Jack’s fingers reached up to catch the little tear falling over your lashes, his own eyes blinking furiously. Jack wanted, so badly, to reach to you and press your kiss to your mouth to stop this, to to kiss this whole wilted garden you’d created in your head out of you.

He shook his head. “I hope I’m not your – her,” he said, a wince in the words, finding it difficult to even get them out. “Or your Italy.”

“You are –” you said, with so much conviction, chin coming up, ready to fight him for the honor of it, “you are – that’s what I’m telling you –” 

“I’m your Jack.” His hands tightened on your face, voice coming out slightly cracked. “I’d forgotten about this woman until this came up. I don’t want you to forget me. I’m your Jack and I’m the luckiest man for it everyday. So you pick a better word soon, and don’t take that title away from me.” He shook his head. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

You bristled slightly, your eyes shining into his as they went wide, the whole of you locking up at the words. He tapped his palm gently against your cheek once, then again, frowning as he thought he really ought to tell you this more, for a girl who kept a running tally of everything else.

You’d created a museum out of things he’d said, and somehow this one, the biggest one – the luckiest man of it – he’d been rationing. He’d been handing it over in the glances and over eggs, assuming it was arriving, that a girl who read him so fluently was taking what he’d said to you over and over again, so simply because it was just a fact. 

Never again. He’d tell you daily now, remind you of it while making you look him in the eyes. 

“I tried to make you jealous,” you said, the words coming out through a sad, shameful laugh. Something in his chest broke hearing you confess it like it was a crime. “I’ve got nothing, Jack. You won’t care about Sam, or Dave, or – I don’t even remember one’s name. That’s all. You had a doctor you went to Italy with.” 

His eyes fluttered for a second, the muscle in his jaw clenching as his fingers ran over your cheek. The nature of it all was too backwards. Jack had made a very sad sort of peace with himself – he’d known what he was – and somehow, at the end of all that, at the bottom of the ninth of his whole entire life, you’d walked into it glowing like something confiscated from heaven. You’d looked at the full of him, and decided you wanted him. You, dished out to him probably because of some fate-giver who’d been asleep at the desk, who had let the single best thing walk out to him.

If a single one of those guys had stayed awake one more hour, asked one more question, been at the right angle to see who was sitting across them, you’d be – Jack grimly, awfully thought – somewhere else right now. And Jack never would have known; he wouldn’t have known to miss you. You’d have been long gone and loved properly, early, by someone with the sense to do it. 

Jack would have worked his nights and run the bay, choosing every day to enter a new crisis, and never known the whole time that the best thing that would ever happen to him had happened to somebody else instead, on time, the way it properly should have. It was their loss, and he was going to make his entire life out of it. 

His arms moved before the thought even finished, hauling you in impossibly closer, resettling the whole, true warm weight of you against him. “Stay right here,” he murmured.

You did. Your lashes stuck wet in little points and your fingers resettled on his neck. You were wearing his shirt, drowning in it. Jack had been the steadiest set of hands in many rooms, he knew it without vanity. But nothing in his skill set covered you; steady hands didn’t win a girl who lit up rooms; being good in a crisis didn’t earn a woman who made every ordinary Tuesday feel like a celebration. He’d spent so long getting excellent at the exact things nobody falls in love with – triage, containment, blood – and you’d walked into his life and fallen for him anyway, for reasons he couldn’t successfully point to, and he’d stopped asking why out of superstition. You, he was not in the mood to reasonably place; Jack knew when a person was handed one, that they should keep showing up for a miracle, quietly hoping it stayed. 

Jack, falling apart at every seam of him, eyes hot and jaw aching, huffed. It was one, soft breath of a laugh, and your eyes snapped up to his, betrayed, and he shook his head fast, thumb pressing to your cheek to stay with him. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said, shaking his head softly, thumbs framing your face to tilt it up. “I promise. I’m laughing ‘cause you’ve got no idea what I’d give to have your problem.” 

You blinked at him, mouth curved into a frown. That one, he was sure, was aimed at him. His hands were shaking slightly against your jaw.

“I mean that I am very, very glad that you’ve got no Italy to wave at me. You think I want you to have another big grown love in your pocket? Some guy you crossed the country with?” His hands tightened on your face, eyes shining. “It would ruin me. I’d never sleep again. And I’m sorry for waving mine at you this morning, because I didn’t think it’d make you not sleep.” 

He held your eyes through it, taking his medicine looking at you. “I said it ‘cause I love you jealous. It makes me feel nice to know you care about me.” His lips curved into a sad smile. “I didn’t think what it’d do when I brought this up. I will be very, very sorry about that for a long time.”

When you smiled softly, eyes hooded as you looked down at his mouth, he nodded to himself.

“And I had a nice trip with a woman a hundred years ago, and it ended, and I have zero photos of it. That’s a thing that happened to me. You are not a thing that happened to me. You are what it was all for. All the years, the whole time, all the wrong turns. That was just me taking the long way to find you. You are my biggest thing – biggest one that’s ever happened to me – and I want you to know some pretty life-changing things have happened to me.” 

You stared at him, mouth open, tears going uncaught now, because Jack had gone completely still, needing you to see all his years on his face at once. 

He huffed, mind flicking through this haze of memories. He could reach back and find the years, the apartment, and it all came as nothing. He’d loved women, had meant it completely, with everything he’d had on hand, and he may not have been wrong. And now he can carry the tender knowledge that a person can feel absolutely certain there is everything to be felt and be off by a whole magnitude; he’d stood inside his biggest feeling and called it the biggest and had simply, innocently, not met you. 

“And since you told me yours,” he said, quieter, eyes going down because he found he couldn’t quite hold your gaze for this.

“I know what it feels like to think you’ve found what good love is, and then to find out how it is to love someone bigger. That the thing you could’ve sworn was everything was just – nothing, in the grand scheme.” 

He turned his face to the side as he held your face, suddenly finding the enormity of this simplicity pressing at the back of his eyes. Everything – he was sure of it – had just been the longest drive over to you.

“But you got this first. You’ve got nothing to check it against.” His thumb swept your cheekbone, and his eyes came back to you. 

“I know how big this is because I’ve got my whole life to look at it against. And you just have to take my word for it.”

He tugged his lip between his teeth, searching your eyes with question, checking whether the words were pushing through, whether they had the gap to push through. Your face was tilting toward him, listening with every feature at once; he could see the whole war playing out on your face you had never once been able to conceal from him. You had no poker face, at least to him, you didn’t.

“This is the one,” he said, nodding just barely. “There was never a morning I woke up and had to think about anything before you. You are the reason I know what you think is the big thing is small.” 

Your breath stuttered, and your chin trembled once before you caught it from gritting your teeth inside your mouth. 

“And sometimes –” He nodded, more to himself, as he forced himself to continue. “– I have felt a similar thing. I see you, and I wonder if you’ll think about some guy your own age, out there somewhere. Standard legs. Normal hours.” He shrugged. “No years of the stuff I’ve carried. And I think, someday, you’ll look over at me and think you settled for the –”

“That’s crazy,” you interrupted, the words shooting out of you instantly. Your fingers flew up to grip both his wrists. “That’s crazy, Jack – I don’t want – I would never. There’s no guy, I don’t want standard legs. I want your legs – leg – fuck, Jack.” Your voice broke off as you let out a small, pained groan. “I would pick you over any person who has ever lived.” 

“Yeah, see,” he murmured, a small smile coming up as he let the weight of your words land on him. “Can you see how it sounds crazy when it’s coming at you?”

He brushed his nose against yours at your stunned silence. “I feel the exact same way about what you said. It’s crazy.”

He had to blink over and over as he settled on the weight of your words, said so simply and furiously with no build up. The biggest sentences of his life just slipped out of you, unwrapped, and you had not the first clue what they weighed. Any person who had ever lived. God, you’d waved off the whole crowded history of the species in one breath to pick a tired man in Pittsburgh.  

“Let’s go,” he murmured, wrapping you up and pulling both of you back against the cushions, resettling you on his chest. Your ear was at his heart. The blanket was up to your shoulder. “We’re gonna lie here a while now. I think we both need it.” 

“It was a weird morning.” 

“Mhm.” His hand went to your spine. “Top five weirdest.”

And he should have let it be, but there was still something sitting in him. 

Jack pressed his lips together as he once again said, “I am sorry for this morning. I was –” He breathed in through his nose, fingers coming up to your head, tapping it twice to get you to look up at him. You did, chin pressing into his chest and your eyes tired yet focused. “Immature.” 

Your lips twisted slightly, then you tugged them with your teeth once and looked away, like you were trying not to agree. 

“I was,” he said, easily, agreeing for you. His thumb traced your hairline. “Good thing for me, I happen to be with a girl who likes getting her revenge. Even when I don’t think I did anything.” 

“You do –”

“I do. I do. You’re not wrong,” he said, the opposite of a complaint in it. “You know how to settle a score. And this morning I racked up a real big one. And you’ve just been sitting on it, being gracious.” His nose wrinkled, his fingers going to cradle the side of your face. “You keep that up, you’ll start minding your business and I’ll be living with a stranger.”

At your small, hesitant smile, Jack continued, “I know you don’t like the paintjob of my truck.” You nodded at that, honest as ever. “What I’m thinking is, you key it.”

Your eyes widened.

“Go nuts on the thing. Do some drawings. Write nice words. I drive it around after, everyone sees it. And when we’re good and done with that show and tell,” he continued, fingers threading into your hair, “we take it in. You pick a new color. Any color. Change the seats if you want, too.”

“People will think –”

“People will think a woman loves me enough to key my truck. Do we have a deal?”

[s-writing-s]

𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐩 | 𝐉. 𝐀.

summary: you’ve been able to see ghosts since you were a child, but years of bad experiences have taught you one thing: keep it secret. people don’t take kindly to the things they can’t explain. then you meet jack—a highly observant doctor with a ghost of his own, and what begins as an unlikely friendship slowly becomes something more. but trusting him means risking the one thing you’ve spent your entire life protecting: yourself.

tags: hurt/comfort, angst, romance, fluff, flirting, explorations of grief, supernatural elements, mentions of an ex, reader doesn't take good care of herself

word count: 18.3k

a/n: my baby is finally finished! i've been working on this for months now and tbh i could probably keep doing it. there's just something so interesting about this theme and how two people are affected differently by death. this fic was inspired by the show ghost whisperer and i see reader's abilities as somewhat similar to melinda's. as always, feedback is greatly appreciated! i really hope you guys like it! <333

The Pitt | Masterlist Main | Masterlist

You hate hospitals with a deep passion. 

They're too loud, too bright, and too crowded. Waiting rooms that make you feel like tinned fish, packed together beneath harsh fluorescent lights and the constant hum of voices. It's not even a busy night, and you're still counting down the minutes until you can leave. 

There's a man with a clenched look on his face that suggests why he's choosing to stand despite the unusually empty seats. A woman nearby desperately hums to her wailing child, rocking her back and forth against her chest with a feverish gleam on her face. A man coughs wetly into his mask while a group of drunk girls giggle away in the corner. 

It's a relatively empty waiting room considering it's the E.R—if you don't take the other people into account. There's a woman in a white gown wandering through the room before disappearing into a wall. A man with a gash on his head sits in one of the chairs, patiently waiting for his turn that will never come. Only the occasional flicker of his form reveals his true state.

It's only been half an hour, but from where you're sitting, you've already spotted five ghosts. And the longer you wait, the more they'll feel the pull of you—previous experience unfortunately lets you know that. So, if you can help it, you stay away. 

But midnight ideas involving a ladder, a light bulb, and an unexpected vision hadn't proven to be a good combination. You'd been on the third rung, reaching overhead, when the familiar sensation hit. Your body had locked, your vision hazing as your mind left your apartment, and by the time the vision released you, your foot had slipped, and you'd fallen hard onto the ground. You'd blinked back to a shattered bulb beneath your palm and a sharp flare of pain where your head had clipped the coffee table. This was, unfortunately, an injury too severe for you to fix yourself. 

Now it's three a.m., and you're holding a soaked dish towel to your bleeding hand as you try to avoid eye contact with the spectres drifting past. It takes another twenty minutes of staring insistently at the ground before your name is called and you're led into a room. 

You sit on the crinkly paper, tapping your fingers against your pants as the door shuts again. Another five minutes pass before the door opens again, but you don't mind. At least, it's quiet in here—no ghosts following you. 

"Hi. Sorry for the wait." A man in black scrubs steps inside, smiling at you kindly. "I'm Dr. Henderson." He's got one foot on the rolling chair, about to sit down when the door opens again. 

"Crus." An older man interrupts, one hand on the door as he holds it open. He nods out towards the hallway, greying curls falling slightly forward at the motion. "Head to Trauma 1. You can assist with a lumbar puncture." He turns to you with a charming smile. "I'll take over here."

Heat rushes to your cheeks when his intense gaze lands on you, and you quickly avert your eyes. Instead, you watch as Dr. Henderson's face lights up. He sends you an apologetic smile, clapping the other man's shoulder on his way out. 

"Sorry about that." The door shuts behind him as he finally steps fully inside and draws the curtain. "I'm Dr. Abbot." He picks up the tablet left behind and scans your chart quickly. Snapping on a pair of gloves, he drops down onto the chair. 

"So," he says, eyeing the towel around your hand and the dried blood on your temple. "How bad did the other guy look?"

You blink. "What?"

Dr. Abbot gently tips your head toward the light to inspect the cut. His gloved fingers are surprisingly warm against your skin. "Whoever hit you got a decent shot in. Still, it's nothing we can't patch up."

"I didn't fight anyone."

"No?" A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he turns his attention to your hand, carefully peeling the towel away. His gaze flicks down to your heart-patterned pyjama pants. "I don't know. You look like you could be hiding a professional boxing career."

Heat creeps into your cheeks as you realise he's teasing you. "Oh. Ha."

His grin widens, and you find yourself watching the way his eyes crinkle. "So, what happened?"

"...I fell off a ladder."

His eyes flick up to yours. "Strange hour to be climbing ladders." He shifts your hand back and forth, testing your grip.

You shrug. "Couldn't sleep."

"Ah," he says. "That, I get." He rolls the chair back to gather supplies once he determines it isn't a severe cut. "There's a bit of glass stuck inside, so I'm gonna give you a shot for the pain, pick out the pieces, stitch you up and then send you on your merry way. Sound good?"

You nod, glancing down at your hand, expecting your stomach to roll, but feeling strangely detached from it. You guess you've seen worse in visions before. A surprising positive, you suppose.

He pulls off his gloves, throwing them into the trash behind him. As he leans forward to grab a new sterile pair, the chair suddenly rolls forward beneath him. The wheels squeak as it turns to face you, and Dr. Abbot's hands shoot out instinctively, landing briefly against the plush of your thighs to steady himself.

You both freeze. His eyes flick down to your thighs, then back up.

"Sorry," he says, pulling away immediately.

"No, that's—" You swallow. "That's okay."

Dr. Abbot rubs the back of his neck before turning back to the task at hand. The room suddenly feels too warm. Something metallic flashes beneath the fluorescent lights, drawing your attention to his wedding ring. He's married. Of course. A man like that doesn't go through life without attracting someone. You look away before you can wonder why that thought bothers you.

You focus on the ceiling tile above him instead. A faint crackling sound brushes against your ears before disappearing. Your attention snaps to the corner, but no one is there. The sound comes back, like an old radio searching for a station. Your skin prickles, and the hairs at the back of your neck rise in warning.

You're not alone, but no one appears. No one speaks. It's just that crackling sound, continuing for another minute before it disappears again.

Dr. Abbot reaches for your hand again, oblivious to it. He administers the shot as you try to look around the room without him noticing.

"So, what were you doing on the ladder?" he says, breaking the awkward silence. He moves to clean your forehead as he waits for the lidocaine to set in.

You huff a laugh. "Putting in a new light bulb. I've been putting it off for weeks. Maybe this was a sign that I shouldn't have waited that long." Your chin lifts, a sense of pride filling you when his lips twitch. You get the feeling that he isn't that easy to get a reaction out of. 

"Not handy, I gather?" he says as he finishes placing the butterfly stitch on your forehead.

You glance down at your hand. "What gave it away?"

He huffs a laugh.

The saline feels odd, but not unpleasant, and you barely notice as he plucks out the glass pieces. The silence that settles over the room is comfortable, and for a moment you believe the ghost has left you alone. Maybe it has finally decided you're not worth bothering. But as Dr. Abbot dresses your wound and turns to write follow-up instructions on a notepad, the crackling starts again. Then, his pen flies off the desk.

"Oops," he says, not sounding particularly surprised. He ignores it and turns back to you. "The stitches are self-dissolving, but come back if there's any swelling or irritation." He hands you the note, his mouth curving into another teasing smile. "And no more fights, at least until you're healed."

"No promises." You grin. "Thank you."

He gives you a small nod. "You're welcome."

You slip off the bed, clutching the note in your good hand. At the door, you glance back without really meaning to. He's still looking at you. For a second, neither of you says anything, then you leave. There's a slight pull, almost as if something is trying to keep you in the room, but you push forward without placing much thought on it. Whatever ghost is trying to communicate can find you tomorrow.

The bookstore Cordelia's is located next to the park and has been yours for almost three years. It's small, but you've managed to make the most of the space. Tall shelves line almost every wall, some of them old enough that you constantly worry they'll fall apart at the slightest touch. There's a little reading nook tucked beneath the front window, two mismatched armchairs beside a low table, and a counter near the register that has been scratched and dented by years of use. The bell above the door has a slightly different ring depending on how hard someone pushes it, and the floorboards creak in places you've long learned to avoid. 

It's comfortable. Warm. The kind of place where people come in intending to browse for ten minutes and somehow end up staying an hour. 

Ethan is similar in that way. He never dreamed of working in a bookstore, and somehow, he's gone from a part-time worker to being here more than you are. He's always liked books—even has a minor in English literature—but he'd always imagined himself doing something more. Maybe teaching or being a famous author—something that involved people knowing his name. Definitely not standing behind a counter for eight hours a day arguing with customers about whether a particular first edition was worth what the internet claimed it was. And yet, he loves it. 

He hadn't at first, but that was before his roommate started haunting him.

Ethan had been drawn to the store, and you'd found him overwhelmed in the back row, head in his hands. Somehow, without even meaning to, he had divulged it all to you, and you hadn't been even a little bit unnerved by the strange things he'd told you. You hadn't laughed. You hadn't suggested he was imagining things. Instead, you'd asked him what his roommate's name was, and then you'd revealed your abilities. 

You were able to see and speak to ghosts.

Ethan had laughed at first—right up until his bathroom mirror had smashed in his face and the pieces spelt out his name on the ground. After that, he was a true believer. And with his roommate crossed over, Ethan put his plans on hold to follow you. He'd offered to work in your store, which was closed more often than not with you out dealing with your ghostly companions. He'd expected it to be temporary. It wasn't.

The bookstore came with its own companions. Lydia and Delia, the couple who had owned the store before you, who had apparently decided that death was no reason to leave. It had taken Ethan a while to get used to them. It had taken them even longer to get used to him. Now he can't imagine the place without them. Even if he does wish they'd stop throwing the books they dislike at him.

Still, it's nice to have some company, even if he can't see them. Especially since he never knows exactly when you'll be in or for how long. He knows it's one of those days where you disappear for hours when you enter the shop with two coffee cups and an already apologetic smile.

His attention immediately catches on the stitches on your forehead and the white dressing covering your hand. "What happened to you?"

You shrug casually. "Ladder. Light bulb. Ghost. It was an accident." 

Ethan's brows pinch together. He reaches out, fingers catching lightly beneath your jaw in an attempt to get a better look at the cut, but you duck away before he can inspect it properly and push one of the coffees into his hand instead.

"I think I figured out who it is. Is it okay if I—?" You tilt your head towards the door.

Ethan worries his lower lip for a second. It's not the first time he's seen you hurt by a ghost, but he still doesn't like it. He knows better than most how casually you treat your injuries. If it weren't for him reminding you, you'd forget to eat during cases. "Be careful. This ghost doesn't seem too happy with you."

"This was just bad timing." You brush it off. 

He stares at you. You stare back. Eventually, you sigh. "...Fine. I'll be careful."

"Good." He nods. "Call me if there's anything."

You hum, already halfway across the store again. "Sure. Thanks!" The door slams shut behind you.

Ethan sighs and takes a sip of his coffee. He knows you can take care of yourself. It's just that the two of you have very different ideas of what that means.

He steps behind the counter again and slumps down onto the chair. A few boxes are waiting to be unpacked and placed on shelves, but they can wait until he's finished with this cup. He's got at least another hour until the first customers filter in, so he leans back and grabs his notepad. His novel won't write itself. He stares at the blank page, then writes two words. Deletes them. Takes a sip. Writes another sentence. Deletes that too. He sighs. Maybe he should've stuck with teaching.

The bell rings again, barely a minute later. 

"Forget something?" he calls out, still staring at his paper while chewing on the end of his pen.

"I don't think so."

The male voice makes him look up.

Ethan shoots to his feet, notepad clattering to the ground. "I'm so sorry. I thought you were someone else." He bends to pick it up, cheeks burning with embarrassment, before his flustered gaze meets the eyes of an older man.

Scrubs. Tired-looking. Handsome. 

The man looks around the store, almost confused, as though he's not entirely sure why he's here. Seeing that, Ethan's customer-service persona finally clicks into place. "Looking for anything special?"

The man hesitates, frowns, then shakes his head.

 "Okay. Well, we've got a bit of everything." Ethan gestures to the aisles. "Give me a shout if you need anything." He logs onto the computer to give the man some space to explore, but keeps an eye on him out of the corner of his eye.

The man wanders slowly between the shelves, fingertips occasionally brushing over the spines. He doesn't seem to be looking for anything in particular. Eventually, he stops at one of the displays and picks up a book. "How long have you had this store? Don't think I've seen it before." 

"Oh, I'm not the owner; she's out at the moment—" The light flickers above him, and he looks at it with a frown. It's not like Lydia or Delia to interrupt when there's a customer. "It's been here for about three years now."

The man nods, puts the book down, then takes a step toward one of the aisles. A book flies off the shelf next to him.

Ethan freezes. The man doesn't. His shoulders rise, tensing, but not in a way that suggests surprise. It's more like resignation. Another book flies from the shelf on the opposite side. Then another. It lands directly in front of him.

Ethan's certain now. There's a ghost attached to this man. But it's the man's reaction that unsettles him most. He barely reacts. No startled jump. No nervous laugh. No frantic glance around the room. He simply looks down at the books, bends down, picks them up and puts them back.

Ethan watches him carefully. He's seen people react to ghosts before. He knows the usual responses. Fear. Confusion. Denial. This man looks like someone who's seen this before. Before Ethan can say anything, the stranger nods at him and hurries out of the store. 

Ethan stares after him, waiting for something else to happen, but the store is quiet again. "If you're still here, I can't see you, but my friend can," he calls softly. He looks toward the aisle. "She'll be back later."

He waits for an answer, but nothing happens. No books fly out. No lights flicker. His shoulders drop a fraction. Even after years of seeing you interact with ghosts, he can't help his instinctual fear when he's alone. At least when you're around, he has an idea of what the ghost wants. On his own, he's completely clueless about their intentions.

He looks toward the door again. Who was that guy? 

Ethan wanders over, fishing out the books that had been pushed half-hazardously back between the others. His fingers brush the spines, reading the titles, then he crouches to retrieve the last one. The theme is clear, but the one that landed closest to the man says it best.

The Art of Dating.

Ethan stares at it. "Well," he mutters, putting it back on the shelf. "That's subtle."

It's close to midday when you enter the store again, but instead of this morning's excitement, there's a dull headache throbbing behind your eyes. It sits stubbornly at your temples, refusing to ease no matter how much you rub them. You're not sure if it's the lack of sleep that's finally catching up with you, the hit your head took last night, or the disappointment of your visit, but either way, you feel drained.

"Hey, how'd it go?" Ethan calls from somewhere between the shelves. He emerges a moment later, a book tucked beneath one arm, and takes one look at your face. "Bad, huh?"

You don't bother pretending otherwise. "Yeah..." You sink onto the plush chair behind the counter, letting your head fall back against it with a sigh. "I'm gonna try again tonight. Maybe I'll get a read of something."

Ethan hums, leaning his elbows against the counter. He studies you for a moment, his expression telling you he's considering arguing before apparently deciding against it. "I'll come with you."

You close your eyes and shake your head. "You don't have to."

He shrugs, completely unconcerned with your refusal. "It's good research for my book."

Your eyes open again. "Oh! How's that going? When can I read something?"

"I'm nowhere close to that," he groans, his head dropping dramatically. "I've been stuck on the same paragraph for hours now."

You blow a raspberry at him. The sound earns you a look, but you can see the corner of his mouth twitch. "Lunch then?" you suggest, sitting up slightly. "We could try that new place down the street?"

He pushes himself off the counter, already reaching for his jacket. "Yes, I'll go get it. Some fresh air might get rid of my writer's block."

You lean back again, closing your eyes once more as he heads toward the door. You hear him rummaging around for his wallet, then the soft jingle of the bell as he pulls the door open. "Oh," he calls out, the door halfway open. "Some man came in earlier with a ghost attached to him. I told it you'd be back later."

"Did you get a name?"

"No, he ran out before I could ask. He was in scrubs, though, so maybe a doctor or nurse?" He shrugs, then shuts the door behind him, leaving the store quiet again.

Scrubs?

You frown. For a second, your mind supplies the image of Dr. Abbot before you can stop it. The kind man from last night. His warm fingers against your skin as he'd examined your forehead. The crooked smile when he'd teased you about fighting someone. The flash of his wedding ring beneath the fluorescent lights.

You shake the thought away. The hospital is across the park, and you've never seen him here before. The chance of him coming into the bookstore afterwards is low. It was probably just an odd coincidence.

You let your head fall back against the chair again.

"He was real handsome, too," a warm voice croons from your right.

You don't even open your eyes. "You say that every time a man walks in here."

"I do not," Lydia protests. You crack an eye open, finding her beside one of the shelves, arms folded across her chest, looking deeply offended by the accusation. She turns her head to Delia. "Do I?"

"...You do," Delia says, wincing when Lydia turns to glare at her. "But"—she points a finger at you—"this time she is right."

You roll your eyes before closing them again. "Mm," you hum. "I'm not looking for anything." You settle deeper into the chair. "You know that."

There's a pause before Delia clears her throat gently. "Honey, maybe it's time to—"

"No," you cut her off, opening your eyes just enough to look at her. "But thanks."

You close your eyes again before she can start arguing, effectively ending the conversation. The two ghosts sigh in unison. You can hear the soft rustle of fabric as Lydia moves, followed by Delia's faint scent of roses. Then a rush of cool air brushes across your skin, signifying that they're gone.

You let out a slow breath as the bookstore settles around you again. You know they're trying to help. You know they have the best intentions. But Lydia and Delia have been together for decades, including the years after death. They've managed to find the kind of love that survived everything—life, death, and apparently even the refusal to cross over. 

You're happy for them. You really are. But sometimes, when they talk about love like it's something inevitable, something that simply arrives and stays, you can't help wondering if you're the exception.

Because you've already been given this gift. Maybe that's it for you. Maybe you're simply meant to spend your life helping other people find their way to the other side while you stay back. The thought shouldn't still bother you. You've told yourself that often enough that it shouldn't, and yet, when you do think about it a little too seriously, it aches and pulsates somewhere deep down. 

So, you try not to. And with the embers of your last relationship still burning after its fiery end, it's becoming easier to believe. Your ex, John, had made it clear how he thought you were crazy for believing in things nobody else could see. You'd loved him. That had been the worst part. You'd finally trusted him enough to open up, and that was his response. For a long time afterwards, you'd wondered whether he had been right about everything. Maybe you were too strange. Too difficult. Too much. 

You stare at the ceiling through half-lowered lashes. You don't doubt it anymore. It's easier that way. Easier to believe you're not meant for love than to risk it all again. 

You don't think you can handle it. 

Considering that you've been involved in ghost activities since you were a little girl, you should know by now that nothing is ever a coincidence when ghosts are involved. You'd seen it, following your mother around, fingers clutching her skirt as she got roped into ghostly schemes, openly parading her abilities—right up until your father had her committed when her visions took over.

You learned then and there that what she had considered a gift was best left hidden. That it wasn't everybody who understood. That, at times, it was more a burden than a gift. 

Despite having all that experience, you don't think much of it the first time you see Dr. Abbot again. You see him in the supermarket, his hand reaching for a bunch of bananas as you turn into the fruit aisle. Your eyes meet across a display of apples, and for half a second, both of you stare at each other, until recognition flickers across his face. You send him a brief, polite smile before ducking into the nearest aisle and pretending to become intensely interested in a selection of tinned tomatoes. You stay there until you're reasonably certain he's gone.

The second time could be coincidence. The third is harder to explain. By the time you see him in the park, you've stopped counting.

It's late evening, the last rays of the sunset shining across the park and through the store windows. You'd sent Ethan home earlier, telling him you'd deal with the odd technological error that had somehow deleted all your online orders and the ones you'd placed for new books. Once that is sorted, you close the shop, a little later than usual, and head home.

But rather than taking the fast way, you turn right at the park entrance, choosing the scenic—and considerably longer—route. An unexplainable feeling guides you, but you're too tired to examine it. 

You walk past friends sprawling across picnic blankets with half-finished drinks between them, couples walking hand in hand along the paths, and children chasing one another through the grass while their parents call after them. Then you hear laughter. Your attention drifts toward a group of scrub-clad people gathered beneath one of the trees, several cans of beer scattered between them. You take another step, let your gaze fall forward, and then the sight of a familiar face registers.

Your eyes snap back.

Dr. Abbot's already looking at you. His lips twitch when he sees your surprised expression, and he lifts his beer in greeting. Your mouth lifts in an unwitting smile before you can stop it, and you give him a small nod in return. A few of the people around him follow his gaze, curious eyes turning toward you. You immediately look away and hurry down the path before any of them can catch your gaze properly. You try to ignore the heat that's flaming under your skin. 

It's a coincidence, you repeat to yourself. Just a coincidence.

That assumption promptly gets thrown out when he shows up at the store. Now you're certain that something is going on. 

It's just you this time, with Ethan having been given the day off after you'd closed your last case. The death had been accidental—a slip and fall down a flight of stairs—but things had remained dramatic until the very end. Things had been thrown before your ghost was ready to listen, and the family was ready to talk. You'd been caught in the crossfire, leaving bruises scattered across your arms and a particularly ugly one blooming near your elbow.

Still, books needed to be placed on shelves and with Ethan out, you were forced to make your aching arms comply. You bend to pick up another box, already mentally calculating how many more trips you'll need to make before you can finally sit down. Maybe you should order a take-out for lunch to celebrate? 

"Do you need help?" A gruff, familiar voice says from behind you.

You huff, half amused, half annoyed. You're used to ghosts appearing without warning and asking for help at the worst possible moments, so you don't bother turning around immediately. "And how would you do that?"

Warm fingers brush against yours as he takes the box from you. "I may be older than you, but I'm not decrepit."

You gasp, your eyes snapping up to meet Dr. Abbot's warm, teasing hazel gaze. For a second, you're too surprised to say anything. "I'm so sorry, I thought you—" You shake your head and gesture toward the cart. "Never mind. You can just put that there. Thank you."

Your gaze follows the box as he sets it down, lingering despite yourself on the way his arms barely strain beneath the weight of the heavy books you'd struggled to lift just moments earlier. Without a word, he picks up the remaining boxes and sets them down beside the first.

You stare at him. He glances at you. "What?"

You smile awkwardly. "Nothing."

When he turns back, his eyes fall down the length of your arms. They narrow slightly.

You snatch the cardigan you'd abandoned on the counter when you'd gotten hot earlier and tug it on, trying to make the gesture look casual. "So, what can I help you with?"

He frowns, but decides to leave it alone as his gaze turns to the aisles. "One of our med students just landed a residency, and I offered to get the gift for her."

"And you have no idea what to get her?" you ask.

"Yeah." He grins sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

You step out from behind the counter, your arm brushing against his. The contact is brief, barely anything; still, heat sparks through the fabric. You ignore it. "Do you know what she likes?"

"Uh... She's big on social media and very into astrology." 

"Ah." You nod, moving with certainty to the cart. You grab a box cutter, slice through the tape, and fish out a book from the box. "Get her this. It's been sold out for months, and I just got it back in stock." 

You hold out a book with astrological signs circling the cover. He takes it, turning it over once in his hands. "You're lucky you came in now. I was gonna update our socials after I'd finished shelving the books. They'd probably be gone in a few hours."

He hums as he follows you back to the counter, scanning his card without glancing at the price. "Guess my intuition proved me right."

Your fingers pause against the wrapping paper, glancing up at him. "Intuition?"

"Yeah." He rubs the back of his neck again. "I don't really believe in it, but I was here a few weeks ago, and I just had this feeling that I would find what I was looking for here."

Your fingers still for the briefest second before finishing the bow. When you look up at him, he's watching you with an expression you can't quite read.

"I see." You put the book into a bag and hand it over to him, forcing a smile onto your face. "Guess you were right."

He nods. For a moment, neither of you moves. He hesitates, swallowing down whatever he was about to say before settling on a soft, "See you around?"

You nod, smiling. "I'll be here." 

He smiles back, lifting a hand in an awkward little wave before turning toward the door. The bell gives its familiar little chime as the door swings shut behind him. The grin on your face falls the second you can no longer see him through the windows.

He's the scrub-clad man Ethan told you about, and after all these encounters, you're forced to admit that his ghost has proved more persistent than you thought. You're just not sure what it wants.

"Handsome, right?" Lydia grins as she appears beside you.

You roll your eyes and move to roll the cart toward the shelves.

"Oh, ignore me all you want, sweetheart. You have a tell."

"I do not." You turn to glare at her.

Her smile widens as she shrugs. "If you say so." She disappears before you can argue.

A second later, Delia appears in her place, softer around the edges. She winks at you before following Lydia's path through the shelves.

Ghosts.

It's early morning when you settle onto your usual bench in the park, thermocup warming your hands as the last rays of the sunrise fade over the horizon. The air still carries the faint chill of the night, drops of dew clinging to the blades of grass. 

You take a slow sip and lean back against the bench. It's been a nice couple of days—ghost-free and able to fully focus on the store without somebody dead demanding your attention.

A blur materialises out of the corner of your eye. It was too good to be true, you suppose. 

You sigh lightly, then turn to face it. "Hi."

A woman blinks at you. Water drips steadily from her clothes, darkening the fabric around her shoulders. Her hair hangs in wet strands around her face, and she looks incredibly confused. "Where am I?"

"What's your name?" you ask her instead.

"I—I'm—" She spins around, sending droplets of water in every direction. You cover yourself instinctively, even though none of it can actually touch you. "What's going on?"

"Hey, it's okay. I can help you."

She frowns. Her mouth pulls into a tight line, but just as her shoulders begin to loosen, a figure steps straight through her. She disappears immediately.

You bite back a groan. You were just about to reach her.

"Sorry..." A low voice pulls your attention away. "I didn't mean to interrupt, but... are you okay?"

You glance up to find Dr. Abbot standing a few feet away, one hand half-raised like he wasn't sure whether he should approach. Of course.

You look toward the empty space where the woman had been. "Sorry. Just a second." You hold up a finger to him and turn your head slightly, pretending to listen to something only you can hear. "I gotta go. Yeah... Bye."

You turn back to him and pull out your headphones, feigning confusion. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

He studies you for a second longer than feels comfortable. His eyes move briefly to your hand, then back to your face. "Nothing. Sorry."

You smile awkwardly at him, thanking your past self for the foresight. 

Dr. Abbot leans slightly to his left, an expression of pain flickering across his face, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you gesture to the space beside you. "Do you wanna sit?"

He hesitates, glancing toward the empty stretch of bench before lowering himself onto it, leaving a polite gap between you. Silence falls for a second before he speaks. "My resident loved the book."

Your face brightens. "Really?"

"Oh yeah," he says, his mouth curling slightly. "I'm apparently her favourite attending now." He nods in your direction. "All thanks to you." 

"You're welcome!" You grin. "Next time you need a recommendation, you know where to find me." You take another sip of your coffee. "Is she the reason our page is popping off?"

He hums. "She did say something about posting it on her TikTok..."

You smile at the unsure grimace on his face. Clearly, he's not an avid user of the platform. "Give her my thanks, then. The store's been buzzing the last few days. The coffee corner's been packed since."

"Oh, you have coffee now?"

"Yeah! New addition. Ethan thought it would be good."

"Coffee's any good?"

You shrug. "Depends who's asking."

His mouth curls. "I am."

"Then I'll say yes."

He huffs a laugh.

Silence falls between you again, but this time it's more comfortable. You find yourself noticing that with him, silence doesn't seem to demand anything. You don't have to fill it, and neither does he. He just sits beside you, looking out across the park.

You lift the crinkly paper bag beside you and take out a croissant. You break it in two and hold out one half to him. He looks from the pastry to your face, as though checking whether you're serious.

You nod. "Take it."

The corner of his mouth lifts before he accepts it. His wedding ring catches the morning light as he does. The reminder sends a quiet swoop through your stomach, though you're unsure why. 

You take a sip. "Feel free to bring your wife with you," you add. "We get lots of couples coming in."

"Oh..." His expression changes almost imperceptibly as his eyes drop to his hand. His thumb brushes over the edge of his wedding ring. "She passed away a few years ago."

The words are simple. There isn't a dramatic pause afterwards, no visible struggle to say them. Just a quiet fact placed between you. It explains the weird feeling you've gotten each time you've seen his ring—you must've picked up on it subconsciously.

"I'm sorry."

He shakes his head. "Don't be."

You glance at him.

He looks down at the croissant in his hand, turning it slightly between his fingers. "I was lucky to have her."

You smile softly. It's clear from his voice just how much he loved her. "She must've been special."

His own smile appears, small but genuine. It's still wider than any you've seen from him so far. "She was."

You've seen enough death to know there's no right thing to say afterwards. Sometimes people want sympathy. Sometimes they want to talk. Sometimes they just want someone to acknowledge that it happened and then let them breathe. So you don't try to fix it. You just sit beside him.

After a moment, Dr. Abbot takes another bite of his croissant and changes the subject. "So, was it always in your plans to own a bookstore?"

You breathe out. "No, I actually stumbled on it a few years ago." 

You don't tell him about Lydia and Delia making life hell for the new owners, or how their refusal to move on had eventually led to the place being sold to you for barely a dime. Instead, you tell him, "I've always loved books. So, it just felt right to share that love with others."

He hums, smiling slightly. "That makes sense."

"What about you? Did you always want to be a doctor?"

"Couldn't afford college, so I joined the army. Lost my leg." He pats his right leg, but doesn't make more of it. So you don't either. "Then after that, I entered emergency medicine. And that was that."

You glance at him. "That was that?"

He shrugs. "Seemed like a reasonable way to spend the rest of my life."

You snort. "Most people would say they wanted to help people."

"Well, I try to keep the inspirational speeches to a minimum." 

You laugh. The conversation drifts again. It's strangely easy. You talk some more about the bookstore. He tells you about some of the residents who have passed through the ER, right until a yawn interrupts his words. 

You fight back a smile. "I'd better get going," you say, standing and brushing pastry flakes from your jeans. "The store's not going to open itself." Well... it might. But the last time Lydia and Delia tried, it hadn't ended particularly well.

Dr. Abbot's eyes flick briefly to the fading bruises on your forearms before meeting yours again.  He opens his mouth, hesitates, then simply says, "Take care of yourself."

You smile. "I usually do."

"Thanks again for the book recommendation."

"Anytime," you say, smiling at him. You give him a small wave before turning towards the path. 

The tension in Jack's shoulders eases the second he steps into Cordelia's and is met by the familiar smell of paper, ink and coffee. The bell chimes softly above him as he swipes his wet feet at the mat. 

"Oh no, poor you." You emerge from the back, taking in how the rain clings to his hair. 

He waves his hand. "It's not that bad. Just a light—" A loud boom of thunder interrupts him, followed by rain pelting hard against the windows, "—drizzle. Huh." He leans slightly to his left, trying to place more weight on his good leg, but even that one is hurting today. 

He can feel your gaze on him, so he turns back to you with a charming little smile in place, trying his best to avoid letting you know how bad it is. 

"Go sit." You nod towards the armchair, an air of resolution over you as you head for the coffee machine. Somehow, you see right through him every time. 

Jack doesn't have the energy to argue. He settles into the armchair, propping his leg on the ottoman that appeared after his second long visit. He's not sure when it became tradition for him to show up after shift. It just did.

You're not even open yet, so most mornings you sit with him. Sometimes you talk. Sometimes you don't. It's nice. You've become an unlikely friend, someone who he looks forward to seeing after shift. It certainly beats going home to an empty apartment. Somewhere along the way, Cordelia's had become part of his routine.

"Here." You reach over, bringing him his cup. He lets his hands warm against the porcelain before taking a long sip. 

"You've done it again," he breathes out. "You really are magic."

You shake your head. "I thought we agreed not to call me that."

"You agreed. I didn't." He shrugs. "You always find the best books and, somehow, make this coffee taste good. Magic."

"Uh-huh." You roll your eyes, heading back towards the counter with your own mug. Jack rests his head against the chair, letting the quiet rustle of the bookstore and the sound of rain wash away the beeps and shouting voices still ringing in his ears.

His eyes follow you as you lift a box up onto the counter. "What'd you got there?"

You grin widely. "One of our customers left us a few boxes of vintage books." You slice cleanly through the tape. "I mean, look at this." You pull out a gorgeous green-covered book, holding it carefully in both hands, your entire face lighting up.

Jack can't help the little smile that tugs at his lips. You're cute when you're excited. He looks away before you can catch him staring, spinning his ring around. He's not sure where that thought came from.

"It's beautiful," you say, running your thumb carefully along the spine. "Look at the binding."

The bell rings again as Ethan drags himself in through the door, shaking his umbrella and leaving it at the entrance. He waves to Jack before immediately slumping down behind the counter with a yawn.

"You look like a wet rat," you tell him.

"Oh, thank you." Jack hears the offended tone in Ethan's voice as he stands up, shaking his wet sleeve at you. 

"Hey!" 

Jack chuckles quietly to himself as the two of you begin bickering.

"What's all this?" Ethan asks, finally noticing the box. A low whistle escapes him. "This might be worth a pretty penny."

Jack watches the two of you fall into your familiar rhythm. You inspect every book before Ethan checks the condition. You argue over whether certain editions should be sold or kept. Ethan reads out the occasional title with a laugh. You keep nudging books toward him for him to look at.

Jack mostly stays quiet. He doesn't mind. That's one of the things he likes about the store. He doesn't have to perform here. He can sit with his coffee and listen to the two of you bicker about books while the morning slowly settles around him.

His gaze drifts back toward you. Your hands are scratched. Again. He notices immediately. Fresh little cuts cross your fingers and knuckles, some still pink around the edges.

At first, he worried someone was hurting you. Ethan had been the obvious possibility, if only because he was the person Jack saw you with most often. But a little careful observation—and a few questions asked in the casual way only a doctor can manage—put that suspicion to rest.

You trust Ethan. Completely. There is nothing between you that suggests otherwise.

So now he's left with another question. What's happening to you? He doesn't like the thought. You've always been a little accident-prone. He knows that much. There was the initial fall from the ladder. The bruises. The scrapes. And now this. He could ask. He should probably ask. But he doesn't. Not yet. You aren't his patient. You aren't even—

He doesn't finish the thought.

Instead, he takes another drink of coffee and watches you laugh at something Ethan says. You're both leaning over the same box, shoulders nearly touching. For some reason, he finds himself smiling again.

Then you pick up another book. It's blue, covered in tiny butterflies. "Oh, this is so pre—"

You stop. Completely. The change is so sudden that Jack sits up. Your fingers remain frozen against the open page. Your eyes stare somewhere beyond the book.

"Magic?" He says it lightly at first, his eyes roaming over your frozen figure. You don't respond.

Ethan notices at exactly the same moment, but unlike Jack, he doesn't move toward you. Ethan moves toward him, stepping directly into his line of sight, and blocking you from view. "You want another cup?"

Jack frowns. "I—" He leans sideways.

Ethan shifts with him. He tries the other way. Ethan follows.

"What are you doing?"

Ethan's face is neutral, but the tightening around his eyes reveals his true position. He doesn't want Jack to see you for some reason. "Offering you coffee."

Jack looks down at his still half-full cup, his frown deepening. He shifts forward, planting his good foot firmly on the floor. Ethan still doesn't move. Jack pushes himself upright, his prosthetic taking an extra second to cooperate. By the time he's standing, Ethan has finally stepped aside.

And it's like nothing happened. You're fine. You're flicking through another book with the same casualness as before. Jack stares. "Hey, you okay?"

A smile immediately settles over your face. "Yeah." It arrives too quickly, too smoothly.

He doesn't believe you. You know he doesn't. For a second, something passes between you. A silent acknowledgement that whatever just happened, you both know it did.

Ethan clears his throat. "So, coffee?"

Jack looks at him, then back at you. "I—no. I should head home."

You frown. "So soon?"

He pauses. 

Your expression changes the second you realise what you've said. "Sorry, go on. You're tired," you add quickly. "You should sleep."

He smiles faintly. "Yeah." He looks at you for another second. "See you tomorrow, Magic."

You roll your eyes, waving him off.

The bell jingles softly behind him. Outside, out of sight from the store windows, he pauses on the pavement. He barely takes notice of the rain, his mind busy running through everything he's seen. Bruises. Scratches. Lethargy. Disassociation. The way you froze just now. His thoughts begin sorting possibilities automatically.

Anemia. Thrombocytopenia. Something autoimmune.

He discards some almost immediately. Others linger. His stomach twists. He knows better than to diagnose someone from a handful of observations. He knows better than to let his mind run ahead of the evidence. But his brain doesn't care. It keeps circling back.

Cancer.

He closes his eyes for a moment. Not again.

You've only seen Jack once this week, a significant enough break in your routine that you find yourself thinking about him all the time. You catch yourself wondering whether he heads straight to bed instead of coming to the store, whether he's been working more shifts, whether he's okay.

You'd made Ethan leave him a note after you'd missed two mornings in a row. Somehow, the two of you have never exchanged numbers, so you don't even know he's seen it. Maybe he hasn't even come by, and you've been worrying for nothing. He's a busy man, after all. 

You hope he doesn't think you're avoiding him. The last time he came by, you could see the questions swimming in his eyes. Questions you had elegantly sidestepped, but the doubt was still in his posture when he left. 

You're just not sure what to tell him. Oh, that? That was just a vision. I get those sometimes—ghosts like to talk to me through them. What? Yeah, I talk to ghosts. It's no big deal.

He'd think you were crazy. 

And you're genuinely busy. The vision from the blue book has led you through one dead end after another, the child ghost attached to it proving considerably harder to cross over than usual. Every time you think you're getting close, something changes. A new location. A new clue. Another fragment of a memory that sends you in the wrong direction.

So the bookstore has been running mostly without you. Ethan has taken care of most of the day-to-day things, with you dropping in whenever you can. Long enough to check the register. Long enough to unpack a few boxes. Long enough to make sure Lydia and Delia haven't started another argument over which section needs reorganising. Then you're gone again.

You push through the bookstore door late in the afternoon, the bell giving its familiar little chime above your head.

Ethan looks up from behind the counter, his eyes trailing over you. "You look awful."

You drop your bag onto the counter. "Gee, thanks."

"You know what I mean." He closes the book in front of him and crosses his arms. "You look exhausted. Have you been sleeping?"

You shrug, already heading toward the boxes stacked in the back. "I'll sleep after."

"After what?"

You crouch beside one of the boxes and start digging through it. "After."

"There's no after with you." His brows pinch together. "You can't help anyone if you're not taking care of yourself."

You ignore him, pushing aside a stack of paperbacks. "You sound like my dad."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't."

"Still taking it."

You finally find what you're looking for. The blue book. You pull it free and hold it against your chest. You stand again and turn toward the door. "I'll see you later, okay? Close the store early if you want."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Your hand closes around the door handle. "I'm sorry for leaving it all to you. I'll make it up to you."

He waves you off. "You know, I don't mind... Jack's been asking for you."

So he has been by. Not directly after shift, because Ethan doesn't open that early. He's taken time out of his day to actually come by, disturbing the little sleep he gets. You stop, the bell above you giving a tiny jingle as the door shifts beneath your hand. "What did you say?"

"That you were busy." He leans back on the counter. "He's worried about you."

You swallow. "Well, tell him I'm fine."

Ethan's eyebrows lift. "That's it?"

"What else am I supposed to say?"

"Maybe ask why he's been asking about you."

You give him a flat look. A faint thump comes from somewhere behind the shelves. Ethan's eyes flick toward the sound, but you keep yours straight ahead. 

"Tell him I'm fine."

"You could tell him yourself, you know."

You pause. For one brief, stupid second, you're tempted. The temptation is sharper than it should be. You could stop by the store one morning, let this ghost wait a little longer, but the wide-eyed, fearful gaze of your ghost reminds you that this is a little more important.

Jack can wait. Besides, it's not like the two of you really are anything to each other. He knows what you like to eat at breakfast, the books you prefer to read, and how your mother died when you were young. You know how he likes his coffee, the way he walks when he's trying to hide how his leg is hurting, and the passing of his wife. He'd even told you how his mother passed just a few years later and how he hadn't coped well with it.

Normal things. Things friends know about each other. Nothing that meant anything. 

You push it down. "I'll see you later, okay?"

Ethan watches the door swing shut and sighs. Delia and Lydia join him from their hiding spot behind the shelves. 

It's yet another early morning when Jack heads toward Cordelia's. He's stopped telling himself he's only going for the coffee by now. At first, it had been an easy excuse. He liked the place, the coffee, the books, and the quiet.

And, admittedly, he liked seeing you. He liked the way you made the silence feel comfortable. He liked that you noticed when his leg hurt even when he tried to hide it. He liked that you never made a big deal out of it.

That last part had been easier to ignore when you were actually there.

Now it's been over a week since he last saw you. Still, every morning after a shift, he finds himself turning down the same street, parking in the same spot, and walking toward the same little bookstore with the faint hope that this will finally be the morning he catches you. His hope grows when he sees the lights are on, which normally doesn't happen this early unless you're in.

Ethan looks up when the bell rings. His smile is polite, almost apologetic. "Morning."

Jack steps farther inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. He tries not to let the disappointment show on his face. Ethan is fiddling with something in the middle of the store, adjusting one of the little displays.

Jack leans against the counter, watching him for a moment. He doesn't bother pretending he's here for a book. He stopped doing that after the first two times. "...You talk to her?"

Ethan glances over. "Yeah, she came in yesterday."

Jack's shoulders ease slightly. "And how was she?"

"Fine." The answer comes too quickly. Ethan turns back toward the display.

Jack watches him. "Fine?"

"Yeah."

Jack nods slowly. Something about it doesn't sit right. He's seen you. Not properly, but he's caught glimpses. Once through the hospital window when you'd been crossing the street. Another time when he'd been driving past the bookstore and spotted you leaving through the side entrance.

You'd looked different. Paler. Thinner. Tired. He'd wanted to ask if you were okay, but each time he'd tried to get your attention, you'd climbed into your car and driven away before he could reach you. He'd told himself you were busy. Then he'd told himself you were avoiding him. That thought had bothered him more than it should have. Then he'd wracked his mind for a reason but ultimately landed on none.

"Is she sick?"

"What?" Ethan's head turns sharply.

"Is she sick?" Jack repeats. The words sound worse spoken aloud. "I've been seeing her around. She doesn't look well."

Ethan's expression shifts.

Jack's stomach drops. "She is sick."

"...No."

Jack catches the hesitation immediately. "Then what?"

Ethan looks away.

Jack's pulse starts beating harder. "She's been exhausted. She's lost weight."

"She's busy."

"She looks pale."

"She's been busy."

"She keeps leaving before I can talk to her."

Ethan sighs. "Jack—"

Jack watches his face. He's a doctor. He knows what people look like when they're trying not to tell you something. He knows what hesitation means. His mind starts filling in the blanks before he can stop it. Bloodwork. Imaging. Specialists. Treatment. His stomach twists. He pushes away from the counter. "Please."

Ethan finally looks at him.

"I'm a doctor. I can help."

"You can't."

"Please."

Ethan's expression softens.

Jack swallows. "If it's money, I'll take care of it." The words come out before he can think better of them.

Ethan blinks. "Jack—"

"I mean it." His voice is quieter now. "I'll pay for whatever she needs. Tests. Treatment. Whatever."

He doesn't explain why. The memory is already there in his mind. A hospital room. A diagnosis he'd wanted to believe wasn't serious. A woman he loved telling him she was fine when she wasn't. All the little things he'd missed. The things he should have noticed. The things he should have done differently. He'd promised himself he'd never make that mistake again. Not with someone he cared about.

Ethan stares at him, then shakes his head. "...She's not sick."

"Then what?"

Ethan bites his lip. For a moment, Jack thinks he's going to tell him. Instead, Ethan looks down at the display. "That's not for me to say."

Jack's jaw tightens. "Ethan."

"I'm sorry."

"Please."

"I can't."

Jack stares at him. There is something desperate in his own voice now, but he doesn't really care. "You know something."

Ethan doesn't answer.

"You know what's wrong with her."

"I know she's dealing with something."

"Then tell me."

"I can't."

Jack exhales sharply. His hand curls against the edge of the counter. "She doesn't have to know I'm asking."

"Jack."

"She doesn't even have to know I can help."

Ethan shakes his head. "It's not my secret."

Jack looks away. For a moment, the anger drains out of him, leaving only exhaustion. Right. Of course. He can't demand this. You aren't his patient. You're not his responsibility. You're—

He doesn't know what you are to him. He grabs his keys from his pocket. "Okay."

"I'm sorry."

Jack nods once. "Yeah." He turns toward the door. 

"Jack?"

He pauses.

Ethan's voice is gentler now. "She's okay."

Jack looks back.

Ethan gives him a small, reassuring smile. "She'll be okay."

Jack searches his face. He wants to believe him. He wants to believe him more than anything. "Right." He steps outside, the door closing behind him.

He stands on the pavement for a moment, staring at the bookstore window. His chest feels tight. He should go home. Sleep. Forget about it until tomorrow.

He thinks about the first time you'd met. The stupid heart-covered pyjama pants. The cut on your forehead. The way you'd laughed at his terrible jokes. The coffee you'd started making exactly the way he liked it. The bench in the park. The croissant you'd split with him. The way you'd listened when he'd talked about Rachel without making him feel like he was saying too much. The fact that he'd noticed your absence almost immediately when you stopped coming around.

He'd told himself it was because he'd grown used to seeing you. That was all. Just routine. Except now he has to admit how much he misses you.

Jack exhales slowly. Because whatever you're dealing with, you're dealing with it alone. And for reasons he's not ready to examine, Jack really, really doesn't like that.

You feel like you're losing your mind. 

Your ghost won't leave you alone. She's there when you wake, when you eat, when you try to work. Barely a second passes without seeing her somewhere in the corner of your eye, hovering close enough that you can hear the quiet hitch of her breathing. When you try to sleep, she cries because she's scared. When you're at the bookstore, she cries because she's scared of Lydia and Delia. When you tell her to stay away from the shelves, she cries. When you tell her you'll help her, she cries harder.

For your own sake, you need to cross her over. Soon.

But it's not proving easy. She doesn't remember anything. Not where she lived. Not how she died. Not even where her mother is. You know exactly one thing about her. Her name is Poppy. That's it.

You've tracked down the customer who left the blue book behind, hoping there might be some clue in where they'd bought it or who had owned it before them. Nothing. You've searched. You've asked questions. You've followed every lead Poppy has given you. Every single one has ended nowhere. You're completely lost. 

One lead keeps bringing you back to the same place, though. An old house on the edge of town, where you've felt the presence of more spirits than you can count. Not the lost, confused ghosts you're used to. These are different. Angry. Territorial. The kind that makes the air feel heavy before you even cross the property line.

The first time you went near the house, something had whispered your name from inside before you'd even reached the door. You hadn't gone back alone since. You're not sure what Poppy's connection is to these spirits, but she always seems more frightened after you've been near the house. You haven't been able to figure out what they want from her.

So, trying to change your surroundings in the hopes that it might clear something up, you head to the park. You sit on your usual bench, which you haven't done in a long time, with a thermocup warming your hands. For once, there's no one around. No customers. No Ethan. No Lydia or Delia. No Jack. Just you.

And Poppy sitting cross-legged in the grass a few feet away.

"I miss my mommy," she whispers.

Your eyes close. "I know."

"She'll find me, right?"

You swallow. You don't know. "Try to see if you can remember something."

Poppy looks at you. "I'm trying." Her voice is louder this time.

"I know." You keep your voice gentle, trying to soothe her. "But—"

"You're just trying to get rid of me," she accuses.

"What?"

She stands. "You don't want me here."

"Poppy—"

"You don't want me!"

You lift a hand. "I want to help you."

"You want me gone. Just like they said." 

The words catch somewhere in your mind. They? But Poppy is crying again before you can ask.

"You need to cross over," you say, more firmly now. "This isn't where you're supposed to be."

Her face crumples. "You don't want me," she cries louder. "I want my mommy."

"I am trying to find your mommy."

"I want her!" Her voice rises.

You wince. "Poppy—"

"I want my mommy!"

The sound tears through you. You press your fingers against your temples. "Stop."

She freezes.

You breathe hard. "Just stop. I can't take it anymore."

Poppy's lower lip trembles. "You don't want me."

The anger drains out of you immediately. You rub a hand over your face. "Wait. Poppy, I didn't mean it like that."

She's already disappearing.

"Fuck." You stare at the empty patch of grass, your chest rising quickly. You don't notice the footsteps approaching until a familiar voice speaks beside you.

"Hey."

You look up. Jack. He's standing a few feet away, concern written plainly across his face. Of course. Of course he's here now.

You wipe quickly beneath your eyes. "It isn't what it looks like."

Jack's eyebrows lift. "No?" He gestures toward the empty grass. "Then what is it?"

You stare at him. Your heart starts pounding. You can't do this. Not with him. Not after everything. You remember Ethan's words. He's not like John. You swallow. "I—"

This is much harder than when you meet the family members or friends of ghosts. You can show them proof—hand them something that assures them you aren't crazy. You can't do that with Jack. He might have a ghost attached, but his mother hasn't tried to reach out to you in weeks. You haven't seen or spoken to her. You have nothing that will convince him.

Jack doesn't interrupt. He simply sits down beside you, leaving enough space between you that you don't feel trapped.

You fiddle with your fingers. He waits patiently. Maybe Ethan was right. Maybe Jack isn't like John. "This is gonna sound crazy."

"Okay."

You glance at him. His expression doesn't change, but he reaches over, placing his hand on top of yours.

With another deep breath, you finally say, "I can see ghosts." The words sound ridiculous the second they're out. You stare at your intertwined hands and wait for him to pull away. He doesn't.

When Jack doesn't say anything, you look over at him. He's watching you. His eyes are kind and curious. Not horrified or pitying like you suspected.

"I've always been able to," you continue quietly. "I help them cross over. Go into the light. Like my mom." You swallow. "Do you believe me?"

Jack nods. "I do."

The relief that moves through you is almost painful. You let out a breath you didn't realise you'd been holding. He doesn't ask for proof. Doesn't ask you to demonstrate. Doesn't ask whether you're sure. His thumb brushes over your palm, then he looks at you again.

"Would you be willing to come to the hospital with me?"

The relief stutters in your chest. "Why?"

The warmth in his voice remains, but concern slips into it. "You're thinner than when I met you. You show up with random bruises and scratches."

Your stomach sinks.

"You're tired. You freeze up sometimes, and just now you were talking to the air."

Your other hand curls around the thermocup, holding it tightly. You stare at him, tears welling up.

He squeezes your hand. "I want you to get checked out."

It's like it all processes at once, the air in your chest rushing out of you. "You think I'm crazy."

"No." He shakes his head immediately. "I think you're sick, sweetheart."

The words hit harder than they should. For a second, you're back somewhere else. Not the park. Not Pittsburgh. Years ago. John sitting across from you. A much different expression but that same certainty. You're imagining things. You're crazy. You're just like your mom.

And now Jack—

Jack, who you'd thought was different. Jack, who had listened. Jack, who had made you feel normal. Jack, who has a ghost attached to him and has seen strange things happening around him. Who acts like it isn't unusual—

He doesn't believe you. He thinks you're sick.

You shake your head. "I'm not."

"Honey—"

"I'm not." You stand so quickly your coffee nearly spills.

Jack rises with you.

"I'm not sick."

His brow furrows. "I'm worried about you."

"No." You shake your head. "You're worried because you think there's something wrong with me."

"There could be." His voice is gentle, which somehow makes it all worse.

"I don't understand. You should know better than anyone that I'm not crazy. You've experienced things you can't explain—I know it."

Jack goes still.

Your eyes burn. "I know what I'm seeing."

He takes a small step forward. "I believe that you believe you're seeing—"

You flinch and move backwards. "Don't."

Jack's face changes. He realises too late what the words sound like. "That's not what I meant."

"I'm not sick." A tear slips down your cheek. You wipe it away angrily.

Jack's expression twists. "Magic—"

"Don't call me that." You look at him through teary lashes. "I thought you were different."

His face falls.

For a moment, neither of you speaks, then you turn away. "I need to go."

"Please." His voice is suddenly unsteady.

You shake your head. "I can't do this. Don't come to the store again."

His expression breaks, and his lips form your name, but nothing comes out.  You turn around. You don't wait for him to say anything else. You walk away, and for once, you don't look back.

You hole up in your apartment after that day. Steer clear of anything that could lead to a ghost finding you. You don't go to the park anymore. Jack doesn't come to the store. Ethan checks in every day, but you keep your replies short and insist you're fine. He eventually decided to stop asking, but you feel his eyes following you in the store constantly.

Poppy also doesn't show herself again. Part of you is relieved, another part of you worries that you've made things worse. You don't have the energy to figure out which feeling is winning.

You're sprawled across the couch sometime after midnight when the crackling starts. The sound grows louder. Your hands fly to your ears. It doesn't help. The static crawls through your skull, sharp and distorted. Your vision blurs at the edges. You squeeze your eyes shut. The crackling rises. Louder. Louder. Then—

It quiets.

You slowly open your eyes. A woman is standing in front of you. She's watching you carefully. You stare back.

"Can you see me?"

You let your hands fall into your lap. "...Yes."

Her eyes widen as her face lights up. "Finally!"

That's not the usual reaction you get from ghosts.

She grins. "You have no idea how long I've been trying."

You blink as the pieces connect. "You're Jack's ghost, aren't you?"

Her smile wavers a bit. "Yes."

His mother looks younger than you expected, with kind eyes and an expression that's almost painfully patient. Frail. It's the lack of hair that surprises you most—her head is entirely bald.

"Is he okay?" The question comes out before you can stop it, even as your stomach twists.

Her smile returns, softer this time. "All things considered, yes."

You look away. "Good."

"He's worried about you." 

You stand immediately, turning toward the kitchen. "I mean no disrespect—I know, he's your son—but I don't really care."

A burst of laughter follows you. You turn around slowly.

The woman is laughing so hard she's doubled over. She wipes beneath one eye. "Oh, no, I'm not his mother."

You frown. "Then who are you?"

She straightens. "I'm his wife." Rachel.

The words move through you strangely, hollow and sharp at the same time. "Oh." You make it three steps. "Wait." You look over your shoulder. "It's been you this entire time?"

Rachel appears next to you in the kitchen. "Yes."

You exhale slowly. "You've been here for a long time, then."

She hears the question behind it. "I can't leave yet." Her expression softens. "Not until he lets his guilt go."

You turn to her fully. "Guilt?"

She sighs. "He blames himself for my death."

You lean against the kitchen counter. "Why?"

"By the time we found the cancer, it was too late. Jack thought he should have seen it as a doctor, but—" She looks down at her hands.

No one could have known. Sometimes life is cruel like that. You know that better than most. Sometimes people die. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. Sometimes the world simply decides that someone isn't getting another day.

You fill the kettle. "So you want me to help him?"

"Yes..." She hesitates.

You narrow your eyes at her. "What else?"

Rachel gives you an innocent smile. "Well... We thought maybe you could help each other."

You stop filling the kettle. "We?"

"Us ghosts."

You stare at her.

"We talk."

"You talk."

"Yes."

"About me?"

"Sometimes."

Your eyes close. "Wonderful."

"I followed Jack into the park one morning and met Lydia and Delia. They told me about you. We thought you might understand each other."

You stare at her, then the realisation hits you. Your mouth falls open. "What?"

Rachel's expression turns sheepish. "We thought..."

"You thought what?"

She doesn't answer.

"You guys thought you could set us up?"

She has the decency to look embarrassed. "I—well..."

"I can't believe this. This is insane."

"We didn't mean to hurt you."

"You're his wife! Why are you involved in this?"

"His dead wife!" she counters, voice rising slightly. "He deserves more than this. He deserves to be loved. I want that for him. I want him to be with someone who understands him—and you do. You get it. You know what death does to a person. You understand what it means to carry someone with you even after they're gone. And he'll understand you if you just let him. If you give him another chance—"

Your voice is hoarse as you cut her off. "Please, get out."

Rachel looks panicked. "Please, we didn't mean—"

"Get. Out." You tell her, pointing toward the door. "I won't ask again."

She looks at you for a long moment, then she nods. "I'm sorry."

She disappears without another sound. For several seconds, you don't move, not until the kettle pings. You blink back tears, cursing out Delia and Lydia in your mind.

Maybe they'll be able to hear you. You hope so.

Weeks later, the bookstore has been quiet. Not just quiet in the ordinary sense. Quiet in the supernatural sense. No books flying from shelves. No lights flickering. No crackling static in the middle of the day. No Lydia appearing beside you with unsolicited advice. No Delia whispering things you absolutely didn't ask to hear. After your last conversation with Rachel, you'd made your feelings very clear to everyone involved. Apparently, they'd listened. For once.

Ethan is behind the counter when you emerge from the back room. He looks up, then does a double-take. "You look pretty."

You glance down at yourself. You've traded your usual jeans and cardigan for a dress, slipped into a pair of heels, and touched up your makeup. You put in one earring. "Thanks."

Ethan continues staring. "Got a hot date or something?"

"Yeah."

He straightens, the teasing tone disappearing from his voice. "What?"

You laugh. "Yeah."

"Really?"

"Is it that unbelievable?"

"No," he hurries to say. "I just thought..."

You pause. "What?"

"Nothing."

"No, tell me."

He sighs. "I thought you were in love with Jack."

Your fingers still around the clasp of your earring. For half a second, you don't say anything, then you scoff. "I was never in love with Jack." 

Ethan raises an eyebrow.

"We were friends." You grab your purse from the counter. "And now we aren't." You check that you've got your phone, wallet, and keys. "End of story." 

There is also some stubborn part of you that wants to prove to Rachel, Lydia and Delia, and every other ghost who'd decided they knew better, wrong. You and Jack don't fit together. Whatever they thought they'd seen between you was wrong. 

"Right, sure." His tone is carefully neutral. "So, where are you going?"

"Uh… that restaurant that serves that pasta dish you like—Angelo's!"

"Damn, I'm jealous." He shakes his head. "Where you'd meet this guy?"

"Hinge."

Ethan makes a face as he fiddles with a piece of paper. "I thought you were over dating."

"Boyfriends," you correct.

"There's a difference?"

"Obviously." You check yourself in the reflection of the darkened window. "A boyfriend gets to know everything."

"Everything?"

You shrug. "About me."

Ethan watches you.

You adjust one of your earrings. "A date doesn't. We can just have fun and let it be that."

"If you say so," he replies.

"You're the one always telling me to get laid."

"I didn't mean this."

You give him a warning look.

He raises both hands. "Fine. Have fun. I'm a phone call away if anything happens."

You send him a small smile and sling your purse over your shoulder. "Got it. You have my location. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, tomorrow."

Your dating attempts all go down the drain. Every single one. Even if it starts promisingly enough.

The first guy is named Daniel. He's handsome in an unassuming sort of way, with dark curls, a charming smile, and the kind of manners that make you able to imagine going home with him. He holds the restaurant door open for you. He compliments your dress without making it sound like he's expecting anything in return. He even listens when you talk.

You make it through appetisers without incident, then the wine glass beside his hand tips over. It spreads over his shirt, soaking into the fabric. You don't suspect that it was anything but clumsiness until the dessert, and his plate shoots sideways, landing straight in the lap of the woman sitting at the next table.

You don't see anyone, but you know exactly who did it.

You haven't forgotten what happened by the second date, but after forty spectacle-free minutes, you've relaxed. It's pleasant. There's no sparks flying, but you don't need that. You don't want that, actually. The pleasantness comes to an end when his salad bowl jerks sideways, launching dressing straight into his eyes. And that was that.

The third, fourth and fifth go exactly the same. One man receives a drink he didn't order and has it thrown directly into his face. Another finds his phone repeatedly dialling the same number despite the fact that he hasn't touched it. One poor bloke gets locked in the restaurant bathroom for twenty minutes while you stand outside listening to him insist that the door "just won't fucking open."

No one shows themselves, but you feel their presence, that tell-tale feeling of ghosts being near. Delia's perfume drifts past your nose one time. Lydia's laugh echoes another time. You even hear Rachel's voice in between other ones that you don't recognise. It seems like your matchmaking ghosts have made all their friends part of their schemes. You can't even blame your dates for leaving. You'd leave too. 

And the worst part is that, even before the ghosts got involved, none of them had felt right. Daniel was charming. The second was funny. The third had made you laugh so hard you'd snorted wine through your nose. They were all perfectly nice. Perfectly suitable.

None of them is Jack.

You hate that your mind keeps making the comparison. Jack's dry humour. His crooked smiles. The easy silences between you. The way he's never made you feel like you had to perform or explain yourself. With everyone else, you find yourself waiting for something to click. Some spark. Some feeling that tells you this is worth pursuing. It never comes. 

By the time you finally stomp into Cordelia's, you're furious. You slam your purse onto the counter. "Show yourselves." You fold your arms. "I'm not in the mood for this." You glare toward the shelves. "I know you're here."

Slowly, three figures appear across the room. Rachel at least looks apologetic. Lydia doesn't. Delia looks like she's trying very hard not to smile.

You stare at all three of them. "You need to stop."

Lydia opens her mouth. "But dear—"

"No." You hold up a hand. "Nothing else. This stops now."

She looks offended. "We're only trying to—"

"I don't care." Your voice cracks through the room. "You've ruined every date I've been on."

Delia winces as Lydia folds her arms. "They weren't right for you."

"You don't know that!"

"They were boring."

"That doesn't mean you get to throw food at them!"

"We didn't throw food at them," she argues.

You stare at her.

"We threw the plates." Lydia gives you a tiny shrug. "Technicality."

You breathe deeply, eyes flaring. "Are you serious?"

Delia loops Lydia's arm in between hers, holding her back.

"If you do this again, I'm selling this place."

All three look at you. Delia hesitates. "Dear—"

"I mean it."

Rachel takes a hesitant step forward. "We only wanted you to be happy."

"You don't get to choose for me." You look between them. "Are we clear?"

Rachel nods first. Slowly, reluctantly, the other two follow.

"Good." You grab your purse.

You're over dating. Completely. It's not worth it anymore. Unfortunately, that leaves you with a lot of extra time to think. To think about Jack's face when you told him to stay away.

So, you start seeking ghosts out deliberately. Cemeteries. Old houses. Anywhere you hear rumours of someone who hasn't crossed over. It's easier when you're busy. If you're talking to a ghost, you don't have to think about Jack. You don't have to wonder whether he's angry with you. Whether he hates you. Whether he still thinks you're sick. It also means you're spending more time around hospitals than you used to, but you've been careful around PTMC. You tell yourself that's enough distance. 

Until the ghost in the park finds you. He's flickering badly, his form disappearing every few seconds before snapping back into place. He begs you to tell his family he's fine—that they don't have to worry about him. You promise you will.

You reason with yourself that there's no reason that you'd meet Jack. It's daytime. Jack works nights. Even if he's here, he's an attending in the E.R. You're not heading there. Ergo, you're not going to see him.

You really should have known better.

The elevator doors open, and as you step in, you find Jack already inside. His expression changes the second he sees you. Surprise first, then something softer, something that looks painfully close to relief.

"Hi."

Your breath catches at the sight of him. He looks tired. More tired than you remember. You manage a small nod. "Hi." 

You stand beside him, folding your arms and fixing your eyes on the numbers above the door. He glances at you. You can feel it without looking. He doesn't say anything. Neither do you.

The ghost stands in the corner beside you, watching the two of you with open curiosity. "Is that Jack?"

Your head nearly snaps to the side. How does this random ghost know Jack? Does the entire ghost community gossip about you? You stare straight ahead. 

The ride takes thirty seconds. Thirty seconds of Jack standing close enough that you can feel his warmth beside you. Thirty seconds of remembering what it felt like when that same closeness had once been comforting. The doors open. You step out immediately.

Jack's brows rise when he registers the floor. Oncology. His expression changes.

"Wait—" 

You keep walking. You don't turn around.

That was just the first awkward meeting. The next time, you're sitting in the waiting room for bloodwork with your phone in your hand, pretending to scroll while a ghost whispers in your ear.

You're tired. You're always tired lately. You haven't slept properly in days, and your body feels like it's made of something heavier than bone. You rub at your temple, trying to ease the dull ache behind your eyes as you listen. A familiar pull makes you look up, and your eyes meet with Jack's.

He's standing across the waiting room. His eyes travel over you. Your face. Your hands. The dark circles beneath your eyes. His expression tightens, concern flashing across his face. As he takes a step toward you, you finally regain control of your limbs. You stand immediately and leave before he can get any closer.

Somehow, he's everywhere you go. 

Hallways he has no business being in. Elevator rides that you were certain would be clear. Waiting rooms you thought would be empty. Once, you even catch sight of him through a glass door just as you're leaving. 

And every time, his expression gets worse. More worried. More confused. He tries to talk to you more than once, but you don't want to listen.

The more you see him, the harder it becomes to keep your walls up. Every time he looks at you like that, some small part of you wants to stop running. Wants to tell him everything. Wants to let him explain. Wants to believe that maybe you were wrong. Maybe he really would understand if you gave him the chance.

And that's exactly why you start avoiding the hospital again. Because if you keep seeing Jack, eventually you're going to stop running. And you're not sure if you can survive another rejection. 

It's another lonely afternoon again. You're sprawled across the couch in an old sweatshirt, a carton of takeout balanced precariously against your stomach. Some terrible rerun plays on the television, the kind you've seen often enough that you don't really have to pay attention. You take another bite. For once, you're not thinking about ghosts. Or Jack. You're just tired. 

The lights flicker.

You sigh. The television crackles. You slowly lower your fork as the lights flicker again. A cold gust sweeps through the room, lifting the edge of the blanket pooled around your legs.

The air shifts, and Poppy appears in front of the television. Her eyes are wide. "Help me!"

"Poppy?" You stand, moving toward her. You haven't seen her in weeks. Her hair is tangled around her face, her little body flickering so badly that pieces of her seem to disappear before snapping back into place.

She takes a step toward you. "Please."

"What's going on?"

"They're gonna get me." Her voice breaks.

"Who's going to get you?"

Poppy looks toward the front door, seeing something you can't. Pure terror crosses her face. "Hurry. They're so angry."

"Poppy, wait."  

For a second, she's gone. Then she appears beside the front door. 

"Who is going to get you?"

She doesn't answer. She just looks back at you. "Please." She disappears through the door.

You stare after her. "Goddammit." You grab your jacket from the back of the chair, shove your feet into the nearest pair of shoes, and snatch your keys from the counter. You barely remember to lock the door behind you.

You hurry down the steps, shivering slightly in the cold autumn weather. Your jacket is too thin, but you don't care; you just need to find her.

You don't know what has changed, but it's enough that she was terrified enough to return to you.

Jack can't shake the feeling that something is wrong.

It starts small. A nagging sensation in his gut that he can't quite explain. He's spent weeks trying to convince himself that you're fine. Ethan said you were fine. You told him you were fine. He should leave it alone. Instead, by the time he's getting ready for work, the feeling has grown too large to ignore. So he calls Robby and asks him to cover his shift.

He doesn't even know what he's going to do when he gets to the bookstore. He just knows he needs to see you. There's something restless in the back of his mind. Not a thought exactly. More like a pressure, an insistence he can't quite place. It eases as he nears the store. 

When he pulls up outside, Ethan is locking the door with frantic, fumbling motions, panic written across his face.

"Hey," Jack calls as he steps out of the car.

"I don't have time to talk right now." Ethan hurries past him to his car.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing I can explain right now."

"Ethan."

Ethan keeps moving. "I'm serious. I don't have time for this right now."

"Why? What's going on?"

Ethan slams the car door, but Jack opens the passenger door before he can pull away. "Ethan."

Ethan sighs, clearly conflicted. "Just—get in or close the door."

Jack hesitates.

Ethan turns toward him, anger flashing on his face. "Get in the car or stay here. I don't care. I need to go."

A gust of wind rushes past Jack, and he stumbles into the car, more pushed than moving under his own power. For a second, he could swear someone shoved him. 

Ethan hits the accelerator so hard that Jack is thrown back against the seat. "Jesus, Ethan."

"Put your seatbelt on."

Jack buckles himself in. "You could've mentioned that before you launched me."

Ethan doesn't respond. 

"What happened?"

Ethan glances at him out of the corner of his eye before returning to the road. "I don't know."

"Ethan."

His hands tighten on the wheel. "I'm not sure you want to know."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ethan swallows. "I got a message from Lydia and Delia."

Jack frowns. "Lydia and Delia?" He's heard the name before in the store when you and Ethan have been whispering back and forth, but he's never put a face to them.

"The ghosts in the store."

Jack stares at him.

Ethan keeps his eyes on the road. "They said she's gone somewhere she shouldn't be. They're scared."

"How did they tell you?" Jack forces himself not to dismiss Ethan outright, even as his mind starts searching for a rational explanation.

"They wrote me a message." Ethan sighs. "I told you she wasn't sick."

Jack breathes out. "Ethan."

"No." Ethan cuts him off. "I told you. She told you. I thought you were different." His jaw tightens. "I was wrong, apparently."

Jack's brow furrows.

"She's not sick. I need you to trust me—or her, or whatever you have to trust—when I tell you she was telling the truth."

"I—" Jack starts carefully.

"No." Ethan's grip tightens on the wheel. "I need you to have an open mind, or you need to get out of this car. She's in trouble, and I can't help her if I have to worry about you."

"...Okay." Jack is silent for a moment. His worry for you wins. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere bad."

The sun has set by the time Ethan and Jack pull up to the house. The place looks abandoned from the outside. No lights. No cars. Nothing to suggest anyone is inside. Then a light flickers behind one of the windows.

Ethan's hand is already reaching for the door.

Jack gets out after him. "Ethan, wait—"

But Ethan is already heading for the front door. Jack follows, every instinct he'd learned in the army and SWAT kicking in as he crosses the threshold. He scans the room automatically, checking corners, doorways, anything that could be a threat. Then he sees you, and everything else disappears.

You're standing in the middle of the room with candles surrounding you. Dozens of them. They're arranged in a perfect circle, their flames flickering wildly despite the fact that there isn't a breeze. Your head hangs forward. Your arms are loose at your sides. You don't move.

He breathes your name out quietly.

Ethan takes a step toward you, calling out for you in a louder voice. You don't react.

Jack's pulse hammers against his throat. "What's wrong with her?"

Ethan doesn't answer. He looks just as horrified. Then the air changes, a sudden rush of cold tears through the room. Every candle flame bends toward you. Your body jerks harshly.

Jack takes a step forward, calling out for you again. 

Another shudder runs through you. Your head snaps back. Your feet leave the floor. Jack freezes. For one impossible second, he simply stares.

You're floating.

Not stumbling. Not being lifted by anything he can see. Just—floating. Your hair shifts around your face as though you're underwater. Your eyes open, two black pools staring back at him. 

Jack's heart stops. "What the fuck—"

Ethan lunges forward. Jack follows before he can think. He steps straight through the circle. The instant his foot crosses the line, something slams into him. He staggers. It feels like walking into a wall. "What—"

He pushes forward anyway. The pressure bears down against his chest, trying to force him backwards. He grits his teeth, taking another step. His entire body strains against whatever is holding him there. Finally, he reaches you. His hands close around your waist. You're cold. Far too cold. "I got you."

He pulls. For a moment, nothing happens, then the resistance changes. The pressure eases. Jack feels something tugging at you from the opposite direction, but it's no longer trying to keep you there. It's almost as though something else is helping him. "Come on."

He pulls again, and your body suddenly tears free. Jack stumbles backwards, dragging you with him. The candles go out. All at once. He doesn't stop to wonder; he keeps moving and gets you through the doorway and onto the grass.

He drops to his knees, keeping one hand beneath your head so it doesn't hit the ground. He calls your name, fingers pressing against your pulse point. It's weak.

"Call 911," he orders Ethan, without looking away from you. Ethan is already reaching for his phone, but Jack barely hears him. His entire world has narrowed down to you.

"Come on." Jack brushes your hair away from your face, his hands shaking. He checks your eyes for any reaction, but there's still nothing behind your eyelids but that unnatural darkness. He's never seen anything like it before.

"Don't do this. Come back." He bows his head over you. He thinks about the last time he'd seen you. The way you'd looked at him. The hurt in your eyes. He'd been so sure. So fucking sure. His eyes burn.

"I'm sorry." His voice cracks. "I should've believed you. I should've believed you." A tear drops onto your cheek, followed closely by another. "I knew something was wrong. I knew it." His hand cups the side of your face. "And I still—" He can't finish, his chest heaving. "I'm sorry." He repeats it again, and again. Until the words barely sound like words anymore.

Ethan kneels beside him. "Come on," he murmurs, taking your hand. "Stay with us."

Neither man notices the figures gathering around them. A woman with kind and patient eyes. Two ghosts who have spent years watching over you. A little girl who had been frightened into trusting the wrong people. Ghosts from the hospital. Ghosts you have helped, even if they didn't want to cross over.

They gather in silence. One by one, their hands link, until they form a circle around you. Together, they turn toward you. The darkness inside you pulsates, but the ghosts hold their ground. The air grows colder as the darkness recoils. It fights. The candles inside the house flare back to life one by one.

You arch violently in Jack's arms, and your mouth opens. A strangled gasp tears from your throat as black smoke pours from your mouth. Thick and unnatural, it twists through the air before disappearing into the darkness of the house.

Your body goes limp again.

Jack catches you against his chest. For one terrifying second, there is nothing. You're completely still. Then your chest rises with a shaky, shallow breath.

Jack presses his forehead against yours. "That's it. Come on, baby." His voice is barely audible.

Your eyelids flutter, opening slowly. They're normal again. Your gaze struggles to focus, then finds him. "Jack?"

He nods. "Yeah. I'm here."

Your mouth parts again, but before you can say anything else, your eyes roll back, and your body slackens again.

Jack immediately checks your pulse. He pulls you carefully against his chest when he's certain it's there. "I've got you." He holds you tighter. "I've got you," he whispers again.

Ethan can't remember much of the past day.

The ambulance ride is a blur of flashing lights and clipped voices. The E.R. is worse. People moving around him, asking questions he can't seem to process. Someone taking you away from him. Jack refusing to move until someone physically makes him. Then the ICU. Monitors. Machines. A bed that makes you look impossibly small. It all blends together into one long stretch of panic and fear.

There had been a moment in the ambulance when Ethan was certain they were too late. You'd been so still. So pale. He'd watched the paramedic work on you and thought, you're going to die.

He'd thought he'd failed you. That he'd found you too late. That the last thing you'd ever hear would be him telling you to hold on. He'd never been that scared in his life.

Now he's sitting in the ICU waiting room with a cup of coffee he hasn't touched, staring at the wall. You're still unconscious, but you're alive. That's all that matters. Ethan looks toward your room. Jack is there. Of course he is. The man hasn't left your side once. Not when the doctors explained what they knew. Not when they explained what they didn't know. Not when Ethan finally went downstairs to get something to eat and came back to find Jack sitting exactly where he'd been before.

He's barely spoken. Ethan can see how he's trying to wrap his mind around it—trying to find a medical explanation for what happened. Ethan knows there isn't one. He doesn't know what happened inside that house. He doesn't know what took hold of you. He doesn't know what drove it out of you, but he knows you were dying. And he knows Jack brought you back. Or at least helped.

Ethan and Jack haven't talked about the ghosts. Not really. There hasn't been time. But Ethan isn't angry with him anymore. He'd seen Jack's face when he found you. He'd watched him walk straight into something impossible without hesitation because you were on the other side.

Whatever Jack had believed before, Ethan knows he believes you now. That's enough for him.

Ethan stands and looks into the room. Jack is sitting beside your bed, one hand resting over yours. His head is bowed. He looks exhausted, dried tear tracks still visible on his face.

Ethan knows that look. Maybe Jack doesn't. But Ethan does. Because he's watched the two of you for months. The way Jack always showed up at the bookstore. The way his face changed whenever you walked into a room. The way he'd ask Ethan how you were doing and pretend he was only making conversation. The way he'd worry. The way he'd look at you when he thought no one was watching.

Ethan glances through the glass again, watching as Jack lifts your hand to his mouth and presses a kiss against your knuckles.

The room is quiet when you wake. Not silent; there are always noises in a hospital—the steady beep of the monitor beside you, the faint hiss of oxygen, footsteps passing somewhere beyond the door—but quiet enough that you can hear Jack breathing.

He's asleep in the chair beside your bed, his hand wrapped around yours, even in sleep. You stare at him for a moment, taking in the exhaustion etched across his face. He looks terrible. His hair is a mess, his shirt is wrinkled, and there's a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.

You squeeze his fingers weakly. He doesn't wake.

Your eyes drift shut again. The lights flicker, sending different shapes across the back of your eyelids. When you open your eyes, Poppy stands at the foot of your bed.

She's crying. Not the frightened, angry crying you've grown accustomed to, but a silent, guilty outpour. Her shoulders shake as tears stream down her face. "I'm sorry."

Your heart aches. "Poppy."

She takes a hesitant step toward you. "I'm really sorry," she repeats. "I didn't mean to."

"I know."

"They said if I brought you there, they'd help me find my mom."

You swallow. "They were lying to you."

She nods, tears dripping from her chin. "I'm sorry"

"It's okay."

"Are you mad?"

You shake your head. "No."

"But I hurt you."

"You didn't mean to, sweetie." You reach a hand toward her, even though you know you can't actually touch her. "You were scared. They used that."

"I'm really sorry."

"I know."

Her crying finally quiets, and you give her a tired smile. 

She takes another step closer. "I found my mommy."

Your breath catches. "You did?"

Poppy nods. "The others helped me." A smile slowly appears through her tears. "She's waiting right there." Poppy points toward the corner. "Can you see her?" 

You smile back, only able to see the light warming Poppy's face. "I can't."

"Oh. Maybe you will later?" Poppy looks toward the corner of the room, then back at you. "Can I go now?"

You nod, blinking back tears.

She smiles. And for the first time since you've known her, she doesn't look frightened. She turns toward the light and steps through. 

You breathe deeply, fingers tightening around Jack's. You take a moment before turning your head toward him. "You can stop pretending to be asleep now." 

Jack's eyes open slowly. 

"Hi," you murmur.

"Hi."

"I'm guessing you heard that?"

He nods.

You bite your lip. "Still think I'm sick?"

His face falls slightly. "I'm sorry. I should've—"

"It's okay," you interrupt. "I know it's a lot."

"It isn't," he hurries to say. "I just... I saw you getting thinner. I saw the bruises. You were exhausted all the time, and then I found you talking to someone who wasn't there."

He swallows hard. "And all I could think about was Rachel. I watched her get sick, watched her get weaker and weaker, and kept thinking I should have noticed sooner. I'm a doctor. I should have known something was wrong. So when I saw you doing the same things…" He blinks wetly. "I thought I was watching it happen again. I thought I was losing you."

"I was scared," he says. "But that's not an excuse. I hurt you. I made you feel like I was just another person who thought you were crazy." His voice breaks slightly. "I'm sorry."

You have faint memories of what happened that night. Jack coming to get you. His voice breaking as he apologised. Tears on his face. But memories aren't enough. You need to hear it from him. "Do you believe me now?"

"Yes." There's no hesitation in his voice. "Completely."

You study his face for a long moment, searching for the doubt you'd spent your whole life learning to recognise. You don't find it.

Jack shifts closer, careful not to disturb any of the wires attached to you. "I don't expect you to forgive me yet." His fingers tighten around yours. "I just want the chance to earn your trust back."

You stare at him for a long moment. "I missed you." The confession slips out before you can stop it.

Jack's face softens. "I missed you, too."

You look down at your joined hands. You aren't ready to say everything is okay. Maybe you won't be for a while. But you don't pull your hand away.

Three days later, after you've been discharged, Jack joins you in the store. You sit on the edge of the armchair opposite him, your hands wrapped tightly around a mug you haven't touched.

For several minutes, neither of you speaks.

You'd thought about this conversation constantly since waking up. You'd imagined telling him everything in a dozen different ways. Some versions were angry, some were tearful, some were calm enough to make you wonder if they were even real. None of them prepared you for actually sitting across from him.

"I don't know where to start."

He shifts in his seat. "You don't have to start anywhere in particular."

You look at him. He's not rushing you, not filling the silence, just waiting. There's a familiar shift in the air as space refits itself around two new forms. Lydia and Delia stand near the shelves, their expressions softer than you've ever seen before. There's an apology in their faces. No excuses, no teasing, no insistence that they know what's best for you.

Just sorry.

You let out a slow breath, then you nod. Delia's eyes fill with tears; Lydia gives you the smallest smile. You watch them disappear again, then turn back to Jack. Somehow, it feels a little easier to speak after that.

So you tell him everything. About your mother and the visions. About your father deciding that what she called a gift was an illness. About the hospital, and how young you were when you learned that some truths were safer kept to yourself. You tell him about the ghosts you've helped, about Lydia and Delia, about Ethan. And eventually, you tell him about John.

That part is harder.

Your voice gets quieter as you explain how you'd trusted him enough to tell him the truth and how he'd used it against you. How he'd looked at you like you were broken. How, for a while afterwards, you started wondering if he was right.

Jack doesn't interrupt. Not once.

When you finally run out of words, the store is so quiet you can hear the faint hum of the coffee machine behind you. "That's everything," you whisper.

Jack looks at you for a long moment. "Thank you for telling me."

Your throat tightens. "I was scared you wouldn't believe me."

"I know."

You swallow. "I don't want to hide it anymore."

His expression softens. "You shouldn't have had to in the first place."

Your eyes burn, and you look away before he can see.

Lastly, you tell him about Rachel. His face settles into a quiet understanding as every strange thing that has happened to him finally falls into place. 

The air beside the window changes. You know the feeling before you even turn. Rachel is standing there. She smiles at you.

You glance at Jack. "She's here."

His expression changes immediately. "Rachel?"

You nod.

He sits straighter. "Can she—"

"She can hear you."

Rachel moves closer. For a moment, she simply looks at him. There's so much love in her expression. 

"What does she say?"

You look at her, then back at Jack. "She says you've spent enough time blaming yourself."

His jaw tightens.

You translate as Rachel speaks. "She says none of it was your fault."

Jack looks down. "Tell her..." He stops. "I should have known."

Rachel shakes her head.

"You couldn't have known. You did everything you could."

A tear rolls down Jack's cheek.

Rachel steps closer. "You loved her." You repeat the words softly. "And that was enough."

Jack closes his eyes. His shoulders shake quietly. 

You keep your voice gentle. "She doesn't want you to spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for surviving her."

You look at Rachel. She smiles sadly at him before looking at you.

"You're good for him," she says.

You sigh.

"I'm not telling you what to do. I'm telling you what I see. And life's too short for this. Be brave."

You bite your lip. "Rachel."

"Let yourself have something good."

Jack looks at you, his eyes wide. "What'd she say?"

You keep this to yourself, breathing out before repeating her next words.

"To tell you that she knows and that it's okay." You don't know exactly what Rachel means, but whatever she said reaches something in him that nothing else has. "She wants you to keep living."

His face crumbles. "Rachel."

She moves closer to him, sitting on the corner of the armchair. "It's okay, Jack." Her hand brushes against his cheek gently. 

Jack's eyes close, his head tilting toward a touch he can't really feel. A long breath leaves him, and for the first time, something in his face seems to loosen. Years of grief don't disappear in an instant, but the fight against it does. "Okay."

Rachel's smile widens, then the light begins to gather around her.

Jack sees the change in your expression. "She's leaving?"

You nod. "She's ready."

He looks toward her. "I'll be okay."

You squeeze his hand. "She knows."

The light grows brighter. Rachel takes one final look at Jack, then at you. She mouths two words, thank you, and disappears.

Jack stares at the empty space for a long moment, then he turns toward you. He looks down at your joined hands. For years, he's carried the weight of losing Rachel like a punishment. Now, for the first time, he lets himself put it down.

He lifts your hand to his lips and presses a kiss against your knuckles. "Thank you."

You squeeze his hand.

After that, things are slow.

Jack starts coming back to Cordelia's. At first, he asks if you're sure he can stay. You tell him he can. Then he starts bringing coffee, and you start saving him the chair he likes. Some mornings you talk. Some mornings you don't.

You don't call it anything. You don't need to. Little by little, the distance between you disappears.

Weeks later, the bookstore is thriving. Not just surviving but thriving. The shelves are stocked, the front window is decorated for Halloween, and there's a steady stream of customers throughout the day. The little bell above the door seems to ring constantly now.

Ethan is unbearably smug about it. Not just because of the bookstore and his coffee corner idea, but mostly because Jack is once again the store's most frequent customer. 

"Morning," Ethan calls from behind the counter as he spots him.

You look up from the books you're sorting through. Jack stands in the doorway, two coffees in one hand and a paper bag in the other. By now, the sight barely surprises you. 

"Morning." His eyes find you immediately.

You smile. "You know, I'm gonna get spoiled enough to expect this every morning."

Jack grins. "Wouldn't hurt anyone."

Ethan makes a noise of disgust. You ignore it and grab your coat. From somewhere behind you, Lydia makes an exaggeratedly pleased noise. You shush her.

Jack pauses, then glances toward the empty space beside the shelves. "Someone disapprove?"

Delia appears between the shelves, giving you an enormously delighted smile.

You roll your eyes. "The opposite, actually."

Jack lets out a pleased hum, grinning as he opens the door for you. The morning air is cool, carrying the smell of rain from somewhere nearby. You walk beside him toward the park and finally reach the bench. Jack sits first, stretching his leg out slightly as he settles. You sit beside him, your thigh pressing against his. He hands you the bag, and you break the croissant in half and hand him a piece. Silence falls as you watch the people passing through the park. Your shoulder brushes Jack's lightly as you eat.

His hand rests on the bench between you, right next to yours. Your fingers touch. You glance down. Jack does, too. His pinky hooks around yours gently. A second later, his hand shifts, palm turning upward, and you slide yours into it. Neither of you comments on it.

You lean your head against his shoulder after a moment. His cheek rests lightly against your hair. For once, nothing is demanding your attention. No ghost asking for help. No mystery to solve. No fear. Just Jack. His thumb moves slowly over the back of your hand. 

You turn your head when his cheek lifts. He's already looking at you. "What?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing." His eyes flick down to your mouth, then back to your eyes. He hesitates. "Can I kiss you?"

You smile. "You don't have to ask."

Jack huffs, his expression softening. He leans in slowly, giving you every opportunity to change your mind.

You don't.

His lips meet yours in a gentle kiss. His hand lifts to your cheek as your eyes close. When you pull back, neither of you goes very far. He kisses the corner of your mouth, then your cheek. Then, after a moment, your lips again. 

For once, you don't wonder whether this is a mistake. You don't wonder what the ghosts think. You don't wonder what comes next. 

You trust him.

thanks for reading!! <333

[spidey-official]

boot n cats n boots n cats n boots

[slasher-bunny-fics]

Andrew Cody and a partner that loves biting him

The first time it happened, Pope didn't really know what to do.

You'd been sitting there beside him on the couch in his apartment, watching the NatGeo documentary with him one minute, and then the next, your teeth were latched onto his shoulder, gentle cobbing movements clenching and unclenching your jaws around his skin like a cat.

Pope stared at you like you had three heads. You didn't seem to notice.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Pope's voice was devoid of inflection as it usually was, but you knew him well enough to tell that he wasn't mad. His brow was furrowed, head tilted and eyes wide and sparkly in that confused puppy dog way he had about him that he always vehemently denied.

"Biting you," you supplied unhelpfully, voice muffled around the skin of his shoulder.

Pope stared. "It's more of a gnawing motion," he said. You hummed affirmatively, attention going back to the documentary.

Pope's eyes returned to the screen, but he wasn't paying attention anymore. He'd had few hookups that didn't involve the exchange of cash and even fewer long-term relationships, none of which had involved the age gap that the two of you had. To say he lacked the experience to understand this behavior was an understatement.

Was this just a thing people did? Was this your way of taking out some secret aggression or resentment toward him? Your body language seemed normal otherwise.

"Is it normal for your partner to bite you?"

Craig looked at Pope the same way he'd looked at you when you first bit him. "What?"

Renn, however, looked endeared, her eyes softened in a way they never had when Pope was anywhere in the vicinity. "More than you'd think, actually. They have to be really comfortable around you to do that shit, though. Didn't know you had that kind of game, Pope."

Craig levelled an unimpressed look at her, glancing back and forth between Renn and Pope like he was trying to figure out if he was being pranked. "How come no girl's ever taken a bite out of me then?"

Renn rolled her eyes. "Cause you've rarely talked to the same girl twice, and you go days without showering."

"Hey!"

Pope tuned out the rest of their bickering, mind stuck on Renn's words. He knew, logically, that you felt comfortable with him. You ate with him, slept near him, and didn't mind having your back turned to him when you did things, all signs that you trusted him not to do anything to you when your guard was down. Of course, there were the more intimate things as well, kissing him, coming to him when you've had a bad day, eating food that he prepared for you, giving him the key to your place, letting him take care of you when you were sick and vice versa.

But it made the tips of his ears warm to think that you'd reached some new level of comfort and intimacy that even one of his brothers hadn't heard of before.

The next time you and Pope hung out was at your house. It was craft night, something that Pope would never dare breathe a word about to anyone but you, not because he was embarrassed but because it was sacred. If he told one of his brothers about craft night and they said anything short of reverent on the subject, he would simply be forced to start breaking bones.

Pope was halfway through a massive Lego set that he kept safe at your apartment, and you were crocheting a pair of couple's scarves. It was the end of the night when you both were in bed and doing your post-craft debrief.

You were talking about a particular stitch that was giving you trouble when you suddenly felt a foreign sensation on your arm. You looked down absent-mindedly, words stuttering to a halt as you did a double take.

Your boyfriend was biting your arm.

It was quite possibly the gentlest bite in history, his teeth barely grazing you. You stared at him with wide eyes, but he honestly didn't seem to be paying you any attention. He kept moving his head this way and that, chomping down at various velocities like he was testing things. "Um, Andy…Are you biting me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because we're comfortable with each other," he mumbled distractedly. He was getting more into it, grinding his teeth soothingly against the skin of your shoulder. Every once in a while, you felt the heat of his tongue laving across the area, tasting you with no sexual intent, though you had to try very hard to reel in the heat that pooled between your legs at the action.

"Keep going," he eventually said. "You were talking about the stitching for the scarves."

Congratulations, you've become Andrew Cody's new oral fidget toy.

It gets out of control fairly quickly. Biting quickly becomes a sixth love language in your relationship, and it's not uncommon for you or Andrew to show up places with bite marks or very strange-looking hickeys. His brothers are extremely weirded out. They've never seen or heard of this behavior before, though they think it's quite on brand. Only Pope could manage to find a significant other who was almost as weird as he was.

A/N: This was absolute dog shit, but I can't sleep and can't get Pope Cody out of my head, so I figured I may as well crank out something quick and test out the new laptop. I usually don't like writing drabbles, they're too short for me and don't fit my writing style, but I think I'll keep writing them just to get back into the swing of things if nothing else.

[heaven4lostgirls]

anytime someone utters a bad word about victoria javadi or samira mohan, an angel loses its wings

[samirasystole]

yeah i am forever mad that we don't get to see how samira changed during these four months under al-hashimi's leadership without robby present. how we won't get to see her reaction to him coming back and doing just as badly. their awkward tension and stunted communication. possible aborted apologies, samira going to al-hashimi as her attending and trying to avoid him, but wondering how he is regardless, hoping it's better but seeing that it isn't. samira's confidence having grown some, realising how hard it's been for her these past years under robby's supervision. him trying to find a time to talk to her and failing. al-hashimi seeing how much samira struggles with him being back but not wanting to overstep. some possible growth on all sides. sighs.

[of-apollo]

₊⊹ PITTFEST PHONE-CALLS !

PAIRING: Jack Abbot x Wife!Combat Medic!Reader.

SUMMARY: After weeks of begging from Jake and Robby, you finally agree to supervise Jake and Leah at Pittfest. Nothing could prepare you for the tragedy that occurs on the day, and nothing can stop you from trying to help Leah even as a bullet rips through your own body. All that keeps you going is adrenaline and the voice of your husband over the phone.

NOTES: Gun violence, mass casualty event, gunshot wounds (non-fatal to reader), Leah’s death, references to past trauma (combat, wife death), survivor guilt, alcohol references, angst, 5.5k words.

REQUESTED BY: @maxinebxrnes !

A/N: At risk of sounding insane, I loved writing this. This is exactly my kind of angst/comfort. I know Trinity is on her first day and I did not write it as such but she’s my babygirl so. We ball!

NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI

You nearly stayed at home. That is the stupid thing your brain keeps circling after Pittfest. Not the gunshots, not the blood, not even the screams of pure terror. Just the fact you stood in your kitchen for ten full minutes debating whether you could really be bothered to deal with loud music and overpriced drinks and crowds of drunk university students.

Jake had begged you to come, and Leah had joined in after. Apparently the two of them ‘needed normal adults present’, as per Robby’s request, to stop Jake attempting something humiliating in front of Leah’s friends.

“You are aware I work nights in an emergency department,” you had told him flatly. “This is the last place I want to be, buddy. And not a lot about me says normal adult.”

“You’re more normal than Abbot.”

Jack had still been half asleep when you left the house, one arm hooked lazily around your waist while you sat at the edge of the bed and tried to tug your shoes on.

“Tell Jake if he gets arrested I’m not bailing him out,” he mumbled into your shoulder.

“You like Jake.”

“He’s still an asshole sometimes.”

You laughed quietly and leaned down to kiss him anyway. Jack barely opened his eyes for it, just pulled you closer with a rough hand against your hip and kissed you slow enough to make you consider calling out sick from life entirely to be in this moment forever.

“You staying in bed all day?” you asked against his mouth.

“Mm, absolutely.”

“Jealous.”

“Should be, but I wish you were here with me.” His thumb brushed once beneath your jaw. “Text me when you get there, sweetheart.”

You texted Jack, and then you forgot your phone existed for the next two hours.

PittFest is chaos in the way all music festivals are chaos. Sticky floors. Warm beer. Suncream and sweat and bass vibrating through your ribs hard enough to feel sick with it. Jake and Leah disappear into crowds every five minutes only to reappear holding different food.

You mostly just watch them. Young and stupid and happy. Leah keeps taking blurry pictures of Jake while he complains about it dramatically, which only makes her laugh harder. She slips easily into your space too, arm linked through yours while she talks over the music about gossip you barely follow.

It feels normal. God, it feels painfully normal.

Jake’s midway through telling you both some ridiculous story when the first gunshot goes off.

Nobody reacts properly at first. A sound too sharp to belong there. Then another follows. Then screaming. The crowd shifts all at once.

Panic spreads faster than fire. One second people are dancing and laughing and filming videos on their phones, the next they are shoving each other hard enough to fall trying to get away. Your stomach drops instantly.

“No,” Leah whispers.

Training is ugly sometimes. Instinct before thought. Your brain already cataloguing exits and cover and casualties before the fear even catches up.

“Down,” you snap.

Jake grabs Leah instinctively. Another gunshot cracks through the air, too close for comfort. People are crying. Running. Somebody slams hard into your shoulder trying to push past and you nearly lose your footing.

Then Leah jerks violently beside you. For one hopeful second you think that she just tripped. Then you see the blood, and Jake screams her name, and everything narrows.

You hit the ground beside her so fast your knees crack painfully against concrete. Leah’s staring at you in confusion more than pain, hands shaking as they press instinctively against her abdomen. You don’t need a medical degree to know that there’s too much blood already.

“Oh my God,” Jake chokes. “Oh my God.”

“Pressure,” you order immediately. “Jake, pressure now.”

He freezes. Completely freezes.

You grab his wrists and physically force his hands over the wound. Blood spills between his fingers instantly.

“Look at me.” Your voice sharpens hard enough to cut through panic. “You do not move your hands.”

Leah makes a soft, terrified sound. “It hurts.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Your chest feels tight suddenly as you smooth a hand over her hair, trying to offer comfort in an impossible situation. “I know.”

Gunshots still sound somewhere nearby. Your pulse pounds so hard it makes you feel sick. Jake is breathing too fast. Full panic and shock setting in right in front of you.

“She’s gonna die she’s gonna die—”

“No.” You catch his face hard between both hands. “Not happening. Stay with me.”

People keep running past. Nobody stopping to check if you need anything, if the girl on the floor who is far too young to be in this position is okay. You understand why. Fear makes people cruel without meaning to.

Your phone vibrates against your hip in your pocket. You answer immediately.

“What’s wrong? Is something happening over there? I heard something but didn’t get the details. Are you okay?”

“There’s a shooting.”

Silence. Not real silence. You can hear the hospital behind him faintly. Voices. Movement. A monitor somewhere. Still, something inside him goes absolutely still.

“Where are you hurt?”

You blink hard. “I’m not—”

Another gunshot. Closer. You duck instinctively over Leah. Something tears through your upper arm. The pain arrives hot and brutal a second later. You suck in a sharp breath.

“Sweetheart?”

Your hand flies to your arm automatically and comes away slick red.

“Oh,” you say faintly.

Jake stares at you in horror. Jack’s voice changes instantly. Lower. Controlled in that terrifying way he gets when something is catastrophically wrong.

“You’ve been hit.”

“Just my arm.”

“How bad.”

You press hard above the wound, vision swimming unpleasantly for a second.

“Through and through, I think.”

“Listen to me carefully.” Every word clipped precise now. Doctor mode. “Can you move your fingers?”

You flex them. “Yeah.”

“Good. Keep pressure on it.”

Leah cries out suddenly and your attention snaps back to her. Blood soaking through Jake’s hands faster now. You shrug your jacket off one-handed and bunch it hard against Leah’s abdomen to reinforce pressure. Jake’s shaking so violently he can barely keep hold.

“Jake.” Your voice softens despite everything. “Need you to stay with me, honey.”

“I can’t lose her.”

The fear in his voice cuts straight through you.

“You won’t.”

“I’m sending units your way now,” Jack says through the phonee. “Stay on the line with me.”

You know he’s already moving while he talks. Already taking over. Organising. Commanding. The image of him striding through the Pitt with that expression on his face flashes painfully through your mind. You want him here so badly your chest aches with it.

Another scream sounds somewhere nearby. Leah’s skin is turning grey. Jake looks close to vomiting.

Your own arm throbs violently. Blood slipping steadily between your fingers no matter how hard you press. You promise yourself that you won’t pass out, not here, not while they still need you.

“Sweetheart.” Jack again, quieter now somehow. “Talk to me.”

You swallow hard. “She’s losing too much blood.”

“How’s her breathing?”

You check automatically. Wet. Uneven. Bad. Your stomach twists.

Jake sees your face change and immediately starts panicking harder. “No, no, no, tell me what to do!”

“You keep pressure there,” you say firmly. “You keep talking to her.”

Leah’s eyes find yours. Terrified. You smile anyway because people always look less frightened when medics smile at them.

“You’re alright, angel, I’m here.”

It feels monstrous saying it while blood pools beneath her body. Sirens finally echo somewhere in the distance. Too far away, too slow.

Your vision flickers strangely at the edges. Adrenaline only carries you so long before the body starts demanding payment. Jack must hear something in your breathing again.

“How much blood are you losing?”

“I’m okay.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

You almost laugh despite everything. “I’m fine,” you insist weakly.

“Sweetheart.” Warning this time.

You press harder against your arm. Your hand is slippery with blood. Leah’s or yours, you genuinely cannot tell anymore.

Jake suddenly grabs your sleeve hard. “There’s blood on your face.”

You touch your forehead automatically and come away red again. Your hearing feels distant for a second. You know that feeling. Jack knows it too apparently because his voice sharpens immediately.

“Stay awake.”

“I am awake.”

“You’re fading.”

“No I’m not.”

It’s a lie so obvious that even you hear it. The world tilts unpleasantly. You force yourself to focus on Leah instead. On Jake. On pressure and breathing and survival. Easier than thinking about the fact your husband is listening to all of this happen over the phone while trapped miles away.

“Baby,” Jack says suddenly, very soft now. Dangerous soft. “Listen to me, please.”

Your throat tightens painfully at the desperation in his voice. You can practically see him in your head. Jaw locked. Hand pressed against the back of his neck. Fury and fear buried underneath clinical calmness.

“I need you to stay conscious until the paramedics reach you, okay? You know the drill.”

Your eyes sting unexpectedly. “I’m trying,” you whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m really trying, Jack.”

Then Leah stops responding properly, and everything gets worse.

“Leah?”

No response.

Jake says her name again, louder this time, voice cracking apart so badly it barely sounds human anymore. Your stomach drops.

“Jake.” You force steel back into your voice despite the dizziness crawling steadily through you. “Talk to her.”

His hands are drenched red now. Blood pushed deep beneath his fingernails. He keeps looking at you like you might be able to undo this through sheer willpower alone.

“Leah, baby, c’mon.” His breathing stutters violently. “Please.”

You press trembling fingers against her throat again. Weak. Too weak. Your own pulse pounds hard enough to make your injured arm throb in time with it. Every heartbeat feels wet. Hot blood still slipping through your grip no matter how hard you hold pressure.

Jack’s voice crackles through the phone near your knee where you dropped it onto speaker. “What’s happening?”

You swallow hard. “She’s crashing.”

Silence. Not real silence. You hear movement behind him. Orders being barked across the ER. Metal trays clattering. The Pitt already preparing for the casualties heading their way.

Jack knows exactly what kind of scene you’re sitting in. Exactly how bad it probably looks.

“She conscious?”

“Barely.”

You can feel Jake staring at you, waiting for something. You hate this part, you have always hated this part. The space between trying and failing where everybody still looks at you hopefully.

Leah’s eyes flutter weakly. “Cold,” she whispers.

Jake breaks completely at that. His whole face crumples. Tears running unchecked while he bends over her like he can physically shield her from dying through proximity alone.

“You’re okay,” he keeps saying frantically. “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay—”

You grip the back of his neck hard. “Jake.” He looks at you immediately. “Need you to breathe.”

“I am breathing.”

He absolutely is not. His chest is heaving so fast you feel panic rising in yourself just watching him. The shock is setting in ugly now. His shoulder is still bleeding too, forgotten entirely beneath Leah’s worsening condition.

You grab the discarded sleeve of your jacket and shove it hard against his wound.

“Pressure there.” He obeys automatically, and you thank every cosmic force that might be out there.

Your vision blurs suddenly. You squeeze your eyes shut hard once and feel the world tilt sickeningly underneath you.

“Sweetheart?” Jack again. Immediate. Alert.

You hadn’t even made a noise. “I’m okay.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep pestering me.”

A horrible little laugh escapes him unexpectedly. Sharp with stress. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

You know that laugh. The one dragged out of him when he’s overwhelmed enough that humour becomes the only thing stopping him putting his fist through a wall.

Sirens are closer now. Leah makes another weak choking sound and your focus snaps back instantly. Blood bubbles faintly at the corner of her mouth. It’s bad enough that you already know where this is going. Jake sees your expression change again.

“No.”

You hate how small his voice sounds.

“She’s okay,” you lie.

“She’s not.” His face twists violently. “Don’t fucking lie to me like that. It’s fucked up.”

Your throat tightens. People think medics get used to this. They don’t. You just learn how to keep moving while it happens.

The first paramedics finally break through the crowd. Relief hits so hard your hands start shaking worse. One of them crouches beside Leah immediately while another reaches for you.

“I’m fine,” you snap instinctively.

The paramedic looks unimpressed. “You’ve been shot, ma’am.”

“Not dying though.” Your words slur slightly at the edges.

Jack hears it too. “Hey.” Sharper now. “Stay with me. Let them help you.”

The paramedic starts peeling your blood-soaked hand away from your arm and pain explodes through you white-hot and vicious enough to make your stomach lurch.

“Oh, fuck.”

“There she is,” Jack mutters darkly through the speaker. “Knew you were concussed or dying when you stopped cursing.”

Despite everything, your mouth twitches weakly.

The paramedic assessing Leah suddenly barks for more gauze. Jake flinches hard enough to nearly fall over.

“She needs transport now,” another voice says urgently.

Jake grabs Leah’s hand desperately while they start loading her onto the stretcher. He keeps trying to climb beside her despite the blood loss making him unsteady too.

“Sir, we need you checked out as well.”

“No.”

“Jake,” you say firmly.

He looks at you with tears streaking his face.

“I’m not leaving her.”

“You aren’t.”

His breathing catches painfully.

Your own head feels strangely heavy suddenly. Hard to hold upright. The paramedic wrapping your arm is talking to you but the words drift oddly in and out.

Jack’s voice cuts through the fog immediately. “What’s her BP?”

The paramedic glances towards the phone. “Who is this?”

“Her husband. Dr Jack Abbot.”

Something in Jack’s tone must land correctly because the paramedic answers instantly after that.

“Pressure is dropping.”

You hear the silence on the other end. Not empty silence, calculating silence. Dangerous silence.

Your chest aches unexpectedly at the thought of him hearing numbers instead of seeing you himself. Jack trusts his own hands more than anything else in the world. You know he hates this. Hates being trapped at the hospital while you bleed somewhere he cannot reach.

“They’re taking us to the Pitt?” you ask weakly.

“Yeah.”

Good. You need Jack. The thought arrives suddenly and honestly enough to hurt. Not Dr Abbot. Not your attending physician. Just your husband. Your Jack. The one who sleeps with one heavy hand spread across your stomach every time like he needs proof you’re still there.

Jake climbs into the ambulance beside Leah while they try to convince him to let somebody examine his shoulder properly. You force yourself upright too fast trying to follow and immediately regret it. The world blacks at the edges. Strong hands catch you before you hit the ground.

“Easy,” the paramedic says.

You feel weirdly detached from your own body now. Floating somewhere slightly behind yourself.

Jack’s voice sharpens again instantly through the phone. “She pass out?”

“Nearly.”

“Sweetheart.” Fear leaking through now despite all his control. “Talk to me.”

You try. Nothing comes out properly. Your tongue feels thick. The paramedic starts asking questions rapidly. Name. Age. Allergies. Orientation. You answer automatically between breaths while they push you towards a second ambulance.

Blood loss. Shock. Probably more injured than you first thought. Your arm burns savagely.

“You still with me?” Jack asks.

“Yeah.” Barely.

You hear Jack exhale quietly. “Good girl.”

The words hit you straight in the chest. So familiar. So him. Usually murmured against your skin in the middle of the night instead of through a phone while you bleed through dressings.

Your eyes sting unexpectedly. The ambulance doors slam shut. Everything becomes sirens and fluorescent lights and movement. A paramedic cuts your sleeve fully away and swears under his breath at the amount of blood.

“Looks worse than it is,” you mumble.

“That what you tell all your patients?”

Jack actually snorts faintly through the speaker.

“Yeah,” he says. “She does.”

You can practically picture him now. Leaning over a desk somewhere in the chaos of the ER. One hand braced against the surface hard enough to ache later. Eyes distant and furious all at once.

Somebody in the background says his name. You hear him switch instantly. “What’ve we got?”

Pure attending voice now. Steady. Cold. Commanding. You have seen entire trauma bays settle the second Jack walks into them, like everybody unconsciously trusts him to carry the worst parts. He comes back to you a second later, softer again somehow.

“Nearly there, baby.”

You close your eyes briefly. So tired suddenly.

“Don’t you dare,” he says immediately.

Your eyes open again. “Bossy.”

“Yeah.” No hesitation. “Especially with you.”

The medic checking your vitals suddenly goes very still looking at the monitor. Your stomach sinks.

“What?”

He looks up sharply. “Do you know how much blood you have lost?”

Nobody tells you the answer to that question. Which is answer enough on its own, really.

The ambulance feels too bright. Too loud. Every bump in the road sends pain shooting through your arm and shoulder hard enough to make your vision flicker. You focus on the ceiling instead. On breathing. On staying conscious long enough to get to the Pitt.

Jack keeps talking. You realise after a while he is doing it deliberately. Filling silence before it can turn dangerous.

“You remember Santos trying to tell me how to run a trauma bay last week? Pulling that shit again today.”

A weak laugh catches painfully in your throat. “She’s brave.”

“She’s annoying.”

“We like her. She’s fun.”

“Unfortunately.”

The medic beside you presses fresh gauze against your arm and you hiss through your teeth.

“Easy,” he says.

“Not my favourite word.”

Jack hums quietly through the speaker. “That’s true.”

Your chest aches with missing him. It feels stupid. He is only across the city. You have survived deployments and distance and night shifts and grief and all the ugly things life threw at both of you. Still, all you want suddenly is his hand around yours and his mouth against your forehead and the certainty that comes with him being close enough to touch.

You feel sixteen different kinds of exhausted.

“Leah?” you ask faintly.

The medic hesitates. Bad sign. Your stomach twists violently.

“She’s alive.”

Alive. Not stable. Not okay. Just alive. You nod once anyway.

The ambulance doors finally burst open into noise and fluorescent light. Controlled chaos already swallowing the ambulance bay whole. Stretchers moving. Nurses shouting vitals. Blood on the floor somewhere.

The Pitt. Home, in the worst possible way.

You barely make it two feet before spotting Jack. He is halfway across the bay giving orders to somebody when he sees you.

Everything stops.

Not literally. The ER still roars around him. Staff moving constantly. Sirens outside. Chaos everywhere. Still, something in Jack goes completely still the second his eyes land on you.

You have seen that look exactly twice before. Once overseas. Once after his wife died. It hits you hard enough to hurt.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.

Then he is there. Hands on your face first. Immediate. Grounding. Like he needs physical proof you are standing in front of him. His eyes move over you rapidly after that, taking in blood loss, sweat and tears, and the dressing wrapped round your arm already soaked through.

You watch anger flood him in real time. Not at you. At the situation. At the blood. At the fact you got hurt where he could not protect you from it.

“Hey,” you whisper.

Jack grabs the back of your neck and kisses you hard enough to shut you up entirely. Desperate. Furious. His hand shakes once against your jaw before he gets control of it again.

“You scared the fucking life out of me.”

The words come rough and low. You almost cry at the sound of it.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you are not.”

Pure Jack. Sharp enough to cut.

A nurse approaches carefully. “Abbot, we need—”

“Give me a minute.”

Nobody argues. You sway slightly where you stand and Jack’s entire grip tightens immediately.

“Woah, okay.” Softer now. “Easy, sweetheart.”

The adrenaline is disappearing. Fast. Your body suddenly feels unbearably heavy.

“Jake,” you manage. “Leah?”

“They’re in trauma.”

Alive then, at least for now.

Jack guides you backwards towards an empty stretcher with one hand firm against your waist. You can feel him slipping fully into doctor mode again despite the fear still sitting raw underneath it.

“Sit.”

“I can still help.”

“No.”

“Jack.”

“No.” Harder this time. “You’re done.”

You hate how emotional that makes you unexpectedly. You do not want to be done. You want to keep moving and helping and fixing because the second you stop everything catches up.

Jack sees it happen on your face instantly. Always does. His expression softens just slightly.

“Baby.” His thumb brushes beneath your eye before you even realise tears escaped. “Sit down before you drop down. Please.”

You obey mostly because your legs are beginning to shake badly enough that you genuinely might collapse. Jack kneels in front of you immediately to assess your arm himself despite multiple staff hovering nearby ready to do it for him.

His hands are steady. Only his jaw gives him away.

“You got lucky,” he mutters after peeling the dressing back carefully.

“Always do.”

He shoots you a look. Not amused. Blood covers his fingers now. Yours too. Familiar in the ugliest way. You watch him mentally catalogue damage with frightening speed.

“You should see the other guy,” you mumble weakly.

Jack stares at you for one long second before a broken little sound leaves him halfway between a laugh and something else entirely.

“Shut up, sweetheart.”

His forehead drops briefly against your knee. That scares you more than anything else has tonight. Jack does not fold. He bends maybe. Cracks quietly where nobody can see. Never folds, especially not in the Pitt of all places.

Your hand moves automatically into his hair. “Hey.”

He breathes once. Twice. Then straightens again before anybody else notices. Professional mask back in place.

“You’re getting fluids and scans,” he says flatly. “And if you try arguing with me I’ll sedate you myself.”

“There he is.”

His mouth twitches despite himself.

The curtain nearby suddenly gets shoved aside and Trinity stumbles through looking wrecked. Blood dried across her scrubs, hair a complete mess.

“Fuck,” she says immediately. “What do you need?”

The words slam straight into your chest. Jack stands instantly. “It’s okay. I’ve got her.”

Trinity looks at you then and visibly pales. “You’re bleeding through that.”

You glance down. The fresh dressing is already red again. Jack notices at exactly the same moment and something inside him finally snaps.

“Get me another pressure dressing now,” he barks sharply at a nurse nearby. “And where the hell is her trauma consult?”

You stare at him slightly dazed. Trinity does too. Jack never raises his voice unless things are bad. Seconds later, Trinity is called away to treat another casualty, and you watch Jack pale as if he needed that extra lifeline in the room just this once.

“I’m stable,” you try weakly.

Jack rounds on you so fast it almost startles you.

“You do not get to tell us you’re stable while bleeding through gauze every five fucking minutes.”

The nurse returns quickly with supplies while Jack drags a hand hard over his face like he regrets snapping immediately.

“Sorry,” he mutters roughly without looking at you.

Your chest aches. “Jack.”

He crouches back in front of you again, pressing fresh gauze carefully to your arm this time. His touch gentler now. Almost unbearably gentle. He presses one quick kiss against your forehead.

“Don’t move.”

“Bossy.”

“Yeah.” His hand squeezes the back of your neck once. “You married me anyway.”

Jack exhales slowly. The attending disappears first, but your husband stays.

“You scared me,” he says quietly.

No sharpness left in it now. No irritation. Just honesty stripped raw. Your chest aches immediately.

“I know.”

Jack pulls the stool closer and sits in front of you with a pained wince before carefully peeling back the soaked dressing around your arm. His touch stays precise but impossibly gentle at the same time. You know all the versions of him by now. The trauma doctor. The exhausted veteran. The husband who wakes instantly from nightmares with his hand already reaching for you.

This version is frightened. You feel it in every careful movement.

“You should’ve let somebody help you sooner,” he mutters while inspecting the wound.

“There were people worse off.”

Jack’s eyes flick to you with a frown. You look away, standing by that ugly instinct to keep going until your body physically gives out because somebody else always needs more.

“Sweetheart.” His voice softens dangerously. “You were bleeding through your clothes.”

“I know.”

“You nearly collapsed in the ambulance bay.”

You swallow hard. He starts flushing the wound carefully with saline and pain burns viciously through your arm. Your face tightens automatically.

“Sorry, baby.”

“You didn’t shoot me.”

“No, but I’d still like to kill whoever did.”

That nearly earns a laugh from you. Exhaustion hangs too heavily for humour now. Adrenaline burned off enough to leave everything underneath exposed and shaking.

Jack notices immediately. “You dizzy?”

“Yes.”

“Nauseous?”

“Little bit.”

“Head?”

“Hurts.”

“Good. Means you’ve still got one.”

You snort softly at that despite yourself. Jack’s mouth twitches faintly in quiet satisfaction before settling again. His hands are steady.

“You sounded scared on the phone,” you say quietly after a moment.

Jack keeps his eyes on your arm while wrapping fresh gauze into place. “I was terrified.”

The honesty knocks straight through you. “You never sound scared.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is with everybody else.”

His hands pause briefly. “You aren’t everybody else.”

Emotion climbs sharp into your throat so fast it hurts. Before you can say anything, the curtain suddenly jerks open.

Jake stumbles inside looking destroyed.

Your stomach drops instantly.

Blood has dried down the front of his shirt. His eyes swollen raw from crying already. He looks barely upright.

Jack stands immediately. “What happened, buddy?”

Jake opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. Then suddenly he folds in on himself completely.

“She died. Leah died.” The words break apart halfway through. “She died and I wasn’t there and she was asking for me and I wasn’t fucking there—”

“Oh, Jake.”

You are moving before you even think about it despite the pain ripping through your arm instantly. Jake drops heavily into the chair beside your stretcher and puts both hands over his face like he physically cannot hold himself together anymore.

“I left her,” he chokes out. “I shouldn’t have left her.”

“No.” Your voice comes sharp automatically. “No, honey.”

Jack glances at you once before stepping back slightly, giving you space. Jake’s shoulders shake violently beneath your hand when you touch his arm.

“They said she coded again and they couldn’t get her back and I wasn’t there—”

“You listened to medical staff,” you say firmly, throat burning already. “You were injured too.”

“I should’ve stayed with her.”

Guilt. Pure, ugly survivor’s guilt already setting in. You know the shape of it intimately.

Jake starts crying harder. Full body shaking with it now. Young and heartbroken and completely lost. Something inside your chest caves painfully inward at the sound.

“She was scared,” he whispers.

You think suddenly about Leah lying on the concrete with blood soaking through your jacket. Her tiny voice saying how cold she felt. Jake holding pressure with shaking hands because you told him to.

Jack rests one hand briefly against the back of your neck. Grounding. Steady. You lean into it automatically while keeping your other hand wrapped around Jake’s wrist.

“You stayed with her,” you tell him softly. “You hear me? You stayed.”

His face twists apart completely. “I loved her.”

The room goes painfully quiet. Jack looks away briefly. You know why. Leah’s death hits him too. Every loss does, no matter how hard he tries to bury it beneath protocol and movement and work.

The hooks of the curtain scrape against the pole as Robby pulls it to step inside. Exhaustion hangs off him in visible waves. Blood on his scrub top. Eyes hollowed out by the night.

He takes one look at Jake. “Come on, kid.”

Jake looks up at him with a completely shattered expression. Robby crosses the space quickly and grips the back of his neck firmly. “C’mon.”

Jake doesn’t move. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can.” Robby says it quietly. Certainly. Like fact.

Jake wipes violently at his face. “I left her.”

Robby’s expression tightens for one brief second.

“No,” he says firmly. “You got shot trying to save her.”

Jake starts crying again anyway. Robby pulls him gently upright after a second, keeping one steady hand between his shoulder blades.

“Come sit with me for a minute.”

Jake looks back at you once before leaving. Lost. Apologetic somehow. You squeeze his hand weakly.

“This isn’t your fault.”

His face crumples again at that before Robby finally guides him back out into the chaos beyond the curtain. The second they disappear the room feels heavier somehow. Jack turns back towards you slowly. You realise suddenly your cheeks are wet too.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

He moves immediately, stepping between your knees and pulling you carefully against his chest despite the IV line and bandaging. You go willingly, forehead pressed hard against him while everything finally catches up at once.

The gunshots. Leah. Jake crying. Jack hearing you bleed over the phone unable to reach you.

Your body starts shaking properly. “I couldn’t save her,” you whisper brokenly.

Jack’s arms tighten instantly. “That wasn’t on you.”

“I knew she was dying.”

His hand cradles the back of your head carefully.

“I knew.” Your voice cracks painfully. “I still kept lying to him.”

Jack pulls back just enough to look at you properly. “You gave him hope while she was alive.”

Your throat burns. You start crying harder at that. Quiet, ugly crying pressed into the front of Jack’s scrub top while he holds you through it without hesitation. Nobody ever talks about this part properly. The aftermath. The helplessness. The guilt medics carry around in their pockets like spare change.

Jack knows though. Of course he does.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against your hair.

The words nearly finish you off entirely. Eventually, your breathing evens out again enough that he can guide you gently back onto the stretcher. His hand never fully leaves you.

“You need scans before I take you home,” he says quietly.

Home. The word lands soft. You look up at him tiredly. Really look. Exhaustion carved deep into his face now that the crisis is slowing. Tiny flecks of blood still near his jaw. Eyes red-rimmed from stress and lack of sleep and fear.

“You need rest too.”

Jack huffs quietly. “Yeah, well. You first.”

Your mouth twitches weakly. You love him so much it feels unbearable sometimes.

Later, after scans and stitches and far too much arguing over whether you can walk unassisted, Jack finally gets you home sometime near dawn.

The house is dark and still, as safe as you need it to be. Jack helps you out of your ruined clothes with unbearable gentleness before settling you carefully into bed. Clean shirt pulled over your head. Pain medication pressed into your palm. Water forced into you until he looks vaguely satisfied.

Then finally, after stripping off his bloodstained scrub top and unfastening his prosthetic with the exhausted familiarity of routine, Jack gets carefully into bed beside you.

The second the mattress dips, you move towards him automatically. Your face tucked against his throat. One arm curled carefully around his waist while he wraps himself around you just as instinctively.

For a long time neither of you speak. Jack’s fingers move slowly against your spine.

“You awake?” you murmur eventually.

“Yeah.”

Your eyes sting again suddenly. “Jake’s gonna blame himself forever.”

Jack goes quiet for a moment. “Probably.”

Honest. Always honest with you.

“He shouldn’t.”

“No.” His arm tightens slightly. “Neither should you.”

The emotion lodged in your chest aches horribly.

Outside, somewhere beyond your windows, the city keeps moving.

Inside, wrapped tightly around each other in the dark, the two of you finally stop trying to.

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[shadeofpeach]

Control your brat

Pairing: Dr Frank Langdon x resident!girlfriend!reader (ft. Dr. Michael Robinavitch) Warnings: age gap reader could be younger cause of her attitude. physical violence, fistfight, cursing, mild chokehold, throat hold, bruises, cuts, and minor blood, unprofessional behavior, ER drama. Summary: your shift takes a violent turn when an insecure patient’s girlfriend accuses you of flirting with her boy.

Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and written solely for entertainment purposes.

You had taken the case of a teenage boy brought in with a severe laceration on his leg and a possible concussion after a bike accident.

Standard procedure.

But his girlfriend, a girl no older than eighteen with eyes sharp with insecurity, made it anything but standard.

Every time you leaned in to check the boy's pupils, she stepped into your personal space. Every time you gently asked him to rate his pain on a scale of one to ten, she crossed her arms and glared.

"Is there a reason you're standing so close to him?" she finally snapped.

You paused. "I’m examining your boyfriend's injuries, miss."

"Yeah, well, you're smiling at him. You've been flirting with him since we got into this room. Do your fucking job and keep your hands to yourself."

"I am doing my job," you said, keeping your voice tightly controlled, though a pulse was beginning to throb in your temple. "I need you to step back so I can work."

"Don't tell me what to do!"

The commotion drew attention. Before you could escalate or de-escalate, Robby walked into the room. He took in the girl’s furious face, your rigid posture, and the boy looking desperately uncomfortable on the gurney.

"Everything alright in here?" Robby asked smoothly.

"Your doctor here is trying to hit on my boyfriend!" the girl shrieked, pointing an accusing finger at you.

"I'm not-"

"Doctor, why don't you step out and take five? I'll finish up here." Robby interrupted you, giving you a subtle nod.

You swallowed hard, your jaw clenched so tight it ached. "Fine."

You stripped off your gloves, tossed them into the bin, and walked out. You needed air. Real, cold, outside air.

You pushed through the double doors leading to the ambulance bay. The fresh air hit your face, but it did little to quell the heat rushing through your veins. "Fucking bitch making me angry," You murmured and leaned against the wall, closing your eyes, taking deep breaths.

You heard the doors swing open, followed by aggressive footsteps.

"Hey! Flirt!"

You opened your eyes just in time to see the girlfriend marching toward you, her face twisted in rage.

"I wasn't done talking to you-"

"Get away from me," you warned. "Go back inside."

"Make me, you bitch-"

Before you could react, her hand flew out.

Her fist connected hard with the side of your jaw.

Your head jerked sideways. Pain exploded across your face. Something inside you; weeks of brutal shifts, sleep deprivation, and the sheer audacity of being struck, just broke.

"You fucking crazy bitch!" you screamed.

You lunged. You didn't think at all. Adrenaline slammed through your system. You grabbed a handful of her hair, yanked her down, and landed a solid punch straight to her cheekbone.

She shrieked, clawing at your face, catching her nails along your collar. You dragged her to the pavement, knees slamming into the concrete. Hands pulled, fists flew, and insults were hurled back and forth in a blur of movement and violence.

You were completely blind with rage, operating purely on survival and unadulterated fury.

"Hey! HEY! Break it up!"

Strong hands suddenly seized you under your arms, hauling you backward with force.

"Get off me! I'll fucking kill her!" you spat, thrashing blindly, kicking out at the girl who was being dragged back by Jesse.

"Jesus christ, calm down girl," Jesse yelled, holding the girl who was still screaming profanities, her nose bleeding.

The hands holding you pulled you back against a chest. The scent of familiar cologne broke through the haze of your rage.

"I've got her. Jesse, get that girl inside," a deep voice barked near your ear.

Dr. Frank Langdon.

"Frank, let me go!" you shouted, still squirming, your fists clenched so tight your knuckles were white. "Let me fucking go!"

Frank didn't say a word. He kept a firm grip on you, practically half dragging, half guiding your body away from the ambulance bay.

He shoved open the door to an empty exam room, hauled you inside, and kicked the door shut with his feet.

"Frank-"

In a flash, Frank spun you around, backing you up until your spine hit the wall.

He stepped right into your space, his large hand coming up to wrap firmly around the front of your neck, not choking you, but holding you in place.

"Calm the fuck down, baby," Frank growled, his face inches from yours, his grip firm. "Look at me."

You blinked, your chest heaving, tears of pure adrenaline pricking the corners of your eyes.

"Hey, calm down," he said calmly, commanding you.

"Frank... she fucking hit me-"

"I know, baby," he rasped, his grip on your neck softening into a possessive squeeze, his thumb tracing the rising bruise on your jaw. "I know she did. I saw it. But you're a doctor, and you're completely out of your mind right now."

He leaned down, his breath fanning across your lips.

He didn't pull his hand away until he felt the violent rhythm of your breathing finally settle into something manageable. But the residual rage remained, vibrating right under your skin.

You were practically humming with bad energy, your body rigid, jaw locked, eyes blazing with fury.

Frank let out a heavy breath, his thumb sweeping over your lower lip one last time before he stepped back to lock the exam room door properly.

"Sit," he ordered softly, gesturing toward the stainless-steel exam table.

You didn't move for a second, glaring at the floor as if you could set it on fire. Then, you shoved yourself up onto the table.

Your legs swung rhythmically, knees knocking together, knuckles still bright red and raw.

Frank pulled up a rolling stool, wheeling it right near your knees so you were forced to look at him.

"Give me your hands first, baby," he murmured, reaching out.

You thrust your hands forward, refusing to make eye contact. Your knuckles were red from where you’d cracked her across the cheekbone.

Every time he pressed down, your whole body twitched, muscle tension practically radiating off you in waves.

"Seriously, baby, calm down," Frank muttered, eyes flicking up to assess your face. "Still want to go back out there and rip her hair out?"

"She split my lip and bruised my jaw," you spat out. "If Jesse hadn't pulled her off, I would've broken her fucking nose for being a jealous bitch."

"I know you would have, baby," he said, zero judgment in his voice. "I'm almost impressed, if I wasn't so busy trying to keep Robby from firing you on the spot."

"Let him," you snapped, leaning your head back against the wall, teeth grinding. "I don't care."

"Liar," Frank grunted softly. He discarded the gauze and picked up a clean swab, dabbing gently at the cut on your cheekbone.

You winced, a hiss escaping your teeth and tried to flinch away.

Frank’s large hand immediately clamped around your thigh, holding you dead in place. "Ah-ah. Hold still, sweet face."

"It stings," you muttered, glaring at him.

"That's what happens when you roll around on the concrete, baby," he replied, though his touch was gentle as he cleaned the tiny gravel scrapes near your hairline. "You're lucky she didn't catch you in the eye."

"I hit her harder," you grumbled.

Frank chuckled, curing your lip and shaking his head as he unwrapped an ice pack. "Yeah. Yeah, you did. You nearly knocked her teeth out, baby."

He leaned in to wrap around the nape of your neck, gently tilting your head up. He pressed the ice pack against your swollen jaw. You winced again, your body stiffening, but Frank didn't let go. He held the ice there, forcing you to meet his eyes.

"Look at me," he murmured, his thumb stroking the tender skin behind your ear. "This bad energy? Drop it. It's done. I'm handling the paperwork, Robby's probably discharging the kid, and that girl is getting escorted off by security before she can open her mouth again."

"Frank-"

"I mean it, baby," he cut in. "Drop it, and let your boyfriend fix you up. Okay?"

You stared at him, the angry heat in your chest slowly colliding with the warmth radiating from his hands. A sigh finally rattled out of your chest, your shoulders dropping.

"Okay," you whispered, leaning your forehead weakly against him.

Frank rested his chin on top of your head, his hand staying firm on your neck, holding you close while the ice slowly numbed the throbbing pain. "Good girl," he grunted softly, kissing your hair.

Then, the door opened and Robby stepped inside. He took one look at the scene: you perched on the table with an ice pack glued to your face, Frank hovering over you like a protective guard dog.

A smirk spread across his face.

"How's my little fighter doing?" Robby asked, leaning back against the doorframe with his arms crossed.

You shot him a glare through your good eye, though the effect was entirely ruined by the ice pack pressed to your jaw. "I'm fine, Robby."

"Yeah, you look great," Robby chuckled, shaking his head. "Jesse’s out there boasting to the staff that you’ve got a mean left hook. Said you almost took the girl's head clean off."

Frank didn't move an inch away from you. He kept his hand firmly planted on your neck.

"She started it, Robby," Frank grunted defensively. "The girl laid a hand on her first. Out in the bay."

"I know she did, Frank, I saw the security footage on my way over," Robby said, his softening. He looked directly at you, giving you a fatherly look. "For the record? You're off that case. And off the floor for the next two hours until that jaw stops throbbing and you stop looking like you want to punch whoever breathes wrong beside you."

"Robby, I can work-" you started, trying to sit up straighter.

"You're taking them, baby," Frank cut in smoothly, his grip tightening just enough on your neck to keep you rooted to the table. "Don't argue."

Robby stifled a grin, pushing off the doorframe. "Listen to your boyfriend. And your attending. I told security to escort the girl off, and her boyfriend is getting transferred to another hospital. No charges are being filed, but if I see you fighting someone on the ambulance bay again today, I'm assigning you to digital rectal exams for a month."

"Understood," you muttered.

"Good." Robby checked his watch, flashing a quick look between the two of you. "Ice it for twenty more minutes. And, Langdon? Try to keep your bratty girlfriend from starting any more underground fight clubs in my ER."

"HEY!" you screamed in offense.

"She's your resident, you know?"

"My resident. Your brat. Control her."

"No promises," Frank grunted back, smirking.

As the door clicked shut behind Robby, Frank let out a snort, bringing his gaze back down to yours. "You heard him, baby. Mouth shut. No more punches."

⋆｡˚☤🩺✧˖°.｡⋆💉

the pitt masterlistd

[mcybank]

⋮⟢ drabble: pope cody who was your scary best friend before he became your scary boyfriend

── ✦ pope who you’d probably met in a very normal, mundane setting. something like a park, somewhere the wood chips got into your socks and gave you a splinter. you’d been walking on the side of your foot for a while, trying to ignore it, until you asked the boy sitting in front of you on the bench for help with the wood chip stuck to the bottom of your foot.

he’d take your foot in both hands the way you’d hold a bird, turn it toward the sun, and get the splinter out with his thumbnail. he acted like he did this all the time. and then he’d have no clue what to do when your face crumpled, because it still stung.

“it’s out,” pope’d say dumbly, holding up the splinter to show you. and when just the mere fact of stating the removal of your pain didn’t work, he’d awkwardly pat your ankle once.

and when that also didn’t work – dramatic you – he'd sigh through his nose and just put your sock on for you. he’d put on your shoe for you, too, tie the laces in a knot, tight enough that you’d have to cut it off later, and give it one firm pat.

and then you’d just keep materializing over and over again to the point that pope was confused. all he'd done was help you take out a splinter and now it felt like you lived here, on this bench, next to him. forever, seemingly. he’d definitely realize you were the only person in the whole wide world that wasn’t anything like his family and had given him a semblance of attention. sure, he was confused why you’d done it in the first place. but i imagine that earlier – before he’d started dabbling further in his violence and the cody family work – he’d be more prone to accepting a stranger-turned-constant in his life. he still had some trusting instinct in him, choosing to believe you when you honestly told him you liked hanging out with him.

── ✦ pope who was sometimes very strange and didn’t know he was. he’d bring you rocks because you once said – while walking past an enormous house in oceanside – that the quartz gravel in somebody’s driveway was pretty. so naturally he picked up a random little rock from the gutter two streets over, wiped it on his shirt, and gave it to you.

he did it again and again and again because you found that you were more endeared than anything and had started keeping these rocks first in your pocket, then in a shoebox, and finally on your windowsill. you could’ve told anyone which came from where. so even if you didn’t particularly have a fondness for random rocks when you noticed the quartz gravel, you definitely grew one!

(pope who also later replaced said rocks with the real thing when he came into money he had no idea what to use for, only ever remembering how your older tastes had sometimes made you look through the window at the jewelers and your eyes had lingered too long on a little diamond necklace. he never saw the necklace, really, only noticed you wanting it. he knew how to take care of that)

pope who wasn’t really sure how a simple hangout worked, so when you’d asked him to come over later on saturday without specifying when, he sat on your porch step for two and a half hours. when your mother asked him if he wanted to come inside and eat something, he’d say no, because he was supposed to be hanging out with you, not your mother.

when you finally came, you just sat next to him on the step and stayed there, finding it all so natural.

── ✦ and when he’d begrudgingly agree to hang out with your other friends, it’d accidentally lead into him drawing them away from the both of you. he hadn’t even meant to do that (not at first, at least).

he’d watched your friend hand you some shitty snack and said something like “don’t give her those,” without any explanation, smacking the snack away from your hand gently (though the explanation was that you’d ate one of those and promptly threw up on the ferris wheel, and it’d put you off of them for life).

if someone asked if you wanted beer, he’d say “she’s driving.” you were?

if someone asked you if you were cold, he was already handing you his jacket, mentally beating himself up for not having noticed sooner.

he’d move his chair to face the door wherever he was sitting, because ever since he’d watched people break into their little trailer as a kid – smurf, always tangled up in some shit – he’d learned to stay alert. so people always thought he was rude when he randomly turned his chair away from the group while someone was speaking and they were forced to stare at his back.

── ✦ pope who during your surprise birthday party (that he was only invited to because everyone knew how mad you’d be if they didn’t invite your best friend since you were a kid) would just stand in the corner and watch everyone with a frown, and when it got too late he’d tell everyone that the party was meant to end at ten even though that was never decided. and everyone would leave because you’d just stand there beside pope being like “yup!”

and then you and pope would spend the next three hours bagging cans, wiping down corners, finding a nickel or two between the couch cushions because of how thorough the two of you were. that was the good part. he’d wait for that.

after, he’d say, “that was fun.” and you’d think he was talking about the party.

── ✦ pope who kept saying “i can take care of it,” whenever one of your friends mentioned someone bothering them. at first, they thought it was a turn of phrase – ugh, i’ll beat him up for you, but in pope’s language – until pope started asking where he worked, where he lived, and what his car looked like.

pope who had punched a guy for you, a boyfriend-of-a-friend, when he’d said something about you while you were in the bathroom. he’d asked the guy to go outside to smoke a cigarette, decked him, and come back with his hands in his pockets.

you were a little confused when your friends told you pope had gone out for a smoke, because pope doesn’t smoke, and because the six of them had squeaked it out at once.

he knew your friends knew, so when he came back, he’d just looked at all of them as he stood behind your chair as you and your friends sat in silence, tilting his head to the side to confirm whatever social contract he’d expected from them. then he’d simply shrugged and said, “he had to go home.”

── ✦ and when pope started noticing that you were being invited to hang out less with your other friends, consequently meaning he was being invited by you less with your other friends, he’d ask, “is it ‘cause of me?”

you’d immediately say “no!”

because even you hardly believed that it was because of him; pope was so good. he read the manuals for everything you got, peeled oranges for you – handed over in an unbroken coil, because a torn piece would've bothered him – fixed your bike chain, and made you the perfect sandwiches.

sure, he had a tendency to sometimes growl when a stranger got too close to you or a little puppy barked at you. sureee, he always had bruises on his knuckles without ever having a story for them (or rather, without giving one). and he sometimes glared when your girlfriends asked you to go on a double date. or appointed himself as the designated driver when they specifically asked you to have girls night.

on the occasion you actually did go, he’d sit outside in the car watching you through the window of some restaurant or bar.

he’d come in just once – after he saw a guy linger at your table for nineteen minutes and thought it was fucking girls night, waiting until the guy went to the bathroom – and when you gave him a questioning look he just pointed toward the bathroom, forcing an embarrassed shrug like he just wanted to take a leak.

maybe it was just a coincidence that you nor your friends saw the guy come out of the bathroom! pope stopped at your table on the way back, hands in his pockets, knuckles freshly pink, and said, “want anything?” and when you said no, he went back to his car.

“isn’t he so sweet?” you’d say to your friends, misty-eyed and dreamily, watching him sit in the parked car like he was a pretty sunset.

“the sweetest,” they’d say, three of them in unison like they’d been trained. you were completely unaware that they were in the midst of realizing you were a lost cause.

so obviously you could not, for the life of you, imagine that people wanted to not hang out with you because of pope. it was their loss, anyway, you thought.

pope was so relieved once he realized he wouldn’t have to spend time with other people, just so he could hang out with you.

── ✦ pope who took over their vacancy so quickly that you didn’t even consider it as a loss even for a day.

if you wanted to get drunk at a bar, he’d go with you and get a beer while you slammed three cocktails within an hour. he’d try to gossip with you when you asked him to “tell me something fun.”

“craig and renn had a fight.”

you’d light up because that was interesting. “good. he’s bad for her anyway.”

“yes,” he’d simply say.

and when you’d press for the details (what did they fight about? who started it? did anyone cry? on a scale of one-to-ten, how bad?), and he’d have none, he’d noticed how you’d slumped slightly, ever the nosy little thing he’d been hauling around for years, he’d frown. he genuinely had no more details to give you because he hadn’t cared enough to listen to craig’s tangent. but clearly you cared, so he’d say, “i’ll ask him.”

after he managed to get the hang of it – and found he liked it, talking shit, the whole nine yards of "but you didn't hear it from me – you’d both end up laughing.

and when you’d ask him for another story (because he had so many; the cody house was so weird), he’d say, “smurf woke up so late this morning,” thinking it held the same value as baz breaking up with his girlfriend at the time.

when you opened your mouth without saying a single word, stumped, he'd double down, "like ten," like you just didn't get it yet.

pope who somehow started filling every single shoe of the people in your life. pope, your girl best friend. pope, your mother (“did you eat?” “yes.”). pope, your dad, apparently, at some point (making it his mission to check your car).

pope, your dog (waits by the door and knows the sound of your car pulling in). pope, your bodyguard (constantly scaring away everyone, threat or not). pope, your financial advisor (“you don’t need to spend that kinda money on that.”) pope, your sugar daddy, immediately after (“fine. give it to me.” “what?” “i’m getting it.”)

pope, when you’d run him through the list, just looked at you confused and said, “someone’s gotta.”

once again, he was right. you’d gotten so lucky with pope, what were the odds of that? astronomical, you’d think, cheerfully. and then you’d wonder if he’d like one more shoe to fill.

[fru1t4fr0gs]

Three Years

Pairing: Andrew "Pope" Cody x Reader

Summary: You and Pope have loved each other since you were teenagers. And then he went to prison, and cut you off. No apology, no explanation, nothing. Just a sledgehammer to your heart and utter radio silence.

Three years later, he's out, and he wants you back.

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI: Swearing, Mentions of drugs, Mentions of violence, Alcohol use, Gun use, It's Animal Kingdom there's a little bit of everything, Character death (not a main/canon character), Vague descriptions of mental illness (it's Pope), Smut!! Unprotected pinv (wrap it up guys!), Loss of virginity in a flashback, Brief Craig/Reader (they're besties though), Age gaps/timelines might be a little wonky but oh well, Mentions of abuse (reader’s dad is a bad man), Please let me know if I forgot anything!

Author's Note: I hope you guys enjoy this one! I wanted to experiment with flashbacks, and then this exploded out of my brain. Special thanks to @flowersforbucky for proofreading and dealing with my indecisiveness on the pictures and layout because she is the best!! Please let me know what you think!!

Word Count: 21k

-

The bar is dimly lit. Sticky. Loud.

The guy sitting across from you has nice eyes. Pretty, even. They’re a light blue, crinkled a little in the corners and looking at you with something like adoration. You try to appreciate it, you really do, but all you can see is naivety. Maybe you’re too cynical. More likely too damaged. Whatever.

You prefer brown eyes, anyway.

Warm brown eyes looking into your own. Large fingers tucking your hair behind your ear. The ghost of warm breath against your lips and a small curve of a shy smile as he leans closer and closes the distance between you-

You blink, and force a smile.

The guy across from you, Ethan or something, clears his throat. “So, do you wanna maybe-“

A beer hits the table, loud enough to make the man - though you should really call him a boy, with that collared shirt and combed hair and those innocent eyes - jump nearly a foot in the air.

“Move it, pal.”

Craig Fucking Cody stands above you, and you bite back a groan.

The boy stammers, pales at the sight of the gigantic, tattooed man beside you, and takes maybe a full twenty seconds to stammer out his next words.

“I-I…are you her…”

“Oh yeah, I’m her husband. Fresh outta the psych ward and everything. Now beat it, before I smash your head against the table.”

The boy bolts like Craig set the booth on fire, and you glare up at him.

“I was on a date.”

Craig laughs, like you were genuinely joking. “Not exactly your type.”

“You don’t know what my type is.”

“Pretty sure I do. I shared a wall with your type for most of my life.”

You clench your jaw. “What do you want, Craig?”

He sits across from you, all friendly familiarity, and smiles. “I need your help.”

“I don’t do jobs anymore.”

He raises his eyebrow, and glances pointedly towards Ethan in the corner of the bar, trying to save face by ordering himself another drink.

“I told you, that was a date.”

“C’mon, don’t lie to me. You think I don’t know when you’re working an angle?”

You narrow your eyes a little. “Okay, fine. I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore.”

Craig’s smile falls a little.

Burning rubber in your nose. Panic in your throat. The shriek of the tires drowned out by your own voice as you grab frantically at the wheel.

“Baz what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing? Turn around!”

Baz’s hand darts out, and he slams you back against the seat so hard your teeth knock together. “It’s too late.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? We can’t just leave him-“

“We have to. He was too late. You know the rules. It’s him or all of us.”

You’re frantic. Panicked. You even start to yank at your own car door, like you might jump out and run back to the bank on your own two feet, and Baz slams you backwards again.

When he makes it to the house, you punch him in the face before you even get out of the car. He takes it, head whipping to the side like he expected this reaction from you. When you get out, you punch him again. It takes both Craig and Deran to pull you away.

“He’s out of prison, you know.”

You take a sip of your drink. “Good for him.”

“He keeps asking about you.”

Yeah, bullshit. “I’ll bet he does.”

Craig sucks his teeth, and seems to decide to pick a different battle.

“So, it’s a good job. You barely have to do anything. We just need your help with-“

“I don’t do jobs with the Codys anymore, Craig. Also, I don’t know if you realize this, but using my ex as an incentive to help you isn’t really boosting my interest.” Ex. Your ex. It still feels so weird to think of him like that.

Because he’s just…Pope. Andrew Cody. The love of your life since you were a teenager. Even when you were together, ‘boyfriend’ felt like too simple of a word to describe what he was to you. It was too intense for such a lame title. Too full of a love so deep it bordered on obsession.

And then it was all over. Just like that.

Craig is making a face. You frown back at him. “What?”

“It’s my job, okay?” He runs a hand through his hair, flexes his fingers on his beer. “And it’s good. I’ve worked my ass off at planning it, and Baz is out, so I just…I need it to go well. And it will go well if you help.”

You grip your drink a little tighter. Fucking Craig. Fucking asshole with the terrible decision making skills and good heart. Fuck him for being your friend. For making you care about him. For giving you that look that’s making you feel like-

“Fuck. Fine.” God help you. “Fine. Fine. Okay. Fine.” He grins at you, and you glare back at him. “But I don’t want to see Pope.”

Now it’s Craig’s turn to give you a look. “About that…”

-

Your outfit is so fucking uncomfortable you want to die.

Okay, maybe it’s not the outfit. Maybe it’s the anxiety twisting in your stomach so intensely you think you might vomit in the driveway of the Cody house.

You’ve been here since he went to prison. Since you broke up. Not for long - you haven’t exactly been in the habit of hanging out by the pool or anything - but whether you’re here for a minute or an hour this damn driveway always whips the memory of that horrible day back into your mind more violently than a slap.

-

“Put me down. Put me the fuck down I’m gonna-“

“Jesus, relax!” Baz throws his hands up, angry and defensive and so very punchable right now. Deran’s got you locked against him, feet kicking in the air like you might be able to land a blow if you just try hard enough. “I had to go! He got held up or some shit, and if the cops caught us the whole family would have gone down.”

“You just fucking left him there! We could have-“

“We didn’t have a choice. I made a decision. I saved our asses. We knew this was a risk. It always is.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck me.” Baz runs a hand through his hair, and you know he’s heartbroken too but you couldn’t give less of a shit right now. His nose is still bleeding from where you clocked him a minute ago. “Fuck me for making the hard decisions for this family.”

Rage rises up in your throat again, threatening to choke you as you kick harder. “Boo fucking hoo. You left him! You fucking left him and-“

“Calm down.” It’s Deran’s voice now. Deran, who sounds choked up and is still holding you locked in a vice grip. The sound of it makes you look up at Craig, whose eyes are shining with tears, and…

Your feet drop back to the pavement, the sound and sight of the boys’ pain deflating you almost alarmingly quickly, and you pat the arm around you in both comfort and reassurance.

“Okay.” You breathe, shaky, and Baz’s shoulders drop.

“Okay.” He repeats, and the sound of his voice makes you grit your teeth. “Now that we’re all calm, we need to figure out what to do.”

-

He’s in the yard.

Three years later, and he’s just… in the yard. Standing there. Staring at you. And what did you expect? That he would drag himself out of a grave? Appear before you in an explosion of fire and blood?

He looks at you. You look at him. He doesn’t move an inch.

He looks good. Just as beautiful as the day you lost him. You hate him for it.

“Hi.” His voice sounds even lower than it used to. He looks bigger. Like he worked out a lot in prison.

You raise your eyebrows. Something curls deep in your core at the sight of him. Three years later, and you still can’t look at this man without feeling a physical reaction. “Hi.”

-

“You’re bleeding.”

You reach up, swiping the back of your hand over your lip and frowning at the smear of red across your skin, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting off the pool.

“You’re not the only one who can get into fights.”

Andrew Cody looks at you, with those dark eyes that always seems to see through whatever lie you try to  tell him or even yourself, but you meet his gaze with the defiance of a teenage girl who really doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Are you…staying here again?” He asks, standing still from his spot beside the pool. You’re on a chair. Your face hurts. Your body aches. You nod.

“Smurf says I can crash for a few days.” In exchange for help, of course. Help with jobs. Connections. Money. You don’t mind. It’s better than being home, or hiding out on the beach again.

He still hasn’t moved. “Are you…gonna stay in Craig’s room? With him?”

You almost laugh out loud. Craig, big and rowdy and often immature even for a teenager, is closest to you in age. He might be your best friend. He definitely has a crush on you, and you’re almost positive that Smurf is angling for the two of you to get together.

“Why? Would that bother you?”

“Yes.”

You look up at him. He looks down at you. Slowly, almost unaware that you’re doing it, scoot over on your chair to make room, and he takes the invitation. Your heart hammers in your chest.

His hand comes up. Fingers brushing over a bruise on your cheek and eyebrows twitching with…

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He doesn’t. “Like what?”

“Like you want to kill someone for me.”

“I do.”

“I know.”

He’s close. His thumb is still brushing over your cheek, and his eyes fall to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You don’t think you’ve ever wanted anything more.

But this…this house, as chaotic and dangerous as it may be, is the only somewhat stable thing you have right now. The only safe place to go when things get too fucked up at home. When your petty criminal of a father takes things too far, or debt collectors come banging on the door. Smurf lets you stay here, and Smurf is always working an angle. You’ve told yourself a thousand times that, in exchange for this, you’ll go along with whatever plan she has for you.

This is not that plan.

And yet, as his face ducks closer to yours, fingers curling in your hair, you wonder what it would be like. To feel Pope’s lips against your own. To feel his body against yours as he lies you down right here on this pool chair. You think, despite his violent tendencies and episodes of something your uneducated mind can only call insanity, that he would be gentle with you. Like he always is. You don’t have much experience with boys, but you think he would make sure that you felt comfortable. He’d probably kiss you through any nervousness, whisper reassurances into your skin as he peels off your clothing, make you feel safe the whole time and-

His lips brush over your own, and you pull back.

“I’ve gotta…go inside.”

He searches your face, and you know that his observant eyes see the want there. Still, he nods, and stays where he is as you pull yourself to your feet.

-

“We should talk.”

You laugh, humorless, and push past him into the house. You don’t get far before you feel his hand on your arm, turning you towards him.

“Let go of me.”

He does, but he tilts his head and furrows his brow in that intense way he has. The familiar sight makes you ache. “We should talk.”

“I think the time for talking passed somewhere around three years ago, Andrew.” You grumble, and he fixes you with an expression so filled with helplessness and pain that you almost crumble right then and there.

You ignore him, and push your way into the house. Craig whistles at the sight of your too-tight dress and heels, and Deran greets you with a familiar smile.

As you start to plan, to prepare for the day ahead, you don’t turn around. You don’t look at Pope. His eyes don’t leave you the entire time, and it’s almost physically impossible to keep yourself from leaning back against him like you have a million times, over the course of a million similar meetings.

But you don’t look at him, and when it’s time to leave, you storm out of the house before he has a chance to catch your arm again.

The job. Focus on the job.

You can do this.

-

You lost your virginity to Craig Cody two weeks after you and Pope nearly kissed by the pool.

You don’t know why you did it. Well, you do. It’s what Smurf wants. It’s what Craig wants. It’s what you should want. You and Craig are well matched. You love him in whatever way you do. He’s your best friend. You know how to keep him in check when he acts like an idiot, and he knows how to make you laugh when the weight of everything feels like it’s going to fucking crush you.

So you had a couple of beers at a party. You grabbed his hand before he could get too wasted. Even for a teenager, he’s already fucking huge. Handsome, too. You know the other girls stare at him. You should feel proud that he follows you like a lost puppy the moment you start tugging him towards his room.

It was awkward. And messy. And nothing like the movies say it’s supposed to be like. You know he tried to make it…special, or whatever. He was gentle. He asked if you were okay between kisses as he laid you back on his unmade bed and helped you out of your clothes. When he pushed in, you’d gasped and clawed at his back, and he’d mumbled apologies into your neck and waited until you nodded that you were okay, but he still moved just a little too fast. A little too clumsily. It didn’t hurt too badly, and it wasn’t exactly unpleasant the whole time, but you didn’t feel fireworks or any of the overwhelming pleasure you thought you were supposed to.

When it was over, he’d kissed you, and you’d smiled up at him, and then he’d rolled over and pulled you into his chest and laughed.

“That was awesome.” He breathed, and you nodded. “You’re awesome. Was it…did you?”

“Yeah.” You think you did. There was a minute, somewhere towards the end, when it had felt pretty good. Not the explosion of pleasure you’ve always heard about, but that’s fine.

“Awesome.” He kissed your forehead, and sat up a little. “Wanna beer?”

You’d smiled, heart swelling with affection that should definitely feel more…romantic than it does. But it’s still affection. You still care about him a lot. Maybe this is supposed to be right. “Yeah.”

~

Pope Cody hasn’t looked at you in a week.

Smurf seems more than happy with you sleeping in Craig’s room. With him wrapping an arm around you when you all sit on the couch together. He’s even developed a habit of ducking down and pressing a kiss to your cheek when you’re standing in the kitchen, or before he does a backflip into the pool. It’s fun. You think you can get used to it.

You haven’t had sex again. He’s asked, almost every night, but you’ve always come up with some kind of excuse and he’s always responded with nothing harsher than a disappointed smile. And yet, you both stay up almost all night every night, talking and laughing and playing video games like you always have since the day he first brought you to this house. This family.

But Pope won’t look at you, and you can’t ignore it anymore.

Because he came home from a job with a black eye and bruised knuckles, and now he’s standing in the yard and Smurf’s chastising him for being reckless is still ringing in the air. He didn’t talk. He didn’t argue. He just stared at the pool and refused to look at her. At you.

And now you’re alone with him, and everyone has left to go regroup or party or whatever, and he still. Won’t. Look. At. You.

“Andrew.” You rarely use his real name. He tenses, but he doesn’t turn around.

“Look at me.”

He doesn’t. You snap.

“Why won’t you look at me?” You grab his arm, and turn him toward you, and he pulls it away.

“Stop it.”

“No.” You grab him again, and this time he catches your arm, fingers around your wrist in a vice grip that is firm but nowhere close to painful. His eyes remain on the pavement.

“You haven’t talked to me since I got with Craig.” You say, and his jaw clenches at your words. You can see his cold expression, now, if not his eyes. He’s older than you, but his face still holds the smooth roundness of youth. He’s just as handsome as always. Your heart stutters a little, like it’s supposed to with Craig.

When he still doesn’t answer, you shove at his chest. The sudden movement makes him release your wrist, but he doesn’t budge. “Fucking look at me! Why won’t you at least look at me? Are you seriously this pissed off because I hooked up with him? Stop being an asshole and tell me why you’re acting like this!”

“Because it should have been me!” He finally snaps, finally looks at you, and the sharpness of his voice paired with the intensity behind his dark eyes is enough to nearly make you stumble backwards. “It should have been me. You know it should have.”

He looks almost crazed, now, shoulders hunched and fists clenched and feet moving towards you until you take an instinctive step backwards. The movement doesn’t stop him. He still comes closer.

“You…you let him touch you. And kiss you. And do all of the things I’ve…” he trails off, and your breath freezes in your lungs, “the things I’ve wanted to do since I met you.” His eyes drop to your mouth, back up to your eyes, and he’s close. So close. “It should have been me.”

You don’t move back again. You can feel the warmth of his proximity in the chilly night air. Your voice is too quiet to your own ears. “That’s…not the plan.”

He’s not breathing regularly. His hands are still clenched at his sides. He looks you over, like he’s trying to fight it, before something finally breaks.

“Fuck the plan.” His voice is almost a growl, and you don’t have time to respond before his hand is on the back of your head and his mouth is against yours.

The world explodes.

His lips are warm and rough, demanding and desperate and sending fire through every vein and pore in your body. You choke on a whimper, surprising yourself with the sound, and Pope groans in response as his tongue sweeps its way into your mouth. Your hands fly up, curling in the fabric of his shirt before moving up to his hair like you don’t know how to touch all of him at once. His own hands move down, lips only leaving yours long enough for him to grab the backs of your thighs to lift you against him before he’s kissing you again.

You don’t even register that you’re moving, too caught up in the desperation and the feeling of something hot burning in your core. He presses you against a wall, trails his lips down your throat until you’re gasping for air, before he kisses you again and moves deeper into the empty house.

And then he’s lowering you back onto his bed, crisp sheets smooth against your back, and you barely let him pull away enough to crawl over you before you’re kissing him again with so much need that it’s almost embarrassing.

His rough palms are sliding up beneath your shirt, breath turning shaky at the feeling of your skin against his, and it feels so good you think you might die.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, lips against your cheek, and you nod.

“Please.” You don’t know what you’re begging for, but the sound of it makes him moan as he pulls your t-shirt over your head and trails his mouth down over your collarbone.

His own shirt comes next. You roll on top of him, and kiss and bite down his chest until he’s tangling his fingers in your hair and pulling your mouth back up to his, rolling you both once more until you’re on your back and your hands are fumbling with his belt, unpracticed and clumsy, until he shushes you gently and reaches down to help you with a lingering kiss to your cheek.

“Tell me if it’s too much.” He rasps after a while, and you can barely breathe enough to tell him that you will. You settle for a nod, and his rough palm slides over your stomach, up over your body until he’s cradling your cheek.

“I’ve got you.” He whispers, and the soft words are almost comical with how hard he’s trembling with restraint. With how dark his eyes are, how intense his touch feels. “Breathe. I’ve got you.”

You nod, and when you smile he smiles back, shy and nervous behind that starved expression, and that one look alone makes you feel like you’re floating.

It’s nothing like Craig. It isn’t like Pope is a whole lot more practiced, or some kind of sex god or anything, but every movement feels so much more…right. He slides his hand beneath your thigh, guiding it around his waist and watching your face as your bodies join together for the first time, and the noise that pulls its way out of your throat barely sounds human.

His breath comes on a shaky exhale, eyes never leaving yours as he searches your face for signs of pain or discomfort, and when he finally starts to move you feel something coiling so tightly in your stomach it almost hurts.

Every slow thrust, every reverent touch, tightens that coil. Every kiss. Every whispered word against your skin as his fingers catch your own and he presses your joined hands into the pillow above your head.

You reach the edge so quickly it shocks you, free hand clawing at his back as you bite down on his shoulder and fireworks explode behind your vision.

The feeling is so intense that, for a moment, you forget where you even are. You forget your own name. All you know, all you feel, is Pope moving with you. Whispering praise and promises of adoration against your lips and throat. When he follows you into oblivion, it’s with a breathless moan of your name.

After, he holds you like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever touched. He traces his hands over your skin. He follows the caresses with his lips. And, when you finally remember how to breathe again, you giggle.

He pulls back from your throat with a raised eyebrow, a smile curling on his own lips, and nuzzles his nose into your cheek. “What?”

“I didn’t…” you didn’t know it could feel that good. You didn’t know anything could feel that good. “I…wow.”

He really does smile, now. He tucks you closer to him, barely letting you go as he pulls you beneath the blankets with him and curls his body around yours. Protective. Possessive, even. “Yeah.” He murmurs, pressing his lips to the side of your head. “Wow.”

-

The future Mr. and Mrs. Franklin need to be convincing. Happy. Overwhelmingly in love.

Your heels click against the dock. It takes years of practice and training from Smurf to keep yourself from fidgeting in your expensive dress. Pope’s eyes are on you, burning holes into your head from behind his sunglasses.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what.”

“You look nice.”

“Shut up.”

The door to the yacht opens, and you don’t have time to keep the argument going. Pope slides his arm around you, you grin wide, and he tugs you almost too-tightly into his side.

“Welcome!” The woman on the other side of the door is smiling in that fake and familiar way that people do when they’re trying to get a whole lotta money from rich people. “Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, right?”

“Soon to be.” Pope says, all confidence and practiced casualness. He catches your hand in his, the expensive ring glittering obnoxiously on your finger, and raises the back of your hand to his lips. You giggle like an airhead, tilt your head onto his shoulder, and grin up at him.

“Adorable.” The woman says, too emphatically, and you don’t miss the way her eyes rake over your ‘fiance’. You shouldn’t care. This isn’t real. He’s not… yours anymore. And yet, it’s hard to shake off the surge of possessiveness that nearly has you yanking him down and pressing your lips to his.

When she turns to lead you both into the yacht, you try to pull your hand out of Pope’s. He doesn’t let you go. You turn to glare, and he offers you a small smile and a squeeze of his fingers through your own.

Fine.

-

“I’m sorry. He refuses to see you.”

“I…” you blink, shake your head, and tell yourself you heard the guard wrong. “What?”

“Believe it or not, even prisoners have a right to refuse visitation. He said he doesn’t want to see you.”

You blink again. “That’s…that’s not true. That can’t be true.”

“You can try again next week, but in my experience you’ll probably have the same reaction.”

-

You try again the next week. And the next. You stop sleeping. You stop eating. You wait for a phone call. An explanation. You go to Smurf. You go back to the prison.

Six weeks later, he finally fucking agrees to see you.

You nearly rip the phone off of the wall. He doesn’t look right in a prison uniform. He doesn’t look like he’s been sleeping. “What the fuck, Andrew?”

At your use of his name, his real name, you swear you can see something like relief flicker in his eyes, like the sound of your voice is a drug he’s been deprived of for over a month. You’re about to keep talking, or even press your hand against the glass like some lame fucking cliche, the sight of his face lifting something heavy off of your soul.

“Stop calling.” He says simply, and your heart drops to your feet.

“What?”

“Stop calling. Stop showing up here. Stop.”

“I…” what? This isn’t happening. He wouldn’t do this. “What? Pope, Andrew, I didn’t leave you.” That’s almost, almost incriminating. You know that. But it could also mean anything. You’re his girlfriend, after all. He’s in prison. You’ve been trying to see him. You haven’t left him. The last thing they’ll probably assume is that you’re talking about leaving him to be arrested after robbing that fucking bank.

“I know.” He says simply, and meets your eyes. “I don’t care. Leave. Stop coming here. I’m not going to come see you again.”

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to breathe anymore. This is so fucking wrong and it doesn’t make sense and-

He places the phone on the receiver, stands up, and leaves.

That’s the last time you see Andrew Cody for three years.

-

“And here we have the reception deck. As you can see, the view will be absolutely spectacular, especially when you’re out on the water…”

Four exits. Three cameras. One, two…

“I’m so sorry. Is there a bathroom I can use?” You ask brightly, from where you’re hanging off of Pope’s arm. “Or I’m sorry, the head, right? Like they say on boats.” An airheaded giggle, a practiced bat of your eyes.

The moment you’re around the corner, you whip out your phone and start taking notes and pictures. Exits. Entrance points. Doors to the lower deck where Craig can-

“We need to talk.”

You actually yelp, whirling around and stumbling on your heels before Pope’s arm shoots out to curve around your middle and keep you from falling over.

“What the fuck are you doing?” You hiss, wide eyes shooting back towards the hall. “Now? Let me go.”

“You won’t talk to me. I have to-“

“So you’re gonna fuck up the job? They could be here any second. You’re supposed to be distracting them.” He’s lost his fucking mind. Clearly, prison has warped his brain and made him an irrational asshole who-

The click of heels against the hardwood floor. A familiar, professional voice calling out your fake names with too much curiosity and suspicion.

“Fuck.” You whisper, and start scrambling to pull away and hide your phone. “Fuck.”

In one swift movement, Pope snatches the device out of your hand, slides it into his back pocket, presses you against the wall and slams his mouth to yours.

Like always, even after all of this time, the feeling of his lips against your own sends a jolt of electricity through your entire body.

He kisses you like he hasn’t thought about anything else in the last three years. His lips move hungrily against yours, one large hand coming up to tangle in your perfectly-done hair as his body envelops yours until you can’t think of anything else.

His tongue traces over your lip, and you open for him instinctively until he groans and changes the angle so he can kiss you more deeply and it feels so fucking good you might-

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…interrupt.” A bright, awkward voice breaks you out of your trance, and you gasp as you wrench your mouth away from Pope’s. He doesn’t even turn to the woman, thumb pressing into your cheek as he traces it over your skin like he’s trying to re-memorize the feeling.

It takes a lot more effort than you want to admit to clear your throat and plaster a flustered and embarrassed look on your face. To fall back into the ditzy, wealthy fiance facade. To keep yourself from ignoring her completely and kissing Pope again to chase that euphoric fucking feeling for as long as you can.

“Oh geez. I’m so embarrassed.” You reach up, and pinch Pope’s cheek just a little too hard with one manicured hand, feigning bright affection. “I just can’t keep my hands off of him, you know?”

“It’s so nice to see a couple so…in love.” A tight lipped, professional smile. Another glance at Pope that has irritating possessiveness curling in your chest again. You don’t have a right to feel that way. Not anymore. Not even after…whatever that was. “Would you two like to continue the tour?”

-

When Craig found out, he punched Pope in the face.

Pope punched him back.

When you lurched forward, prepared to jump between them and stop the bullshit macho display, Smurf had stuck her arm out and pushed you back.

“Let them fight. They need it.” She said, voice even, and kept her eyes on her two sons as they wrestled each other near the pool.

“This is bullshit. They-“

“You know,” she interrupts, still not looking at you. “When I took you in off the street, I wasn’t expecting you to stir up so much trouble.”

You freeze, heart stilling in your chest. She could send you back to your family. Your father. Being thrown out on the street would be bad enough on its own, but Smurf doesn’t work that way. If she wanted to really hurt you, she would.

“I didn’t mean to…stir up anything.”

She looks at you now, assessing. “I believe you.” She hums, and pulls her arm back. “Go break them up now, baby. See if you can fix your mess.”

-

“What the fuck was that?”

“A distraction.” Pope’s hands are on the steering wheel. His eyes are on the road.

“And before that? Cornering me in the hallway when I’m trying to gather fucking intel?”

He frowns. His fingers flex on the steering wheel. “It’s been three years.”

“And whose fucking fault is that?”

His brow furrows like he genuinely doesn’t understand why you would ask that. “The…U.S. prison system.”

“You know exactly what I mean. Don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not being a dick.”

“Pull the truck over.”

He does look at you, now, and you can see surprise in his eyes from where they’re visible over his shades. “No. Why?”

“I’m walking. Pull the truck over.”

He turns back to the road. One hand drops off the steering wheel, like it might come to rest on your thigh the same way it has in almost every car ride for years, before he catches himself and returns it to its original spot. “You can barely stand in those shoes.”

“So I’ll take them off. Pull over.”

“Just let me talk to you. Please.”

“No.”

His head drops back against the seat, jaw clenching in frustration, and you feel a surge of pride that you still seem to be the only person who can break through his little bubble of stoicism. Yeah, take that asshole. Be as exasperated as you want.

You don’t speak to him for the rest of the car ride.

-

Craig’s nose is bleeding. His feet are in the pool. He’s holding an ice pack to his eye.

“Do you hate me?” You ask, feeling almost childish for the question.

He laughs. Actually laughs, like you just said something ridiculous.

“Nah. Couldn’t if I tried, I think.”

You frown. “Then why did you…”

He shrugs, takes a sip of his beer, and smiles at you. “I mean, he did fuck my girlfriend. I’d be a little bitch if I just let him get away with that.”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Well, not anymore.”

“I was never-“

“C’mon. I’ve got a shiner and a broken nose. Don’t hit my ego, too.”

You laugh, and shake your head. “You’re an idiot.”

He holds up his beer in a silent cheers, and there’s nothing but affection in his eyes as he takes a swig. No pining. No longing. Not even hurt or betrayal. Just…affection.

You smile at him, and your heart swells in that way you once tried to convince yourself was romantic attraction.

“I thought Smurf was gonna throw me out.”

He frowns now, and shakes his head. “She won’t. And if she does, Pope and I’ll just come with you.”

You smile again. You know it doesn’t reach your eyes. Craig leans over, and bumps your shoulder with his own.

“No matter what, that asshole’s not gonna hurt you again. You’re gonna be okay.”

“And if Pope ever fucks up, I’ll be here. I know I’m the best sex you’ve ever had, anyway.”

You snort. “Craig-“

“Ego, remember? Lemme have this.”

You poke him in the bruised ribs, and he hisses in pain before he laughs again.

You believe him.

-

When you get back to the house, you lurch out of the car before he can even reach for you. You stumble on your heels, kick them off of your feet in the yard, and storm into the house.

“Woah, hey there Hurricane Lady.” Craig’s grin falls the second he sees your face. “Shit. What happened?”

“Nothing. Here’s the phone. It’s got the pictures. Exits. All of that shit.” You want to snap that maybe Craig could have just done this himself, having gotten himself a job there, but you know that he doesn’t get access to the same places you just did. “I’m off the job.”

“What?”

“She’s not off the job.” Pope’s voice, from the door, makes you prickle.

“You don’t get to decide whether I’m on or off the job.” You whirl, and glare. “You don’t get to decide shit about me. Not anymore.”

“Jesus.” Deran blows out a breath, eyes on Pope. “You didn’t tell her, man?”

“Tell me what?”

“She won’t let me tell her.” Pope looks frustrated. Pained, even. Like he has any fucking right to be.

“Tell me what?!”

“Just tell her.”

“I’ve been trying-“

“Tell. Me. What?”

“He cut you off in prison because the cops were coming after you.” Craig says, and the words shut you up. “They were investigating your involvement. He had to cut ties so you didn’t incriminate yourself.”

Oh. Oh.

‘Pope. Andrew. I didn’t leave you.’

“Can I talk to you now?” Pope’s voice is low, and he’s doing the head-tilt thing, and you swear your lips are still tingling from his kiss.

You stare. He stares back. You open your mouth. Close it.

And then you walk into his room.

You don’t even need to turn around to know he’s following you. You hear Craig whistle the wedding march behind you, and you flip him off over your shoulder.

Pope’s old room is empty. The bed is made like it always was before.

“Beautiful. So beautiful. All mine…”

He whispers the words into the flushed skin of your neck, reverent and laced with gravel as his body moves against yours like it was made to. You gasp his name, and he groans as he moves faster.

Some party rages down the hall. The sounds of it are distant and inconsequential. All you can hear is his shallow breathing. His whispered promises of love between presses of his lips to any part of your skin he can reach. You love him so much it hurts and you’re going to-

You shake the memory off. Clear your throat. When you turn to him, he’s looking at the bed like he’s remembering something similar. Well, there are a lot of memories like that in this house. In the house the two of you shared later. In his truck. By the pool. In the pool. On the beach. At the-

Fuck.

“Talk. You wanted to talk, so talk.”

He watches you. You watch back, tense.

“They were looking for a reason to arrest you. The cops thought they might have identified you on that job a few months before. The one at the dispensary.”

You just keep staring at him. He shifts on his feet. “I couldn’t tell you. They were listening to everything. I figured…it was the only way to keep you out of prison.”

“Three years.”

Guilt flickers across his expression. Something like desperation follows. His fingers flex by his side. “I didn’t know when they stopped investigating you. Just when they stopped asking me questions.”

“Three. Years.”

“I missed you every day.” He moves closer, hesitant, like he’s trying to make sure you don’t bolt. “Every fucking minute. I thought about you all the time. It…it killed me, to walk away like that. I still think about the look on your face. I…” his jaw clenches, and he reaches towards you.

You should pull back. You should slap him, maybe. You know he would let you.

“You risked the job.” You try. Try to find something to cling to your anger. Your hurt. You missed him so much and all of that pain doesn’t just go away with one explanation.

“Fuck the job.” He whispers, hand sliding up over your cheek. “It’s been three years.”

And then he’s kissing you. Rough. Hungry. Desperate in a way that makes your knees threaten to give out because holy shit nothing has ever felt as good as Pope Cody’s skin against yours.

For a moment, you forget. You forget to be angry and hurt and painfully confused in favor of tangling your fingers in his curls and dragging him closer to you. He groans, the sound rough and borderline desperate, and his hands drop to your waist, lifting you clean off your bare feet to spin you both until he has you pinned against the wall.

His chest is pressed against yours. His hand is moving down to the hem of your dress, and you think you can feel his fingers shaking as they skate up over your skin and a shiver falls down your spine.

But it isn’t enough. This isn’t enough. It feels so good that it kills you to pull away. But his fingers are sliding up the inside of your thigh and if they reach their intended destination there won’t be anything in the world that will be able to stop you. To stop him, either, if how hungrily he’s kissing you now is any indication.

Because his kiss doesn’t make up for the hours you spent alone, in the house you once shared, staring at a phone that wouldn’t ring. How humiliating it felt to cry yourself to sleep with your mind filled to the brim with questions that you would never have answers to.

His mouth is gliding over your jaw, down over your throat, and his grip on your waist is so wonderfully tight and his fingers are so close to where you need him so badly it hurts and-

You shove him away, breathless and flushed and almost shaking with hunger, and his dark eyes have never looked so predatory.

“You…you can’t do that.” You whisper, and he looks like he’s about to do exactly that again at any moment. You hold up a hand, warding him off, and force yourself to steady your breathing. “No, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just show up again and kiss me like that.”

“I’m sorry.” He starts, expression filled with a genuine pain.

“You made me think, for three years, that you didn’t love me anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” He moves closer like it’s instinct, and you back up a little more into the wall, and he looks like he’s about to drop to his knees before you. “I’m so fucking sorry. I did it to protect you. I promise. I couldn’t think of any other way.”

You push past him, and walk out the door.

For once, he doesn’t follow.

-

“Where is she?”

You’re not here. You haven’t come since he got out. 

“She doesn’t really come around anymore, man.” Craig shrugs, like it’s casual, like your absence isn’t digging a hole into Pope’s soul even as he sits here by the pool and you should be here but you’re not and he fucking hates it. He should have apologized to you ten times over by now. You should be here with him.

“She comes around every now and then. Watches Lena. Grabs a beer with me on Tuesdays and surfs with us if we ask nicely.” Craig leans back, and Pope fights the urge to lean forward and beg for more information. “She doesn’t talk to Baz, though. I think the most I’ve seen them interact is her flipping him off or some shit.”

Yeah, sounds like you.

“So, you gonna talk to her?”

Yes. Of fucking course he is. He’ll be on his knees begging the second you’re in the room.

But you don’t come. You don’t show up at the house anymore. You changed your number, and he can’t call you. Despite what Craig said, it’s almost like you’ve made yourself into some kind of ghost, too far away for him to reach anymore.

When he was in prison, he would fantasize about the day he got out. In most of those fantasies, you were waiting for him at the house. In a good few of them, you weren’t wearing much clothing, but that part can be easily attributed to how long he went without seeing you.

Nevertheless, you were there. And he would take you into his arms, and you would smile and tell him you understood why he had to do what he did, and everything would be perfect.

But now, he has to track down your new house. On the beach, and not too far from his new place, but he doubts you know that.

He watches through your window and doesn’t even register that it might be a little fucked up of him. He makes sure you get home safe. Waits until he sees you climb into bed and flick off your lights, and often spends a good long while imagining all of the times he would be right there with you. How he would tuck you into his chest, and the two of you would have whispered conversations like you were still teenagers living in Smurf’s house and trying not to be overheard.

He doesn’t go to the door. It’s not the right time. Not yet. It isn’t like it has to be perfect, but… but it’s been three years. Three years of torture and an isolation that almost killed him. That may have killed a part of him, somewhere deep down where even he can’t reach. As badly as he wants to stand on your porch and beg and plead for you to understand, to love him again, he isn’t sure he would be able to handle you slamming a door in his face. He’s not sure he would be able to let you, and that thought alone almost frightens him more than anything else.

Not yet. The job. When Craig brings you in on the job, that’s when he’ll see you. Talk to you. Make you forgive him.

Just…not yet.

But that doesn’t mean he can’t keep an eye on you, until then.

-

The effort it took to get Ethan the Finance Bro to talk with you after Craig ruined it the first time is almost making this particular job too much of a pain in the ass.

It’s a little tricky to balance the work you have to put into the boat job with your own plans, but your own jobs are a little less complex than the ones enacted by the Cody boys. Less reward, sure, but it’s safer and easier. Find out a few things about Finance Bro Ethan’s rich dad, get access to an account or two, make a couple of unnoticeable transfers, and bing bang boom. You can afford rent and to fix your car, and maybe even a nice pair of shoes while you’re at it.

He’s jumpy. You have to smile a little more brightly at him, hold his hand across the table and bat your eyelashes as you insist that your friend from before is just terrible at making jokes, and he’s finally relaxing enough to-

His eyes trail up over your shoulder, and stop.

“Leave.” And that’s Pope’s low, furious voice. It is dripping with danger.

Ethan looks at you. Back at Pope. You smile, wide and sweet, and refuse to turn around. “Ignore him.”

“Do that, and I’ll cut your ears off.”

Son of a bitch.

“He’s joking.”

“Three.”

Ethan starts to scoot out of the booth.

“Don’t.” You say, jaw clenching and smile still forcefully bright.

“Two.”

And he’s gone. Just like that. Out the door and ruining your plans completely.

“Fucking Codys. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get him to talk to me again?”

“Who was that?”

“I had to bend over backwards to keep him from being terrified after Craig’s bullshit. This bra is so uncomfortable. You fucking-“

His hand comes down on the back of your chair, and he leans closer to you with a deadly and dark expression. You don’t flinch. You don’t even come close. In all the time you’ve known him, in all of his scariest moments, he’s never come anywhere close to harming you. The possibility simply doesn’t register in your mind. “Who was that?”

You look at him, deadpan. “My boyfriend.” It couldn’t be farther from the truth, but you may as well piss him off a little.

It works. His jaw clenches, and he leans a little closer. “I’m serious.”

Fine. You give up. “He was a mark. I’m on a job.”

“You’re already on a job.” Pope’s frown deepens, angry eyes moving up to the door again. “That guy was staring down the front of your shirt.”

“That’s kind of the point.” You glance down at your low cut top, at the aforementioned uncomfortable bra, and when Pope does the same you can see something twitch in his jaw. Feel his hand tighten imperceptibly on the booth behind you before he looks back up at your face.

“We’re leaving.”

“No, you’re leaving.” You correct, irritated, and move to turn away from him.

He catches you, turning you back towards him with a look so intense it makes your heart drop. “Come home with me.”

You pause, knocked off-kilter by his proximity and the desperation in his gaze. He looks…dangerous. Like a man in a desert who has been deprived of water for too long, and is starting to lose it enough to follow that water to a bar and ruin her weeks of work.

And yet, it’s annoyingly difficult to care. Not when it would be so easy to bring your hand up, curl your fingers in the soft curls on the back of his neck, and pull his lips down to yours. So, so easy, and yet…

You start to move back, and his hand catches your chin, thumb sliding over your jaw in that familiar and devoted way that always makes your toes curl a little. He saw it. He saw the hesitation. The want in your expression matching his own, and he’s too far gone to let it go.

“Come home with me.” He repeats, soft and close enough that his nose nearly brushes your temple. “We can do jobs together. Like we used to. You don’t have to…do this.”

You spent so long being a team. Being with him. Every job, every move, it was all with Pope and the Codys and while you can do these smaller jobs alone perfectly fine, you want…

Him. God, you want him. Not just sex, either. Though after three years and the way he’s standing so close you can feel the warmth radiating from him, you’re having a hard time not jumping his bones in the middle of this bar. You want to wake up with him in the mornings again. You want to watch him wash the dishes in that particular and concentrated way he has. You want to sit on the beach with him at night, and talk about everything and nothing until the sun peeks over the horizon.

His nose skates down your cheek. The noise of the bar fades away. Your eyes flutter closed as if of their own accord, head tilting to the side, and he makes a low noise as his fingers leave your face to move down your arm.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs, lips pressing against the line of your jaw, and your next breath comes as a shaky exhale. His hand slides around the curve of your waist, and the angle of his body above yours is intoxicatingly overwhelming. He kisses your jaw again, a little higher, a little closer to your ear, and you melt. “I’ll apologize a thousand fuckin’ times, okay? Just come home with me. Let me show you how sorry I am.”

Your body relaxes beneath his, and you feel his mouth trailing over your skin like he couldn’t give less of a shit about the rest of the world around you. It’s so familiar. So nice. So warm and-

Goddammit.

“Stop.” You push on his chest, and he moves back with a genuinely pained expression. “Stop it, Pope. You just fucked up a month of work for me. I’m not going home with you.”

The look on his face would break your heart, if there was anything left of it to break.

You don’t say another word.

You just leave.

-

The girl sleeping on the couch is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.

Craig brought you here a few hours ago. Said something about you taking on three guys by the beach who were trying to rough him up over weed money. You hit the biggest one with a baseball bat. They knocked you out before Craig could take them down.

Smurf hadn’t said much when Craig walked in, eyes bright with lingering adrenaline as he’d placed you on the couch, but she’d seemed impressed when Craig had explained what happened. She’d told him to leave you on the couch for now, and to make sure you didn’t get any blood on her furniture. Your face is bruised. Your sneakers are dirty. You’re wearing a flannel that’s way too big and has holes in it.

“I think she’s been sleepin’ on the beach.” Craig says, brow furrowing a little as he looks down at you. You’re so still you could be dead. Pope wonders what color your eyes are, and then wonders why he wondered that.

“Junkie?” He asks, and resists the urge to brush the hair out of your eyes. Like Julia, maybe. Maybe you know her, wherever she might be right now. Maybe you already have that connection to him. Maybe…

Craig shakes his head. “Nah. Not a junkie. I dunno if she’s homeless, either. I just kinda see her around sometimes. She pickpockets tourists. Seems good at figuring out which ones are the L.A. douchebags.”

Pope frowns. Your face twitches a little, but you don’t wake.

“She’s hot.” His younger brother observes, and Pope’s frown deepens. “And badass. You shoulda seen her, dude. She went at them like a fuckin’ demon. She doesn’t even know me.”

You look so angelic, curled in on yourself on the couch with sand in your hair and dirt under your fingernails, that he finds it hard to believe.

Hard, but not impossible. Because there’s something about you, and the bruises on your face that look so much like the ones that often adorn his own, that screams…fighter. Survivor. Protector.

And he hasn’t even spoken to you yet, but there’s something else there. Something deep down and warm and intrinsic that he can’t exactly pinpoint but certainly can’t ignore.

His.

-

When you wake up, he’s watching you. He knows he probably shouldn’t be. He probably looks creepy, or whatever everyone says, but he can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the rise and fall of your breathing. The way your face twitches every now and then in sleep. The way your hair spills over the couch cushion. He wants to brush it away, but he’s afraid to wake you.

Your eyes flutter open. They’re beautiful.

And those beautiful eyes move dazedly around the room before they land on him, and widen. You bolt up, and hiss in pain as whatever injuries you sustained in that fight no doubt scream in protest.

You look at him. Look around. Look back at him.

Carefully, he passes you the baseball bat from his room. Craig said you had one before. You’re in a strange new place. It might make you feel safe.

You close your fingers around the handle, and watch him like a hawk as you pull it over to you.

“Where am I?” He likes the sound of your voice. Even cracked with sleep and shaky with nerves, it sounds as pretty as the rest of you.

“My house.” He says simply, cocking his head to the side. “Craig brought you here.”

Craig is passed out in his room down the hall. You took a while to wake up. You frown, and rub your head a little.

“Why did you do it?” The question leaves him before he can think, curiosity lying heavy in his chest. People in Oceanside don’t just help other people like that. Not when it could put them in the same state you ended up in.

“Three to one didn’t seem like fair odds.”

Pope takes this information, and holds it close to his heart. Keeps it there like a flame he’ll never let go out.

You sit in silence for a minute before he speaks again.

“Do you want a sandwich?”

You look up, surprised, and your lips quirk upwards just the smallest bit.

“Sure.”

-

The knocking is loud. Very loud. Angry, even.

When Pope opens the door, there you are.

Fuck, it’s like you don’t even know how beautiful you are. He’s always been surprised by that. Sure, you use your looks and pretty smiles to work people on jobs, but when that persona is lowered and you’re just…you, the sight of you could make him drop to his fucking knees.

“You fixed my door.”

He’s shirtless. It’s early. Your eyes drop down to his chest before they fly back up to his face, and he is two seconds away from yanking you into the house and taking you right here in the front hall.

Shit. Three years. Three long, long years of nothing but his hand and memories of you. He’s devolved into a fucking animal. All he can think about is ripping that t-shirt off of you. Of lifting you onto the table right here and dropping to his knees, hearing the noises he can pull from you when he buries his face between your-

“You fixed my door.” You repeat, angrier now, and he furrows his brow as he forces himself out of the fantasy.

“Yeah.”

“Pope, you don’t know where I live.”

His brow furrows a little more.

“Fine, I haven’t told you where I live.” Oh, that’s what you mean. Right.

“It was creaking.”

“How many times have you broken into my house?”

Seven. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Andrew.”

You should know better than to say his name. His real name. The sound of it shoots something molten through his veins, and his hand tightens on the doorframe.

“We’re broken up. You can’t break into my house.”

“We’re not broken up.” The fact comes easily. Simply. There’s no plea behind it. No question at all.

“We’re broken up. You broke up with me.”

“No, I didn’t. I said stop coming around. I didn’t break up with you.”

“Whatever you did, it was three years ago.”

“And you’re not in prison.” He wants to ask why you’re not getting it, but he knows that you do. Even if most wouldn’t, you know how he thinks. You’re just being deliberately obtuse because you’re angry. But he’ll spend the rest of his life apologizing to you, if that’s what you need. “I’m out. We still love each other.”

“You don’t know that I still love you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Tell me you don’t.”

You open your mouth, like you just might try it, before closing it again and trying another tactic. He’s always found it…cute. The way you try to deflect your feelings like this. And he’ll never try to pretend that he doesn’t love how easily he can call you on it. There are two things in this world that Andrew Cody is absolutely confident in: jobs, and you.

“You fucked up my job.”

“You hate those jobs. They bore you.”

Your eyes narrow, and you’re gorgeous when you’re angry. “I don’t have a backup plan anymore. I need the boat job to go well.”

You’re stalling. You don’t want to leave. “It will.” He raises an eyebrow again. Your eyes drop back down to his bare chest, and it sends a thrill through him. “Want some breakfast?”

“No.” You’re still standing here, and he knows you too well to let you leave just yet. The tension crackling through the air, emanating from you and directing itself at him, is so fucking obvious it almost makes him grin.

“Coffee?”

You hesitate. Frown. “Fine.”

And with that word, you cross the threshold, and kiss him.

-

Your first job with the Cody family went well. Really well.

Smurf shocked all of them by inviting you in, building up her tests of your skills and your loyalty to the family until she suddenly just…made you a part of it. Sat you down at the family meeting with them and told you what your part in the job would be.

Baz protested. Deran was quiet. Craig, however, was thrilled. Pope is pretty sure his brother likes you a little too much, and he hates the way it makes jealousy and possessiveness curl black and vile in his throat. He hates the way Smurf seems to assess this. The way she watches you keep Craig in line and encourages the two of you to spend time together.

But you did well. Really well.

And then, after dinner, you disappeared.

Pope found you up the street, sitting on a small curve of beach and watching the moon like you were greeting an old friend. He’d hesitated to join you, like he might be interrupting, but…

“Hi.”

Shit. “Hi.”

“Wanna sit down?”

Yes. So fucking badly. He’d do anything in the world to just be close to you. “Do you want me to?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitates. You look back at him, illuminated by moonlight and so gorgeous it stops the breath in his lungs, and pat the sand beside you.

He sits, and you rest your head against his shoulder. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“Are you…okay?” Do you expect him to function correctly right now? Do you expect him to be able to string a thought together? You’re so warm. So soft. He doesn’t have experience with this kind of thing.

“Oh yeah.” You hum, fingers curling in the sand beneath you. “I mean, if you’re asking if I’m upset about you holding an unloaded gun to my head while I pretended to freak out, don’t worry. I’m fine.” You mean it. Smurf would be impressed.

He could cover your hand with his own, right now. You might even let him. You might let him curl his fingers around yours, and even flip your palm to rest it against his. Your soft skin against his rough callouses, pillowed by the sand beneath you…

“So what’s wrong?”

You hum, and he feels it vibrate through his shoulder. “I don’t know. Smurf, the job, everything just feels like it’s going too well.”

“Too well?”

“Things change. They hurt when they change. It’s too…good.” He starts to say something, though he isn’t sure what, before you continue. “That’s why I like coming out here, though. I like looking at the water. It’s why I slept on the beach when things got too shitty at home, you know?”

He turns his head, and it brings his face so close to yours that he almost chokes. You don’t even look up, just keep watching the waves crash on the beach as you continue.

“It sounds kinda cheesy, but the ocean is so…big. And no matter what’s going on with me, no matter how bad things seem, it makes it all feel smaller, you know? All that ocean, everything going on beneath the surface, and whatever bullshit’s happening to me just feels…inconsequential. More manageable, I guess.”

Oh God. Fuck. He loves you. He loves you so much.

His hand, knuckles still bruised from some fight he got into earlier this week and already so much bigger than your own, covers yours. You stop picking at the sand, but you don’t pull away.

“I’ll always be here.” He murmurs, some part of him terrified that you’ll jump away from him. He means it. He really does.

And you mean it too, when you turn your palm and slide your fingers through his, and murmur back. “Thank you.”

-

It’s a fucking whirlwind.

You don’t know what possessed you. What you were thinking. Just that you are magnetized to this man, and he’s standing there looking at you like he knows every thought in your head and like he loves you more than anything in the world and you can’t spend another second without his lips against your own.

He meets you just as hard, hand coming up to grip at the hair at the base of your skull as you walk him backwards into his house. You realize, vaguely, between the blur of lips and teeth and desperate hands, that you haven’t even seen the inside of it yet. Even now, it’s weird for there to be any aspect of Pope’s life that you don’t know about.

The tour, however, is going to have to wait. Because Pope has you pressed against the counter and you barely have time to gasp his name before he’s lifting you onto it, tugging your shirt up over your head and tossing it aside before ducking down to trail desperate kisses over your neck. You tangle your fingers in his hair, and pull his mouth back up to yours, biting down on his lip until he groans and reaches down to start tugging your pants over your hips.

“Bedroom.” You manage, somewhere between a choked moan and a drag of your nails down his muscled back that has him sinking his teeth into your throat.

“Three years.” He replies, the words a starved growl, as he rips your pants and underwear down over your legs. All you can do is nod your understanding and drag his mouth back to yours, hands leaving his face to reach down and tug his sweatpants over his hips.

He pulls back, just enough to press his lips to your ear, and you can’t help but whimper when he murmurs his next words.

“Tell me you want this.”

You curl your fingers in his hair, pull him closer to you, and barely manage to gasp out a soft confirmation of “I want this, Andrew” before he’s pushing into you and it is everything you’ve missed for too long and it feels so good you might fucking die.

You gasp, and hold him tighter, and he breathes a shaky exhale into the hollow of your throat as he goes very very still.

You make a soft noise, needing more, and he understands immediately because he knows every inch of you better than he knows himself.

“Three years.” He murmurs again, hoarse and apologetic as his hands grip the counter on either side of you. You realize what he means through the haze of lust, and a bubble of laughter tears its way out of your throat. The sudden movement makes him hiss, cursing softly against your throat as his hands fly up to grip your hips. You clamp your lips together in an attempt to stop your giggling, and when he pulls back to look at you he starts laughing too.

And then, still smiling, he kisses you slow and deep, and begins to move. The moment he does, all humor flies out the window, and you gasp as you lock your legs around his hips and scramble for purchase against his back.

It’s fast and desperate, like he really and truly can’t help it, and it is absolutely perfect. Fuck, it’s everything you have ever needed in your entire life and more. You cling to him, wrapped in his arms and burying your face in his neck to try to muffle cries that might wake the entire Strand. He doesn’t stop, but his grip tightens as he adjusts his movements to grind deeper, fingers tangling in your hair to pull your head back from his shoulder until you can feel his ragged breaths against the shell of you ear.

“Yeah?” He whispers, hoarse and smiling and already wrecked as the force of his movements makes stars explode behind your vision. Then, closer, his nose against your temple and his grip almost bruising on your skin. “Yeah?”

You just nod, and hold on for dear life as you fall over the edge with a cry of his name, and he follows right after you with a choked moan of yours.

For a moment, you both just try to catch your breath, wrapped in each other’s arms with your legs shaking and Pope’s shoulder warm against your forehead. He kisses the side of your head, soft and loving, and huffs a laugh into your hair as he pulls back to press his lips to yours.

“I missed you.” He whispers, and you’re smiling too.

And then, without warning, he hoists you into his arms and starts walking.

“Where are we going?” You ask, still laughing, still smiling, still blissed out beyond words.

He kisses your forehead, your cheek, and kicks a door open. “Bedroom.”

-

Once the initial violent desperation has faded, Pope takes his time with you. He works you apart piece by piece, like he’s relearning every inch of your skin. He kisses every new scar. Every familiar freckle. He makes you forget every word that isn’t his name, tells you he loves you until he’s hoarse with it, and you do the same to him. In the confines of his room, in this new house on the beach, you forget about every morsel of pain you’ve felt in the past. Every tear you’ve shed. Every lonely moment.

At some point, when he’s trailing slow kisses up the inside of your thigh and your fingers are tangled in his curls, you manage to come back to yourself for half a second.

“We’re not back together.” You murmur, and he looks up long enough to raise a dark eyebrow at you.

“We’re not.” You repeat, and he gives you another look, this time with both eyebrows, before nudging your thigh further aside. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to, because in the next five seconds you completely forget how to form coherent thought.

-

The sun is setting by the time you’re both too exhausted to continue. A few minutes ago, you broke apart long enough to make your way to the shower, where you’d lasted about five minutes before he’d slipped in behind you. You managed to hold back long enough to shampoo each other’s hair before lathering off had turned into kissing beneath the stream, which had turned into…well, into you pressed up against the wall, his chest against your back and his teeth buried in your shoulder as your fingers clawed against the tile and your vision turned white for the umpteenth time today.

Now, his fingers card through your still-damp hair, and you wonder vaguely if you’ll ever walk again.

“Holy shit. We haven’t done that since…” you trail off, brain as mushy as your muscles seem to be, and you feel Pope’s proud smile against your forehead.

“Three years and forty nine days.” He supplies, and you can’t hold back your giggle. “Day after the jewelry store job.”

“Right.” Christ, it really is a miracle that you survived three years apart when you used to go at each other like coked out bunny rabbits. “Forgot about that.”

“I didn’t.”

You swat at his chest, and he tucks you closer to him, tilting your chin up to press his lips to yours.

-

For the first time in three years, you wake up in Andrew Cody’s arms.

And he’s asleep. He’s soundly, completely asleep. He’s always been a light sleeper, but despite that there are certain circumstances that have been known to knock him out like a log.

He’s completely out now, arms wrapped tightly around you and deep breaths tickling the top of your head.

There was always so much chaos in your lives. So many things that could go wrong at any moment, so many risks taken every single day. There was Smurf’s manipulations, Craig’s irresponsibility, Deran’s tendency to disappear and worry everyone, Julia being gone, and Baz…well, Baz being a raging douche most of the time. All of it was always so much, but right here, right like this…this was always where you felt safest. All of the insanity would always be a million miles away, blocked out by the circle of Andrew Cody’s arms.

Which is probably why it feels like a physical stab to your chest when you carefully wiggle out of them.

He grunts, one arm reaching out as if searching for you, but he doesn’t wake.

You allow yourself one moment to stare at him. One long, aching moment. He’s so beautiful in the moonlight that he almost hurts to look at.

And then you slip on one of his tshirts, wiggle into your jeans, and disappear out the door.

You don’t bother pulling your shoes back on, letting the sand cushion your feet as you wander down the beach, and listening to the waves crash against the shore.

He’ll wake up soon, and he’ll find you. And when he does, he’ll pull you back into his arms and the two of you will sit on this beach like you used to. Watch the waves and the stars like you used to. You’ll talk, and he’ll apologize, and he isn’t very good with words but you’ll understand him and you’ll forgive him. Just like that.

You’re not ready for that.

So you pull out your phone, and dial the only other number you have on speed dial. The only number besides Pope Cody’s.

“Where the hell have you been?” Craig shouts into the phone, mirth lacing his voice even through the tinny speaker.

You glance down at Pope’s t-shirt. Plain white. Too big for you. Soft and draped over your body like a flag with his name on it.

Oh well. “You’re gonna give me a whole lotta shit for it.”

He laughs, and you hear a bottle clink somewhere on the other side of the phone. “So why’re you callin’ me?”

“Cause I’m crazy, I guess. Or an idiot.”

“Or both.”

You hum, and bend down to scoop some sand into your palm, letting it trickle between your fingers as it falls back to the earth. You’re confused, and still hurting, and your heart aches heavy in your chest. In moments like this, you’ve always wondered what it would be like to have one of those girl best friends in rom-coms. The kind who would split a bottle of wine with you on the couch and talk for hours about boys with you. That must be nice. You wonder if they really exist, somewhere where life is normal.

Well, you don’t have that. You have Craig Cody.

“I’ve gotta go off grid for a minute.” You say, and trail your eyes back towards Pope’s darkened house. You have minutes before that light flicks on, and you cave. “Wanna get drunk?”

Craig blows out a long breath, and you can almost see him raising his eyebrows and resting his elbows on his knees.

“Sure. Where are you?”

-

Pope hasn’t seen you in three days.

Deran is the one who called him, frustrated and concerned and grouching about you not being able to handle your liquor.

“It’s weird, dude. The balance is gone. She’s not talking him out of shit anymore. They’re just kinda ramping each other up.” He hears the clink of bottles. Shouting in the background. Maybe, somewhere, your laughter. “Whatever you did, come fix it. Because your girlfriend is doing body shots on my bar and I’m not about to get shut down because those two are acting like fucking idiots.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He’s already grabbing his keys. You fell asleep in his arms, for fucks sake. You spent the entire day letting him whisper apologies and promises of love into your skin. He thought you were good. It felt like everything was back to normal, and then you were just…gone.

Sure, there was a moment where you insisted you weren’t back together, but when that sentence is quickly drowned out by “Oh God oh God Andrew please don’t stop” it’s a little hard to let the words sink in.

He’d searched the beach for hours. Called your phone even when it became blatantly obvious that you’d turned it off. He went to Craig’s house, and his brother wasn’t there. You didn’t take your car when you disappeared. He’s been worried sick about you and now you’ve been on some kind of bender?

“You did something.” Deran doesn’t seem to be grasping the gravity of this situation. Everything was fine. Why are you still upset? “They haven’t done this kind of shit since you dumped her in prison.”

“I didn’t fucking dump her.” He needs to focus on not breaking too many traffic laws, but he senses a few irritated comments coming his way. Annoyed as Deran may be right now, he fucking adores you almost as much as Craig does, and Pope can hear genuine worry in his tone.

“You should probably look up the definition of dumping, dude. Telling her to fuck off and not talking to her for three years is pretty-“

“Just tell me if she’s okay.” The words come out harsh. A snap of anger in the quiet car.

“Just get here.” The phone clicks off, and Pope almost throws it out the window.

-

Everything is nice and fuzzy, and you’re having a very fun time.

You don’t have anywhere near Craig’s tolerance, nor his penchant for anything stronger than alcohol and weed, so this ‘bender’ hasn’t exactly consisted of you partying straight through like he has. In fact, it took until tonight for him to pull you off of his couch and tell you to stop wallowing and have fun.

And you had listened. Oh boy, had you listened.

You started at Craig’s house, letting him amp you up and remind you to get angry between shots of tequila.

“Holy shit, just say it. Say it already!” Craig stands, waving the shot in front of your face before shoving it forward. “Are you mad? Sad? C’mon, quit bein’ such a closed book! Who the fuck is that helping?”

“I’m angry!” You take the shot, down it, and sputter.

And then you smash the glass against the wall.

“There she is!” Craig shouts, enveloping you in a drunken hug, and you let the rage build in the safety of your friend’s arms as you start to giggle like a fucking lunatic.

“Gimme another.”

He whoops, lets you go, and grabs the bottle.

And then you went to the Cove, and drank margaritas and let Craig convince you to get angrier. Angry because Pope left you. Because it hurt so bad it felt like a piece of you had broken off, and angry because he showed back up and brought all of that pain with him and just expected it all to be better.

And eventually, you ended up in Deran’s bar, hammered and laughing and trying to remember why you were mad in the first place.

That is, until Pope Cody shows up.

You’ve seen him look scary before, with that furrowed brow and those shark eyes, but now he looks downright murderous.

That’s okay. You can be angry too. You are angry.

“We’re leaving.” He says, simply, wrapping an arm around you before you shove him off.

“Nuh uh.” You step back, and his frown deepens.

“Dude, lay off. She’s just blowin’ off some steam-“

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Pope stands too close to Craig. Looks way too angry. He doesn’t get to be mad. He broke your heart. He left you alone.

“What’re you doing?” Craig, larger than Pope and already too drunk and coked out to think rationally, matches the furious energy. “You think you’re cool just walkin’ in here and making her go home?”

Something twinges in your drunken mind. Tells you to step in. To stop this.

But you’re too late.

“Maybe I’m sick and tired of pickin’ her up off the floor because you did some shit to make her bawl her fucking eyes out.” Craig shoves Pope. Hard. “Seriously man, what’s the fuckin’ matter with you? You think she deserves this shit?”

Pope punches him in the face.

You just stand there for a moment, drunk and shocked, and it takes a good moment of them brawling and shoving each other into the bar before you realize that you should get in the middle of this.

Someone, some guy who was flirting with you a while back, tries to grab you and pull you away. You slam your elbow into his face, and he releases you long enough for you to leap onto Craig’s back, yanking him away from Pope just in time to feel your back slam into the corner of the bar hard enough to make you lose your grip.

You fall back, feel something smash beneath you, and groan as a bolt of agony shoots through your body. Fuck. Fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.

The fight stops. The bar goes quiet.

Hands pull you up, slurred apologies spilling past Craig’s lips in a panic as he sets you on your feet and looks down at you with a horrified expression. You’ve had worse, sure, but the bruise isn’t gonna be pretty and you know damn well he’s gonna feel guilty about it tomorrow.

You look up at him, reach up to pat his chest…

And puke on his shoes.

You hear him mumble a quiet “oh, fuck” before he’s shoved aside, and Pope is there. Pope, who is scooping you up into his arms without a word and carrying you out of the bar.

“Sorry.” You mumble, and he doesn’t respond, but he squeezes you a little more tightly to him and that feels like enough.

He places you down in the passenger seat of his truck, and presses his lips to your forehead before he moves to the drivers side.

You’re suddenly very, very exhausted. You thunk your head against the window, and close your eyes as the engine starts.

You feel Pope’s hand on your leg, warm and comforting and familiar.

It feels like home.

-

“Look who finally decided to come home.”

Your father’s voice is nails on a chalkboard. A skin-prickling, hatred inducing rasp that makes your entire body tense.

“This isn’t home.” You drop your keys on the counter. It’s not home. It never has been, but now that you have a real home the difference has never been more obvious to you.

You left your home tonight. Left the warmth of Andrew Cody’s arms. He hadn’t woken, as exhausted after the job as you were, but he’d hummed sleepily into your neck and tried to squeeze you closer as you’d wiggled your way out of his embrace.

Your father scoffs, and doesn’t look up from the TV. “You think that place is home? You whore yourself out to that psycho Cody and now you can’t give half a shit about the guy who raised ya?”

It’s your turn to scoff. You don’t answer. He keeps going.

“You think that crazy kid loves you? You think you’ll get to leave and run off into the sunset with him? The ticking time bomb ain’t gonna love you. None of ‘em are. I know Smurf. She’s keepin’ you around because that shithead prefers to fuck you over going berserk and killin’ everyone in the house. They don’t give a shit about you. They use you. S’all you’re good for, anyway.”

That hits you. Harder than it should.

No. No, he’s wrong. He’s an asshole, and he’s wrong. Andrew Cody loves you more than life itself. There’s no question there.

…Right? It’s not like you even know what love is, being raised by this of shit. And Pope’s love is…obsessive. You don’t mind it. You like it, actually. But-

No. Fucking no. You’re not letting him get in your head. You can’t.

Because there’s Craig. And Deran. And even Baz, sometimes. Smurf likes you, and she most certainly sees you as a pawn, but… but Craig is your best friend. Craig laughs at your jokes. Hugs you so tightly your ribs might crack sometimes. Stays up to talk to you for hours by the pool.

And Pope loves you so much that it consumes him. Even you can’t doubt that. The way he looks at you, the way he touches you, the way he kisses you like he’ll never be able to get enough. His shoulders relax when you enter the room. His smile is the brightest thing you’ve ever seen. You even wake up to him watching you sleep, sometimes, tracing his calloused fingers over your skin with his eyes half-open like he’s fighting sleep just so he can look at you a little longer.

And the last time your father took things too far, the last time you came back with bruises…

You’d spent an hour talking Pope down from coming over here. You’d spent longer convincing Craig and even Deran to stop fucking encouraging him to, to stop insisting that they’ll help him end this asshole.

That’s love.

And that gives you the strength, the courage, to move over to your father and lean one hand on the back of the couch, glaring daggers into his eyes.

“The only reason you’re still alive, is because of me.” It sounds like a fucking growl, so angry and unlike you. “Don’t forget that.”

Your father just smiles, like you’re wrong and he knows it. You want to punch him. You want to prove him wrong, and let Andrew kill him.

You walk out the door, instead.

-

He sits you on the edge of his bed, and it’s just like before. Like every time you’ve been drunk or even sick since you were kids. He kisses your cheek, asks if it’s okay, and when you nod he pulls your t-shirt up over your head, quickly replacing it with one of his own. Your pants go next, and then he tucks you beneath the blankets of his bed and brushes your hair from your face.

He hesitates to pull his own shirt off, wonders if you might be too drunk and upset to want him near you. You never have before, but he’s realizing pretty quickly that before is more removed from the present than he expected it to be. Three years in prison, daydreaming every day about coming home to you and explaining why he did that he did and having you forgive him right away was…well, a daydream. He may have been able to lose himself in the fantasy of your unconditional love and forgiveness for three years, but you were here. Alone. Wondering what you did wrong and missing him on a level completely separate from his. He didn’t experience any of the confusion. The lack of understanding. The pain that comes with that.

You reach out, and push the hem of his shirt up. He pulls it over his head, a slave to your needs and whims, and helps you unbuckle his pants until he’s sliding into bed beside you and pulling you into his arms.

“You’re mad at me.”

You tilt your head into his hand, and nod.

His heart breaks, eyes softening and hand smoothing over your cheek as he leans closer and presses his forehead against yours.

“Why?” He asks, a genuine desperate pain cracking the word as it leaves his throat. “I thought…I thought we were good.”

You make a soft noise, and lean against him a little more.

He whispers your name, presses a kiss to your cheek, and inhales deep, trying to memorize your scent.

“I’m not good at this. You always tell me.” Another kiss. Fingers curling in your hair. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you stop hurting.”

You curl a little closer.

“You left me.” You finally whisper. “You promised you never would, and then you left. I worried about you for three years.”

He pulls you closer. Feels tears prickle in his eyes and guilt churn in his stomach.

“I went to the beach, and it didn’t feel better, because you weren’t there.” Your fingers curl against his chest, right over his breaking heart. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. For three years.”

Fuck. “I’ll never stop loving you.” If he holds you any more tightly, it might hurt the bruise on your back. He’s gonna fucking kill Craig for that, accident or not. “Never.”

And then, quietly, almost a whisper as you drift off but just loud enough for him to hear it and almost die right there, “…I don’t know if I believe you, anymore…”

-

The boat job goes well. Really fucking well. Save for Marco cutting a woman’s fucking finger off, everything goes off without a hitch.

And you’re proud. Really fucking proud. Craig was always capable of this kind of thing if he just applied himself, and here you all are. Richer than before and still riding that all-too-familiar adrenaline high.

“Geez, Pope really did a number on you.” You reach up now, poking lightly at his black eye. He flinches, and huffs out a sheepish laugh. You saw this coming when you decided someone would have to beat Craig up, and Pope volunteered a little…emphatically. But still.

“Pretty sure he’s got some pent up anger.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes scanning over you. “How’s your back?”

You cringe, and resist the urge to rub the still-bruised area. “It’s fine. The hangover was worse.”

Craig looks like he’s about to turn you around inspect the injury himself, but one glance over your shoulder to where Pope is no doubt glaring from across the bar is enough to make him cave with one last guilty look. He’s apologized maybe a hundred times for the mistake, and you’ve forgiven him every time. After all, he didn’t mean it, and you’ve definitely had worse. “Damn, how bad?”

Your head is pounding, and you just barely managed to make it into the bathroom before the rest of last night’s tequila expels itself from your stomach.

Not five seconds later, you feel a large hand curl in your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail while another palm rubs small circles on your back.

“Oh, the humanity.” You whimper, pulling back to lean against the wall. You flinch at the movement, and give Pope a miserable look. “Christ, did I get hit by a truck last night?”

“You broke up a bar fight.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“It was…between me and Craig.”

You frown, and try to piece the fuzzy memories together. “Did you kill him?”

“No. He fell back against the bar with you on his back, so I’m going to.”

Ah, that’s where the pain is coming from. You look him over, shirtless and beautiful and achingly familiar, but…

“Have you slept?”

He frowns, and looks like he’s fighting the urge to reach for you. “No.”

Ugh. This is stupid. Bad idea. You should leave. You are not together anymore. You will not-

“Okay. My head hurts. You need to sleep. Back to bed, big guy.” You reach out, and make grabby hands at him, just like you’ve done a million times before. Every time you were hungover, every time you were sick, or even one time when you just twisted your ankle trying to dive into the pool.

His smile is so full of adoration and relief that it nearly makes you cry. He doesn’t hesitate, moving to scoop you into his arms with a soft grunt of “c’mere…”

He lays you down, and you pull him with you, tugging the covers around you both before tucking yourself into his chest and reaching up to scratch your nails lightly over his back in the way that’s always made him melt.

“I love you.” He murmurs, warm fingers brushing through your hair. “I’m sorry-“

“Shhh. Go to sleep.” You press your lips to his shoulder, and feel him shiver a little at the feeling. “Head hurts, and you need to sleep.”

He takes a moment to speak, but then he nuzzles his nose into your hair and drops his arms down to pull you closer to him. “Okay.”

“I’ve had worse.” You smile, and clink your beer against Craig’s. “Thanks, though. You did fucking amazing today.”

Your friend’s smile, despite the damage to his face, lights up the entire room. “Fuck yeah I did. You did, too.”

“Aw, shucks.” You grin, and it’s just like before. Just like when you were kids, riding the adrenaline high together and laughing your way through the car chases and the gunfights despite Pope and Baz and even Deran’s concern. You nudge him, and smile a little wider as you gesture towards the door. “Renn’s here.”

He turns, and the way his eyes light up makes your heart swell impossibly more. That, right there. That’s how you look at Pope. How he looks at you. That little spark behind his eyes is exactly what he’s always deserved.

“You two back together?”

“Nah. I mean, I dunno. Maybe. We’re…you know.”

You clink your beer against his, and meet his eyes. “Just don’t fuck it up again, okay? You’ll be fine. Don’t overthink.”

His eyes trail behind you, to where Pope is most certainly still watching you, and he raises a pointed eyebrow.

You scoff. “Shut up.”

-

That’s the problem with good things. They always end.

You’re at the bar, sitting beside Pope like you have after a thousand jobs, and despite your conviction to keep your heart safe you can’t help the way it melts when his hand covers yours, large fingers threading through your own.

“Do you wanna go home?”

You hum, and lean into his side despite yourself. It was a pretty big day, after all, and nothing sounds better than curling up in bed with him and sleeping until noon tomorrow.

You open your mouth to agree, feeling his thumb trace lightly over your knuckles, and-

Your phone dings. A specific ringtone. One that makes you feel like an anvil has been dropped into your stomach.

“I’ll be right back.” You murmur, and when Pope’s brow furrows you lean forward and press your lips to the corner of his mouth. Not quite a kiss, but close enough that his hand squeezes yours one last time. “Just gotta go to the bathroom, first.”

You leave before he can follow.

-

“You look like shit.” You greet the old man in the alley with a frown, crossing your arms and standing a good few feet back. He does. Your father, piece of shit that he is, has probably pissed off a debt collector or two again, judging by the bruises on his face and arms. You have no sympathy for the man who once left similar marks on you.

“Heard your psycho boyfriend is outta prison.” His retort makes you grit your teeth. “Still sluttin’ yourself out to the Codys?”

“What the fuck do you want this time?”

“Just an exchange. Heard about that boat robbery today.” Fuck. “Wouldn’t be too great for good ol’ Dope’s probation if someone were to put in an anonymous tip, would it?”

“Pope had nothing to do with that.”

Your father smiles, all stained teeth and greedy eyes. “Shouldn’t be a problem, then.”

“Fuck you.”

“How ‘bout we make a trade? I don’t gotta call nobody, and you help cover my debt.”

You want to kill him. You hate him so much it makes you feel sick. “Like I said, fuck you.”

You turn to walk inside, and the move is a mistake. Fingers close too-tightly on your wrist, and before you know it you’re being slammed against the alley wall with your arm twisted agonizingly tightly behind your back. You bite hard on the inside of your cheek to keep from crying out, and remind yourself to breathe through the pain.

“Thought I raised you better than that.” The fingers on your wrist feel like they’re going to snap it in half. You want to bite something back, preferably something poetically sarcastic, but you can’t let your voice betray the pain you’re in. All these years, and you hate that he can still hurt you. “You got three days, kid. Sure you can spend enough time on your knees to get the money out of the crazy one. Maybe the cokehead, too.”

He lets you go with a shove that makes your cheek scratch against the wall, and you turn to glare defiant daggers as he walks away.

-

“Where did you go?” Pope’s dark eyes are curious, almost innocent as he reaches up to pull you closer to him by your hips.

You move back a little, and his brow furrows with concern. “I need my cut.”

“Yeah. You’ll get it when we-“

“I need it now.”

He stands, and you step back when he looks you over, but you’re too late. He knows you too well.

His hands are on your waist, tugging you close to him, and his fingers fly up to the scrape on your cheek. Down to pull up your sleeve, exposing angry red marks in the shape of fingerprints.

“Where is he?” He asks, voice dripping with danger, and you try to pull away but he just grips you more firmly. His grip is gentle, and you know he would let you go in a second if you asked, but he’s not letting you run from this. “Is he here?”

“Not anymore.” His fingers are curling around your arm, pulling it up to inspect your wrist. His eyes are almost black, and his jaw is clenched so tightly you’re worried he might crack a damn tooth. “Hey, Andrew. Look at me.”

His eyes don’t leave the bruises on your arm. “I should have killed him.”

“Beating him half to death caused enough problems.” Piece of shit that he is, your father has one too many connections in Oceanside, and the damage control from when Pope snapped on him years ago nearly got all of you arrested or killed.

It’s been proven safer to just give him what he wants, and try to keep it as secretive as possible, lest Pope or even Craig try to pound him into the pavement again.

Speaking of which, Pope is still holding you too tightly. You reach up, and turn his face towards yours. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Let’s…” God, you’re supposed to keep up with this ‘not together anymore’ thing, but “can we just go home?”

He melts. His eyes soften, and his arms slide around you to pull you closer to him. You feel his cheek against the side of your head, his hand sliding gently up over your back, and you melt too.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

-

Split lip. Black eye. Ringing ears.

God, everything hurts. That asshole really did a number on you this time.

Bruised if not cracked ribs. A slight limp from where your leg hit weird when you were tossed across the floor. An aching arm that was grabbed a little too hard.

“Holy shit.” Craig. Craig’s voice, as familiar as your own.

“I got hit.” You worked on this lie. Practiced it the whole limping walk down here. “…by a car.” As bad as it is this time, it might be the only thing that’s believable.

“You’re a shit liar.” Now you know that’s not true, but your friend is already by your side, holding you up and helping you walk into the house. “I’m gonna kill him.”

You’ve definitely got a black eye. Your lip is swollen and bleeding. It’s becoming more exhausting to take stock of your injuries than it would be to note what isn’t hurting.

“Don’t. Just…don’t.” You wince on a step, and when Craig huffs and tries to scoop you up you swat him off.

“Fuck that. You look like you’re about to keel the fuck over.” He frowns, concern lacing every one of his features. “You’re not going back there.”

“I hit him with a fuckin’ frying pan.” You mumble, knocking your head against his shoulder. “So I figure I’m not welcome back any time soon.”

“Smurf is gonna shit.” He mumbles, and leans you back against the kitchen counter to inspect your face. “Fuck, Pope is gonna blow a gasket, dude. How are you gonna explain this to him?”

“I don’t know.” You mumble, reaching up to push the hair out of your face. All you want to do right now is see him. To be held by him and to maybe even just lay down in his twin bed and feel him tuck you into his arms. You’ve been with him for a little over a year, now, and it still feels like you’ve been dating for a week. Like your relationship is just one never ending honeymoon phase. Even these last few days, helping your father out with his bullshit scam, you’ve missed him so much it’s almost concerning.

Fuck.

“Beer, please.” You mumble, and when Craig hands it to you you take a moment to rest the cool glass against your bruised cheek. “I don’t know. I’ll tell him I got in an accident.”

Craig’s answer is immediate, lifting your arm to show the bruises in the shape of fingerprints dented into your skin. “Yeah, real fuckin’ believable.”

You pull you arm back, panic rising in your throat. “Okay. I…give me a sweatshirt.”

“He’ll just take it off.”

“Fuck.” He’s right. You shouldn’t have come here. You should have hidden out on the beach for a few days like you used to, and waited for some of these injuries to fade. Fuck. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Fat fuckin’ chance.” Craig grabs you, more firmly than usual, and keeps you still against the counter. “You think I’m gonna let you walk outta this house while that asshole is still breathing? Look, I ain’t Pope, but I’m not gonna let you into a situation where you could-“

You sense him before you see him. You didn’t even hear the door open.

“Get. Away. From. Her.”

Shit.

“Shit.” Craig releases you, and takes three large steps back like he might be attacked by a mountain lion.

Pope is on you in a second, one large hand cradling your bruised face, and in a moment you can see in his eyes that he’s not entirely there. That line in him has snapped, like it has on those nights you’ve found him in the yard, distant and empty and staring at the moon. When you’ve pulled him from fights, and he took a minute to even remember your name. Took him longer to remember his own.

“Please.” You whisper, reaching up to slide your fingers through his hair and force him to look at you. “Please be okay about this.”

He doesn’t answer you. He just moves his hand over your face, looks at you with those murderous eyes, and presses his forehead against yours.

“Where is he?”

“Pope. Andrew. Please.” Your heart cracks on his name, and he grips you more tightly. “Please, just take me to bed.” You turn his face to yours, squeeze your eyes shut. “I just wanna go to bed.”

And he does.

One hour later, he leaves that bed. You don’t open your eyes. Keep your breathing slow and steady as you feel him kiss your forehead, then your cheek, sliding his fingers through your hair like pulling away from you is physically painful.

But he does, and you feel him stand. You hear him leave.

And you let him.

Two hours later, he walks through the door of Smurf’s house with blood on his knuckles and sweat on his brow.

You’re waiting for him in the hall.

You look down at his hand. Back up to his eyes.

“Is he dead?” Your voice is quiet. He doesn’t look guilty, but he doesn’t look away from you, either.

“No.”

You just nod, and move forward to slide your hand over his cheek. He leans helplessly closer to you.

“Next time you do that,” you murmur, guiding his lips down to your own as his swollen knuckles curl against the back of your borrowed shirt, tugging you closer to him, “take me with you.”

He releases a shuddering breath, and his kiss is so full of love and devotion that it buckles your knees.

-

A warehouse is a cheesy place to meet. The fact that the asshole brought backup makes it worse. Granted, you brought Pope, Craig, and Deran with you, but…well, they’re more here for emotional support. And because they wouldn’t let you come alone.

When you got home, you told Pope everything. The threats, the money you’ve sent him, the amount of time he’s still been able to keep you under his thumb despite how hard you’ve worked to break away…

To your surprise, he hadn’t snapped. He hadn’t stormed out of his house to find the old man. He’d…

He’d kissed you. He’d wrapped his arms around you, tilted your head back, and kissed you.

You make a muffled noise against his mouth, eyes flying open in surprise before fluttering shut as your body melts into the embrace before your mind can even catch up.

When you finally break for air, still confused but certainly unable to complain, you blink your eyes open again.

“What was that for?”

He just kisses you again. Slow. Warm. Wonderful. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.” He whispers, lips moving down to your jaw. Your neck. “I’m sorry you had to be so fuckin’ brave on your own.”

“Andrew, I…” this is a much different reaction than you were expecting. You haven’t mentally prepared for it. Your mind is still on the defensive.

He shushes you. Pushes his hands up under your shirt to trace them over your skin. “I love you. You don’t wanna be together? That’s okay. We can do whatever you want.” He kisses the hollow of your throat, scrapes his teeth against the sensitive skin, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat that has him tightening his grip on you. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re not dealing with this alone.”

You’re not alone. He’s not going anywhere. Never again.

You believe him. You really, really believe him.

“Take off your clothes, please.”

He smiles against your collarbone, and trails his nose up your throat until his lips are hovering over your own. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” You’re already tugging at his shirt, already pulling him down to kiss you, and he meets you with a hunger that feels like a satisfied craving. “I love you. I trust you.” The words are murmured between kisses, “now please take off your clothes.”

“Christ, it’s like you think you’re Tony Soprano or some shit.” You grumble, feeling surprisingly petulant despite the intensity of the situation. Your father has connections, sure, but you grew up with Smurf Cody. The comparison between the way he operates and what you’re used to is absolutely insane.

Your father is a drunk, and an asshole, and he thinks he’s tough shit. You happen to know what it looks like to actually know what you’re doing. Shocker, that you’re the one who makes the actual fucking money. Even less shocking that he makes most of his income leeching off of you.

Well, not anymore.

“I told you to come alone. You brought your fuckin’ guard dog.”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk.” You gesture to the man beside him, the wall of muscle holding the gun and glaring at you like this is a gangster movie and he genuinely believes himself to be the most badass character. “Did you give your Steroid Humunculus his pay already, or is he gonna be banging on your door in a week looking for it?” You’re guessing the latter, if past experience is anything to go by.

“Enough.” Your father snaps, like he has any authority at all. It makes you furious. “Tell the psycho to leave.”

“Call him a psycho one more time, and this time it won’t be him who beats you to a fucking pulp.”

“Are you threatening me, you little shit?”

“Like father, like daughter.”

“I should teach you a fuckin’ lesson-“ he starts toward you, only to back up when Pope steps forward. His jaw ticks, fury flashing in his eyes, and you hear the click of something loading in the cavernous room.

It all happens so fast.

In all the times this kind of thing has happened, all of the times he’s made threats, it’s always been diffused. He’s always held up a gun, maybe loaded it, and said some bullshit until money was tossed his way.

This time, he brought the wrong backup. And that backup panics.

The man raises the gun, and aims it at Pope.

You move before you think, jerking instinctively in front of him and pushing him back, already beginning to move towards the money to end this bullshit. They always point the gun. Always shout a threat. Always shut up when they see the money and-

And then the gun goes off.

-

You wake to an empty bed.

Your first instinct is to reach out to the space Pope usually occupies, hand sliding over the cool sheets like you might be able to pull him out of thin air. It’s not morning, and the house is silent. If there was some kind of emergency, he would have woken you.

Huh.

The mystery doesn’t stay a mystery for long. You shuffle into the yard, and there he is.

Naked. Staring at the moon.

He seemed fine last night. Well, as fine as Pope Cody can be. A little more quiet, maybe. A little clingier than usual, and that would be saying something, but fine.

“Hey, handsome.” You hum, casual and sleepy, and move to stand beside him. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t break his eyes from the night sky. “What are we looking at?”

“Everything.” He murmurs, absent, and you can already tell that he isn’t here. Isn’t entirely inside his own head. That’s alright. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and it probably won’t be the last. At least he’s not smashing anything with a hammer.

“Sounds like a lot.” You move to stand in front of him, lifting your hand to brush your fingers through the soft curls on the back of his neck and turn his gaze down to yours. “How ‘bout you just look at me instead?”

When his eyes meet your own, still hazy and distant, his breath catches in his lungs. His hand moves up, guiding yours so he can press his cheek into your palm like the touch is some sort of coveted blessing. You smile, soft and gentle, and bring up your other hand to mirror the first and cradle his other cheek.

“You’re an angel.” The words come out as a reverent whisper. He’s not trying to flatter you, not trying for pretty compliments, but rather stating a fact. Like he often does, when he’s in this state.

“Not quite.” You press your lips to the underside of his jaw, and you feel a shiver travel through his entire body. “But I appreciate the compliment.”

Large hands hover over your waist, and his eyes don’t leave you. “Can I…touch you?”

You nod, and bring his forehead down to rest against yours as his arms slide around you, tugging you against him as calloused fingers trail up beneath your sleep shirt, the touch just as familiar as the rest of him.

“Will you come to bed with me?” You ask softly, moving your own hands down to smooth over the skin of his chest. “I’m not an overly jealous person, but I’d prefer to keep this view for myself. Don’t wanna share with the neighbors.”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

“Tell me that again in the morning when I remind you to take your meds, okay?”

He follows you back inside, and allows you to pull him back into bed with you. Allows you to pull the covers up around you both as he envelops you in his arms, and trails his lips along your hairline as he whispers soft words against your skin. You can’t make them out, but you wonder from his tone if they might be some kind of prayer.

“I love you.” You murmur, and his arms tighten around you. “Every part of you. You know that?”

“I don’t deserve it.” He whispers, and you pull back to look at him.

“You do.” You kiss his nose. His cheek. “You really, really do.”

-

For a moment, you think a car might have backfired somewhere nearby.

It’s not like you don’t know what a gun sounds like. Fuck, with your childhood, you could recognize the sound faster than your own voice. And yet, in this moment, your mind can’t seem to keep up. Can’t seem to process exactly what just happened.

You feel like you got punched in the stomach. There’s an intense, knock-the-wind-out-of-you pressure, and then…

Your hand comes up to the point of that pressure, to the dull burn, and comes away red.

“Fuck.” Your father breathes, and then he starts shouting. “Fuck! You idiot! What the fuck did you do?!”

You’ve heard that voice before. When he’s lost an exceptionally lucrative bet. When a deal has gone wrong. That’s the tone of a man who is losing his meal ticket, not even close to the tone of a concerned father.

You didn’t even get to do your little speech. Your whole ‘fuck you, I owe you less than nothing and this is the last time you’re getting a cent from me’ speech. You were kind of looking forward to it.

Your whole body feels a little numb. When your knees finally give out, warm arms wrap around you before you can collapse.

“No. No no no no no!”

Now that…that isn’t concern either. It’s worse. So much worse. It’s the realest and most raw fear you’ve ever heard.

There’s too much blood. Fuck. So much blood. It’s spilling out between your fingers faster than should be possible. Vaguely, you remember when you were small, and the faucet broke at whatever house you and your dad were squatting in at the time. You were so scared of his ire, of him blaming you for the burst, that you’d tried to hold it together with your small hands until your entire body was soaked.

Andrew Cody is gathering you into his arms, lowering you to the ground, and the pain is starting to slice it’s way through the shock and it is absolutely fucking overwhelming.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re gonna be okay. Look at me. C’mon, y-you’ve gotta look at me.”

Your father is still yelling at the guy who shot you. Screaming about the money. Not about you. The sound is loud, cutting through the ringing in your ears, and Andrew’s arms tighten around you.

“Close your eyes.” The words are murmured by your ear. Soft and warm and gentle despite the chaos. When he speaks again, his voice is shaking. “Close your eyes, sweetheart. It’s gonna be okay.” He rarely calls you that. This must be bad.

When you do, you hear a gun fire, and the shouting stops.

Your eyes fly open, and you try to turn towards the sound of two bodies hitting the floor, but Pope is there before you can move, dropping a gun to the pavement and cradling your face in his hands.

“Don’t look at that. Look at me. Look at me, okay? You’re gonna be okay.”

He shouts for Craig. For Deran. Everything is still in a sharp, dizzy sort of focus.

-

“Holy shit. What happened?”

Craig is hunched over the toilet. There’s a bottle of tequila on the floor.

He turns his face towards you, hair messy and cheek resting against his arm. “Go away.”

“Nah.” You’re already sitting beside him, tugging his hair into a ponytail and tying it off.

“M’a fuckup.” He mumbles. “Jus’ a…drunk idiot. Deran said.”

You hum, and rub a soothing hand over his back. “Definitely acting like one.”

“See?” He tilts his head miserably back into his arm. “Even you say it.”

“Shut up. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” You move over to the bottle, and take a swig before throwing the rest into the trash. “Hey, look at me.”

He does. He looks like he might have been crying.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know, you know that?”

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m not lying.”

He looks at you now. Really, really looks at you. “You gotta stop seein’ the best in me.”

“Too late. You done puking?”

He grunts, and you reach down to help him stand with a significant amount of effort and bitching that he weighs a million pounds.

And you get him into bed, and even tuck him in, and before you leave to go back to Pope’s room he catches your wrist.

“I love you.”

You stop, and furrow your brow.

“Not in like, a weird way. M’not tryna fuck you or anything. I don’t even know how…” he frowns, and releases you to rub a hand over his face. “I dunno how to say it.”

Your heart swells, in that familiar way, and you laugh a little as you move over and sit on the edge of his bed. “I think you’re telling me I’m you’re best friend.”

“Well, obviously. S’more than that, though. You don’t…you don’t think I’m a fuckup. You actually like me.”

You think back to that kid on the beach, surrounded by three angry assholes and fully prepared to stand his fucking ground. The kid who you were knocked out defending. Who didn’t think twice before he brought you back to his home. To the only safe space he knew. Who brought you into his family.

Who loved you like you loved him, and wasn’t sure what it meant. Who assumed, as teenagers do, that it might be romantic. Who didn’t think twice when he realized that it wasn’t romantic, and still pushed his pride aside and kept on loving you. And even now, budding your own ways into adulthood together, he’s drunk and still trying to put into words that he loves you platonically.

“You have the biggest heart.” You say, honest and raw, and his hazy blue eyes fill with tears again. “Even if you can be an idiot sometimes.”

He swipes his hand over his eyes, and tries to hide a sniffle. He looks young like this. He’s only in his early twenties, sure, but he looks younger than that. Vulnerable in a way only you ever really get to see.

“Promise you won’t go anywhere.” He mumbles, like he’s nervous to say it.

He smells like puke, and he’s sweaty, but fuck it. You hug him, making sure to flop down on top of him a little so he groans miserably before he wraps a large arm around you to pat your back.

“Can’t get rid of me if you tried, jackass.”

-

Craig is freaking out. He’s in the back of the car, where Pope is still holding you, and he’s freaking out.

Oh, no. That won’t do, will it? You take care of them. You always do. You keep Craig level-headed, and you keep Andrew from freaking out. Or…or is it the other way around? It’s concerningly difficult to think. You feel like you’re floating.

“Almost there. Almost there. Don’t leave me, okay?” God, Andrew Cody’s voice is the best thing you’ve ever heard. You want to sink into it, but he’s shaking and you can hear tears in his voice and you’re supposed to fix that.

“Drive fucking faster!” Craig is pushing on your stomach too hard. It hurts. You wheeze, and he doesn’t let up. “Deran, the IV isn’t working. It’s not working, she’s too fuckin’ pale.”

He’s covered in blood. You can’t see Pope, but you think he is too. Everything is tainted a horrible shade of red, and it’s getting really hard to think.

“M’here.” You try, scratchy and raw. “M’here. You’re okay. Don’t…be a dumbass.”

“Fuck. Fuck, don’t die. Please don’t die. Look at me, okay? Look at me.” You try, but Pope is whispering near-nonsense into your hair and trembling so hard it’s almost starting to hurt more than the pressure on your stomach. Still, Craig brushes the hair from your face, and you can see tears tracking their way down his cheeks. “They’re all dead, okay? All those assholes are dead. You’re not going with them, you hear me? You’re not going with them.”

There’s shouting. There’s panic. It’s all fading. Pope’s lips are warm against your skin, and the sound of his voice is soothing and…

-

“I love you.”

The words are whispered into your hair, so soft that you almost don’t hear them through the haze of sleep. But you’re awake, now. He doesn’t know it, but you’re awake.

You blink, and feel his fingers trace slow, warm patterns over the bare skin of your back.

“I love you.” He whispers again, just as low and just as quiet.

You shift, and he goes very, very still.

“Hi.” You whisper, pulling back, and he looks fucking terrified.

“…Hi.”

“You just said you loved me.”

“I…thought you were sleeping.”

You reach up, and turn his face to yours. Feel soft curls between your fingers.

“How long have you been telling me you love me when I’m asleep?”

He’s silent. He doesn’t look away.

“Andrew?”

“…a while.”

You smile, and the way his eyes spark at the sight makes your heart melt. “I love you, too.”

His hand flies up almost too fast, cradling your cheek and brushing his thumb over your cheekbone as he stares into your eyes with an intensity that makes your blood tingle in your veins. “You do?”

“Yeah.” How could you not? How could he not know? “Of course I do.”

-

A sharp sting brings you back, this time. You think someone might have hit you.

“Fuck, thank God. You looked like…shit, okay. Pope, let her go. You’ve gotta let her go, man.”

“Where were you?” He’s whispering against your cheek, and he’s out of his mind. Shit, he’s really out of his mind. His arms are still around you, and he’s speaking like he used to when things got really bad. When whatever was in his mind snapped, and it would take you hours to bring him back to you. “Where did you go? Don’t go. Take me with you.”

Every instinct, every cell in your body, tells you to fight. To stay here. To be here with him. To make this better.

But you’re losing time, and he’s not letting you go.

“Don’t touch her.” Lips on your temple. Your cheek. Arms tight around you. “Don’t touch her. Don’t take her away.”

You try to speak, but convulse instead. The sight of it seems to trigger something, and Craig starts to yank you out of Pope’s arms in such a panicked rush that you whimper as another bolt of agony fires through you.

Andrew holds you tighter. Your mouth tastes like copper. You feel blood trickling past your lips.

“Fuck it. Fuck it. Deran, hold him down.” Craig says, and he’s still crying and you should fix that, before he reaches forward and slams Pope’s head against the window. The arms around you go limp as he loses consciousness, and then you’re being lifted out of the car.

“I got you. It’s okay.” You choke out a soft noise, grab at his arm, and he just tucks you closer to him. “Pope’s okay, too. Everything’s gonna be fine, yeah? Just…just don’t die. Please, please don’t die.”

You’re so tired. You want Andrew. If you’re going to drift into oblivion, he should be here. But…

-

When you open your eyes, it’s to a cracked ceiling and a heavy, distant pain in your stomach.

You feel the drugs in your system. Blurred and heavy and warm. Tijuana. They managed to get you to Tijuana. And you’re alive. Bullet wound in the gut and all, and you’re alive.

Andrew Cody is beside you, head resting on his hands like he may have been living up to his nickname and praying. When you stir, he does too, red-rimmed eyes blinking open and looking at you like you’re the only other person in the world. There is so much relief in his gaze that the sight makes you feel dizzy.

“Hi.” You murmur, hoarse, and reach up to tap gently at the side of his head. “Are you here?” You remember his mumbled words against your skin. The way he needed to be knocked out before he would let you go. He can go so far away, sometimes. But he looks like he’s here now. He looks like he’s your Andrew.

He nods, and catches your hand to press his lips to your palm. His breath shudders on a silent sob.

“I thought…I thought you were-“

“I think we should get married on the beach.” You cut him off with a gentle squeeze to his hand. “S’that okay?”

He looks at you, at your stomach, and back at your face like he’s trying to judge how full of painkillers you are. “You wanna get married?”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” There’s no hesitation. Not an ounce of it. “But you’re on-“

“I know. Still want to. I can ask you again when I’m off them, if you want.”

“I think you should.” He murmurs, but he’s smiling. It’s a small, hesitant thing. Like he was pretty sure, not too long ago, that he would never smile again. Like he’s already re-learning the expression.

“Mm.” You squeeze his hand, and lean your head back against the pillows. “You wanna marry me?”

“Since I first met you.”

“Softie.” You turn your head, and furrow your brow a little. “You never asked, though.”

“I planned it.” He admits, tracing his thumb over your knuckles. “Bought a ring.”

“When?”

“Five years ago.”

You raise your eyebrows, and say again, “you never asked.”

“Never found a perfect time.”

“Mm. Sorry for stealing your thunder then.”

He squeezes your hand, and brings it up to his lips so he can trail kisses over your knuckles. He looks back up at you after a moment, and his dark eyes are so beautiful. “I killed your father.”

Those four words should definitely make you feel something. Anything. Instead, you just feel a surge of love for the man before you. “Okay.”

“I’m glad I did it.”

“I know.”

And, like he just can’t help it anymore, he moves forward and presses his lips to yours. You kiss him back, and wrap your arms around his neck even as the movement makes you wince. Worth it.

“Can we get married now?” You ask, the words muffled by his lips, and he smiles down at you.

“When the drugs wear off.”

You frown, and shrug. “Okay. Can we go home?”

“When they say you can.”

Hm. “Can we have sex?”

He laughs. It’s a beautiful sound. “Go to sleep.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Promise I will be.” He kisses your cheek. “For the rest of your life.”

“I like where this is going.”

“I’ll never leave you again.”

“Keep talkin’, Cody.”

“When we get home, I’ll stock the fridge with that ice cream you like.”

“Take me now.”

The love in his eyes is so beautiful, so pure, so raw, that you know without a doubt that those eyes alone were worth living for. “Go to sleep.”

-

You and Pope rent a house in Tijuana for a while. There’s no need to go back to Oceanside. Not yet. Smurf doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t fight it. It wouldn’t be great optics, after all, for her son’s girlfriend to be recovering from a bullet wound while her father, whom Pope has nearly killed before, was recently found dead in a warehouse.

He fusses over you endlessly. He barely lets you stand on your own, even when you’re fully capable of doing so. You wake up to him watching you sleep more often than ever, and he barely spends more than a minute not touching you.

It’s nice. Really nice. Kind of like a honeymoon before the honeymoon. Just with less sex due to an annoying bullet wound, and a little more crankiness from you than usual due to both of the former issues.

But you stay up all night on the beach, talking until the sun rises and making out like teenagers. You try to make breakfast, burn it, and get to ogle him from your spot on the counter as he makes it for the both of you. You plan for the future, count down the days until your wound is healed, and just…enjoy being happy. No jobs, no strings, no stress.

A little over a month later, you wake him up by rolling on top of him, the familiar pain in your stomach reduced to much less than a dull ache.

His eyebrows raise before his eyes even open, a sleepy smile curling on his lips as his hand trails down your back and your lips move to press teasing kisses down his neck.

“Good morning.” You hum, and he seems more than happy to return the sentiment. “I officially think I’m healed enough for…strenuous activities.”

He makes a low noise, and kisses you slowly. Hungrily. You grin, triumphant and happy, and feel his hands come up to shift you on top of him, sitting himself up against the wall and-

And pulling back.

You actually whine, chasing his lips with your own, but he holds you firm with a smile so wide it’s almost silly.

“I have another idea.”

“It’s been over a month, Andrew. I challenge you to name one thing better than sex right now.”

His smile grows impossibly wider. He reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants, mischief sparking in his sleepy eyes like he was hoping you’d say something like that, and…

And pulls out a ring.

“Oh.” You breathe, eyes locked on the little diamond in his palm. It’s simple. Beautiful. Perfect.

“Bought a new one.” He says, hand coming up to brush your hair back from your face.

You grin. He grins back.

“You make a compelling argument.”

He kisses you, and you kiss him back.

You suppose you have time for two things today.

[man1cpixiedreampuppy]

rabbot being really concerned when they see bruises on dennis and they won't drop it so eventually he just goes "i like when older men beat me, ok? :/ yeahhh now we're all uncomfortable, hope you guys are satisfied."

[apfelkernchen]

Daddy’s not sick. He’s just stupid

Dr. Jack Abbot x (female) reader | Dr. Jack Abbot x you

Summary: You can take the dad out of the emergency department but you can't take the emergency department out of the dad.

A/N: I'm no longer updating the taglist because Tumblr has been glitching way too much lately. If you don't want to miss any updates, feel free to turn on notifications for my posts! <3

Link to "You stole my cart" master list (1)

Link to "You stole my cart" master list (2)

Previous chapter: Interlude: Sir, I’m going to need to see some identification

--- --- ---

Jack peeked outside the window, frowning. The weather had become a real problem - it was typical February weather: cold, windy, rainy and - just fucking unpleasant. Especially if you had a highly active toddler running around who wanted to go to the playground no matter what. He was glad he only had five toes left to potentially lose to frostbite - even though he’d had a nightmare just yesterday where his prosthetic leg had frozen onto his knee. In his dream he had to thaw it out with a hairdryer before he could get it off.

His brain was weird.

He shook his head slightly then looked back at the laptop screen. He was just scrolling through his email account - and then he stopped.

An email from the PTMC. Subject: Your Test Results Are Available

He clicked on it:

Dear Mr. Abbot Your laboratory results from your recent Post-Vasectomy Semen Analysis are now available. Please log in to your patient portal to review your results. If you have any questions, please contact your healthcare provider. Kind regards, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Department of Urology

He swallowed hard. 

Uh-oh. 

The moment of truth.

He didn’t want to think too hard about that appointment - him, alone in that sterile room, a specimen cup in front of him and just the sheer pressure to deliver - but he was really interested in the results. He was just fucking hoping all the pain had been worth it.

He logged into his patient portal and clicked on the attached report. He scanned the numbers.

Interpretation: No sperm identified (azoospermia). Findings are consistent with a successful vasectomy. Recommendation: Based on this specimen alternative contraception is no longer required unless otherwise advised by your treating physician.

Jack stared at it for a moment longer. He felt - weird. In a good way. Mostly. He knew that this was the result he had been hoping for. And still - it felt weirdly strange to know that he wouldn’t be able to get anyone pregnant now - especially not you.

He took a long breath, rolled his shoulders and looked up. “HONEY!”

“Yeah?” You stood in the bathroom, getting ready for the day - later than usual because you had been exhausted, sleeping for ten hours straight.

“I’m officially shooting blanks now!”

That was met with silence. A moment later you appeared in the doorframe, looking confused. “Um - what now?”

He gestured toward the screen. “I got the lab results. It’s official. The vasectomy worked.”

You started to smile. “Oh, wow, that’s great news. So we officially can get rid of the condoms then?”

“Fuck yes” he breathed out, his eyes shining. “We really need to celebrate that properly.”

“Oh, wow.” You laughed. “Let’s see how I feel tonight. My back’s still killing me.”

He immediately frowned. “No wonder, you carried these big-ass shopping bags yesterday - I told you you could just leave them in the car and I’d fetch them.”

You waved it off. “Anyway. I need a couple of minutes and then I’m ready. We could probably go outside for a bit? Maybe just the park? I can’t stomach an indoor playground today - the thought of fifty kids screaming and running around would probably trip me over the edge.”

Jack grinned. “Yeah, get this. Get yourself ready and we’ll see. Where’s Lizzie?”

“Playing in her room” you said with a shrug then walked back into the bathroom.

Jack looked back at the screen. 

Azoospermia.

He let out a sigh then opened the next mail. It was from your mom, which immediately made him sit up straighter on the sofa. It was a very detailed question catalog - he counted seventeen questions - about the wedding. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

He was halfway through reading it when Lizzie waddled into the living room. She was unusually quiet - normally she arrived like a tiny hurricane. Loud. Fast. Carrying at least one object in her tiny hand which she’d smack against the floor, the wall or him.

Now she just climbed onto the couch beside him with a tiny serious face and leaned against his side. That alone was enough to make him look up. He put the laptop away immediately and took a look at her. 

“Hey Bean.” He brushed a hand over her curls. “You okay, princess?”

She looked up at him with big green eyes. “Izzie sick.”

Jack froze. “What?”

She nodded once. “Izzie sick.”

Immediately every emergency physician instinct in his body activated. He sat up straighter, turned fully toward her, already scanning her over and placed a hand on her forehead. “Okay, baby, what hurts?”

Lizzie blinked at him. “Izzie very sick.”

“Okay. You’re sick. I hear you. But what hurts, Bean?” He placed a hand on her stomach. “Does it hurt here?”

She continued to stare at him.

Jack cleared his throat. “HONEY?”

“Yeah?” Your voice came muffled from the bathroom.

“LIZZIE SAYS SHE’S SICK.”

You appeared in the doorway almost immediately. “Sick?”

Lizzie looked between both of you now, suddenly receiving the attention of two parents. She put her thumb into her mouth.

Jack touched her forehead again. She didn’t feel warm. No fever, he added to his mental checklist. “Bean, tell Daddy what hurts.”

She frowned like she was thinking hard about it, then leaned against him more dramatically. “Izzie sick.”

He let out a quiet, frustrated sigh. “Okay” he murmured mostly to himself, then glanced over at you. “Any vomiting? Diarrhea? Did she eat normally? Bean, do you have a headache?”

“Jack.” You really tried to hide your smile.

“She’s quieter than usual.”

“Jack.”

“Do you have a stomach ache, Bean?” He rubbed his own stomach. “Does your tummy hurt?”

“Husband.”

“She said she’s sick but it’s impossible to give a proper diagnosis if she doesn’t say what hurts.”

Lizzie watched him closely now. Her hand flew to her stomach, her brows furrowed and her lip started to wobble. “Izzie sick?” Her eyes got shiny.

“Oh, baby.” Jack pulled her onto his lap immediately. “Hey, Bean, princess, sweetheart, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Daddy is taking care of your ouchie, okay?”

Her face crumpled completely and a moment later she was crying - actual devastated sobs and big tears, her face pressed against Jack’s chest.

You had to turn away for a second because the situation was becoming absurd. Jack was too absorbed with in doctor mode that he didn’t notice what Lizzie was clutching in her tiny fist.

Instead he rubbed her back, looking mortified. “No, no, no, Bean, hey, tell Daddy what’s wrong, huh?”

She just sobbed harder into his shirt.

Jack swallowed hard. “Maybe we should bring her to the Pitt, get her checked out.”

You finally stepped in. “Jack.”

“What? Is she bleeding somewhere?” He leaned forward, checked the back of her shirt, looking alarmed.

“No.” You shook your head. “She just wanted you to play doctor with her.”

“She’s crying.” He stared at you like you had three heads.

“Yeah, because you panicked.”

That left him stunned. You pointed to the toy stethoscope clutched in her tiny hand.

Jack looked from you, to the stethoscope, back to you - and finally to Lizzie. “Bean, do you want to play doctor with Daddy?”

She wailed loudly. “Izzie siiiiiick.”

You sat down beside them, stroking her back. “Baby, are you hurting anywhere?”

She shook her head, hiccuping. “... no.”

Jack stared at her. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

You lost the fight and laughed outright. Lizzie peeked up to you, her crying slowly fading. 

You pressed a kiss onto her head. “You’re fine, baby. You’re not sick. You just want Daddy to be the doctor, right?”

She hiccuped again, then nodded. “Daddy Dana.”

Jack dropped his head back against the couch with a groan. “Oh my god, Bean, I was worried sick.”

She turned her head to him immediately. “Daddy sick?” Her eyes widened.

You nearly choked on your laughter.

When Jack didn’t answer right away she scrambled from his lap and ran out of the room. A moment later she appeared again, holding her little doctor kit, half-open, with the contents leaving a trail behind her. She put it on the ground and picked up a bandage. She climbed back onto his lap and smacked it right on his cheek. “Izzie Dana.”

Jack looked deeply betrayed by the entire situation for a moment - then his face softened. Apparently he couldn’t stay mad at his primary physician - especially when she was his daughter who just stuck a bear-shaped bandage right on his face.

“No, Bean” he muttered. “Daddy’s not sick. He’s just stupid apparently.”

She stared at him and touched his face sympathetically. “‘kay.”

“Maybe you lost some of your intelligence with your sperm?” you suggested, still laughing. “Maybe you’re just a little stupid now?”

He shot you a nasty look. “You’re a minx.”

Lizzie cuddled him. “Daddy dupid.”

That started the next laughing fit. “Lizzie, no, you can’t say that.”

“Daddy dupid” she repeated, nodding along.

Jack cradled her head, still shaking his head. “Five minutes ago I was worried we’d end up in the Pitt again with her. Now I’m only worried she’ll run around daycare telling anyone her dad is stupid.”

You shrugged. “It could be worse.”

“How?”

“She could run around telling people you’re shooting blanks.” You grinned.

He groaned.

Lizzie looked up. “Banks.”

You started laughing again. “Close enough, Bean. Close enough.”

--- --- ---

You wanna keep reading? - Next part is coming soon, I promise.

--- --- ---

Tag list: @itjustpunkpizzabae, @theariesview @michasia24 @bye-bye-gremlings @tyghvbuijknmopkl @momdancingtomcr @alexxavicry @rainforestfrogss @starkgaryan @moistointments @rossy1080 @abzidabzy @weepingwhispersengineer @cherryybombsworld @woodxtock @letstryagaintomorrow @romanticpursuit @nicelittletriptotheforest @teenytinylilcrawdaddies @camie18 @thewillowarchive @fortjackson @eugene-emt-roe @nicksolemnlyswears @sarah-fuckyou @beepitybeepboop @amnatreal @goldfishenthusiast67 @karleyyyjaeee @starsmoonn @doesanyonereadthis @introvertedphilomath @noellealexisss @sweetwanderlust05 @eugene-emt-roe @lovehadlovelost @amacphet @asparklysoul @shinyskeletonsky @givemethemaknaes16 @artemis-the-ace @marvelsimps @anyasthoughts

[shadeofpeach]

Words you can’t unsay

Pairing: Dr. Jack Abbot x nurse!girlfriend!reader Warnings: heavy angst, hurt, verbal aggression, age gap (20 years age difference), violence, argument, immature behavior, blood, injury, crying. Summary: ​what begins as a reprimand spirals into a painful argument, exposing the fragile fault lines of your relationship. Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction and written solely for entertainment purposes.

.⁠‧₊˚ part 2 ; fixing us (soon)  🎀 Based on a part of this request  🎀 

You knew you shouldn't had done it.

It was reckless but it has to be done.

Jack hadn't said a word since he pulled you out of Trauma 2 by the arm.

He stood with his forehead pressed against the door, his hands on the door, breathing heavily, trying to hold back everything he had to say about what you had done. Struggling between his professional side and his lover side.

The age gap between the two of you had always been something you both navigated quietly, the twenty years of wear, loss and hard earned medical instincts that gave him those faint silver threads at his temples.

Usually, that difference felt like a safe harbor.

But tonight, right now, it felt like a burden.

"Jack-" you started, your voice trembling as you held the bleeding wound on your forearm.

"Don't," he snapped, his voice was cold, sharp, and vibrating with danger. You had never seen him direct at you that way.

He finally turned to face you, stepping into the center of the room. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscle jabbed against his skin.

"What were you thinking?" he asked, pointing a finger directly at you, his voice trembling despite his best efforts to keep it steady. "Answer me. What in God's name was going through your head back there?"

"The, the patient had a knife! He was escalating, and security was at the other end of the floor-"

"So you stepped in front of him?!" Jack raised his voice, a sharp laugh bursting from his throat before turning deadly serious again. "You stepped into the reach of an intoxicated patient holding a fucking knife, bare handed? Without gear, without training, without waiting five bloody seconds for back-up?!"

"He was going to hurt a nurse!" you shouted back, the adrenaline still coursing hot through your veins. "I was right there! I reacted!"

"You didn't react, you acted like a reckless child with a savior complex!"

The words hit you. You flinched, the sting of the insult cutting deeper than the actual slice on your arm.

Jack instantly closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose. But when he opened his eyes again, the fury hadn't faded, it had just shifted into something far darker, laced with terror.

"You could have been killed," he whispered, his voice dropping, trying to calm himself down. "Do you understand that? One inch to the right, one sudden movement, and he would have stab you on the chest. And I would have been dragging your body onto a gurney. I would have been the one running the code on my own girlfriend."

"I made a decision-"

"It was a stupid decision!" Jack slammed his hand down on the metal table. You flinched, with a mix of fear and hurt. "It was completely undeniably reckless! You aren't invincible. You think you're helping, but all you did was put yourself in fatal danger!"

He ran both hands through his hair, pacing the narrow length of the room. The angry on his face was agonizing to look at.

"This isn't a fucking videogame, he stabs you and you're gone," Jack murmured, his voice cracking slightly as he stopped pacing, looking at you with eyes that were red rimmed and filled with agony. "You can't do something so impossibly stupid, so utterly careless with your own life..."

He paused, swallowing hard, his chest heaving.

"I hate it when you're like this" he breathed, the words heavy and devastating. "How easily I could lose you because you don't respect how fast a life can end in this place."

Tears finally welled up in your eyes, slipping down your cheeks. "Jack, please..."

"No," he said softly, holding up a hand, refusing to let you touch him even as his own hands shook violently. "I need you to listen to me. I love you, baby. I love you so much it frightens me every damn day. I cannot watch you throw yourself into a fire just to prove you're brave. If you ever, ever, do something like that again, I won't be able to keep doing this."

He stood there for a moment, watching you cry.

Then, he reached into the cabinet, pulled out a strip of sterile bandages and an antiseptic wipe, and walked slowly over to you. "Come here,"

As his hand brushed against your skin, you pulled your arm back sharply, taking a sudden step away from him.

"Don't," you choked out, wiping the tears from your cheek with your shoulder. "I can do it myself."

Jack stopped, his hand hovering in mid air. A deep frustration crossed his features, pulling his brow down tight.

He had reached his absolute limit, the adrenaline and sheer terror of the night twisting his patience thin.

"Don't be immature," Jack said, his voice dropping into a firm tone. "Stop acting hysterical. You're bleeding, sit down and let me fix it."

The words immature and hysterical sliced through you, burning far worse than the cut on your arm.

The built up fear, the humiliation of being berated like a child, and the weight of his anger all exploded at once. You were done with him tonight.

"I said I can do it!" you gasped out, your voice cracking into a choked sob. You shoved at his chest, hard enough to pus him and make the boundaries clear. "Just go away! Leave me alone!"

Jack froze, taking a step back, shocked by the pain in your voice. But before he could say another word, the door opened.

Outside, Shen was by the doorway, listening. When he heard your voice, he step in. He took in the scene instantly: you backed from Jack, chest heaving and sobbing hysterically, and Jack standing over you with bandages in hand, looking stormily defensive.

Shen didn't hesitate for a second.

"Jack," Shen said, his voice was completely non negotiable as he stepped directly between him and you. "Out. Now."

"Shen, this isn't-" Jack started as he looked at him.

"I said out, Abbot," Shen interrupted, pointing firmly toward the open door. "You're done in here. I'll take care of her."

Jack looked from Shen back to you. You wouldn't meet his eyes, your head turned away as quiet sobs tore from your chest.

For a second, the anger in his eyes vanished, replaced by the realization of how he had just hurt you.

With a tight nod, Jack swallowed hard, set the bandage strip down and walked out without another word.

The rest of the night shift passed in a cold fog.

Shen had cleaned and bandaged the cut on your arm, giving you a little speech before sending you back out to work.

For the remaining four hours, you actively avoided Trauma Bays, took the long way around the nurse's station, and kept your head down whenever his figure in scrubs moved through the hallway.

Jack did the same. Whenever you were in the same general area, his presence felt impossibly heavy, but he never approached.

When 7 AM finally rolled around, you clocked out, feeling bruised down to your bones. You walked out to the parking garage, cold morning air biting at your face.

You half expected him to have left without you, but there he was.

Jack was leaning against the passenger side of his car, holding two paper cups of coffee from the cafeteria. He always drove you home after your shift. It was a rhythm you’d built together, a quiet ritual of transitioning from the madness of the ER back to normal life.

Neither of you spoke on the drive. The silence in the car felt suffocating.

When he finally pulled up outside your apartment building, Jack cut the engine. He didn't unbuckle immediately. Instead, he rested his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead through the windshield before turning to look at you when you opened the car door to leave.

"Can we talk?" he asked quietly as you where already walking to the building with wet eyes. "Please."

You turned around, nodding slowly. You didn't want to bring him inside, so you two stayed in the hallway outside your apartment door, key resting heavy in your palm.

Jack stood a step away, his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets.

"I shouldn't have raised my voice at you," Jack began, taking a breath and looking at youy. "And I shouldn't have... used those words. I was... terrified. I was out of my mind with fear, watching you put yourself in front of a blade like that. But I handled it wrong."

You swallowed down the lump in your throat, trying to keep your voice steady. "You spoke to me like I was a child, Jack. You called me immature and hysterical."

"Because you were acting on pure emotion!" Jack said, stepping a fraction closer, though his tone was defensive despite his apology. "You're a talented healthcare worker, but you lack the experience to know when a situation is beyond your pay grade. You rushed in without thinking about the consequences. That is impulse. That is a young and reckless reaction, and I can't just ignore it because it hurts your feelings to hear it."

His words settled over you heavily.

He is apologizing for how he said it, but not for what he thought.

Standing there, looking into his eyes, you saw it clearly. He didn't see an equal who had made a high stress judgment call in a chaotic trauma center. He saw a young, naive girl he had to manage and protect from her own foolishness.

The age gap between you wasn't just a number to him right now; it was a wall he was using to put himself above you.

A cold clarity washed over the anger, leaving behind an ache.

"You really see me like that, don't you?" you whispered, the realization pulling a broken breath from you. "Just a young, immature girl who doesn't know any better."

Jack blinked, panic entering his eyes by the calm of your voice. "That's not what I'm saying-"

"It is," you interrupted, shaking your head gently. "You think I'm too young to understand the risks, and you think you're the only one in this relationship who has any wisdom. Profesional and personal talking."

"I'm trying to keep you alive!" Jack snapped softly, reaching out to touch your arm, but dropping his hand when you took a small step back. "I care about you. I love you. But I've been doing this for longer than you've been in medicine. I know how this ends when people get careless."

"I know you love me," you said, tears brimming in your eyes again. "And I love you, too."

Jack let out a breath, his shoulders dropping slightly in relief. "Okay. Good. Then let's just go inside, get some sleep, and-"

"No," you said firmly, lifting your chin. "We need space. I need space."

Jack froze, his forehead furrowing. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not breaking up with you. But I see how you see me during some shifts. I'm going to ask to be switched to day shift for a few days," you said, your voice remarkably steady despite the tremble in your hands. "I need to work without you staring over my shoulder waiting for me to to fail and you need time to decide if you actually respect me as an adult, or if you just see me as someone you have to babysit."

Jack stared at you, stunned into silence. For the first time all night, the authority drained out of his posture, replaced by vulnerability.

"Day shift?" he repeated quietly, the reality sinking in. "We won't see each other at work. We won't even have the same sleep schedule."

"I know," you replied feeling your heart break and a tear escaping your eyes. You turned the key in the lock and opened your apartment door. "I don't liked how you talked to me tonight. I understand your point but I think that's what we need right now."

You stepped inside, but paused.

You looked back at him standing alone in the hallway. Despite everything, the sadness and terror in his eyes was still raw.

You leaned forward, rising on your tiptoes to press a soft kiss against his cheek.

Jack’s breath hitched. His hand shot forward, wrapping tightly around your waist, pulling you against him so suddenly it felt like a silent plea. He squeezed your waist with a desperate warmth, his whole body shaking as if he were trying to convince himself you were still whole and unhurt. For a fleeting second, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his uneven breath felt hot against your skin.

He wanted to hold on. He wanted to pull you back inside the safety of his arms, but the unspoken wall of his condescension still stood cold and immovable between you.

You gently placed your hand over his wrist and slowly pushed back.

His grip loosened with agonizing slowness, his fingers lingering on your waist as if letting go was tearing something out of him. He lifted his head, his eyes glossy, and completely shattered by the realization that his own need to protect you had pushed you away.

"Get some sleep, Jack," you whispered, your voice breaking on his name. "I will... I will text you later. Okay?"

His hand finally slipped off your side.

He didn't speak. He couldn't. He just nodded.

You stepped into the safety of your apartment and pulled the door shut. The click echoed down the hallway, leaving him standing in the cold alone. Regretting all he has said.

⋆｡˚☤🩺✧˖°.｡⋆💉

the pitt masterlist

Let me know if you want to be tagged on part 2

[amphib0e]

・┆𝑱𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝑻𝒚𝒑𝒆

Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody x Reader Drabble

cw: fluff!! andrew is jealous of a stuffed bear teehee, he just wants to be held, sweet baby!! let me HOLD YOUU

Andrew had no need to be jealous about anything in your relationship. He knows you love him- hell, if you didn’t you wouldn’t have put up with his outbursts the last few months you two had been together.

But now, he couldn’t help but be jealous over the scruffy teddy bear curled up against your sleeping form. His grip tightened against the arm of the plush chair he sat in, not too far from the couch you were currently napping on, the midday sun leaking in from the mesh curtains that floated against the window. The bear’s beady eyes stared back into his cloudy hazel ones, his breathing labored slightly.

Andrew knew you kept plushies, you even had a few favorites, but this one had a grip on you like no other.

You had found it at a thrift shop you dragged him to last week, all beaten and worn out, but for some reason you saw potential in it. You’d washed it, sewn together what you could salvage of it, and after that it's practically been glued to your side every time you sleep.

This is where the jealousy stirred. Usually when you slept, Andrew was who you came to for a cuddle, who held you close and made sure you were cared for, loved even.

Now his number one enemy was some plushie that you clung to so tight, even when Andrew laid beside you, curled up against your back with an arm strung around your waist in a tight embrace.

He stood silently from the armchair, crossing the short distance to now stand in front of you. He reached out, surgically removing the plushie from your arms and placing it on the side table before wrapping your arms around his broad shoulders, crawling on top of you against your sluggish grunts.

Your face scrunched up at the sudden movement, eyes blinking open in a bleary state, a disgruntled noise escaping as Andrew dragged his arms underneath you, cuddling up closer to your chest before settling his full weight on top of you.

“Andrew, what’re you doing, honey?”

“You don’t need that.”

“Don’t need what?”

“That toy. I’m supposed to be the one you hold to sleep.”

That woke you up more, eyebrows reaching your hairline as an incredulous smile took over your face, a breathy laugh following. Andrew looked up at you with a fixed glare, not directly for you but at the fact that you were laughing at what he said.

“Honey, Andy..are you jealous of a stuffed animal?”

“…Kept looking at me weird. Like it knew what it was doing.”

“OH MY GOD YOU’RE JEALOUS!”

Andrew’s cheeks burned bright red as he hid against your neck, the heat on his cheeks warming the skin there as your chest rose and fell in laughter. A pout formed on his lips as he squeezed you tighter, his curls brushing against your chin. You brought a hand up to his hair, scratching along the loose curls at the base of his neck as the laughter died down, leaning your chin on top of his head.

“If you wanted to cuddle you could’ve asked, y’know?”

“I know but you looked so peaceful, didn’t wanna wake you up.”

“Yet you did, but ‘s okay, now I have my favorite cuddle buddy with me.”

a/n: RAGHHHH ANDREW LET ME LOVE YOUUUU- im half way through s4 of animal kingdom and i LOVELOVELOVEEEE himmmmm 💕 i hope you guys enjoyed this little drabble!!

© amphib0e 2026

𝓃𝑜 𝓇𝑒𝓅𝑜𝓈𝓉/𝒸𝑜𝓅𝓎𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝓀

[amphib0e]

pope + vibrator = <𝟑 .ᐟ

wc: 1.3k

cw: sub! pope, f! reader, kinda dom! reader, pope finds your vibrator, hints of hyperspermia, overstimulation, very loose pwp, aftercare, pet names, andrew being a #goodboy as per usual, given consent

a/n: sorry for the small break in content !! work has been beating me down lately ughhh, and apologies if the ending was a bit rushed- BUT i hope you all enjoyyyy, xoxo

andrew hadn’t meant to go through your things, really, it was an honest mistake! well, more like a morbid curiosity, but he really didn’t mean to!

he was putting away your clean laundry, neatly folded and ready to take their rightful place in the mess of what you call a dresser. the top shelf wasn’t the worst.

the underwear drawer. the warmth filling his cheeks spread to his chest in a sense of pride- proud of you for keeping everything neat. well…as neat as you could. mismatched socks folded into each other, a few pairs of panties spread out instead of being neatly folded, and a few pairs of ripped stockings shoved to the back and forgotten about when they needed to be in the trash.

he made quick work of organizing the fabrics, adding the clean pairs neatly in their respective places, before moving on to the next few drawers.

those were full of your typical clothes- shirts, tank tops, jeans and shorts. easy enough to go through, just put the assigned clothes with their matching counterparts before moving on.

the last drawer was where he felt his jaw tighten in soft annoyance.

the pajama drawer. where you sifted through and threw clothes around constantly. a heap of silk, cotton, and a few of his old shirts he let you “borrow” (you had swiped them from him when spending the night at his place, he was just too whipped to scold you over them. that and seeing you in his clothes drove him absolutely insane).

he smirked at the thought, holding onto the handles of the drawer before beginning the same task he’s been at for the last 45 minutes. sleep tops on one side of him, sleep shorts and pants on the other, and whatever miscellaneous tops and bottoms he pulled out behind him.

he reached for one of his old shirts that was shoved further in the back, grabbing onto the bunched up fabric with a bit more force than necessary before recoiling at the sudden vibrations coming from the offending shirt.

“i guess you found my night time helper, huh?”

he turned to face where you stood in the doorway, chest moving a bit faster at the sudden fright, eyebrows almost touching his hairline, eyes wide and filled with curiosity at your statement.

“your..what?”

“my vibrator, andrew. thought i hid it well enough, but you caught me.”

andrew’s face heated up once more, flushing down the tanned sides of his neck, hands twitching at his side. you sidled up beside him, reaching in and turning off the offending object in question, pulling out the pretty pink massage style vibrator before rolling it between your palm and fingers and then presenting it to him like it was a prized possession (which it is!).

andrew’s face grew a few shades darker, mind reeling with lewd imagery of you sprawled out in the middle of your shared bed, legs spread wide, the vibrator pressed heavily against your clit, calling out his name in the empty that he usually occupies beside you , causing his pants to tighten too fast for his liking. his throat bobbed, clouded hazel eyes meeting yours in a familiar hungry stare.

“use this little piece of heaven when you’re out on a job for a few days…you wanna try it?”

his shoulders squared back at the idea, head tilted in faux apprehension, eyes glazed over at the idea.

“you want to try it on me?”

“i mean, i have thought about how you’d react to it if you let me use it on you..so yeah, i want to try it on you.”

…and that’s how he ended up laid out on the mattress, pants discarded somewhere across the room, boxers shoved below his heavy balls, shirt pulled up to rest under his chin. you sat between his thick thighs, peppering kisses across the taut muscles of his built abdomen before sitting up on your haunches.

the vibrator sat heavy in your hand, hovering just a few inches above the head of his cock that laid at attention, curving towards his stomach.

“you ready, andy?”

“mhm, yeah..”

“aww, no need to be scared, baby. i’ll go easy on ya, mkay?”

you cooed softly at his response, leaning over so that your face hovered over his cock before trickling a bit of spit down his shaft, using your free hand that rested against his thigh to spread the saliva against the area, paying extra attention to the weeping slit, mixing the pre with your spit for extra lubrication.

andrew whimpered at the sudden contact, twitching against your palm, hips rutting against the contact before you pulled your hand away, causing another stuttered whine to leave his parted lips before they formed a frustrated pout, eyebrows furrowed together in frustration.

the silicone head of the vibrator made contact with his flushed head again, this time with a little more force, teasing along the slit to collect more pre before pressing the button that switched the toy on.

the sudden vibrations caused andrew to jolt, the lowest setting sending waves of pleasurable sensations throughout every nerve ending in his body.

his arms jerked around slightly from where they sat, hands gripping the sheets, thighs tensing up slightly from where you sat between them. his hips bucked erratically, chasing after the vibrations each time you pulled the toy away, whining nasally through his nose, pants shaking in his chest as he gripped the sheets harder and harder.

“such a good boy, andy. so good for me, baby, yeah?”

andrew nodded along to your voice, curls whipping around, some plastered to his forehead with the sweat that collected there.

you moved the toy along his shaft, clicking the plus button when you reached the base to increase the strength of the vibrations, causing his legs to begin twitching with the sudden rise of the vibrations.

“fuck! fuck, i’m close, please, sweetheart, please, can i cum? can i cum? i’m so close, fuck.”

andrew’s hips chased after the toy as you dragged it along the prominent vein on the underside of his cock, a smirk permanently fixated on your lips as your eyes were focused on the muscles that clenched along the expanse of his stomach.

“be a good boy and cum for me andy.”

your hand dragged the vibrator back to the underside of the head of his cock, clicking the increase button once more. andrew’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his hips thrusting up against the toy in your hand.

his thighs flexed once more, the abs decorating his stomach clenching before his hips stilled. ropes and ropes of cum flew from his cock, a heavy groan, almost a growl, fell from his lips as his hips thrusted with each release.

your hand smoothed over the flexed muscles in his thighs, watching as his head was thrown back, the muscles in his throat working overtime to suck much needed air into his lungs as his orgasm continued to rip through his body.

a pool of his spend collected along the valley of his stomach, one rope shooting so far up that it slid down the middle of his chest.

only when his cock began to soften, his body shaking uncontrollably, and the threat of unshed tears from overstimulation did you turn the toy off.

andrew’s body deflated against the soft sheets, his sweat slick back cooling against the material as his hands finally unlatched from their strong hold before he carded them through his messy curls.

you trotted off to the bathroom, grabbing a wet rag before coming back and wiping up the mess that was spilled all over his stomach and chest.

once he was cleaned up, you tossed the rag in the direction his pants had flown to earlier, settling into andrew’s side as he shuffled his boxers back up his hips, his shirt still hiked up under his chin, allowing the bronzy skin of his chest and stomach to dry in the chilled ac of your bedroom.

“did such a good job, andy. did you enjoy yourself, honey?”

“yeah..can we..can we try that again some other time?”

“of course, baby. any time you want.”

© amphib0e 2026

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Frank Castle be careful I'm so serious being Peter Parkers parental figure is a dangerous job