idk why people are still trying to do "hear me out"s on tumblr
you could talk about wanting to fuck the space needle on here and people would still call you a poser for insisting on fucking "conventionally attractive architecture" as if that's a coherent, easily-recognizable category
Watching Robby sit on his bike and use his shirt to wipe sweat off his face, revealling his squishy, hairy, sexy belly was really all it took…
Words: 7,9k (I can't just be normal, ever)
Content: Older Man/Yonger Woman (Reader is late 20s, Robby is in his fifty), Robby is a dick but reader is lowkey into it, belly riding, degradation, verbal humiliation, light dom/sub, daddy kink, PiV sex, rough sex, hair pulling, oral sex (f receiving), semi-public bj
This is just smut. I have no excuses for this. I was encouraged.
No use of Y/N
Read on Ao3 or below the cut:
It was a shit day in the Pitt.
When asked about your day, that was always your reply.
The patients were either monumentally stupid, disrespectful, verbally abusive assholes, intoxicated to the point they could not even hear the questions you asked, or the most precious, sweetest people ever - and the sweet, precious ones were always the sickest.
It was a cruel running gag of the universe, you were sure of it. The stupid assholes survived, and the sweet grandmas who called you hun and made you compliments, the polite single mums tearing themselves apart to keep their children’s worlds whole, died.
PTMC was chronically underfunded, the staff chronically overworked, running on shitty coffee, insomnia, saviour complexes and fumes, and the air conditioning unit perpetually shit.
What was there to love about this job?
You sat on the low wall by the ambulance bay, tucked away from the chaos of the ER against the corner by the wall with your knees drawn up to your chest and your head resting against the brick wall behind you.
It was your own personal little safe haven.
Everyone on staff had one.
Trinity and Dennis had the break room. Donnie and Jessy the hallways leading down into the subbasement where only the generators, central supply and the IT gremlins (as you affectionately called them) hid. Abbot and Robby had the roof.
You had this corner.
You took another sip from the can of soda you held in your lap. The late summer heat was oppressive, squeezing in around you until the air felt too heavy, too thick. The can was sweating as much as you, condensation seeping through the cheap fabric of your scrubs. Your feet were aching, your head too. Your hoodie lay discarded next to you on the wall. The ER itself was freezing cold, but the outside smoldering, and the waiting room was somehow even hotter.
ER waiting rooms often defied all laws of physics.
Yeah, when asked about your day, you always replied with shit.
The pay wasn’t enough for the backbreaking labour expected of you to keep the crumbling healthcare system afloat on your compassion and spite alone. The patients were ungrateful or so gut-wrenchingly tragic you couldn’t breathe. You woke in cold sweats most nights, remembering the faces of patients you’d lost years ago. The air conditioning unit might as well have come straight from hell with how it savoured torturing you. You were still paying off student loans and would continue to do so for many years just to have parents argue with you that vaccines were a hoax, their children lying in the next room as they slowly died from preventable diseases.
And yet, despite it all, you kept coming back. You came back every day. You picked up shifts when colleagues called out. You volunteered for holidays so those who actually had a family could spend the day with them. You stayed longer when the Pitt was swamped.
Perhaps you had some masochistic tendencies (you definitely had those).
Perhaps you were simply insane.
For some inexplicable reason, staying away from the hospital longer than two days in a row drove you mad with boredom. You stood in the front row of every mass casualty, swirling through the ER, past bloodied gurneys and screaming patients, blood pounding in your ears and feeling alive like never before amidst the death and devastation.
There was another perk to being an absolute, hopeless workaholic, and it was currently arriving for his shift.
Robby started riding his new motorcycle to work a few weeks back, and with the shock of PittFest still deep in everyone’s bones, it took a few days for people to even realise. It started with Dana pursing her lips. It ended with you somehow finding time to sneak away for your ‘lunch’ break every day at seven a.m. when Robby arrived for his shift.
He didn’t always notice you sitting on your wall with your packed lunch and ice-cold can of soda, no matter the weather. When he did, he shot you one of his strained, tight-lipped smiles or waved before heading inside to do handovers with Abbot.
You worked the midnight to noon shift, your time at the hospital overlapping with Abbot’s, Shen’s and Robby’s shift, a new system being tested by the hospital to provide greater continuity of care. The second-you worked from noon to midnight.
You didn’t mind.
You got to watch Robby arrive for work and wave him goodbye when you left to go home.
You looked forward to it. To these slammed eight hours you got to see him, be near him, work at his side, sometimes close enough to smell the scent of soap he used still clinging to his skin.
Robby never wore a helmet.
In front of Dana, he pretended he did. When you were around for one of their arguments on the matter, Robby always glanced over to you, sharing a private, conspiratorial smirk with you and winking.
Your knees went weak every single time.
It was pathetic really, how huge your crush on your much older attending had grown.
It started as fawning admiration for his skill and calm even amidst the shittiest, harshest shifts when you were nothing but a flustered med student who, no matter what she did, always stood in the way. When you were a resident, still overwhelmed that you actually got placed with your dream hospital, you worked tirelessly, making it your whole existence to prove to Dr Robby you could be trusted, that you were good, that you’d earned your spot here. That you soaked up everything he taught you. That you had not wasted the time he spent teaching you. You wanted to make him proud. You craved his approval and praise.
You were pathetic.
But when he’d been the first to congratulate you when you passed the boards, and he’d been the one to tell you your application for the attending position at PTMC’s ED had been accepted - those were your most cherished memories…
Robby parked in the same spot as always, close to the entrance of the ambulance bay. Sweat clung to his brow. The corners of his eyes were crinkled from a lifetime of smiling. You wondered when he stopped. What had sucked the joy and happiness out of him? Perhaps it was this job.
I’d make him happy again, that unhelpful, ridiculous little voice in your head whispered. You shoved it away roughly. What did you even have to offer a man at least twenty years your senior?
I’d suck him off so good he’d forget how to breathe.
“Oh my god.” You muttered to yourself, biting the inside of your cheek to fight off the heat creeping up your neck. When had you become such a fucking pervert? Lusting after some old man. Your former teacher. Your boss!
You were still watching Robby, like the unhinged little freak you’d become for him. He was checking his phone, still sitting on his bike. You watched him shove the phone back into the side pocket of his cargo pants and then, as if time had turned to molasses, you watched him shove his hand under the hem of his shirt and lift it up to wipe the sweat off his face and beard.
Your eyes glued themselves to the sight unfolding before you, to Robby’s soft, round stomach on full display, protruding over his belt like the most delicious fucking muffin you’d ever seen. You stared at his sweaty skin, the liberal dusting of coarse dark hair covering it, mouth quite literally watering at the sight.
Robby dropped his shirt again. It caught on his belly, leaving a delicious sliver uncovered, the same slivers you had stolen glances of every time he stretched his back in the ER, causing his scrubs to ride up.
Robby looked up and froze. Your eyes met across the ambulance bay. You couldn’t look away. What was wrong with you? Ogling his belly in public like some- some belly fetishist!
Heat suffused your face and neck, making even the scorching temperatures around you go green with envy.
Robby stared back at you. A slight pink tinge spread across his cheeks. He tugged on his shirt, even when it sat normally again and averted his eyes, twisting his head away with more force than necessary.
You were still staring at him.
You couldn’t stop.
Seeing his naked belly had broken something, fried some essential wiring in your brain, you were sure of it.
Robby didn’t look at you when he stalked past to disappear into the Pitt.
You stayed. Trapped between mortification at being caught ogling him and depraved delight at the sight that had burnt itself into your retinas.
This was not good.
This was not at all helpful with regards to your concerning, lecherous crush - though crush was far too tame a word to describe the absolutely filthy thoughts that came to haunt you every time you lay down in bed to catch some sleep between shifts.
You finished your soda, ate the last of your ‘lunch’ while desperately trying to remember how to act normal before heading back inside.
The scent of Robby’s aftershave, still fresh in the morning, still hung in the air. You felt yourself blush again. Oh god. You were fucked. You were so royally, monumentally FUCKED.
I want to fuck him.
“Oh my god, shut the fuck up.” You hissed to yourself.
Dana shot you an incredulous look over the edge of her glasses, one brow raised, no doubt seeing the blush still darkening your skin when you went to check the board. You forced yourself not to look for Robby before grabbing a tablet to throw yourself back into the ER madness - a mistake, you realised as you turned around and collided with another person.
A solid, soft, very good-smelling person.
“Dr- Dr Robby.” You muttered, backing away quickly. Could this day get any worse?
You looked up on reflex - it was impossible not to look at Robby, not to look for Robby, but all you could think about as you were peering up at your old mentor and object of all your desires was how you would ride your pillow tonight while thinking about the mouth-watering show he’d inadvertently put on for you this morning.
Your blush only darkened further.
Had you been any more sane in the moment, you’d have noticed Robby’s own flushed skin, or the fidgedy, uneasy energy surrounding him.
Dana looked from you to him and promptly decided she was not paid enough to deal with whatever was going on between the two attendings.
You were called away to one of your cases and quickly ducked around Robby to scurry away, taking all your perverted thoughts and shame with you.
Good thing mind-readers don’t exist. And in case they do, please don’t tell on me.
Your shift dragged on, tugging you along at the most infuriating, pointless pace ever. You liked your shift time slot. You liked that you got to spend one half with the nightshift crew and the second half with the dayshift. Nights were slower and somewhat calmer but also batshit crazy. Days were turbulent and demanding. You never wanted to go back to twelve uninterrupted hours of this shit ever again. Eight were more than enough.
You’d been avoiding Robby, and you’d almost made it to the end of your shift without interacting with him. You’d even voluntarily exiled yourself to chairs.
Just another hour to go before you could slink out, taking your shame with you and hopefully, hopefully Robby would have forgotten all about this by tomorrow. Or at least you could both pretend it had never happened.
You swirled around at the sound of your name being called - and cursed.
Robby made his way through the flow of staff and patients towards you.
“A word.” It was a question. He pushed the door to an empty exam room open and, hanging your head in defeat and embarrassment, you ducked under his arm and slipped into the room. Robby followed. The door fell shut. The chaos and noise of the ER faded away, leaving you alone with your stupid blush and stupid, feral thoughts and rapid heartbeat pounding in your ears.
Robby towered over you with his arms crossed, ridiculously tall and handsome and looking at you with that stern, sexy disappointed-teacher-look. You both shrunk under it and internally purred like a cat getting exactly what it wanted. He tilted his head and tipped it forward, looking down at you with those delicious dark puppy eyes-
“I expected more professionalism from you. If you have an issue, I thought you would have enough respect for me to bring it up with me personally, instead of doing this fucking charade of playing cat and mouse!”
Your eyes flicked down to his belly. Your severely unhelpful brain supplied pictures of you kneeling in front of him, feeling his belly against your forehead, choking on his cock while he berated you in exactly that tone.
Robby hissed your name. You flinched, head whipping up to meet his eyes again.
I’m no better than a man.
“I-” You mumbled unhelpfully, unsure of how to save yourself from the mess you were sinking into deeper and deeper the longer you were alone with him.
He was still going. Working himself up into a right frenzy while tearing into you in this new stress-fuelled way of his he never used to do before. You remember well how he knocked a former R4, who’d long since moved to another hospital after making attending, down a peg for shouting at you so hard after you made a harmless mistake you started crying and hyperventilating.
He was a very different man back then.
Not that you minded this new, rougher, meaner version of him.
“I know I am not the youngest man anymore-” An edge of insecurity slipped into his voice. “-but you are a doctor for Christ’s sake! I didn’t do anything inappropriate, so I don’t get what the fuck is going on with you that you can’t even do your fucking job today! Are you thinking about going to HR? Gloria? Is that it? Some snowflake shit about not being able to see some skin without getting offended?”
He was still going.
I want you to call me a filthy slut while I ride your sexy belly.
Silence.
No-
Oh god no-
“Did I say that-”
“Yep.”
You wanted to disappear. To stop existing. Better yet, for you to never have existed in the first place.
“I-” Your mouth went dry, so dry that every swallow felt like trying to force sand down your throat. “Fuck- I’m sorry-” You hid your face behind your hands and fought against the tears burning in your eyes.
Fuck.
Fucking stupid.
How could a decently smart person - and you had to at least be decently smart to have made it through med school and residency - be so fucking stupid?!
“Dr Robby, please- I-”
You bolted out of the room, leaving behind a stunned, slightly flushed Robby.
***
It was almost eight pm when a knock on your door tore you from your spiralling thoughts that shifted from berating yourself to considering resignation - because what else was there left to do at this point?
You’d stayed hidden in chairs until your shift was over and used the noon rush of people using their lunch break to see a doctor to slip out without bumping into Robby.
You barely slept, and you still had not decided whether you’d be showing up for your shift at midnight.
Peering through the peephole made your blood run cold.
Robby.
A dishevelled, sweaty, irritated-looking Robby. At your door.
You opened the door a crack, hiding behind it with only your head popping out. You felt Robby stare down at you, but you had no bravado left to face him. You didn’t have any bravado. You would have never said that to him, never confessed to your raunchy thoughts and fantasies. You still had no idea how the words slipped out.
“Can we talk?”
You nodded, still not looking up and stepped aside enough for him to slip into your apartment. You shut the door and slunk back down the hall and into the living room, where you sat down on your sofa, curling up into a tight ball with your knees to your chest and a pillow clutched in your arms.
Silence stretched between you, thick and loaded.
“Look…” Robby ran his hands through his hair and slumped down in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table with an audible sigh. “I don’t appreciate being ridiculed.”
Your head snapped up, brows dipping into a frown, lips parting as though to say something, but Robby lifted his hand, cutting you off.
“I made you uncomfortable, and instead of being a man about it and acknowledging it and apologising, I was a dick. That wasn’t right, but paying me back like that? That wasn’t cool either.”
“I- I didn’t-”
Robby snorted, a bitter, self-deprecating sound that sent a pang through your heart. “Right. Because I’m supposed to believe you meant that.”
“I did.” Your voice was a tiny, fragile little thing, bearing the evidence of the hours you’d spent panicking, thinking about what you were supposed to do to fix this, and no negligible amount of crying.
It was Robby’s turn to stare at you, opening and closing his mouth in a futile attempt to come up with something to say.
“I shouldn’t have- I never thought I’d say something like that to you, and that was so inappropriate, and I am sorry, but I won’t sit here and let you claim I was lying. Because I wasn’t.” Your cheeks burnt, but you forced yourself to hold eye contact even when your throat felt as though it was swelling shut.
“You- meant it?”
You nodded.
“You want to ride my belly?”
You looked away. Heat surrounded your face. “I think you look good. Really good.”
“Then you have very questionable taste, kid.”
You put the pillow down and got up, moving past your coffee table to stand in front of Robby. He watched you with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. You set your knee against the edge of the cushion, right between his spread legs.
“Do you have a problem with my taste?”
Robby whispered your name, a warning that was already hanging on by a thread, brittle, too weak to conceal his own yearning he’d been fighting to keep hidden from you.
You were too young, too pure for him to drag you down with his own messiness and inability to commit. He didn’t care about workplace relationships, he should as department chair and man who’d been frozen out by scorned nurses to the point Dana had to berate everyone involved into restoring some semblance of professionalism, but you- he didn’t want to mess you up, and everything he touched got messed up.
“Maybe it’s not my taste that’s the issue.” You placed your hand against his shoulders, curling the fingers of the other around his chin softly to force him to look at you. “Maybe it’s your perception.”
You bent down further. Robby bristled, taking a sudden, deep inhale. He looked like a man trapped between resisting and breaking, and a wicked, depraved part of you desperately wanted to see him snap.
You dropped to your knees. Robby groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying and failing to resist the temptation of looking at you, watching you huddled between his spread legs in your skimpy sleep shorts and loose shirt that did nothing to conceal the fact you weren’t wearing a bra.
You nuzzled the inside of his thigh with your head while dragging your hands down his chest, over his soft, warm belly-
You bit your lip to stifle a groan. You were too far gone to be embarrassed by how wet you already were for him, how needy and addled with pure, carnal lust that had been building for years, had grown to such devastating heights you apparently blurted it out in the middle of getting your ass handed to you - unfairly - by your attending.
You toyed with the hem of Robby’s scrub top.
“You’re crazy.”
“It would seem that way.” You murmured as you pushed his shirt up, eyes latching onto the delicious sight of soft, warm, hairy flesh. His body looked like the epitome of comfort. Lived-in, functional, not like those overly polished, eating disorder-driven fuck boys that clogged up your timeline on social media and flooded the dating apps, talking about discipline while eating unseasoned chicken with rice and making women feel shit about their very normal, very natural bodies. You could picture yourself curling up against Robby to leech off his warmth at night. Or resting your head on him while he ran his fingers through your hair.
“But since I already made a fucking spectacle of myself at work, I might as well do this.” You pressed your lips against his stomach and bit back a needy moan. Robby’s hand shot up to thread through your hair. He watched you mouth at his belly as if it was the hottest thing you’d ever seen, lavishing kisses and teasing kitten licks all over his squishy flesh.
He could not fathom how someone as pretty as you could ever be attracted to the worst part of him. Though perhaps these days the worst part of him was his steadily worsening temper… not that you seemed especially opposed to that too.
“Can I?” You looked up at him through your lashes.
“What?” Robby struggled to keep up with you, his mind preoccupied with trying to process how he’d ended up in your apartment with you kneeling between his legs and still somehow not to suck his cock.
“Ride your belly.” You painted languid patterns onto his exposed belly with your fingers, kempt nails scraping softly over his skin, making him shiver.
“Yeah.”
His reply came out breathless, without him really thinking about it. You emitted a squeaking noise of pure delight, and any inhibitions he might still have had melted away under it. You got to your feet, shimmying out of your shorts and panties before straddling him. You tugged and pulled impatiently on his shirt, but Robby needed a moment to get over the way your tits were in his face.
His shirt joined your shirts on the ground. Your fingers found their way into his hair and beard, toying with the coarse hair while rolling your hips against him. You stifled a moan against his temple, insides clenching violently around nothing as you dragged your soaked folds over his soft flesh. You applied more pressure, and his flesh gave way for you, allowing you more friction without it hurting or overstimulating your already swollen clit. You felt his hair against your inner thighs and heated flesh, a teasing tickle that sent prickling shivers of desire and need down your spine.
“Robby-” You moaned breathlessly. His face caught in your hands, you tipped his head back and slanted your lips over his. It was a messy kiss, uncoordinated and frankly, pathetically eager.
But was it your fault this sad old man underneath you was so fucking hot it burnt your neurons to just look at him?
After a stunned moment, Robby reciprocated. He cupped the back of your head with one hand while the other settled on the small of your back to pull you closer. He slipped down on the armchair a little, making it easier for you to grind against him.
“Fuck, sweetheart-” He muttered against your lips when you pulled back to gasp for air. “This what you wanted? You young people have some fucking issues…”
You shuddered above him.
Robby’s eyes lit up with mirth.
“Right… no, this is not all you wanted, is it? What was it you said? You want me to call you a filthy slut?”
You could only nod.
“Tell me, baby.” His hands fell to your hips, fingertips digging into your flesh as he pulled you down harder against him. “What is it your deranged mind pictured when you thought about this? Did you get yourself off to the thoughts of an old man’s floppy stomach?”
You nodded again.
“Words, sweetheart. Can’t help you if you don’t talk. Come on, be a big girl and use your words.”
You moaned.
Robby forcibly stilled the movement of your hips.
“I-” You couldn’t meet his eyes. Embarrassment burnt a path up your throat, and for some terrible, filthy reason it turned you on all the more. “You’re pulling my hair, holding my arms behind my back, and degrade me. Sometimes- sometimes you tell me to stroke your cock while I get myself off. To make myself useful.”
Robby inhaled a hissing breath through his teeth.
Slowly, he ran his hand up your spine, just to drag it back down and catch the hem of your shirt. You lift your arms to help him peel it off you. His eyes flicked down to your breasts immediately, mentally cataloguing the sight of you, saving it to his memory.
He threaded his fingers through your hair, palms flush against your scalp, just to curl his fingers, gripping your hair tightly at the root, and you thought you could have come right then, just from finding out Robby knew how to properly pull a girl’s hair.
He caught your wrist and twisted your arm behind your back, just enough to hurt but not so much he would dislocate your shoulder, dragging another stuttering moan from you.
“Go on then.” Robby purred, voice lower than before, eyes dark with hunger. “If you’re getting yourself off by rubbing your little cunt all over me like a fucking slut, you might as well make it worth my while.”
You could barely move. Between the silent threat of your arm twisted behind your back, forcing you to arch your back and lewdly present your breasts to Robby, and his hand in your hair, you were trapped.
It was so much better than you ever thought it would be.
Robby chuckled. “Fucking hell… and here I thought you were this innocent, well-behaved little thing.”
You finally managed to reach the waistband of his pants. It took you several attempts to manage to slip your hand under it, straining in Robby’s grasp and gasping when a movement had your shoulder aching. Robby, all the while, mocked you for struggling, for dripping all over him like a fucking whore, for getting so turned on by being man-handled.
“There you go… see, that wasn’t hard, was it? Pretending to be a useless, dumb bitch isn’t going to get you out of this, sweetheart. You put yourself in this situation, now be a big girl about it, hm-” Robby was cut off by a groan when you managed to close your fingers around his hard length. You tugged, forcing him out of the confines of his boxers. He felt big - long and heavy in your hand. Robby’s grip tightened around your wrist, dragging another stuttering moan from your lips.
You rolled your hips, rutting helplessly against his belly, immobilised by his strong arms around you, his cock throbbing against your palm-
“That’s all you can do? Hm? You get your hand around a cock, and suddenly that brain of yours doesn’t work anymore? Come on, sweetheart, put some effort in it. I thought you were going to make this worth my while? Why should I sit here and watch some whore get off?”
Pleasure pounded through your veins and rose to your head, wrapping your brain into a fuzzy blanket of bliss. Robby’s words made shame and embarrassment skyrocket in your chest. His hand around your wrist, twisting your arm behind your back, had sharp pain shooting through you, gasoline to the already raging storm of desire and need wreaking havoc over you.
“Robby- Robby, fuck- don’t stop-”
Tears clung to your lashes and rolled down your cheeks. Your chest rose and fell with each laboured breath you forced into your lungs. Your skin prickled as though you’d touched a live wire.
Robby’s dark eyes were glued to you, glinting with desire and wonder at the discovery of your own depravity. Never, never would he have expected the bubbly, sweet, innocent girl who’d been his med student all those years ago would get up to shit like this.
In all the years he’d spent pining after you, he never dared to think you would be this fucking perfect for him.
“Are you going to come? Are you seriously going to come from this? Fucking hell, sweetheart… such a disgusting, filthy fucking whore…”
“Y-yes-” You threw your head back, just for him to pull on your hair tighter, force your head back further until your toes were curling and your lips falling open around a suffocated moan. Your hand, already slick with pre-cum, tensed around his throbbing cock. “I’m a disgusting whore- your- your filthy whore- Robby- ah-”
“Oh, mine, are you? Am I to believe you won’t crawl to another man to have him throw you around the second I leave here?”
You tried to nod, but you could barely move your head.
“You can pretend to be a good girl all you want, baby, I don’t fucking believe you.”
“Daddy-”
A shudder tore through Robby, followed by a grin splitting across his face.
“Daddy? Oh ho ho, sweetheart.”
Your cheeks heated up under a fierce, bright red blush spreading across them.
“No no no, don’t you dare pretend you didn’t say that. Jesus, you’re such a fucking mess… no wonder you’re getting off to me tossing you around like you’re nothing but a used cum rag.”
“Robby-”
“No, baby.” Robby let go of your hair just to grab your chin. “No backpaddling now. Address me properly, pet.”
“D-daddy-”
“There you go. So there is some brain in that pretty head of yours after all.”
“Fuck me, daddy- please- ohmygod- I want to come on your dick-”
Robby was too far gone to question anything at this point. He was far too old to act like this, far too old to not waste a single thought of contraception or STIs or just the fact that he was your boss and you were far too young for him.
Robby let go of your arm. He had enough mental wherewithal about him still to ease it out of the uncomfortable position he held it in. He watched you for a second to make sure he’d not done any damage. You might be a little sore tomorrow, but from the way you moved it and rolled your shoulder to shake off the tension clinging to your muscles, he was sure you were fine.
You emitted a surprised squeal when Robby stood up with you in his arms, effortlessly, as though you weighed nothing. He turned you around and pushed you face-first onto the armchair. Your knees sank into the cushion. You clung to the backrest, just for Robby to grab your hair and push your face down. His fingers dug into your side, thumb pressing down on the small of your back viciously until you arched your back for him.
“Fuck- don’t even need any training, huh?”
You felt his blunt head rub through your soaked folds, heard the sharp intake of air he took in your ear as he bent over you, his front moulding to your back, belly pressed flush against your back-
“Keep that up and I might let you come.”
“Daddy-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Can’t trust a stupid slut to do as she’s told.” Robby forced your head to the side. You met his eyes through tear-soaked lashes. His lips brushed harshly against your cheek, his beard scratching your skin deliciously. “Tell me what you want, sweetheart. Come on. Beg me. I know you want to.”
“I want you-” You moaned, bucking against him, desperately seeking some friction to ease the painful pressure between your legs. “I want you to fuck me, daddy- I’ve wanted you- ah- wanted you for so long-”
“Yeah? How long, baby? How long have you been thinking about my cock stretching out that slutty little cunt?”
“Years-” Your nails dug into the fabric of your armchair, the material straining beneath your desperate grip, tears tumbling down your cheeks and falling off your jaw. A desperate sob tore through your chest. “Robby, please-”
You were cut off by the overwhelming stretch of his cock breaching you, pushing forward in a single, devastating thrust that had you trembling and whimpering under Robby. He felt so good- so fucking good- The stretch of him forcing your body to open up to him was just short of too much. He filled you up so good, thick and hot and heavy, a solid, throbbing weight inside your quivering, sopping cunt you could not forget.
“Shut up.” Robby hissed in your ear, knowing his sharp tone would only drag more delicious, high-pitched whines from you. “You got yourself into this mess, now be a good girl and take what daddy gives you. I don’t want to fucking hear you complain, sweetheart. You didn’t have to act like a fucking whore, you chose to, and now you see what daddy does to pathetic sluts throwing themselves at him.”
He fucked you in quick, jostling thrusts that had the feet of the armchair scraping across your flood. A distant, very distant part of you worried about Robby knocking the whole thing over from how hard he was pounding into you, but it quickly shut up when he let go of your hair to hold onto your waist, face nuzzling into the back of your neck.
He was panting, breathing loud and heavily, only interrupted by low, deep, rumbling grunts. His hips slammed into you, slamming you into the worn cushions. His star of david necklace tapped against your shoulder blade on every thrust while he mouthed at your ear and the side of your face, beard scraping deliciously over your sweaty skin.
The feeling of your cunt clamped down around him like a vice had apparently melted away every nasty word he could have thrown at you for your own sick, twisted pleasure, replacing the severe, struggling man you’d grown used to interacting with with a much softer version.
He muttered sweet nothings and tender praise into your skin while clinging to your waist as if you were a life raft.
And fuck, you’d be his raft, life preserver and stress relief if only he kept fucking you like this.
A younger version of you made a vow what felt like lifetimes ago to not waste any more of your time on toxic, unstable men, but for Robby you might just throw every common sense out the window.
Robby’s big nose smushed into your cheek, he kissed the tears off your skin, telling you how good you were doing for him, how good you felt for him, while a ceaseless, barely comprehensible string of daddy and please tumbled off your lips and into the cushion he’d shoved your face into.
Within minutes - or had it been hours? You weren’t sure. You sure as hell couldn’t trust your mind in this situation - Robby had reduced you to a whimpering, drooling mess. Your own arousal mixed with his pre-cum ran down your thighs and slicked up every thrust, causing an obscene symphony of wet noises paired with the telltale slap slap slap of skin hitting skin to fill up your dim living room.
Robby pressed his face into the space between your shoulder blades. He reached around you, pressing two fingers to your swollen clit, rubbing the pads of his fingers over it at just the right rhythm to make you fall apart with a strangled scream, his name still on your lips.
He thrust into you once, twice more before following you, grunting against your skin and coming inside you. His hips kept moving, almost automatically, fucking his cum deeper inside you until it covered his whole length and dripped down his balls.
You’d turned to putty under him. Drooling, happy, satisfied putty. You let your body slide down the backrest, collapsing on the armchair that was no doubt traumatised now, covered in your own arousal, cum, tears and drool as it was now.
You rubbed a hand over your face, humming in contentment.
“Where’s your bedroom?”
Robby’s voice was soft, caring, the way it only got with injured, scared children and hearing him address you with it after he just wrecked you and called you a useless, disgusting slut had your insides turn all mushy and warm.
You gestured down the hall, unable to get enough of your bearing to talk. You didn’t expect him to stay. You certainly didn’t expect him to pick you up bridal style and carry you to your bedroom, or to fetch a warm washcloth from your bathroom and use it and his tongue to carefully but thoroughly clean you up.
He set you down on your unmade bed and dragged the warm cloth over your thighs before, almost as an afterthought, cleaning himself up. He settled himself between your legs, face smushed against your heated flesh and lapped at your cunt until every last drop of him was gone and you were clinging to his hair, whimpering his name sweetly.
And because Robby was apparently a depraved, wretched old man, he stayed there. He stayed there, kissing and licking and sucking at your skin until he’d dragged another orgasm from you and Jesus, you sounded so fucking sweet and tasted so fucking good- Robby couldn’t pull himself away. No matter how much he should. No matter how much guilt crashed down on him now that the lust and hunger had subsided.
You wanted it, but how could he talk to you like that? Use you like that? You were such a sweet, young thing… how could you even know whether this was something you truly wanted? Not something you were made to believe you should enjoy? Robby had seen it before, and he had never wanted to be a part of it.
Even when you smiled at him, fingers playing with his hair and beard absentmindedly, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d done something terrible to you.
“Stay.” You croaked, and Robby felt himself nod before he could really think about the request, but yeah… what else was he going to do? Leave you? Fuck no.
He tossed the washcloth into your hamper and fetched you a glass of water. You gulped it down greedily before settling down, curling up against his side and nuzzling your face into his chest, your hand resting on his belly, drawing lazy circles onto his skin and playing with his hair. Robby buried his nose in your hair, the exhaustion of his shift finally crushing down on him, eyes falling shut…
Your alarm dragged you out of the easy, content, warm nap you’d slipped into. Your body felt pleasantly loosened, limbs still tingling faintly. Your arm felt sore, and a sharp, but not entirely unpleasant sting between your legs tore through you when you shifted.
Robby had wrapped his arms around you tightly, and it took some effort to extract yourself from him without waking him.
You tried to be as silent as you could as you took a shower and gathered your things for work. You left a note on the bedside table, telling Robby to stay as long as he wanted, and off you were.
You had an extra pep to your step as you strolled into the ER at midnight, just in time for your shift, and Lena commented on it right away - of course she did - gifting you one of her warm grins and peering at you over the edge of her glasses.
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
“A girl doesn’t kiss and tell.” You smirked and promptly slipped away to put your lunch in the fridge and your things into your locker before jumping into the nightly madness.
Your good mood stayed, and it did not go unnoticed by the rest of the Pitt either. Abbot shot you a questioning glance, a brow raised when your reply to his question came out a little more chirped than it should have. Ellis slapped you on the shoulder, grinning at you. Shen seemed a little intimidated, if not downright scared.
Seven a.m. rolled around, and you snuck away, grabbing your food and soda from the fridge, and made your way outside for your break you did not negotiate on. Seated on your wall by the entrance, you waited, perhaps with a little more anticipation than usual.
You watched Robby pull up on his motorcycle, the same motorcycle you saw parked outside your place when you left, a sight that put a grin onto your lips.
Whatever giddy, girlish delighted joy had carried you through the night, it withered the moment Robby got off his bike.
He didn’t look at you.
He didn’t acknowledge you.
He got off his bike, grabbed the helmet he never wore and marched right past you into the ER.
Tears stung in your eyes, and you didn’t know whether you hated yourself more for crying or for having had sex with him in the first place.
You knew he never committed to anyone. You knew his dating pool was basically limited to the hospital and the women who got into ill-advised affairs with him despite his reputation. You hadn’t even asked for anything. You had just had sex. Of course that didn’t have to mean anything you expected- you thought- that he’d at least look at you.
You chewed on your bottom lip, fingers trembling around your can of soda, trying not to let your thoughts spiral into self-loathing or self-deprecating versions of He is disgusted with you, of course he is. You are disgusting, playing on repeat in your head.
You finished your soda despite the nausea welling up inside your throat and dumped the rest of your lunch before heading back inside.
The change in your mood was felt viscerally by the whole ER, questioning looks following you on your way to your locker to deposit your lunch box. You didn’t notice Robby following you with his eyes, nor the concerned crease forming between his brows, but he was pulled away on an urgent case before he could make up his mind about whether to talk to you.
It was two hours into his shift when the silence between you became too much for him. The first chance he got, he slipped away, grabbed your wrist and tugged you with him into the family room.
You steeled yourself for another lecture.
It didn’t come.
“I-” Robby started, but stopped himself. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I was. Until you started ignoring me again.” You shrugged.
Robby winced. “Look- I shouldn’t have come to your place. We shouldn’t have- that-” He sighed. “It can’t happen again.”
“Why? Am I that disgusting to you?”
“Wh-what? No! How would you even come to that conclusion?!”
“Well, everything was fine last night, and now you’re back to being a dick. What else am I supposed to think? I’m sure most women don’t ask you to call them a slut while fucking them.”
“I don’t- Do you think most guys get off on calling the woman they’re with a slut?”
“Yeah, actually, they probably do.”
Robby hesitated. “Okay… point taken. Not that it was about calling you awful things for me. It was about you- about knowing I was making you feel good…”
You crossed your arms. “Then where’s the issue, Robby?”
He gestured vaguely at you. “You. All of you.”
“Wow. Thanks.” You deadpanned, glaring up at him.
“No! Not like that! Jesus. Look, you’re too young, yeah? And far too good to waste your time on someone like me. You deserve someone who’s kind and sweet and gentle. Not whatever the fuck I did to you last night.”
“You don’t get to tell me what’s good enough for me.” You sniffed. “You did what I asked you to do, you don’t think I deserve someone who does what I ask?”
“Come on, sweetheart, you don’t have to pretend with me. You didn’t actually enjoy that-”
“Why not? Oh, so you can be into BDSM but not me? Is that it? Leave me alone with that internalised sexism bullshit!”
“Woah, I’m not sexist.” Robby blinked at you.
You snorted.
“I’m not! I respect women.”
“Yeah, the thing with internalised things is you are not usually aware of them, but I’m not fucking getting into that with you now. Are you coming over tonight?”
Robby opened his mouth just to close it again. He had an odd resemblance to a fish in a moment, and you briefly wondered how it was fair for a man to be so handsome that even that didn’t turn you off.
“What?”
You rolled your eyes. “You need hearing aids or something? I asked if you’re coming over tonight.”
“Why?”
You shrugged and took a step forward, letting your hand trail over his protruding, soft belly. “I want to feel this against my forehead while I choke on you.”
Robby all but sputtered. He looked around frantically, as though to make extra sure the family room was empty, just to hiss your name under his breath.
You grinned.
Slowly, you lowered yourself to your knees. Robby didn’t stop you. You popped open the button of his cargo pants and dragged down the zipper, all the while looking up at Robby. He glanced from you to the door and back to you.
“I wanna suck you dick, daddy.” You purred. Robby cursed under his breath. He braced his hand against the door before slumping against it with his back when you curled your hand around his soft dick to pull it from his boxers.
“Jesus, kid-”
“Is that a yes?” You asked in a painfully fake, high-pitched, whiny tone.
“Yeah-”
You grinned to yourself as you parted your lips to take him into your mouth. He grew hard under your touch, under the insistent drag of your tongue over his velvety skin. You sucked on his tip until he was cursing, and giggled around him when he grabbed your hair to force you down, burying himself as deep in your throat as he could. He squished your nose into the coarse, dark curls at his base and your forehead into his soft belly.
You moaned around him, eyes fluttering shut.
It was so much better than you ever thought it would be.
A few minutes later, throat sore and hair more or less smoothed down, you emerged from the family room with a renewed pep in your step. Robby slunk out behind you a while later, once you’d cleared the hallway and hopefully nobody would put two and two together.
Dana shot him a withering, disapproving glare from central, Jack next to her merely raising his brow before shaking his head.
Robby blushed.
That night, after his shift, he found his way back to your apartment, and the night after that, and the night after… He was fucking addicted, and he didn’t even care when you sucked his cock like that or cried his name out so sweetly while coming around him - and especially not when you lay in bed next to him, playing with his stomach hair and smiling up at him so prettily…
based on this request
wc: 1.2k
pairing: jack abbot x wife!reader
summary: jack has always liked privacy, but one of his biggest secrets is revealed one random afternoon.
c.warning: established relationship (married); mentions of minor injury and minor car accident; reader is a mother; no other warnings i think but if i missed something let me know!
a/n: gooooood it's been so long since i last wrote for jack. i missed him so much! i hope you liked this!
masterlist | requests
for years, jack’s personal life has been locked inside a vault. of course he’d mention you, his wife, from time to time. but always in passing and never waiting too long for his coworkers to asks any personal questions. and it’s not because he doesn’t love you, god knows he’s obsessed with you. but a small, overprotective part of him thinks that by distancing himself from you and your kids when he’s at work he manages to keep you away from the hospital.
he has spent a decade building a wall between his grueling work and the life he cherishes waiting for him back home.
but tonight, the universe has different plans for him.
you sit on the edge of the crinkling paper of the examination table in exam room 4, a dull, throbbing ache radiating down the left side of your neck. every time you try to tilt your head, a sharp reminder of the sudden impact flashes through your muscles. a minor fender-bender on the way home from your daughter's hockey practice left you with a stiff, aching neck, but thankfully, nothing more. next to you, your twelve-year-old daughter is swinging her legs off a plastic chair, her hockey gear bag resting by her feet. she’s still wearing her team jersey and, next to her, your five-year-old son is entirely unbothered by the clinical surroundings, happily coloring on a piece of scrap paper. the minor accident had sent your heart into your throat, but as you look at your children, the overwhelming wave of maternal relief keeps you grounded.
"it seems to be nothing more than a little muscle strain," dr shen says softly, his gloved hands expertly palpating the base of your skull, his expression a soothing balm to the lingering adrenaline in your veins. shen steps back, charting something on his tablet with a soft, reassuring smile. "the kids are completely clear, not a single mark or tender spot on either of them. i’m going to order a mild anti-inflammatory for you and then you are free to go home and rest."
"thank goodness," you sigh, reaching down to ruffle your son's hair. "i just wanted to be absolutely sure they were okay."
outside the glass doors of the exam room, jack is walking fast, clipboard in hand, listening to an intern rattle off a patient's vitals.
“send for dr. fitz, he’ll know what to do. and call me when you get the results. what’s the state of the girl in bay one?”
jack turns then towards the intern as she starts listing the latest lab results on the young patient that just arrived a few minutes ago. he is in full doctor mode. focused, distant, and professional.
that is, until he passes the curtain of your bay, a sudden movement catching his eye. it’s a high, dark auburn ponytail swinging back and forth. a very specific, familiar ponytail.
the same one he usually fights with on his days off as he helps his daughter get ready for practice, earnestly trying to avoid any bumps or stay hairs hanging from the ponytail. jack stops dead in his tracks, causing the intern to almost crash into his back.
jack looks through the pale curtain, eyes widening. the clipboard in his hand feels suddenly too heavy. and it only gets worse once he notices a second head poking though the curtain, this time his baby boy. his entire world is sitting right now in exam room 4.
he abandons the intern mid-sentence, pulling the curtain aside, his usual collected demeanor completely evaporating.
"jack?" shen looks up, surprised by his sudden entrance.
but jack isn't looking at him. he rushes straight to the side of the table, his eyes scanning you from head to toe, wide with a rare, raw panic. "what happened? are you okay? are the kids okay?"
"hey, breathe," you say instantly, reaching out to catch his hand. your fingers lace into his, and the grounding touch immediately lowers his shoulders, though his chest is still heaving. "we're okay. i promise. just a stupid little bumper-to-bumper on the way home from the rink. someone short-braked ahead of us."
your daughter rolls her eyes playfully. "mom took the hit like a champ, dad. you should be proud."
"daddy!" your five-year-old chirps, abandoning his coloring page to scramble off the chair and throw his arms around jack’s leg.
jack immediately drops to one knee, wrapping his strong arms around your son, burying his face in the boy's hair for a brief, fiercely protective second. he looks up at your daughter, reaching out to squeeze her knee. "you're sure you're both okay? nothing hurts?"
"we're totally fine, dad," she reassures him, giving him a warm smile.
only then does jack stand back up, turning his attention fully to you, eyes glowing with adoration and relief. his hand cups your cheek, his thumb gently brushing across your cheekbone. "and you? your neck?"
"just a little stiff," you murmur, leaning into his touch, completely accustomed to how deeply he cares for his family, even if he keeps it hidden from the rest of the world. "dr. shen was just checking me out. he says we’re good to go."
speaking of which… the room is entirely silent as four sets of eyes turn to the doctor.
you look past jack’s shoulder and notice that dr shen is standing there, his jaw slightly slack. on the other side of the curtain, the intern who had been following jack is staring open-mouthed, and a bunch of other nurses, including lena, have paused in the hallway, completely transfixed by the scene.
the great private dr. abbot is currently looking at you with a softness none of them knew he possessed, his hand resting tenderly on your waist while a local little league hockey player calls him dad.
jack blinks, finally realizing the audience he has gathered. he straightens up, but he doesn't let go of your hand, the other one resting on top of your son’s head. he clears his throat, the faint trace of a rare, boyish smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as he looks at his stunned colleague.
"john," jack says, his voice regaining its usual steady cadence, though it's much warmer now. "i believe you've met my wife. and these are our kids."
shen blinks, a massive grin suddenly breaking across her face. "your kids? jack, you have a whole family!”
“i do,” he says, smiling softly.
“and you didn’t think of sharing that information with the group.”
"i like my privacy," jack defends himself. he looks down at his kids, then back to you, the sheer relief of knowing you are all safe overtaking any awkwardness about his secret being out. he leans down, pressing a lingering, sweet kiss to your lips right in front of the entire observation window. " i'm glad you're all safe."
"we are," you whisper, smiling against his lips. "now, can you sign our discharge papers, dr. abbot? we want to go home."
"consider it done," jack says softly. he turns to the staring interns outside with a mock-stern raise of his eyebrows, and they instantly scramble back to work, whispering excitedly among themselves.
as jack helps you down from the table and gathers your son into his arms, you know his quiet, mysterious reputation at the hospital is officially over, but seeing the proud, contented smile on his face as he walks his family out, it’s clear he doesn't mind one bit.
summary: you're spending quality time with your boyfriend, jack. things are comfortable as usual, but end up taking a spicy turn all because of one simple tiktok.
contains: experimentalist! bf! jack abbot, shy! sexually confused! reader, fem! reader, established relationship, implied age difference, reader discovers something new about herself, jack is literally down for anything as long as he gets to do it with you, slight? petplay... but not really? idfk., oral sex, p in v sex, cowgirl position :3
note: i'm really sorry if this seems awkward- i've never written anything like this before and am feeling quite like the reader in this situation (annoyingly flustered) LMFAO
word count: 2.7k
you'd just arrived home from work, finding your crazy hot doctor of a boyfriend doing the dishes in the kitchen. he was sitting in that same plastic chair he always used, posted right in front of the sink. you'd previously questioned why he'd never let you take care of these kinds of chores, but he'd always dismiss your worries. if he had a day off, he'd catch up on whatever the two of you had missed throughout the week.
you notice crutches resting a couple feet away, resting against the countertop. walking over to stand behind him, you slowly slide your hands over his shoulders then down his chest. he lets out a shameless groan in response, clearly already in a teasing mood. he'd never say it out loud, but he got really bored at home all day without his girl. you lean over and press a gentle kiss to his stubbled cheek.
"there's my pretty lady. let me finish up here and then i'll give you a proper greeting, yeah?"
he smirks, bringing one of your hands up and kissing your knuckles. you nod and walk off toward the bedroom to get out of your work clothes. after a few minutes, you walk back into the hallway, spotting jack who was now resting on the couch. his legs were spread wide, as per usual, allowing your gaze to focus on the way his sweatpants hugged his meaty thighs.
"looks like you've been having fun without me, huh?"
you chuckle, plopping right down next to him and immediately snuggling into his side. his arm wraps around you snugly, hand finding its place on the side of your thigh. he gives it a gentle squeeze, looking over at you and admiring your gorgeous features.
"this place is empty without you, sweetheart."
he places a kiss to your forehead before pulling you in for a real one. his free hand gently caresses your cheek as his lips press against yours. he always had that way of making you melt in an instant. so damn domestic that it made you never want to walk out the front door for work again.
"how was work?"
he gently pulls you in closer even though there wasn't any room left between you. he reaches for the tv remote and scrolls through a couple streaming platforms before deciding on a show you two had already binge watched a couple months ago.
"same shit, different day. realizing once again that i don't get paid enough to deal with half of that bullshit."
he smirks against your hair, knowing how trying work could be for you, especially when others were in a bad mood. you were the first person they'd take it out on, but you have to take it so you won't get fired.
"sorry, baby... wish we could get you out of there."
"i just find it funny that only certain people are the problem, yet management still keeps them around. i've found more useful things on the bottom of my fucking shoe."
he was really trying to behave at this moment, but he couldn't deny how sexy it was to see this spitfire side of you. he just continues to rub circles into your thigh until he feels you relax in his hold. you pull out your phone and start scrolling through tiktok. jack would always end up watching them with you over your shoulder. tonight was no different as he adjusts you slightly to get a better view of your phone.
he watches as you slowly start to unwind from your long day, laughing at the stupidest videos he's ever seen. it wasn't until you scrolled onto a video where it was showing images of a golden retreiver and a black cat sat next to each other. the text in the video read us? (black cat x golden retriever in some ridiculously fancy font.
"what does that mean? us... but it's just a dog and a cat?"
he asks you curiously, causing you to giggle. he really was becoming more well-versed with shitty brainrot lingo, but there were just some trends you hadn't been able to introduce him to yet.
"well... it's kind of like this power duo or couple thing that people like."
he raises an eyebrow, still completely lost. you turn your head, taking in his expression and gently pat his thigh before continuing.
"golden retrievers are supposed to be super friendly and charming in a way... so they're meant to represent a person who has a warm personality."
he nods, listening intently because he was waiting for an excuse to make this relate to your relationship.
"black cats are more chill and laid back, they take a lot longer to warm up to people. so they basically represent a person who's a little more introverted."
"okay- i think i'm getting it. so it's like a duo where one is shy while the other is outgoing?"
you nod with a soft smile, almost able to hear the gears turning in your boyfriend's head.
"would we be one of those duos?"
he asks curiously, watching your face to gauge your reaction.
"ehh- i think we're more of a doberman and orange cat duo."
confusion spreads across his face once again, questioning if he even wants to ask what this duo is supposed to represent. one step ahead of him, you alread begin to explain.
"you're the doberman, protective and calm when it counts. i'm the orange cat, bit of a menace with too much energy, but still lovable."
he quickly nods in understanding, seeing how that pairing fits the two of you a bit better. he's now wearing a soft smile as he thinks about those random moments where you get bursts of energy and start talking a mile a minute or dancing to get the jitters out. he wouldn't trade you for the world, in fact, he really did find himself feeling extra protective over you when you had all that energy.
"lucky me, i managed to find a really cute and feisty kitty."
his overtly teasing words didn't register with you for a few seconds, but when they did, you couldn't help the way your face went beet red. jack feels you tense slightly in his arms, trying to examine your expression. he notices the furious blush on your face and the way you frantically swipe at your phone and try to distract yourself.
"... what's this about, huh?"
he smirks, pulling your phone out of your hands. you were already completely embarrassed at the fact that you were getting wet from being called 'kitty' of all things. but of course, jack never lets this last for long. he was going to get you to admit it one way or another.
"come on, sweetheart. just tell me."
he coos, pulling you into his lap. he helps you slot your thighs on either side of him, holding your hips as he gazed up into your eyes. you desperately try to look away, but a hand flies up to immediately grab your jaw. he turns your face back toward him, feeling himself get hard beneath you as he takes in your flustered face. you both knew jack was up for anything with his beautiful girl, but especially when it came to discovering something new that made you feel good.
he could tell just from your body language that you were damp in your panties, so his hand that was originally on your hip starts to move towards your front. you squirm as his hand gets closer to your aching center, which confirms his suspicions.
"tell me what's got you worked up and i'll touch you."
you suck your bottom lip in between your teeth, letting out a heavy sigh. you were seriously trying to get the words out, but you were flustered beyond belief. everything about the past minute, including the stupidly smug expression on your boyfriend's face causes you to choke on your words. he was trying to work with you, thinking of all the things that might have gotten you in this state. you can visibly recogize when the realization dawns on him.
"i see what's got my kitty so embarrassed now."
he gets an immense feeling of success as he watches you pratically writhe above him at his words. he wasn't really sure what you had to be embarrassed about, since it was just a little nickname that he'd absolutely make use of from now on.
"yeah? are you into that? being my good kitty?"
the sultry tone in his voice has you feeling ready to explode. now you just might as his hand finally slips past the hem of your sweatpants and starts to rub against your covered slit. you moan softly, hips buckling slightly against his hand. you look down at his face, his eyes are completely zeroed in on your expression. he hadn't seen you this worked up since the beginning of your relationship when he'd made you sit on his face for the first time.
"fucking beautiful when you get like this."
he groans, the sensations of you grinding against his hand also rubbing off on the growing tent in his pants. he removes his hand from your pants and helps you slide them off, tossing them to the side somewhere. his hands return to your hips, slowly but firmly grinding them against his own hips.
"you wanna show me? show me how worked up my kitty really is?"
you nod hesitantly before he lets go of your hips and lets you have free reign. you continue to grind against him on your own, hands resting on his shoulders for stability as you quicken the pace. his head tips back against the soft cushion of the couch, soft grunts coming out as he can feel a wet spot forming on his sweatpants.
"atta fucking girl... look at you."
he chuckles, lifting you off of his lap for a moment to get rid of his own pants. an idea comes to his head right before you can straddle him again. he rests a firm hand against your thigh, holding you in place.
"stand up for a second."
you shoot him a confused look, but nod and follow his directions anyway. you stand there, feeling a bit awkward and self-conscious as he... lays on his back on the couch. oh fuck... that only meant one thing. you start to protest as he grabs at your thighs to bring you closer.
"jack- i don't know if i can-
"sure you can. now come sit on my fucking face like a good kitty."
your knees wobble slightly as you reluctantly close the distance between the two of you. as soon as you're within enough reach, he's hoisting one of your legs over the side of his head. he was doing this for you whether you were ready to accept it or not. as soon as your steady, he's pulling you down, not willing to let you even attempt hovering. he plunges his tongue into your slick folds, lapping greedily at your generous amount of slick.
"fuck- you really do like this... you're soaked, baby."
he mumbles against your cunt, grabbing handfuls of your ass as he starts to suck on your clit. you were completely overwhelmed now, head falling back as uncontrolled moans rip from your throat. he starts to glide your hips back and forth, thighs twitching slightly every time your clit would graze the tip of his nose. you were already close, hands moving down to his salt and pepper curls, tugging harshly.
he loved every second of it, you falling apart on his face.
"taste so good... could eat you all night..."
every vibration from his voice got you closer and closer to the edge until you finally succumb to all the pleasure he could bring you with just his mouth. he groans against you as you come all over his face, slick coating him from his nose down to his chin. he doesn't stop licking until you're completely spent and threatening to toppple over.
as soon as his hands move, you scramble off of him. he chuckles as he watches you almost tumble to the floor. if it weren't for his stupidly sexy and big hands grabbing you, you would have eaten shit. he sits up against the couch, pulling you closer. leaning forward, he presses a kiss to your lower stomach, gazing up at you.
"don't have to be so shy about what you want, kitty."
he won't even try to hide the smirk this time as he drags you back into his lap. without a second to waste, he pulls his aching cock from his boxers and lines it up with your entrance. you wince as he lowers your hips just enough to where the tip is inside. for him, it wasn't so much the length as it was the girth that really stretched you out. he knew to take it easy on you when first starting out.
however, you seem to have other things in mind as you manage to wiggle your hips enough that he's completely bottomed out inside you within seconds. you moan loudly, and so does jack, as his fingers dig into the plush skin of your hips.
"so eager for this cock, aren't you?"
he loosens his grip ever so slightly as you start to take control. you're bouncing on his cock like your life depends on it. all he can do is sit there and watch the way pleasure makes your face contort in the most beautiful ways. he loved when you took what you wanted because it showed him that you were comfortable and really feeling good.
"what other dirty secrets is my kitty hiding from me, huh?"
he teases, feeling the way you clench around him at the nickname. if you thought that he was through with the teasing, you were dead wrong. suddenly, he's grabbing your hips and pressing you firmly against him so you couldn't move. you whimper in protest, trying desperately to move your hips in any way.
"don't worry, baby, i'll let you keep going. but i need you to tell me something first."
"please... i'm so close-"
you pant, your brows furrowed as you're forced to sit still. he doesn't miss the way your eyes are starting to glisten, so he knows that he'll get you to crack rather easily.
"i know, shh, i know. all you have to do is say that you're my good kitty and i'll let you ride this cock to your heart's content."
you squirm against him, the familiar flush creeping back up your body once again. you roll your eyes at him, which earns you a swat on the ass.
"i didn't say bad kitty, did i? because if you want to be a bad kitty, you're not coming anywhere near it."
you struggle against his hold for a few more seconds before finally giving in.
"i-i'm your good kitty..."
you mutter under your breath, which clearly wasn't good enough for jack as his grip tightens on your hips.
"say it like you fucking mean it."
"i'm your good kitty."
you say with a bit more volume, your voice breaking slightly as he rams his hips up into you. you moan loudly, gripping onto his arms.
"yeah, you are. such a good fucking kitty. now take what you want."
you don't hesitate, already back to bouncing on him as your eyes roll to the back of your head. your fucked out expression has jack realizing that he's close too. he wraps his arms around you, pulling you close against him, lifting his hips to meet your own.
"that's it, baby. come on this fucking cock."
he grunts out, just barely holding back until you come undone around him. no more than two seconds later, he's coming too, shooting his load deep inside you with a ragged moan. he holds you close as you tremble from the aftershocks of your orgasm, panting against his shoulder.
"such a pretty kitty... you know how to take it, don't you?"
he smirks against your cheek, kissing it softly. you pull back, enough to meet his gaze with a slight frown.
"you're insufferable sometimes, babe."
"says the cutie that just fucked herself stupid on my cock."
filthy smug bastard and his even filthier words... fuck, you loved him.
a/n: HOLY FUCK??? i have never written anything quite like this before... in the meantime, i have seriously discovered something new about myself. wowowowowow, i need that old man so bad i might just explode. AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU SM FOR READING, LOVE YOU LOTS, AND STAY SEXAAAYYY!!!!!! <3333
taglist: @nyxmoretti @popecodysgirl @justreadinghere7
if you wanna join my taglist, click here!!
divider creds: @/saradika-graphics and @/dollywons
summary: Jack and Robby move in together. The young neighbor catches their eye. Everyone seems to learn a little something from it.
tags: neighbors & roommates, poly, medical inaccuracies, not canon compliant, autism spectrum (asd), idiots in love, mental health, age gap, mourning
third person pov; no y/n; nameless reader insert
a/n: my first Pitt fic <3
“You shouldn’t be carrying such heavy boxes, old timer.”
Jack turned slightly toward Robby, looking at the man with a half smirk. He picked up a moving box pointedly, acting as if the kitchen supplies weren’t making his back hurt slightly. “Tough talk for someone who isn’t that far behind me.”
Robby beamed. “A couple of years is a long time. I still got it in me.” As if to prove his point, Robby took the heavy cardboard out of Jack’s hands. His legs wobbled slightly under the weight, and his smile faltered— things that were not lost on Jack. The older man patted Robby’s back as he nodded.
“Yup, still got it.”
This would, hopefully, be a nice change of pace. After the passing of his wife, Jack figured it was about time to get out of that house. Every room and routine held remnants of her that felt too painful to live out every day. Oftentimes, he’d catch himself smiling at the television and turning to tell her about the program, only to find nothing but an empty seat next to him. His smile would drop as reality quickly kicked back in, reminding him every moment that she was really, truly gone.
Robby helped, for the most part. Took his shifts, came over for dinner. Made sure he didn’t kill himself in the meantime. Jack appreciated his old friend having his back. Moving out had been Robby’s idea; something about building a new life instead of sulking in the old. Having realized neither of them had anything besides each other, Robby decided to pitch in on an apartment just outside the city limits and move into the second bedroom.
While Jack would never admit it to the man’s face, he appreciated the offer more than he let on. Living alone wasn’t his style— too much quiet, too much time to dive into the darkness. Something he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. He’d never admit it, but being alone scared him deep down.
“Hey,” Robby’s soft voice drew Jack out of his head. He looked up as Robby nodded his head towards the next-door neighbor’s window. “Cat.”
In the apartment window sat a fat calico cat. She peered through the crack, pressing her face up against the screen as if to say hello to the duo. Her tail swished around in the blinds; Jack noticed a suspiciously cat-shaped hole where the blinds had broken.
Jack smiled fondly. “Hey, little kitty!” He cooed, making noises as if to entertain a baby. In return, the cat made a quiet chirping noise— something between a meow and a purr.
“The window’s open, Jack,” Robby laughed, fixing his grip on the box. “The owner can probably hear you babbling at it.”
Shaking his head, Jack gently chided the man. “Just move your ass inside. You’re obviously losing to a damn cardboard box with that posture.”
Jack grabbed a smaller box ominously labeled ‘important’ and followed Robby through the open door. The apartment was rather spacious, with two bedrooms upstairs and access to the basement. White walls and cream carpeting practically begged to be decorated and personalized, leaving the open space feeling very… lackluster.
Setting the box down in the living room, Jack groaned as he straightened back up. Being in a cramped car after a long shift wasn’t exactly kind on his back. He looked down the hall just as Robby left to bring in another box.
Watching the man roll up his sleeves, Jack felt something flutter in his chest. It wasn’t the heart attack that he’d been long overdue for, but something more domestic-feeling. Like this scenario— this new lifestyle— was something he desperately needed.
The midmorning sun peered over the roof, basking Jack in warmth as he grabbed another box. He looked over at the window again, hopeful to see two little yellow eyes staring back at him. This time, however, two human eyes peaking through the blinds stared back at him.
In a blink, the blinds closed. Jack brushed it off as just a nosy neighbor who just happened to own an adorable, obese feline.
By the time the last box had been dragged in, both men were thoroughly exhausted. The apartment looked less like a home and more like a storage unit. Cardboard boxes occupied every corner, some neatly stacked while others had been abandoned wherever they thought appropriate. For the most part, the labeled boxes reached their designated rooms. The mystery boxes remained scattered about without a home or place to belong.
Robby dropped to the floor with a dramatic groan, spreading himself out on the carpet as though he intended to become one with it. “That’s it,” he said, “I’ve decided I’m just gonna die here. Don’t move me.”
Jack stepped over his legs with a snort. “Good. Saves me the trouble of finding a burial plot.”
“Love you too.”
A comfortable silence settled over them. Jack propped his hands on his hips as he surveyed the living room, proud of his and Robby’s work. A small smile lingered on his face despite feeling gross with sweat.
He wandered slowly through the apartment, taking in the foreign space. The silence was different here; not any better, but not plagued with memories. It was empty. For once, that didn’t seem like a bad thing.
A fresh start, as Robby said.
In the kitchen, a bottle of whiskey sat on the counter with a glass next to it— Robby apparently snuck in a drink sometime between the boxes. Shaking his head, Jack rinsed the glass cup out before placing it in the sink.
Above the sink was a window with a perfect view of the small patch of trees behind the parking lot. Living within a stone’s throw of nature felt like a nice and gentle calm he knew they both needed. ER work wasn’t for the weak, and setting up a hammock between tree trunks sounded like the perfect way to relax after shifts from hell.
“Mikey,” Jack’s voice carried through the empty halls, echoing back hollowly. “We gotta get some furniture. At least a couch or something.”
From the living room, Robby grumbled. “We can hit up Goodwill later.”
“I’m not getting a second-hand, probably semen-stained couch, Michael.”
Jack dried his hands on his pants before leaving the kitchen. He walked around the maze of packed boxes until he found Robby, still unmoved from his spot on the ground. “Let’s go. Before you lose any more momentum.”
“Oh-ho,” he huffed out a deep laugh. “You’re far too late on that, brother.”
Nevertheless, Robby stood up with an over-exaggerated groan. He stretched high enough to almost knock his fist into the ceiling fan. “Alright.” A yawn escaped him, interrupting his words. “Let’s get going so I can take a nap.”
Robby had taken a double shift the day before, working well into the night so he could take today off to move. Jack knew the man was exhausted, running on fumes, and tried his hardest to be gentle to his old friend. But things needed to be done; he’d rather have at least one surface to crash on in the morning after his shift tonight.
Despite his complaints, Robby followed Jack outside. The breeze had picked up since they started moving in, rustling the bushes lining the concrete porch. Jack fished the keys out of his sweatshirt pocket while Robby trailed behind him, looking one minute away from falling asleep standing.
Just as the lock clicked, the neighboring door opened. Both men glanced over automatically as a young woman in pink sweatpants carried a laundry basket down her porch steps. Jack immediately clocked her as the owner of the calico cat. She kept her eyes down, but he noticed the way her grip tightened slightly on the laundry basket.
“Hi,” he called out, hoping to win over the neighbor next door.
She paused just as she stepped off the sidewalk. Her fingers flexed anxiously on the basket before she finally looked in their direction. “Hey.”
Her voice was soft, getting slightly lost in the wind. Jack noticed the way she looked at them— or, the lack thereof. While she occasionally made eye contact, she kept her gaze primarily downturned. A shy one, he thought.
“Laundry day?” Robby asked, stepping off the porch and walking to Jack’s truck. He leaned against the door, crossing his arms, trying to look as unintimidating as possible.
The woman looked down at the basket with wide eyes as if she had forgotten what she was doing, or was surprised that it was so obvious. “Uh, yeah. My machine’s been down for a week now.”
“That’s shitty,” Jack joined Robby by the car now, rounding the other side near the driver’s side. “Landlord won’t fix it?”
She bitterly laughed as she shook her head. “Been trying to get maintenance to do it for a while. They say I’m on the waitlist, but I don’t entirely believe them.”
When she hiked the basket higher up on her hip, her tank top lifted slightly with it, exposing a small section of her midriff. The woman was attractive, Jack would admit that, but far too young for him— she hardly looked over thirty.
Sensing his eyes on her, she walked behind her car to put the basket in the backseat. “You were talking to my cat earlier,” she said bluntly. It caught Jack and Robby off guard.
“Yeah,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry if it disrupted you.”
“He can’t help but coo at cute things.” Robby turned to wink at Jack— apparently, he had the same perverse thoughts as him.
Not having picked up on implied flirtation, the woman stared at them with a kind smile. “Well, she’s an attention whore, so I guess it’s fine.” She waved toward her window and the broken blinds. “She’s desperate to be seen, if you couldn’t tell.”
The two men glanced toward the window instinctively. As if summoned by the conversation, the calico’s face popped up between the bent blinds. Two yellow eyes stared them down with intensity.
“There she is,” Robby said, pointing a finger.
The cat’s pitiful meow was lost in the wind, though they could see the small nose scrunch. The young woman sighed at the sight.
“See? Whore.”
“What’s her name?” Jack asked, finally glancing back at the woman.
“Toaster Strudel, but I call her Toastie for short.”
The answer came with obvious affection, despite the insult she had just thrown at the animal. Jack tilted his head with an amused smile while Robby laughed out loud.
“Toaster Strudel? There’s gotta be a story about that,” he inquired, wiping a tear from his eye.
The woman looked back toward her window. Toastie had somehow managed to twist her body through the blinds, paws and whiskers peaking out at awkward angles as she seemingly tried to escape through the glass.
“Eh, not really.” She said with a shrug. “It just seemed fitting.”
A smile tugged at her lips as she looked away from the cat and back at the two men. It was the most relaxed they’d seen her since stepping outside. Jack found himself smiling as well at the noticeable change. The longer they talked, the more obvious it became that she initially hadn’t wanted to run into them while running errands. But now, she seemed more open to small talk.
The nervous energy was still there, but she seemed to shove it down easily enough. It amused Jack more than it should have.
No one seemed eager to end the conversation now that the earlier awkwardness had faded into an easier, more comfortable feeling. Jack watched as the breeze blew strands of the woman’s hair across her face. His gaze always seemed to linger longer than he intended, but he easily brushed it off as just curiosity.
“You live alone?” Robby asked casually. Jack’s eyes darted toward the man as he glared at his back. That wasn’t a good question to ask a woman you hardly knew; he didn’t want them to come off as too invasive and creepy.
Thankfully, she took no visible offense at it. “I live with my cat. She contributes nothing financially.”
Jack smiled again at her natural comedic timing. She seemed young and naïve, but had a very endearing personality and humor that made him want to keep her around.
She looked down at her phone, checking the time. “I should get going— I have errands to run and laundry to clean.”
She finally closed the backseat door before rounding the hood of the car. Now closer to Robby, her eyes widened slightly as she realized just how tall the man was. Her cheeks flushed a pale shade of pink as she quickly opened the door.
After a quick exchange of goodbyes, Jack and Robby watched as she pulled out of the parking lot. Robby looked back at Jack with a cocky grin and raised eyebrows. Immediately, Jack shook his head as he opened his car door.
“Don’t even—”
“She’s cute.”
Jack said nothing as he got behind the wheel, though he had similar sentiments. The woman was cute, both in mannerisms and physically. But, he felt like a filthy old man the more he thought about her. He was old enough to be her goddamn father. That alone should’ve put an end to whatever curiosity he had.
Somehow, the perverse thoughts made him want her more.
“Know I wanna beat it, wanna beat it bad
Oh, everyone looks happy in a photograph
I've crossed the county line, I cannot go back
I'm always on my own.”
-All Them Horses, Noah Kahan
summary: your family is in town for the annual ‘parents berating their kids for their decisions’ get together. jack overhears you talking about how much easier it would be if you had a boyfriend to shove in their face, and offers his services. No strings attached, of course.
wc: 15.7k (steak is too juicy lobster is too buttery)
tags/tropes: jack falls first and harder, reader is an eldest daughter (but not the eldest child) to a large judgmental family who are constantly disappointed in her, jack pretty much uses the fake dating as a chance to show reader what a good boyfriend he COULD be to her if she let herself have nice things, jack 'i'll pay for it' abbot, jack is YEARNING in this one, a teeny bit of mean dom jack as a treat
a/n: how are we all feeling about the latest noah kahan album. Doors is great. i do NOT repeat timestamp 2:14-2:21 of All Them Horses. i’m normal and can be trusted with noah kahan’s discography. this fic was supposed to be crossposted on ao3 at the time of post but ao3 crashed and i lost all of my tagging and uploading process so im saving that. for later. when it is POSTED it will be linked below :)
acknowledgements: thank you @wesandresons for the amazing gif and @saradika-graphics, @chrisssiren, and @uzmacchiato for the dividers! and thank you @leeknowpegger for your work in keeping up morale and being deranged with me
masterlist
“Your family’s in town?”
You’re at the nurses station, tucked into a corner with your head in your hands while Shen, of course, drinks what has to be his third Dunkin coffee of the day. Where he’s getting them is one of the world’s strangest unsolved mysteries.
You can’t see his face, on account of the heels of your hands being pressed into your eyes so hard stars are bursting and swirling behind your eyelids, but you can hear the grimace in his tone.
“Yeah. I moved out here to get away from them, but they decided to host the annual family dinner circuit here in Pittsburgh instead. My mom always complains about how it’s such a huge imposition to have the entire family fly out, but I never asked to do it and offered to just fly to them on multiple occasions. Apparently, my work schedule is too hard to work around.”
“Dinner circuit?”
You wave a hand. “It’s actually a lunch circuit now, since I work nights. Basically, for every single day that they’re here everybody has to attend a lunch, no matter what. Most of the time they’re at different restaurants, but sometimes my mom demands to have them at my place.”
“Yikes,” The attending says, sipping on the last bits of his coffee, “And the whole successful doctor thing doesn’t work on them? It got my parents off my back.”
You shake your head. “I’m the only doctor in the family, but they thought I should’ve been a hospitalist or go into general surgery.”
The sound of ice being shaken in a plastic cup rings in your ears. “There’s money in emergency medicine. Eventually.”
“There’s money in all medicine eventually,” You groan, lifting your head and leaning against the wall, blinking dazedly up at the flickering fluorescent lights. “I’m sure if I'd picked general surgery they would’ve found a problem with that too.”
“So your fucked, basically.”
Your eyes slip shut again. “Yep. Anything short of showing up with a rich boyfriend and a promise of grandkids on the way won’t get my mom off my back.”
Shen clasps you on the shoulder. “Best of luck with that. You’re the only intern the night shift has got, so we’d rather you don’t off yourself via poisoned wine.”
“I wouldn’t do poison. I’d choke on bread so they’d have to live with the guilt of not being able to save me.”
“Jesus fuck, man. I mean, clearly, they suck, but that’s brutal.”
You shrug. “Not as brutal as my mom not coming to my med school graduation.”
He gapes. “What reason could she have possibly had for not showing up?”
“I told her at dinner the night before that I was going into emergency medicine.”
“That’s…” Shen trails off, flabbergasted, “…Wow. Now I'm worried you’re going to kill one of them.”
“Way too much effort. They aren’t worth the jail time.”
The attending tosses his now empty coffee in a nearby trash can. “Well, if you snap and kill them all in a fit of extremely valid rage, please don’t call me. I can’t afford to be implicated.”
“You saying I can’t hide a body myself?”
“I’m saying I can’t hide a body.”
“Who’s hiding bodies?” Jack says, sidling up to the two of you with a tablet and a chart open in his hand.
Shen jams a thumb in your direction. “She’s killing her parents later today.”
You roll your eyes. “I’m not. Honestly, so long as I agree with whatever my mom says and don’t bring up any trigger topics, I’ll be fine.”
Jack snorts. “You’re describing being held hostage by someone mentally unstable.”
“Dr. Intern?” Ellis interrupts, using the stupid nickname Santos picked for you when she found out you’re the only PGY1 on the night shift, “There’s a woman in the lobby here to see you. Says she’s your mom.”
Your stomach drops to your feet and your heart seizes in your chest. “It’s six in the morning. Oh my god. Oh my god.”
Someone behind you says “Holy shit,” but you’re already gone. As you’re speed walking you whip out your phone, checking the dates of their flights that you’d only had a chance to skim and— fuck. They got in an hour ago. Why the fuck would she stop here? At the PTMC?
You practically slam the doors open and make eye contact with your mom across the crowded lobby.
“Mom?”
“There you are sweetie. I was trying to explain that there’s nothing wrong with me and I was here to see you, but they wouldn’t let me. Something about a security issue?”
“It’s not safe. We’ve had incidents in the past—“
She waves a hand, dismissing you. “I’m your mother. Honestly, I wouldn’t have had to come down here if you’d just respond to my texts.”
“I’ve told you mom, I’m really busy here and I don’t get very much time to look at my phone—“
“Your brothers take the time out of their busy schedules to text me back,” She sighs, then continues on, “Did you get time off this week for dinner?”
You frown. “I thought we were having lunch.”
“Well, I figured since we’re all making it easier for your work schedule to come to you, you could manage to take a few days off for your family. But if we need to make an extra effort—“
“It’s fine, mom,” You tell her with a gritted-toothed smile, “I can make something work. Can you just send me the dates again?”
“It’s this Friday and Saturday.”
Before you can even open your mouth to respond, a large, warm hand settles on your shoulder. Accompanied by the hand is a steadying one on your lower back, a familiar, rich scent and a low voice.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
Jack.
Jack fucking Abbot.
Hottest man in the ED. Probably in the world.
Your mom blinks, clearly caught off guard, before regaining her judgy senses and narrowing her eyes at him.
“I’m trying to have a conversation with my daughter. Don’t tell me you’re security.”
You know for a fact that Jack has his stethoscope around his neck and his keycard in his scrub pocket that says ‘DOCTOR’ on it, so your mom’s just being bitchy. Figures.
Jack’s hand in your shoulder gives you a tiny, reassuring squeeze before he speaks.
“I’m Dr. Abbot,” He sticks out a hand for her to shake, the one that was on your shoulder, “I’m an attending here at the ED.”
And my boss, you mentally add. Your mom probably hears it anyway.
“You work with my daughter?”
“Yes ma’am. She’s the most promising intern we have here on the night shift.”
Your lips twitch at his words. He’s joking. Testing your mother— you’re the only PGY1 on the night shift. If your mom remembers that, she’ll pick up on his joke.
She doesn’t. She purses her lips for a moment before giving him one of her big, fake smiles.
“Well that’s good to hear. We’re very proud of her.”
Proud of the money I send home, maybe.
“If you’ll excuse us, I need her working on patients.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Your mom gushes, clearly already charmed by Jack. He has that effect on people. “I didn’t realize she was so important and busy here.“
You would if you’d ever let me talk about work before interrupting me and telling me what I should be doing better.
Jack’s thumb makes tiny sweeping motions on your lower back, little tingling motions that distract you enough to unclench your jaw and relax your shoulders.
“I’ll text you as soon as I can, okay mom?”
Your mom sweeps you into a hug, a rare show of affection. Putting on a show for Jack, more than likely.
“No rush. Whenever you get the chance, sweetheart.”
Jack gives her a parting nod, but you wait until your mom’s turned around and walking out of the lobby before allowing Jack to steer you back inside.
The second the doors close behind you and you’re enveloped in the sounds and smells of the heart of the PTMC, you shut your eyes and release a long exhale.
“I,” You start, “Am so sorry. I never thought she’d show up here, I got the flight times mixed up—“
“Hey,” Jack’s voice is low and steady, a much needed anchor. He uses the hand still on your lower back to turn you towards him, “None of that was your fault. We deal with patients like that every day. It is not your job to keep your mother in line.”
“I know. I know. Still, I’m sorry. She can be… difficult.”
He snorts. “Understatement of the year. But seriously. Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t want to get involved with her, I wouldn’t have swooped in there.”
You huff a laugh. “My hero. I’m pretty sure if you’d introduced yourself as my boyfriend she would’ve had an aneurysm. Or a heart attack.”
“Are those desired outcomes?”
“Mostly.”
He slides his hands into his pockets and leans against the opposite wall. “Might be worth a shot, then.”
It’s a very well kept secret that you’ve harbored an embarrassing, ‘think about him while you’re falling asleep at night’ crush on Jack.
So naturally, your response is to laugh. Loudly. And semi-awkwardly. Because he has to be joking. Obviously.
“Yeah, right,” You say, looking down at your feet because eye-contact has never been your forte and Jack’s gaze is too intense, “Could even take you to dinner with me. Maybe my dad would have a heart attack too. Really just wipe out the whole family.”
“You could.”
“Wipe out my entire family?”
“Take me to dinner with you.”
Jack’s body is relaxed and his tone is even. Not light and humor-filled. There’s no mischievous uptick to the corner of his lips. He looks like he’s serious.
“Are you joking?”
He can’t really be serious. He’s probably just fucking with you. He wouldn’t actually—
“No.”
You run a hand over your hair. “Yeah, sure, laugh it up, haha—“
“I’ll go to dinner with you. As your boyfriend.”
What. The. Fuck.
“No.” You gape, incredulous.
“No?” He raises an eyebrow.
“No, I mean— fuck. Dr. Abbot—“
“Jack.”
You purse your lips. “Jack. You can’t just… pretend to be my boyfriend at a family lunch.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” You sputter, “For one, we hardly know each other—“
“You’ve been working here for three months. We’re hardly strangers.”
“You’re my boss, your way older than me, you’re—“ You cut yourself off before you can say something embarrassing like ‘you’re ridiculously fucking hot and I haven’t washed my socks in months’, “It wouldn’t even be believable. How would we even have met?”
“In the ED, obviously.”
“How long have we been together?”
“Month and a half.”
“Why are we even dating?”
“Because you’re a beautiful and intelligent woman, not to mention a good doctor.”
Your mouth goes dry, and your stomach does an entire gymnastics routine.
“Have you… thought about this?”
He makes a noncommittal hum, tilts his head back a bit. “Would it work?”
“Are you rich?”
There’s that devilish, pants dropping smile.
“I’m a senior attending on night shifts in an emergency department. I’m comfortable.”
You worry your lip between your teeth. “I still can’t… I appreciate the offer, but I can’t subject you to my family. No one else should have to suffer through these lunches and dinners.”
“But you do?”
“They’re my family.”
Jack doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t move off the wall and walk away either. Distantly, you really hope a patient isn’t coding somewhere.
You sigh. “Why would you even offer, anyway?”
“You need help, and I’m in a position to give it. Plus life has been kind of boring recently. My therapist told me to pick a new hobby that doesn’t involve people dying or getting shot at.”
“So you thought spending an evening being subjected to backhanded questions, comments, and not very subtle micro-aggressions was a good substitute?”
“Beats drinking beer in the park.”
You can’t say yes. It’s crazy. One, it would make your crush a million times worse and you might never recover on that fact alone, and two, when this inevitably blows up in your face, your family will never let you live it down and bring it up in literally every conversation for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, if it works, it will work. Your mom would probably get off your back for a while. You wouldn’t be a complete and total disappointment. If it works, it would be a much needed win.
“So. We’ve been dating for a month and a half?”
Jack nods, another smile playing at his lips. “I asked you out, of course.”
“Flowers?”
“Naturally.”
“You pay?”
“For every meal.”
“What’s my favorite color?”
“Navy blue. Mine?”
You roll your eyes. “Black. What are we going to tell my mom when she pokes at the age gap?”
Someone rushes by, pager beeping, and you both wordlessly start moseying towards your respective patients.
“Will she really be that upset about it?”
“Probably not, but she’ll definitely ask about it. My dad will probably be angry, but he’s easier to placate than my mom is.”
Jack hums thoughtfully. “When’s the lunch today?”
“Twelve-thirty, at that Italian place that has that mussel dish.”
“How about this,” He starts, apparently not needing anymore clarification on the location, “Lets focus on finishing our shifts right now. Then go home, get some sleep, and I’ll pick you up at eleven so you can pick my brain for every detail that you want to make this work. Deal?”
Last chance to back out. Say hell no, this is a crazy idea, why would you even volunteer for it, I changed my mind.
“Deal.”
—
Holy fucking shit. Jack Abbot is your boyfriend.
Fake boyfriend. But for the next few hours, he’s as good as yours. Kind of.
In a way.
You’re standing in front of your bathroom mirror, dressed in the outfit you picked out for the stupid lunch when your mom texted you the plane ticket details a month ago.
Neither your makeup nor your hair are cooperating and you really need them to because you have to be perfect, so you need your mascara and stop clumping and your hair to stop laying like that and you just don’t want to fucking go.
Before frustration induced tears can ruin your half-done makeup, a knock sounds at the door.
You rush through your apartment, nearly cracking your skull open on the corner of the couch when you trip over a stray shoe.
Shit, he’s here and you’re not ready, god he’s going to be so upset you have to make him wait it’s so rude—
“Hi!” You swing open the door and plaster what you hope is a cute-frazzled smile and not a panicked one. It’s a thin line between the two, “I’m almost ready, I’m so sorry, you can come in and sit down wherever, I promise I won’t take too long to finish up. Sorry.”
You turn, unable to bear the anger or frustration on his face and dart away (an old method— hiding and disappearing is much better for everyone in the long run) but a hand encircles your wrist before you can successfully escape.
“Woah, easy girl. Nobody’s mad at you. We have time, remember?”
Your smile is definitely coming across as panicked.
Your nails wander and find a hangnail to pick at while you talk. “I know, but that was so we’d have time to plan and it’s rude to make you wait and I really need time to plan, but I can’t get my makeup to look right—“
Jack nudges you into the house and you cut yourself off with another apology. Right. Cause he’s just standing in the hallway and you’re rambling on like someone deranged. God. Why can’t your brain just work? Get into gear? Actually function properly?
“First of all,” Jack starts, gently steering you towards your couch, “You look beautiful.”
Why does he have to say these things? Has he no care for what he’s doing to your heart? Is he unaware that Simone Biles would be impressed with the flip routine your stomach is currently doing?
He places a throw pillow in your hands which were previously clenched in your lap. It’s your favorite throw pillow, actually, because the texture is very soothing. You squeeze it and rub your fingers across the grain.
“Secondly, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I can go home and go to bed and if you want, I’ll never bring it up again. Not even to Robby.”
You crack a wobbly smile. “Not even to Nurse Evans?”
“She’d probably guess on her own, but I would never confirm her suspicions.”
You tuck your feet under your legs, shrinking into the corner of your couch. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I already texted my mom to add a person to the reservation, and if I show up without a plus one there’ll be hell to pay.”
“You could swap me with someone else?”
“Do you think I would have agreed to let my boss be my fake boyfriend if I had someone else to bring?”
“Touché.”
The corner thread of your throw pillow has begun unraveling, and your wandering fingers pull and tug at it erratically.
“I’m sorry. I’m not usually this neurotic, I swear. My family brings out the worst in me.”
“I ain’t judging, sweetheart,” Jack soothes, “Besides. We’re ER doctors. We’re all a little neurotic.”
Steadfastly avoiding his gaze (again, just a little too knowing, like he can see every insecurity you’re trying to hide) you stand on shaky legs and rush to the bathroom.
“I’ll just. Finish up. Sorry again.”
“I’m gonna start a tally of unnecessary sorry’s. You’re gonna owe me an hour of overtime for each one.”
Oddly enough, getting ready (the rest of the way) feels much more manageable and much less difficult with Jack nearby. He doesn’t critique how long it takes you, the fact that you change earrings three times, or tell you that you look good enough and should just go.
He just hangs out in your living room, on the couch, practically oozing calm and nonchalance. The foolish, romance-starved part of you wants to cancel on your mom and spend the rest of the day curled up next to him on the couch, like a cat. Lazily dozing while Jack watches TV or something sounds like a much better way to spend your time after work than experiencing all five stages of grief over the course of one lunch. Repeatedly.
Finally ready, and with your sanity intact thanks to Jack, you pause by the kitchen and debate the merits of taking a shot to loosen your nerves. Unfortunately, your mom would undoubtedly somehow smell the alcohol on you and no doubt chew you out for a minimum of twenty minutes. Heaven forbid you make the event bearable.
Ever the kind host, you peek your head around the kitchen wall. “Do you want a shot, Jack?”
“You’re aware that I’m fifty?”
Right. That's probably an unhinged question.
“Just thought I’d offer,” You say, meekly tucking the bottle back under the shelf, slightly embarrassed, “Sometimes alcohol is the only way I can survive these things.”
He’s leaned up against the couch, hands in his pockets when you exit the kitchen. “It was very considerate, thank you. But I think the days of vodka and tequila shots are behind me. I’m more of a whiskey man, anyways.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when we end up at a bar afterwards to drink away memories of the lunch.”
Jack raises an eyebrow. “You act like we’re going to be hung, drawn, and quartered after showing up.”
You worry your bottom lip between your teeth. “Sorry. I just don’t want you to be unprepared, because they’re not always bad but when they’re bad they’re bad, you know? And I just don’t want to scare you off, and ruin the day you could be spending sleeping, and I really am thankful, by the way, I just don’t—“
“Do you always ramble when you’re worried?” Jack interrupts, tilting his head to the side.
“Um. No? I don’t know. I try not to. But like I said. My family brings out the worst in me.”
He searches your face for a moment, then taps the underside of your chin with a crooked finger, raising it slightly.
“We got this, okay? I’m not easy to scare. Combat med vet, remember? Plus, if it really gets that bad, I’ll fake a call from the hospital. Say there was some horrible accident and we’re being called in.”
“Won’t my mom get wise when she never hears it on the news?”
Jack shrugs. “It’s the city. Something horrible is always happening here.”
He holds the front door open for you when you’ve got your shoes on and purse ready, but as you’re sliding past him, he leans down, the angle of his jaw almost brushing the side of your neck, and breathes in deeply.
“You smell good.”
Fuck the gymnastics routine. Your stomach is going for Olympic Gold.
“Oh,” You exhale, a shiver running up your spine and a pleasant tingling sparking where your skin barely brushed his, “Uh— Thanks. Vanilla and spice. I like layering scents.”
“It’s nice. Suits you.”
You manage to squeak out another awkward “Thanks” before hastily locking the door, hoping he can’t tell just how flustered he keeps making you. Judging by the smile playing at his lips, your hopes are in vain.
The car ride to the restaurant is longer than it should be, on account of Pittsburgh traffic, but the time goes by quickly as you pepper Jack with questions to prepare for the million and one that your mother will no doubt ask.
(“What should I say if she asks if we’ve slept together?”
“Do you really, honestly, truly think your mother is going to bring up the topic of sex at the table, in a nice restaurant, with your entire family present?”
“Fair point.”)
By the time you arrive, you’ve picked and torn every single hangnail and loose cuticle around your fingers down to raw flesh and tiny dots of blood. Jack parks the car (parallel parks easily in one go, no repositioning needed, in downtown Pittsburgh. It’s one of the hottest things you’ve ever seen in your life) a good distance away from the restaurant, so that your family wouldn’t be able to see you if you decided to flee to his car to escape them.
At least, that’s what he says.
“I want you to hang onto the car keys, okay? If they get too much, you can sneak out through the kitchen and go to the car. I’ll meet you there.”
You can’t help but smile at his efforts. “And what will you be doing while I’m sneaking out?”
“Singing your praises, of course.”
Exhaustion from the shift you worked in what seems like a lifetime ago lines your limbs, but as you step out of the car (through the door Jack insists on opening for you “In case they’re still watching,”) and loop your arm through Jack’s, you feel… almost capable.
The lunch is going to suck. That’s a given. But Jack assured you he’s seen worse (“Probably done worse, sweetheart,”) and will not leave the lunch in a fit of rage and cause a scene. His arm is firm and solid —and fucking huge, how are his biceps that big— under your arm, and his presence is steadying.
As you cross the street and begin your final walk towards the building, he un-loops his arm from yours, but after you make a questioning noise in your throat, worried you’d be completely untethered (how pathetic to already be this reliant on a man, but there’s no time to unpack that now) but instead he wraps his arm around your waist instead, drawing you to his side and effectively grounding you to his body.
The entire left side of your body lights up at the contact, and if this were your apartment, it would be very difficult to refrain from climbing him like a tree or doing something equally embarrassing, like plastering yourself to his side and begging him to never stop touching you.
You’ve almost managed to come off unaffected, but then he leans down, lips almost brushing your ear, and whispers:
“You’ve got this, baby. And if you don’t, I do.”
Forget your family. Jack Abbot is going to be the death of you.
When you walk into the restaurant, hyper-aware of Jack’s grip on your body (your delusional mind has you thinking how… possessive the hand almost feels, if you ignore the fact that this is all fake) your family is waiting in the foyer, talking amongst themselves.
Your mother immediately zeroes in on you. “Honey, we’ve talked about you being on time to these things. You can’t be late to important family—“
You watch in real time as your mother’s gaze finally flicks to Jack, and the shades of recognition, shock, almost disgust, and confusion before settling back into forced pleasantness.
Your father, however, looks downright murderous. Looks like the age gap isn’t going down too well.
If Jack is at all nervous or put off by the several stares and outright glares from your family, he does not show it. He exudes cool confidence, the same unflappable energy he has during chaotic night shifts. The same calm that makes him so alluring to you in the first place.
He sticks out his hand for your mother to shake, a mirror of earlier that day in the PTMC lobby.
“I believe we’ve met before, but I’ll introduce myself again. I’m Dr. Jack Abbot.”
Your mother shakes his hand, but looks between the two of you like you’ve just spilled wine on her Persian rug that she can’t afford in the first place.
“You’re my daughter’s plus one?”
Jack nods. “Her boyfriend, yes.”
Your brother’s gape. Your dad’s glare intensifies. You want to kiss Jack.
“Honey,” Your mother says, gaze darting to you, “You didn’t say—“
“I didn’t want you to meet him at the hospital,” You tell her, hoping the lie doesn’t come across as too rehearsed, since you did rehearse it several times with Jack in the car on the way over, “The lobby of the hospital isn’t the best place to introduce people. And we really did have patients to get back to.”
Your mother purses her lips. “Why the last minute addition? If you’d told me that he was coming before today, it would’ve been easier to make the reservation.”
Jack is quicker to respond than you. “That’s my fault, actually. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come, what with my shifts as a senior attending, but when we met in the lobby I understood how important it was to make the time.”
You have to try hard not to smile at Jack’s not-so-subtle flex. Senior attending.
“Yes, well. My daughter doesn’t always stress the importance of these things.”
Jack’s grip on your waist tightens ever-so-slightly at the backhanded remark, and your mother’s gaze darts to the point of contact. But your father jerks his head towards the tables before she can say anything. “I’m starving.”
Everyone files in behind him, with you and Jack at the back of the line. Again, he leans down to whisper to you.
“How’d I do?”
You elbow him in the side. “We’ll discuss your performance after this is over.”
“Looking forward to it.”
The hostess leads everyone over to a large table near a window (your mother is particularly about seating) and everyone finds a seat. One of your brothers, either as a test or just to be a shit (your money’s on the latter) slides into the open seat next to you before Jack can.
To his credit, Jack doesn’t cause a scene, but he doesn’t back down either. He just stares at your idiot brother for awhile before finally asking:
“Do you really wanna do this right now?”
Your brother must sense that Jack Abbot is not a man to be fucked with (just a man you want to fuck), and scurries to his own seat, tail between his legs.
Once everyone is seated and the food is ordered (you don’t bother ordering anything other than the salad; Jack orders the most expensive thing on their menu. He’s never seemed like one to care for finery and expensive Italian restaurants where you practically have to order in Italian, but again, his unfazed demeanor makes him fit in anywhere) your family immediately begins peppering him with questions. Questions you knew they’d ask and appropriately prepared him for.
“So. Dr. Abbot—”
“Just Jack is fine.”
“—How long have the two of you been dating?”
“A month and a half.”
“Why’d you start dating?”
You take a generous gulp of your wine.
“Because your daughter is an incredible woman and an even better doctor.”
“Do you think she’s pretty?” One of your brothers chimes in.
Jack takes it in stride, despite that not being a question you prepared. “I’d have to be blind and stupid if I didn’t.”
You feel hot from the tips of your ears down to your toes.
That’s going in the mental folder.
“Have you always wanted to be a doctor?”
“Pretty much. Took a bit of a detour as a combat medic first, though.”
“Why’d you leave?”
“Honorably discharged after I lost my right leg. Below the knee amputation.”
You drain the rest of your glass and inconspicuously motion to the waiter for more wine.
The table is silent for the customary length of time after someone drops the “got a limb chopped off” bomb. Your family is clearly mildly uncomfortable, but Jack just keeps sipping his drink, his free hand drifting down and brushing the side of your thigh.
Your dad clears his throat. Here we go. Home stretch. Final questions before we’re in the clear.
“Mr. Abbot—“
“Either Doctor or Jack works.”
Ooo. There was some bite in that one.
Your Dad frowns. He does not like to be interrupted or corrected. You’ve been on the receiving end of far too many hour long lectures (read: berating and borderline verbal abuse) to know better.
But Jack isn’t his daughter. Jack is pretty much his equal. Actually, the fact that Jack not only served but is now a doctor places him above your father, by social conventions.
This no doubt infuriates your father. He’s always hated it when he couldn’t tear somebody down to his level. A true coward.
“Jack,” Your dad continues, a trademarked forced smile to save face, “You’re a smart man, yeah? Haven’t you ever considered the age difference between the two of you might be a little much?”
Yikes. Questioning Jack’s competency is not the way to go. Jack is very competent. And smart. And capable. It’s really hot.
Your fake-boyfriend just reaches over and grasps your hand, over the table, and looks at you with such devotion in his eyes that you forget how to breathe.
“War doesn’t really lend to longevity. I’ve learned to hold on tight to things I care about.”
For a moment, it doesn’t feel fake. There’s raw, punched emotion in his voice, and his thumb rubs your hand gently. Like he really does care that much. Like he wants to hold on.
But then your brother fake-gags and your fake boyfriend looks away with that, he’s passed the tests, and the conversation moves onto to different topics. Jack laughs at all the right moments, doesn’t bring up any argument-starting topics, doesn’t rise to bait when it’s thrown his way.
He’s perfect.
Eventually lunch is drawn to a polite close. You have one last glass of wine while Jack settles the bill. Himself. With one card. He doesn’t even look.
Your mom sends a smirk your way after he waves off your father’s attempt at splitting the bill or offering to pay. It’s probably the third time she’s actually looked at you for the entire duration of the lunch, but since it’s positive, you’ll let it slide.
Pretty soon bags are grabbed, hands are shook, and Jack’s hand magically finds its way back to your lower back and you’re being (very gently) escorted out of the restaurant and to the car.
“Wow,” You breathe as you slide into the passenger seat of his car. “I think that’s the smoothest a lunch with my family has ever gone in my entire life. You’re really good at this.”
Jack doesn’t respond though. Doesn’t make any kind of noise that he heard you. His hands are nearly white knuckled on the steering wheel and he’s staring straight ahead.
“Jack?”
“They didn’t even talk to you.”
You blink.
“What?”
“Your family never tried to include you in the conversation. Didn’t even ask you any questions.”
You snort. “Trust me, it’s better that way.”
He hasn’t started the car yet, just keeps staring off into the middle ground. He can’t be old enough to start doing a thousand yard stare already, right?
“You ordered a salad.” He says, a very prominent frown on his lips.
“So? It wasn’t too expensive, was it? I swear, if I knew you were gonna pay for the whole bill I would’ve looked at something cheaper, I don’t know why salads are so expensive—“
“Please don’t apologize for ordering a salad,” Jack says, voice pained, “Especially because I know you hate salads.”
Oh.
“How do you know that?”
“I overheard you talking to Dr. King that time you two were discussing the merits of Olive Garden. You said the salad there was the only kind you like, because of the dressing and the pepperoncinis.”
Your cheeks heat. “I never said I hated all salads. I said I like that one in particular.”
“You hardly ate anything during lunch.”
“My family tends to have that effect on my appetite.”
Jack does not look placated. He doesn’t take the out that your little joke provides. Doesn't so much as huff. He looks upset. Distressed.
Something about what he said goes ding! in your mind.
“…Mel and I had that conversation like, last month. You seriously remembered that?”
He frowns harder, like the answer to your partly rhetorical question should be obvious.
(It’s not. Why would he remember that conversation? Why would he care at all?)
“Of course I remember.”
There isn’t much to say after that. You’re not really sure what in particular has upset Jack, what possibly blunder or error you’ve made to incur him going completely monosyllabic and frowny. Ever eager to appease, you refrain from any attempts to cajole him, make conversation, breathe too loudly, or make any kind of indication that you’re still present.
The tension in the car is thick and uncomfortable. It prickles at your skin and the hairs on the back of your neck, but the only thing you dare to do is scroll through Pinterest, only looking at the safest, basic boards in case Jack glances over (he doesn’t.)
But then he does glance over. He just doesn’t look at your phone.
Jack just keeps looking at you.
He’ll look over, eyes darting over your face like he’s looking for something, and then he’ll look away. Over and over for almost the entire course of the drive. He only stops when you accidentally time your staring (monitoring) of him wrong and make eye contact.
He parks by your place (he once again sexily parallel parks with ease) and then puts the car in park. And then he starts talking.
“You’re so much more than them.”
Jack has the heat on, but the air in the car suddenly feels cold.
“What?”
“Your family,” Jack clarifies, like that was the confusing part “Your parents. I hated watching you… disappear like that. You deserve better than that. You are better than that.”
You try to swallow, almost choking on the sudden lump in your throat.
“Listen,” You start, unaware of how to even begin processing what he said, let alone formulating the best response because your brain is just flashing abort! Abort! Abort! in big neon letters,, “Thank you for today. I really appreciate it. But if this is all just too much, I can handle things from here. Really. I can say that someone called out and you had to cover shifts—“
“No.”
Jack says it with such vehemence, bordering on vitriol, that it startles you, and you flinch backwards ever so slightly.
An old habit.
Something flashes across his face —gone before you can decipher it— and he noticeably forces himself calmer.
“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let you go alone again. Ever.”
Your brain starts short-circuiting at his words. “I really can’t ask you to—“
“It’s a good thing you’re not asking me then.”
“Jack—“
“Please.”
You’re stunned silent at the rawness in his tone— the pain.
He said please. He said it like he was begging. He is begging.
“I don’t know how you do it,” He continues, jaw working, “I can see it on you, plain as day. How you hate what they do, how it makes you hurt. But you keep going.”
You shrug uselessly. “Is there another option?”
Jack reaches out for you, then falters, like he thought better. A tiny part of you wishes he’d followed through; bridged the yawning gap between the two of you that’s made up of the center console in his car, a couple decades, and your own unwillingness to try at vulnerability.
“I’ll walk you to your door.”
The walk to your door is a stark contrast to the walk to the restaurant. There’s no mischief on his face now, only a mask of stony distress.
At the doorway to your apartment building, you pause. It seems customary. Appropriate. Necessary.
Really, you just want to look at Jack some more. Try to puzzle out why the lunch that felt like it went so well made him so upset. Where you’re getting signals wrong and crossing wires. Why success to you is failure to him.
(As an ED resident, you’ve seen child abuse cases. You’ve seen foster care children littered with cigarette burns and criss-crossing scars of broken bottles and the corners of coffee tables and haunted eyes.
You know your family isn’t great. But there aren’t any cigarette burns or glass scars or eyes that track fast movement.)
You have this burning inclination to apologize to Jack. Logically, you know you haven’t done something wrong, but you feel like you have because he’s upset so maybe you can make it better?
“You have that look on your face.”
You frown. “What look?”
“The ‘I’m gonna apologize for something stupid’ look.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were thinking about it,” Jack ducks down, catches your eyes, “Hey, listen to me. You cannot fix what I am upset about. It is not your job. My mood is not your responsibility.”
“It’s freaky when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“You always know what I’m thinking.”
Jack just huffs; shoves his hands in his pockets.
Emboldened by his reassurance, you ask: “Why are you upset?”
“Because your family treats you like shit, and I want to fix it, but I can’t.”
“Oh.”
It’s not that bad. It can’t be that bad. You’ve seen bad. This isn’t it. It’s hard, but it’s not bad.
He stays quiet, seemingly sensing the inner turmoil his words have sparked. That, or he really is that good at reading you.
Jack nods towards your door. “We can talk later. Get some sleep. We both have shifts tonight.”
Right. Yeah. All of these events roughly occurred over the course of six hours. Time makes sense.
Despite the fact that you are exhausted and desperately need to sleep if you have any chance of surviving your –quickly approaching– shift, you linger.
“How am I supposed to repay you for all of this?”
The question that’s been burning a hole in your pocket since he said I’ll do it.
He just shakes his head. Like it’s simple. Easy. “This isn’t something I want repayment for. Now go. You’re no good to me as a zombie.”
“I’ll just have some of Shen’s Dunkin.”
“He doesn’t share that shit. Besides, he’s off tomorrow.”
“Maybe I‘ll—“
“Sleep,” He points at your door, “Now.”
You smile at his insistence. He’s sort of like cold coffee with sugar. Seems all bitter but then you get a bit of that sweet crunch, so it balances out. He balances out.
Sometimes it feels like he balances you out.
“Goodnight.”
He gives you a little smile of his own.
“Goodnight.”
—
Jack Abbot does not take his own advice. Mostly because he knows if he doesn’t talk about what happened during that lunch from hell, he’s going to do something that will end in him being thrown in prison and having his medical license revoked. More importantly, if that happens, he won’t be around to take care of you.
So instead he collapses on his couch, works his prosthetic off to give his stump a needed break, and dials the number at the top of his favorites in his contact list.
“This really isn’t a good time—“
“Robby,” Jack starts, “They didn’t even fucking talk to her.”
“Jesus, okay. Whitaker! Cover for me a sec, will you? I gotta deal with this.”
“They just…” Jack continues, genuinely at a loss for words. His vocabulary feels woefully unequipped to relay the depth of anger he feels about the events of the lunch, “…Ignored her. They talked over her, didn’t ask her questions, hardly ever let her finish speaking when she did finally get a chance to speak, and threw jabs at her constantly. It was fucking awful.“
The background noise quiets over the phone, and Jack knows Robby’s moved to either the break room or an empty patient room.
“She fight back at all?”
“No. Just… grinned and beared it. It was fuckin’ unsettling, man. I’ve seen her yell back at rude patients, watched her stand her ground to EMT’s who think they know better. It was like she hollowed herself out to sit at that table.”
“Christ.”
“She flinched away from me. Afterwards, in the car, when I raised my voice on accident.”
“Fuck. Do you think—“
“I don’t know. Maybe when she was younger. They don’t live in state, so if they are, she’s safe.”
Jack scrubs a hand down his face. “God. I don’t know what to do, Robby. It doesn’t seem like she’s got… anybody. She didn’t even understand why I was upset. She doesn’t get why that would be upsetting.”
“She’s friends with Mel and Santos, right?”
“And Whitaker by extension, yeah. But those are recent friends. I’ve never heard her mention anybody from back home. No boyfriend or best friend or anything. She’s just been doing everything on her own.”
Jack can picture Robby nodding. “We’ve done our fair share of that.”
“Yeah, and look where that got us. I can’t just leave her here. Fuck, it was like watching someone kick a puppy, over and over.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah.”
The line goes silent for a bit, both men stewing on the subject at hand.
“She’s always had these habits. I thought they were just personality quirks, you know. I mean, we’re all fucked up, but watching it happen…”
“It’s different.”
“You could say that,” Jack sighs, “She soaks up praise like a fucking sponge. She looks surprised every time I do something nice for her. And she keeps trying to make me happy.”
“You lost me on that last one.”
“It doesn’t… She’s not doing it to make me happy, exactly. She just does everything she can to keep me from getting mad.”
“Is there a difference?”
“There is. Eager to please versus eager to appease.”
“Are you sure you want to get involved?”
“Bit late for that.”
“You could pull back.”
“Fuck no, I can’t. Then I’d be kicking the puppy.”
“She is a grown woman.”
“Who happens to look like a kicked puppy.”
He scrubs a hand down his face, groaning into the microphone.
“You finally realize how ridiculous you sound?”
Jack grunts. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction of answering that.”
The line crackles with the staticky sound of Robby chuckling. “That’s an answer in it of itself, and you know that.”
He lets the line go quiet again, briefly debating just hanging up.
“I don’t know, Robby. It’s just…”
“Worse than you expected?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on. You knew that was a possibility. Has it put you off, at all?”
“Fuck no.”
“Exactly. Now please, go to bed so I can get back to saving lives? Whitaker is covering for me and he’s only gone through two pairs of scrubs so far today. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d bet money that he’s moved onto his third during this conversation.”
“I save lives too.”
“You won’t save any if you fall asleep on the drive over and die.”
“I would never fall asleep behind the wheel.”
“That’s what they all say.”
Jack really does hang up after that, plugging his phone in and rushing through everything he needs to do before bed.
But even as exhaustion pulls his body down into deep, dreamless sleep, he can’t stop thinking about that hollow look on your face. And he knows, even half-asleep, that he won’t be able to let it go.
—
The next night at work is weird, because nothing has changed, except now you know what the inside of Jack’s car looks like and how his voice sounded when he begged you to let him help.
It’s jarring, to say the least. Unsteadying and mildly world-rocking if you’re being honest.
But gossip travels fast within the walls of the PTMC, so by the time night shift is halfway over, you’re convinced you’ve heard every variation in existence of the same two questions:
“Did you and Jack go on a date yesterday?”
And:
“What’s Jack like on a date?”
The answer to the first question is complicated and embarrassing, so you don’t answer it or any of it’s variants. The answer to the second question is not complicated but it does, however, stir some very complicated feelings, so you refrain from answering that one too. You just try to refrain from thinking about or seeing him in general.
You’re not avoiding Jack, per se. Just keeping busy. With other stuff. That’s conveniently nowhere near him.
Ellis keeps shooting you entirely too knowing looks, Mckay, who’s pulling a double, pats your shoulder and tells you she’s there if you want to talk, Shen is absent as Jack said he would be, and Jack himself is acting like nothing happened and everything is normal and he’s never been to your apartment smelled your perfume.
(“…I like layering scents.”
“It’s nice. Suits you.”)
It’s all too much.
Hence the avoiding.
You try to curb your own ridiculousness for the sake of your patients, but it’s oddly difficult. You’ve always been amazing at compartmentalizing. If your family gave you any kind of skill, it’s the ability to shove your feelings in a box, and then shove that box in a corner of your mind you won’t access consciously until you end up on public transportation with your headphones. You should be more than capable of gathering up all the loose feelings labeled ‘For: Jack Abbot’ and tucking them all nice and neat in that little box and then shove it in a dark mental corner.
But you can’t. And along with the flurry of Jack Abbot causing a hurricane in your head, there’s a lesser storm that is the result of your family. More specifically, how they look to Jack.
All roads lead back to Rome. Or, in your case, to Jack.
You catch yourself during every spare moment or menial task that doesn’t require 100% of your brain power analyzing every interaction he had with them. Everything they said, everything they did, and how Jack would’ve taken it. And why. Because clearly, the act of dealing with them isn’t the problem. The ease and finesse in which he did so crosses that off the list. So it’s something else.
It’s how they treat you.
You understand, logically, that it would be upsetting, from his point of view. If you were in his place, you’d also probably be upset too.
But this feels different. Jack’s reaction is different. Jack is different.
It’s just never really been something that anyone should be upset over. Your family are who they are. Not great, but not truly bad either. You deal with them sparingly. You don’t even live in the same state anymore. It’s not a big deal.
“Why are you hiding from me in a supply closet?”
You whirl around, a box of gloves clutched in your hands.
“I’m not hiding from you.”
Jack crosses his arms and leans against the doorway. “This is the third time you’ve been here in two hours.”
“So? I just want to be… on top of things. I’m a productive person.”
“You are,” He amends, “But all of your productivity tonight has been pretty strictly nowhere near me. Funny how that works.”
You sigh, placing the gloves back on the rack. “Things are just… weird, okay? I don’t know how you’re being so normal about all this?”
Your fingers wander and find a loose piece of skin on the edge of your cuticle, and you begin absent-mindedly picking at it.
You can’t exactly disagree with him, right here, in the supply closet at the hospital. But you can’t quite bring yourself to agree either– because whether he acknowledges it or not, things have changed. Seeing him outside the hospital, perfectly placating your family into one of the most peaceful get-togethers you’ve had in years isn't just nothing.
It’s everything. And you, for one, can’t just pretend that it didn’t happen.
“Hey,” He calls your name softly, “What’s on your mind? What’s bugging you?”
“Nothing.”
He snorts, pushing off the doorframe and shutting the door behind him, so it’s just the two of you alone. “Liar.”
He doesn’t probe any further, just leans against the now closed door with his hands in his pockets, eyes flitting over you like they’re looking for an answer. An answer you’re too hesitant to give.
“I’m just worried.”
“You? Worried? No.”
You cut him a glare, “There’s a very real chance that this could all go horribly awry, you know.”
“Sure,” Jack dips his head, “But that’s not what you’re really worried about.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because that doesn’t address the fact that you’re avoiding me.”
You sigh, scrubbing a hand across your face.
“Why do you care?”
The question that’s been nagging at you since the beginning. The little itch in the back of your mind that you just can’t seem to get rid of. The puzzle you can’t figure out; the tune you can’t place.
You’re a logic driven person. You like knowing how things works– why they work. Why things do the things they do.
You like having the why. Having the why makes the world make sense.
Nothing about Jack Abbot makes sense.
“Why do I care about what?”
“This,” You gesture vaguely to the air, “Me. I don’t buy that you just didn’t have anything better to do or whatever it was you said. People don’t just… do that. You’re really ruining your life for an entire week for what? So I'm a little less uncomfortable? Me? At the end of the day, we’re just coworkers. I know how important your down time is for you, so I just don’t get why you’re so okay with being miserable just for my sake. I’m not that important. These stupid lunches aren’t that important.”
It’s a stupid confession. Much too vulnerable for a supply closet and a man you’re harboring feelings for.
He doesn’t respond right away. Hums, stares at his shoes for a bit. Re-adjusts so his prosthetic isn’t taking so much weight.
“You are important. You’re important to me, to this hospital, to your patients. And for the record, I am not ‘ruining my week.’ If it was that easy for my week to be ruined, I never would have become a doctor, let alone joined the military.”
“But why?”
“Jesus, you watched a lot of the science channel growing up, didn’t you?”
You snort. “Guilty as charged.”
Now it’s his turn to sigh.
“You… seem to have this misguided belief that caring is reciprocal in nature.”
You frown. “It is.”
“It isn’t. At least it shouldn’t be, but I don’t think anyone ever told you that.”
You scoff. “So this is about my family.”
He shrugs. “Amongst other things.”
“They’re not that bad.”
“They are.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“It’s not a competition.”
You resist the urge to throw your hands in the air. “Why is this such a big deal to you?”
“Because it’s a big deal to you.”
The air gets quiet and tense. Like the supply closet and all the medical supplies in it are holding their breath. If they were alive, if they were holding their breath, you’re convinced they’d all be looking at you.
It’s Jack who speaks first though.
“I can see it. You do everything yourself, get back up even when it’s hard. You look out for other people more than you look out for yourself. You’re selfless and kind and I don’t think very many people give that back to you.”
A reflexive smile pulls at your lips, a habit you never quite managed to kick after years of people telling you ‘smile, look grateful, stop looking so upset, there’s nothing to cry about.’ It feels awkward and clunky on your mouth but you don’t know what else to do. There’s no pre-written protocol for something like this.
“I still don’t really get it.” You murmur, more to yourself than to Jack.
Jack sends you a light grin. “We’ll work on it.”
“We will?”
“Sure,” He shrugs, “Already started anyways.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” He opens the door, “Now get back out there. And bring the gloves too.”
You roll your eyes but comply, snagging the box off the shelf where you’d left it and following him out.
The rest of your shift passes much smoother than before, even with the routine influx of patients as the time inches closer to morning. Jack doesn’t hover, but doesn’t pull the disappearing act that you (totally fairly) pulled on him either. He truly seems unfazed. Like it really, actually doesn’t bother him.
Well. Correction. It does bother him, but not because it’s something he’s doing for you, the part that bothers him (apparently) is how all of this affects you. All this caring makes you feel like a deer in the headlights.
You recall something he said that night. Something that had made you shiver– something that hit the nail right on the head.
“Hey, listen to me. You cannot fix what I am upset about. It is not your job. My mood is not your responsibility.”
He always seems to know exactly what to say to you. How to act, what to do, what specific worry you’re feeling and the best course of action to soothe it. It’s great but it’s also difficult, because there’s a part of you that wants to let him keep doing it, but then there’s the part of you that bristles every time and wants to snap that you’re completely capable of doing things yourself.
That probably wouldn’t even work. He’d just say something infuriating and sexy, like “I know, but I want to do this for you.”
He would. He totally would.
The thought is equal parts haunting and reassuring.
(And maybe, also, a little, kind of really sweet?)
–
The next two lunches go great. Jack is still freakishly incredible at charming your family. And, with his help, you actually manage to hold a (mostly) civil conversation with your parents for the first time in… years.
The lunches are fine, but the part you’ve started looking forward to is the before and after. Before, Jack comes to pick you up, and sometimes he comes early and helps prepare (which mostly involves him either talking you off the ledge, pouring a shot or two, or assuring you that your makeup and outfit look great. Not fine, great) or just to hang out. The hanging out part is nice, because he never comes with any sort of expectation. He’ll sit on your couch and scroll through his phone and entertain all the inane chatter you like to get out of your system beforehand but never had an outlet for before.
The after is even more fun. You run through the highlights of the night and hate on all the annoying things your family said to you. This usually also involves stopping somewhere for food (only for you, Jack’s never hungry because he eats t=at the restaurants but you’re never allowed to order anything that isn’t a salad) and then the two fo you fight over who pays. You always insist since you’re the only one actually eating any of the food, but then Jack usually takes your card, puts it in his pocket, and uses his own.
It’s as frustrating as it is hot.
But for the most part, the lunches and your shifts at work have actually been pretty good– as good as night shifts in a trauma center can be, anyway. Jack’s presence is… steadying, even when he’s not physically there. He’s always present in some way– whether it’s little reminders he leaves at your favorite spot for charting (he only uses blue sticky notes) or a real lunch left for you in the breakroom fridge (you weren’t previously aware he actually knew how to cook, or that he knew how picky you are when it comes to what you’ll actually eat for lunch and how often you get too busy to properly make something.) Sometimes he’s there in your head; in little things he’s told or taught you that you remember in the moment.
It’s nice. To have someone be around. Someone you can relax with, joke with– someone who hasn’t looked down on you for the the way you turned out.
You were pretty ready to declare smooth sailing ahead, but then on the third lunch your mother shows up and is decidedly not in a good mood and the seas turn choppy and the boat smashes into the rocks below.
At least, two peach bellinis in, that’s what it feels like.
“Honestly,” Your mother puffs, “I don’t understand why making some simple appetizers could take so long. This is why I hate going to restaurants during lunch hours, the staff just gets so lazy. The menu is always better at dinner anyways.”
You ignore the thinly veiled dig and instead choose to quietly drain the rest of your third peach bellini. They taste like juice and take a much needed edge (or two) of the evening. Lunch. What-fucking-ever.
Jack, ever aware of the best way to survive these functions (somehow) whilst keeping his sanity, remains silent as your mom huffs and puffs, seeming to understand that trying to placate her when she gets in these moods is a fruitless endeavor that only leads to your mom getting more upset and everyone else more annoyed.
You, made slightly optimistic by the wonderful powers of alcohol, attempt to put her in a better mood.
“I have the next three days off, mom. We’ll be able to do dinners instead.”
Your mother, however, only scoffs. “That’s no good to anyone now. We’ve already spent half this week dealing with poor restaurant service. I mean, no respectable job would have such a ridiculous schedule."
“I’m a doctor, mom. It doesn’t get more respectable than that.”
Jack nudges your leg with his, either a silent laugh, show of support, or quiet question of your sanity. Maybe all three.
Another bellini appears in front of you, this one heavier on the alcohol than the last. Your server is getting a giant tip when this is all over.
“You work in the emergency department, dear. That’s hardly stable, and stable is respectable,” Jack clears his throat, and your mother at least has the manners to look mildly sheepish, “No offense, Jack.”
He smiles thinly. “None taken.”
Conversation from there is stilted at best with even your brothers tip-toeing around your mother. No one wants to be the subject of a nitpicking lecture, even when the version she gives them is a slap on the wrist compared to what you endure.
So you keep drinking your bellini’s and they keep coming. After your fourth, you think you should maybe slow down a little, but then your dad starts grilling Jack about his life (again) and you decide that alcohol is, in fact, necessary.
“Have you ever been in a serious relationship before, Jack?”
That one almost makes you ask the server for a shot of vodka, straight. That’s a question you ask a nineteen year-old pimple-faced boy, not a fucking fifty year old man.
“I have, yes. But, like most things in life, they were learning experiences. I’ve moved on.”
Your dad snorts, then gestures to you. “You could teach her a thing or two about moving on.”
Your blood runs cold.
Jack sets his glass down. “And what do you mean by that?”
It’s your mother who answers. Because one vulture circling your soon-to-be carcass wasn’t enough.
“I’m surprised she hasn’t told you. It was all she ever talked about for years. She’s had exactly one boyfriend before you– what was his name honey?”
“Christopher,” You answer hollowly, stomach churning.
Your dad snaps his fingers. “That’s it. It took ages for her to get her first boyfriend. We were fairly convinced it would never happen, but then one day she came home with Christopher. Whole family wanted to throw a party– finally found someone to put up with all that attitude!”
Your family laughs, but Jack doesn’t.
“Where’s the funny part, in all this?”
Your mother clears her throat, just a tad awkward. “When she broke up with him it was awful. She refused to leave her room for works, cried all the time. Honestly, I would have understood if he had broken up with her, but it was all her decision.”
Your dad nods in agreement. “We had to have a sit-down conversation with her about decisions and consequences before she finally stopped crying and hiding in her room. Christopher was such a nice boy, we hated to see him go.”
Jack opens his mouth, poised to fire something back and defend you, but you beat him to the punch.
“He cheated on me with my best friend.”
At that, your mother frowns. “That’s not what Christopher said. You were in your teen angst era, remember? Always picking fights? He told your brother that you were so distant with him he didn’t know you were still together.”
“I wasn’t distant, I was really busy. I was studying for the MCAT. He knew that. He knew how important medical school was to me.”
Your brother rolls his eyes. “Med school was all you talked about. It’s not like you were putting out.”
Your mother snaps her fingers once. “That is inappropriate talk for public. You know better.”
“Come on, mom. It’s true. Everyone knows–”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Jack says, not at all sounding sorry, “But the hospital just texted. There’s an emergency, and we’re needed, so we have to go.”
Jack does not wait for your mother or father to excuse him. He just stands, offering you his hand. It turns out that you need it, because there is, apparently, such a thing as too many peach bellinis. Your mom sends you a pointed glare as you stumble once, after which you make a concerted effort to look more sober.
Neither you nor Jack bother saying proper goodbyes. Once he grabs your jacket and purse (and your vision stops swimming so much and you’re sure you can walk in a convincing approximation of a straight line) you’re both gone. You pass your server on the way out, who is slipped a very generous cash tip for the excellent bellini service.
By the time you get to the car, you realize that you’re about to have to save patient lives and you are very, extremely, drunk. There is no way you are capable of doing any life-saving at the moment.
“Jack,” You mumble, fumbling with your seatbelt, “I think I’m too drunk to go in. Did they say how serious the emergency was? Can I just get a banana bag?”
“There is no emergency,” He says calmly, batting your hands away and buckling you in properly, “I made it up. I figured you’d be okay with ducking out of there.”
“Oh. That was nice of you.”
He clicks you in and gives you a wry grin. “Told you I would handle things.”
You nod, the movement exaggerated and lopsided. “I hate it when they bring up Christpher. They always take his side. Like, is there ever a situation where it’s okay to cheat on a girl with her best friend? I was studying for the MCAT. I didn’t even wallow or break up with him when I found out. I waited until after I took the exam so I didn’t fuck up my score.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Christopher was an asshole. He was a real dickhead. The whole situation sucked. I lost the only two people who I thought cared about me at the same time. My family acted like I was the fucking anti-christ for being upset about it, too. It was fucking terrible. I’m so glad I don’t live with them anymore. I mean, I still love them, and I care about them, cause they’re my family, but everything is just so much easier when they’re not around.”
“You’re allowed to hate them, you know.”
“I know,” You say, fiddling with a hangnail. “I know I probably should.”
You sigh, tilting your head back against the headrest. “I always keep holding out hope, you know? That one day they’ll apologize, figure their shit out, care about me in a way that matters. I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
You frown. “It’s not? It kinda seems stupid. You’d think by now I would know better.”
“No,” Jack eases the car out of the parking space, “We’re biologically wired to love our families. It’s the reason why they can fuck you up so bad. Your brain can’t compute why the people who are supposed to love you above all else just… don’t. Not in any of the right ways.”
You blow air through your lips. “I think my parents fucked me up. I was so happy when I matched into the Pitt, because it was so far away. But then I got out here it just kind of hit me, all at once, that I was alone. My best friend was gone, my ex boyfriend sucked, and I was too busy in med school taking care of myself and my family to make any friends.”
Shit, that sounds so whiny. “But it turns out it wasn’t so bad. Now I've got Mell, and Santos, and I’m pretty sure I’m friends with Shen too. Mckay is nice too. I like her. She’s cool.”
Jack huffs something that could be a laugh, and you turn to study him; the angles of his face awash in the glow of the red light you’re currently stopped at. From here, you can see the tiny bits of tension he carries in his face— a slight pinch in his brow, the tiniest downturn of his lips. It’s the only evidence that he’s not as unaffected by your family as he pretends to be.
Then the light turns green, and his face isn’t illuminated the same.
“And what about me?”
Oh. Well. That’s a loaded question.
The alcohol emboldens you to answer honestly. “I don’t know what to think about you.”
“Oh really?”
“Mmm. Nope.”
“How come?”
"You're so–” You gesture vaguely, “Confusing. I can’t figure you out. For a while there, I was pretty sure you hated me, but then you offered to help me with this and you keep saying you care so I think I’m wrong.”
“You think you’re wrong?”
“Still can’t figure you out.”
“And how can I show you that I mean it?”
That’s. Hmm.
“I don’t know. I think what you’re doing is working,” You pause, debating the pros and cons of continuing to just say whatever the fuck you want before deciding you’re too tired to care, “It helps that you’re really hot.”
His lips twitch. “Oh, does it now?”
“Mhm. You’ve got this whole… capable thing about you. It’s hot. Competency is in.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. I feel like if I had a problem I could call you or something and you would fix it. You’re so…”
“Competent?”
“That’s the word.”
If he’s at all irritated, annoyed, or otherwise put off by your stupid rambling, he didn’t show it.
“You should call me whenever you have a problem. Chances are, I can fix it.”
“Are you like Bob the Builder?”
“I’m a doctor, so no.”
“You’re kind of like Bob the Builder.”
“Whatever you say,” He pauses at an empty intersection before continuing on, “Before I start heading towards your place, do you want to stop by mine? You didn’t even get to eat your salad, and I have leftovers. You can say no.”
“Are you gonna be mad at me if I say no?”
“No.”
‘Then yes.”
“You sure? I wasn’t lying.”
“I know. But I like your cooking.”
You spend the drive to Jack’s continuing to ramble about nothing and everything, to which he entertains with a seemingly endless amount of patience. The only time he interrupts is to hand you a bottle of Gatorade he procured from his back seat. Apparently, he bought a few to keep in his car after the first lunch. “For any alcohol excursions.”
It’s freaky how prepared he is for every situation.
When you arrive, he unbuckles your seatbelt for you (unbuckling is just as difficult as buckling when you’ve had an unknown amount of peach bellinis) and helps you up the stairs to his apartment.
His gigantic apartment.
“Woah,” You mumble as you shuffle through the doorway, pulled along by your hand in Jacks, “I didn’t know they made apartments this size.”
“Its not that big.”
“I think, like, four of my apartments could fit in here. Your living room is the size of my entire place.”
You stumble once, heel catching on the little rug on the entry way, and he’s immediately motioning for you to sit on the little bench by the door and pats his thigh once. You clumsily raise your leg, barely managing to land your foot on the general area he gestures to. He pulls the first shoe off, then repeats with the second with an air of total calm. Like this is normal and he does this all the time for you. Like you regularly find yourself drunk in his apartment.
You decide to unpack the moment when you’re sober.
“One, it’s not that big, and two, that’s what you get for renting a studio apartment.”
“Like you could afford better when you were an intern.”
He snorts, leading you to his couch and gesturing for you to sit. “If you want to change clothes you can borrow some of mine.”
You chew on your lip. The outfits you choose to look nice for your mother are never exactly comfortable, and when else are you going to get the chance to privately live the scenario you fantasize about several times a week before falling asleep?
“Only if you don’t mind.”
“I wouldn't have offered if I wasn’t. Stay there.”
Jack’s only gone for a few minutes before he reappears with a dark grey sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants in a slightly lighter shade. The sweatshirt is oversized and looks well worn, but the sweatpants are suspiciously new, close to your size, and look eerily similar to a pair you changed into after a shift a few weeks ago.
He hands them to you. Neither of you mention the sweatpants. “You can change in the bathroom. Door locks from the inside. I’m gonna change too, and then I’ll heat up the food.”
Jack shows you the bathroom (you don’t bother unpacking why exactly he felt the need to tell you that the door locks and from the inside, that’s for when you’re significantly more drunk than you are now and when you’re not in his fancy-ass apartment.)
Because he’s a man and men take approximately three seconds to change, he’s already in the kitchen setting stuff on the counter by the time you emerge from the bathroom. His countertops are solid granite, because the apartment is clearly expensive and he’s a man. They’re an inky black color with tiny flecks that sparkle when the light hits them just so.
“What are you doing?” Jack asks when he turns from the fridge to find you tilting your head this way and that.
“Looking at the sparkles.”
“Oookay. Do you want me to heat up the vodka pasta or the chicken?”
“You made vodka pasta?”
He shrugs. “You said you liked it.”
You slide into a seat at the kitchen island, a flush creeping up your neck. “The pasta, please.”
Suddenly exhausted now that you’re in soft, comfortable clothes that smell like Jack, you decide to just rest your head on your arms for a bit. And close your eyes. But you’re not going to fall asleep. You’re not.
“Don’t fall asleep. You need to eat something first.”
“M’ not fallin’ asleep.”
“Mhm. Sure.”
With great effort, you blink your eyes open and watch Jack while he heats up the pasta and prepares something else. A salad maybe?
“What’re’you’ making?”
“Just a little salad. In case the pasta is too heavy for you.”
“Oh. How come?”
“Because I don’t want you to throw up.”
“I promise I won’t throw up on your furniture. I don’t usually throw up when I’m hungover.”
“You drink often?”
“No,” Your head lulls to the side, “I’m too busy. I’m actually not-so-secretly very boring. I don’t really like partying. I much prefer staying at home.”
“Thought you went to that thing with King and Santos?”
“Yeah, but that was ‘cause Trinity really wanted me to come and I felt bad and I didn’t want her to think I was a boring, uptight bitch.”
“I see.”
“Yeah. I kinda had fun, though. I wished you were there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” You sigh, probably a hint too dreamily, “Makes me feel better when you’re around.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He slides a little bowl with a light salad in it to you across the counter, and it's perfectly refreshing. Not at all heavy like the pasta ends up being.
“Sorry I couldn’t finish it,” You say, forcing down a yawn and resisting the urge to burrow into your arms and go to sleep right there, “I feel bad that you went through the trouble of making it and heating it up.”
“It wasn’t that much effort. Besides, now you can just eat it for lunch tomorrow instead. I’ll send it home with you.”
“Mhm.” You hum, slowly inching your arms forward and down onto the counter, your head quickly following suit.
Jack chuckles, and you can hear the light step of his feet as he rounds the corner of the island and nudges you in the arm.
“Come on, sweetheart. You wanna get home to bed, don’t you?”
“No,” You shake your head, “I wanna sleep right here. It’s comfortable.”
“It won’t be when you wake up.”
You whine, curling away from him.
He just puffs another little laugh. “You can either sleep in your bed, or my bed. You can’t sleep on the kitchen island.”
“Why not?” You finally lift your head, “And why is your bed an option?”
“One,” He lifts up one finger in front of your face and slowly drags it back and forth, “Because the kitchen island is not a bed. Two, I’m not letting you sleep on the couch.”
“Why? Is your couch uncomfortable?”
“No,” He says, shuffling back over to where the leftovers are and tucking all the food away in the proper places, “It’s just not right to make a woman sleep on the couch.”
“I like sleeping on couches.”
He shoots you a look over his shoulder, “I’m sure you do. But you’re still a little drunk, and my bed is closer to the bathroom than the couch is.”
You prop your head on your hand. “Who said I’m even staying here tonight?”
Jack closes the fridge. “Do you want to? Because I don’t care either way. We both have tomorrow off.”
“It’d be weird to wake up here.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my boss.”
“And I’m faking being your boyfriend so your parents get off your back. Pretty sure we’re past coworkers.”
“What would we even do in the morning?”
“Sleep.”
“I don’t want to kick you out of your bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You’re my guest–”
“You’re already doing so much for me,” You blurt, stomach clenching, “I– You know me. I can only handle so much. Let me do this one thing? Please?”
Jack glowers for a bit, then sighs.
“Only because you asked nicely and I believe in rewarding good behavior. And because I know my couch isn’t uncomfortable. I’ll help you make it up.”
Jack’s apartment is surprisingly tidy for the fact that a man lives in it (Christopher’s room at his parent’s house always looked like shit) and he pulls down a couple options for bedding. You go with the plain black sheet and its matching thick, fluffy comforter. He insists on making up the couch himself (despite the fact that the alcohol has mostly worn off by now) and even sets up a glass of water, a liquid IV packet, and a bucket– “Just in case those bellini’s don’t love you back.”
The sight of it all is almost too much. It’s just so much care. All of it. The fact that he’s helping out with you and your disaster of a family, the way that despite the horribleness of it all he hasn’t judged you at all for how you deal with them. He refuses to let you drive yourself, always pays for every lunch for your entire family and the little snacks you get afterwards. Listens to you rant and he makes you food and gets you blankets and–
“You okay there?”
“Mhm,” You hum, “Just thinkin’.”
He leaves you be for a moment, busies himself with fixing your pillows and and tugging the comforter into its proper place.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, you turn, throwing your arms around Jack’s middle and burying your face in his chest.
“Thank you,” You say, voice muffled by the fabric, “For doing all of this. Thank you for looking out for me.”
Jack is still for a second, just long enough for you to second guess initiating physical contact –a line you were previously too scared to cross– but then his hands come up and it's so, immediately, remarkably over. Because you’re never ever going to draw that line again. You can never go back to your life without having this. Without having him.
Jack’s hands are big and deliciously warm as they slide up, around your waist, lingering to rub a few circles on the mid of your back before moving on. One arm stays, tightening around your waist and drawing you closer while his other glides further up, up, up, his callused palms sliding over the knob at the very base of your neck before his hand settles around your nape, fingers just barely brushing the edge of your hairline.
You barely manage to suppress a whine at how warm and incredible it feels to be fully enveloped by him. You never want him to let go. Goosebumps erupt everywhere he touches, little sparks of electricity lingering under your skin in his wake.
“I will always,” He presses the lightest of kisses to your temple, just a feathering of his lips, “Look out for you, baby. I’m always gonna be right here.”
His arms tighten around you, drawing you in— closer, closer, closer. Wrapped up in everything that is Jack you can’t help but sag, going completely boneless in his grip and allowing yourself to just bask in him.
“You smell good.” You mumble into his shirt, completely lost in the moment.
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Good. Like man.”
He chuckles, the sound vibrating pleasantly against your cheek. “Thank you sweetheart.”
“Why do you call me sweetheart?”
“Because you’re a sweetheart.”
“I am?”
“Don’t play dumb now,” He pulls back a little, just enough to get a good look at you, fingers curling in the fine hair at your nape and tugging down, angling your chin up so you’re forced to look at him, “You know you are.”
You shrug, eyes darting to the side, your cheeks flushing, “I don’t know. I was just making sure.”
“Mhm.” He hums, tone almost mocking, fingers tightening around your hair just before the precipice of pain.
You stay like that for a few moments of charged silence. Jack’s eyes shamelessly rove over the planes of your face, mapping it out in his mind. He keeps his grip on your hair, not completely forcing eye contact but keeping your head firmly in place.
It’s possessive. Bold. Probably too intimate for two people who (supposedly) are not actually dating
And you love it.
Jack only lets his hand (and your head) drop when your jaw opens in a splitting yawn.
“Okay,” He huffs, taking a step back, “Time for bed. Get going.”
Embarrassment is the only thing keeping you from whining at the loss of contact and impending reality of sleeping on the couch alone. But you made your bed (figuratively) so now you have to lie in it.
The couch does look comfortable. Especially since Jack put all the blankets together.
He waits until you’ve crawled under the comforter to bid you goodnight, followed by a parting reminder to “Wake him up if you start aspirating on vomit.” It’s a very Jack thing to say.
You’re out almost the second Jack turns the lights off. You fall into deep, blissful sleep, dreaming of that final moment in the living room, your eyes boring into each other.
Except in the dream, you tilt your head up those last few inches, and kiss your fake boyfriend as hard as you can.
–
Generally, the annual lecture event ends with a massive blow out argument. Something dramatic and filled with expletives, after which your mother will refuse to answer any texts or calls you send before finally telling you that’s she’s sorry if (always if) something she said offended you, but talking to you is just so hard sometimes so she doesn’t want to unless you’re ready to be more civil. By the time the two of you are on neutral terms again, it’s time for the next annual lunch circuit.
You’re a mess of nerves in the hours before the last one. Like usual, your mom requested that the last dinner be held at your place. “So it can feel like a real family dinner.” While you know that there isn’t any saying no to your mother, you also know that there is no way you’re cramming your entire family in your tiny ass studio apartment. It happened once. It will not happen again.
You originally asked Jack during a last minute shift you both got called in to cover if he would help you move some of the furniture at your place to accommodate them, and then he’d gotten this incredulous look on his face and then told you to tell your mom that you’re having dinner at his place.
“Jack,” You’d gaped at him, “It’s fine. My apartment isn’t that small, and you don’t have to help move the furniture if you don’t want to. I can ask Dennis to give me a hand instead. I really don’t think you want to host my family.”
“Sweetheart, it’s just logic. You’ve seen my place.”
“Okay. No need to rub it in.”
He’d just rolled his eyes and pinned you with a firm look. “Come on. You know this is the best option. If your mom throws a fit, tell her I insisted and give her my number.”
“Do you have a death wish?” You hiss, “That’s asking for torture.”
Jack had just shrugged. “Would having it at my place be easier for you?”
“...Yes?”
“Then we’ll do it there. You’re off in a bit, right?”
You’d nodded.
He fishes something small and shiny out of his pocket and tosses it to you. “That’s my spare key. I’ll be here later than you, so just let yourself in if you want to get there earlier to start setting up. I’ll be home soon.”
Robby shouted his name soon after and Jack was whisked away, leaving you standing in the middle of the ED, holding the fucking spare key to his apartment, gaping like a fish.
The line between real and fake has become so blurred you’re not sure if it ever was there to begin with.
He’s started calling you sweetheart more and more often– sometimes when no one's around. No familial audience to be persuaded into the romantic lie you’re selling. Is it still a lie if it doesn’t feel like one anymore?
The question and accompanying feeling follows you all day. All throughout your harried dinner preparation. Even now, with a solid hour until your family is supposed to start showing up, you can’t help but pace the length of Jack’s kitchen, heeled feet clicking on his floor. Jack himself is similarly dressed up, wearing a pair of dark jeans (“I’m not wearing slacks in my own home, and I’m not old enough to start wearing khakis with everything.”) and a black button down shirt with the first two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. He makes a very nice view and under other circumstances you might take the opportunity to climb him like a tree. But alas. Anxiety.
“Take your shoes off if you’re going to pace. You’re gonna give yourself blisters.”
You ignore him, chewing on an already stinging cuticle.
“Things have been pretty good this far, right? Do you think she’s just waiting until the very end to bring up some secret thing that she’s upset about?”
Jack begins preparing the wine –your mother only likes red– for decanting. “I think if your mother were that upset about something she wouldn’t be able to hide it.”
“True. But what if?”
“I’m not going to help you spiral.”
“Why not?” You whine.
He looks at you with a heavy glare and points to the shoe tray at the door. “Shoes. Off. You can put them back on when they get here.”
You grumble under your breath the entire way but comply. Only because your feet were starting to hurt.
When your family finally does arrive, it ends up being annoyingly anti-climactic. You spend the entire time on the edge of your seat (literally and figuratively) waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for conversation to turn sour, arguments to erupt, someone to choke on a piece of lettuce and die despite professional intervention.
But the argument never starts, conversation remains what it usually is and becomes no worse (or better, unfortunately) and no one passes away due to unevenly chopped vegetables.
The torture is over fairly quickly. Most everyone’s flight back home leaves early the next morning and your dad is paranoid about flight times.
Pretty soon it’s all just… over. They leave, your mother bickering with your father on the way out about something that probably doesn’t matter, and then it’s just you and Jack and the entire scheme is just done. Finished. Just like that.
There won't be anymore knee's brushing under the table, no more shared glances and pecks to the cheek when you make a joke that actually lands. No more excuses just to sit and watch him under the guise of playing the adoring girlfriend. No more late night milkshakes.
You'll just go back to being coworkers-- People who pretend not to know each other intimately. Jack probably won't struggle with it. But to you, right now, the idea of just not having him anymore seems like a another wound, right over top all the others.
You don't want him to become another person who used to know you.
You’ve been staring at the closed door for upwards of five full minutes, clenching and unclenching your fists when Jack comes up next to you. He hands you the same clothes you wore the last time you were there and jerks his head in the direction of the bathroom.
“Why don’t you go and change, huh?”
Your lip wobbles a bit as you answer. “But I want to help you clean up.”
“You can,” He soothes, “After you change.”
“But–”
“Hey,” He interrupts, “No. You’ve been stuck in those clothes for hours. Go change. I’ll wait for you.”
Jack keeps his word. He’s leaned up against the kitchen island when you emerge, rubbing at your –now bare, having had the foresight to bring makeup wipes with you– face.
He looks up when the door opens. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He just hums, heading back over to the kitchen table, stacking plates and cutlery. You follow in silence, and he thankfully doesn’t push for conversation.
Cleaning up doesn’t take long enough. Jack has a fancy dishwasher (and probably doesn’t want to stay standing any more than he has to this late in the day) and there aren’t any leftovers to pack up. Your brothers are bottomless pits when it comes to free food.
It can’t just be over like this. It can't.
When everything is finished and there isn't anything left to do, Jack wordlessly leads you to the couch and puts something quiet and calm on the TV. The white noise washes over you as you attempt to get comfortable, but the knowledge that it's all over proves to be an itch under your skin that you just can't seem to squash.
“So,” You say after the two of you are seated on opposite ends of the couch, “That’s it then.”
“So it is.”
“Guess I owe you big time, huh?”
“I’ve already told you I don’t care about that.”
“Right,” You look down at your lap, “Yeah. Sorry.”
You lapse into silence.
Jack sighs. “Sweetheart–”
“Was it fake to you?” You blurt, jiggling your knee, still staring at your lap, “Were you– did you mean it?”
It never felt fake. It never felt like pretending.
It felt real.
It felt like, for the first time in your life, things could be easy.
Maybe easy isn't the right word. But it life sure as hell didn't feel as hard.
When you look up, uncomfortable in his silence and hoping there’s answers in his face, but instead of finding something like disappointment or irritation, he’s grinning.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
He dips his head once. “Yes you do. You’re a smart girl, I think you can figure it out.”
Your fingers are curled around the hem of his sweatshirt, white-knuckling the fabric as if to stabilize yourself. Like you’re liable to somehow float away if you don’t dig your heels into the couch and hold on tight.
“What if I’m wrong?”
“You won’t be.”
A scoff escapes your lips, “You can’t know for sure.”
He taps his pointer finger on his leg in an unhurried rhythm.
“You do.”
Your stomach is rolling in a combination of leftover anxiety from the dinner that went better than it was supposed to and the weight of Jack’s gaze on you.
“I think…” You pause, worry threatening to overwhelm you, and take a deep breath before continuing, “I think you might like me.”
“You think,” He drawls, “I might.”
“I don’t want to be wrong!” You cry.
Jack huffs, throwing his head back in a good-natured sigh.
“Come here.”
You scoot further down the couch, sitting criss-cross right in front of him. This is not going the way you thought it would. You were almost certain you’d walk away shamed and embarrassed, forced to fake your death and flee the country out of the sheer humiliation of thinking your boss would actually have a crush on you.
Jack does love to prove you wrong.
“Soo,” You start, still hesitant, “You do like me.”
Jack props his head on his hand, his expression something you’re starting to recognize as fond. “Yes.”
“More than a little?”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t faking anything. You were serious about the— You know.”
“Use your words.”
“The flirting.” You clarify, ears burning.
“All correct,” He nods, “Though I would have said it differently.”
You frown. “And how would you have put it?”
“I would have said,” He reaches out, snagging your arm and tugging until you fall down onto his chest with a little oof, “That you have a hard time believing things that are good, so I had to audition for my role. Like old-fashioned courting.”
You want to be offended, but unfortunately, it did work.
You frown.
Wait.
“Have you known I liked you this whole time?”
Jack snorts. “Overheard you talking to Whitaker about it during your second week.”
He’s known since the second week?
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell anyone. Except Robby. He’s been hoping you would figure it out for awhile now.”
“Oh my god.”
“I thought it was cute,” He smoothes a hand over your hair, “You were so much more nervous back then. You’ve come a long way.”
You shift uncomfortably at the praise, but Jack’s having none of it. He wraps his arms around you, holding you in place.
“Can you take a compliment?”
“No.”
He re-positions under you, getting more comfortable. “We’ll try again later.”
“Am I– Can I stay here tonight then?”
“Of course,” he murmurs, “My one condition is that you’re not sleeping on the couch.”
“Fine,” You sigh, long and drawn out, “I suppose we can share.”
“How kind of you to share my bed with me.”
“I have been told I’m kind.”
You both smile, and everything just feels so right and so perfect that you can't help but lean up, clearing the last few inches, and pressing a hesitant, gentle kiss to his lips.
It’s just like your dream.
Only this time, it’s real. And Jack is kissing you back.
Robinavitch reader - I saw you mentioned Janey in answering an ask but how does Jake fit into this because man I imagine it must suck seeing your Dad be a better father to a son that is not his biologically rather than his biological daughter. Does she have a good relationship with Jake and conceals how strained it is with Robby so Jake can maintain his own bond with Robby or does she have no relationship with him outside of seeing him with Robby every now and then and resents him a little?
The thing about Jake is Robby is removed enough to not have had the same expectations on Jake. So if there’s no expectations, he can’t be a failure.
Janey and her have a good relationship. In my heart of hearts I know the Robby Janey split was a product of Covid. He was always… not great but he got worse. And Janey knew. She knew how hard Robby was on her. But it was from a place of love. He was just a hard guy.
But things went to hell and couldn’t be saved.
Didn’t mean things when to hell with the kids.
Her and Jake were well adjusted normal step siblings. Good relationship. Nothing monumental. Nothing cold. They played Wii together and went to the movies for bad sci fi thrillers when she got her first car. They’re fine.
When Jake, a few months after Leah finally returned her calls and said “your dad’s an asshole” she laughed wetly. “Yeah. Can we get lunch?”
Brendon calls Janey when they get engaged. Gets her number out of readers phone. He wants to gauge how Jake will handle being at the wedding if Robby’s also there. Becuase Robby’s already going to be a lot to handle and he really doesn’t want poor Y/N to have to choose between her dad and her brother, and sure as hell won’t have more Robby drama. Janey is impressed and touched by how sweet readers fiance is.
Scenes of an engagement- Brendon Park x Robinavitch! Reader
This post is a mess. Just some little in universe thoughts I had.
Brendon proposed a little fast, he will admit that. Barely past the one year mark. He bought a ring around 11 months. Honestly, he couldn’t wait a second longer. He knew. He knew. So why would he wait? He loved you. You were it. He proposed on vacation. 10 days on the southern Italian coast. It was beautiful. Beaches and museums and food and you. You, delighted by every friendly stray cat. You, who pointed out centuries old houses and explained how they just keep building on top of ancient foundations. You, who gets chocolate gelato every night, but he gets something different every time so you can try it (and like a good boyfriend is happy to trade without a single compliant).
He proposes about halfway through the trip. An after dinner walk along the coast, sunset over head when he went down on one knee to your blinding shock and delight.
Obviously, you said yes.
Obviously, Brendon didn’t ask Robby.
On day 8 you asked during breakfast. He kept catching you in these little states where your eyes would lock on your ring and you’d just be completely transfixed. He loved it. It made pride bloom in his chest that he did well. And you asked. And he sighed, telling you he didn’t. As expected. It wouldn’t have gone well, you knew that much. Just hoped. You were both happy not to tell anyone until you got home. Brendon hated the sad look on your face. Hated how much this affected you.
“If it was up to me, if I could do something to make it less hard on you- to make him less of a dick about it, I’d do it. You know that baby. But… he’s just not budging on me.” Brendon explained. You knew. You nodded. “I know. It just sucks. He wants me to choose, and-“ “and you won’t.” Brendon said surely.
You won’t. He knows you’re his for life.
When you got home, the dread of telling him weighed you down.
And that’s far from how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to be soaking in the joy. Planning an engagement party, registering wherever the fuck you want. Not hiding it.
Maybe it would be easiest to just let the chips fall where they may. Let him find out when he did.
You did tell your friends. Planed a girls day to tell them at brunch.
You told Brendon’s family. Made the drive upstate for the weekend with the news. They were delighted, effervescently happy. His mom had always liked you thankfully, despite the age gap. You supposed her own husband was a good bit older than her too, her 65 to his 78. Who was she to judge?
That weekend was also nice until she unknowingly asked if you’d told your father yet.
A conversation was had on the back porch between Brendon and his dad, trying to wrap his head around what the fuck Brendon did to piss this guy off so much to Brendon’s admitted complete lack of any clue.
“I assume it’s the age thing but I really have no clue. I tried when we first started to be a good guy about it, you know? Tried to be more polite when I was in his department for consults, tried to keep professional boundaries, but he wasn’t having it. Look. You know I’d never do anything to Y/N worth this kinda shit. He acts like-“ Brendon sighed deeply. “I- I don’t even know what he’s got it in his head I’ve done to her. You know me. Before Y/N I might have been a bit…-“ “of a whore?” “-wayward, thank you. But I’ve never been a bad guy to women. Never hurt anyone. Never did anything out of turn. I don’t deserve this.” He laughed humorlessly. “You don’t, son.”
“They have no clue how loud they are” Brendon’s mom chuckled. “They’ve been doing this 40 years, talking outside like no one can hear them. They never learn.” She sympathized. “It’s nothing he hasn’t said to me. It’s- the way he treats Brendon isn’t fair. He’s only gotten worse, the first couple months he wasn’t this bad. But he just went off the rails about B at some point.”
“I’m sorry sweetheart, I really am. Look, just rest assured, Brendon isn’t going anywhere on you, even if the goings tough. The boys crazy for ya.”
Your dad found out on accident. It was for the best really.
It was always easiest to come into the hospital through the Pitt if you were going to see Brendon for any reason. Today, it was to drop off his dinner after he apologetically texted he’d be very late tonight.
Into the pitt and up the elevator.
Unless Dana stopped you, that was.
“Hello there little missy. Think you can sneak past?”
“No, of corse not. Hi Dana.”
“Hey honey. Bringing the shark his dinner?” You rolled your eyes. “Guilty as charged. He’s stuck late. Gotta keep my man fed, he’s no fun when he’s hangry” you teased. “Oh is that his problem? He’s hangry? Good to know.”
You rolled your eyes.
“Hold on there. What the hell is this?”.
Dana grabbed your hand. Caught. Bingo.
“This what I think it is?”
You beamed nodding.
“Holy shit. Let me see this rock again little missy. Oh yeah. He did good.”
“I know” you gushed. “I asked him how he knew. He got my Pinterest from one of my college friends to stalk my likes. Who the hell does that?”
“A very smart man” Dana teased.
“So when did this happen?” “Italy” “Italy? You’ve kept this from me since Italy? How dare you!”
“Wasn’t keeping it from you. More so from-“
“He doesn’t know? Kiddo…”
Dana gave you a look.
“I know! I know but” you sighed. “You know how this will go. My dads gonna loose it.”
“Why am I gonna loose it?”
Shit.
And then he just. Waited.
Then he saw it. “That’s not-“ “it is”
He opened his mouth to speak, but then nothing came out.
“We’ll talk about this later.”
And he just walked away, shaking his head.
“Give him time.” Dana whispered. Wet eyed you nodded, fanning your face. “Get outta here, go get a big hug from your fiancé.”
“No, no I need to calm down first. If he sees me like this and finds out my dad made me cry he’ll freak. I need to stop crying first.”
You left about 10 minute later. Dana distantly hoped for Parks sake his dinner was still warm.
You were back down and out 20 later.
Another 20 after that, Robby stalked towards the elevator.
“Where ya going Robinavitch?”
Robby glared. “You know where.”
“No you’re not. You leave that nice man alone and let him work.” Dana bit. “He’s got a long schedule tonight. Don’t make it longer.” “Him and I need to talk.” “What? About him not asking for her hand? It’s not the 1800s, Robby, and let’s be honest he knows as well as we do you’d have said no.” “Dana-“ “this is a personal dispute, not a work one. Figure it out on your own time.”
The eventual confrontation was just that. A confrontation. A conflict. It did… not go well.
Al Hashimi called Park for a consultation.
No surgery needed, it’ll heal better on its own he insisted. Only extremely annoyed.
And then, to make it worse, he left the room and Robby locked eyes with him. For fuck same.
Maybe Robby won’t bring it up. Or maybe it’ll be-
“You’ve got some nerve, you know”.
Nope. Here goes nothing.
“Telling you was up to Y/N, when she was ready, how she wanted to, all that jazz. Not my business.”
“You know that’s not what I’m mad about.”
“It’s not the 1500s, she can marry whoever she’d like. I have no obligation to ask you anything. And let’s be real, you would have said no anyway.”
“Of corse I’d have said no.”
“Which is why I didn’t ask. Look Mike, I’m not gonna do this with you on the clock. We can figure this out later.”
“What the hell are you doing here? Here to see dad?” Dana greeted, pulling you into a hug. “You, actually. I come bearing gifts” you winked, presenting her with a large tray of home made baked goods. “For you lovely nurses… I also have a favor to ask.”
“So it’s a bribe.” Dana teased. “Maybe.” “Shoot Kiddo.”
“Would you maybe come wedding dress shopping with me? Right now it’s just me and Janey. I’d love someone else’s opinion on things.”
“Oh, of corse honey. You don’t want dad there?”
You grimaced at the question. “Bat mitzvah and prom dress shopping with him was enough for a lifetime. I don’t want to have a nervous breakdown in a Bloomingdale’s fitting room again.”
Dana frowned. Not surprised.
“Of corse I’ll be there, honey. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Dana’s expression softened like there was something else she wanted to say, before she fixated on something behind you curiously.
“What- AH!”
You jumped at the feeling of two hands squeezing your waist, and a roughed stumbled jaw kissing your cheek.
“B!” You protested.
He just laughed. “Gotcha. What are you doing here, honey?”
You gestured to Dana. “Had to ask Dana.”
Brendon nodded like he had already heard. “Right.”
“Silly girl didn’t even have to ask. Coulda just kidnapped me day of.” She winked. Brendon hadn’t left his position behind you, holding your waist. Who would believe the man could be so soft and touchy? No one down here for sure.
“Down here for a consult?” you asked. Brendon confirmed. “The cheerleader?” Dana asked. Brendon confirmed. “Yeah. We’ll take him. Poor kids gonna have a hell of a recovery but he’ll get full movement back.” Brendon confirmed. Dana smiled sadly. “How was the company?”. It was Robby’s case. Right.
He looked at you. Shoved his tongue in his cheek. “He’s very lucky I’m a big fan of his work.”
You cringed. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be. Not your fault. His problem not ours. I’m gonna head back up before he kills me with his mind. Love you.”
You accepted your finances peck to the lips happily. “Love you too.”
Brendon stole a brownie- or 2- on his way out, winking from the elevator as the doors closed.
“Still that bad, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Brendon! How about a speech, huh?” Dana yelled. “Ah, shit. You wanna hear me flap my gums?”.
Brendon squeezed you hip, taking in your bright smile. Anything for you. “Shit I didn’t think I’d have to say anything. Here goes nothing. Uh, before my med school graduation party my mom said I was a grown ass man and needed to have some manners like one, and if someone asked me to make a speech- which my Uncle Charlie did, to start with thanking people. So let’s start there. First time anyone’s ever said these words, but thank you to Gloria Underwood for letting this many members of the PTMC staff have the same night off on a weekend. Truly a saintly act of kindness. No one tell her I said that. Dana, of corse, thank you so much for being such a kind host and throwing us a lovely engagement party. We appreciate it, so much. Michael… I know we’ve never exactly seen eye to eye but end of the day, you raised the most phenomenal women I’ve ever had the luck of knowing. So thank you very very much for that. And of corse my beautiful bride to be, thank you for being everything that you are, you blow me away in new ways every day, I mean that truly. Every day I wake up and I love you just a little bit more when I had no idea that was even possible. Alright… what else? Of corse thank everyone for being here with us tonight. I um…. I took a hell of a while to settle down but I must have known what I was doing all along because this girl is really everything. Love you with everything in my heart, Y/N. I’m the luckiest fool alive.”
“I don’t get why Robby doesn’t like him. He seems like a nice boy.” Janey whispered. You didn’t need to hear this. She needed Dana’s opinion, but not to upset you. “He’s being absurd- when did you meet Brendon?” “I didn’t really. I mean I saw him at the engagement, spoke to him for a while 5 minutes, and before they sent out invites he called me to see how I thought Jake would feel about him and Robby both being at the wedding. He seemed like he really cares about Y/N. Just wanted to make sure Y/Ns big day is perfect.”
Dana pouted. “He’s so sweet with her. He’s always been a little prickly at work, but when he’s with her he’s a teddy bear. I like him for her. Makes her happy, it’s all that matters.”
Janey hummed, clinking a glass of complimentary champagne with Dana. “I’ll drink to that.”
“So what’s Robby’s problem? He works at PTMC is it old bad blood?”
Dana rolled her eyes. “Not even. No idea really. Just fucking hates him.”
Right.
Suddenly the door to their suite opened.
“Brendon?”
Brendon shushed Dana. “I’m a phantom keep it down.”
In his hands was a bouquet of flowers and a tray of coffees. “Just bringing by some gifts. I’ll be in and out. Don’t tell-“
“Brendon?”
The door to your dressing room opened, you coming out in the provided robe.
“Cats out of the bag. Hi baby, just wanted to bring you a little pick me up.”
You wrung your arms around his neck, peppering him with kisses. “You are so sweet. The sweetest man.”
Brendon chuckled, tinting from the public praise. “Any success yet?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, buster” Dana barked. “Guilty as charged.”
Brendon stroked your cheeks, bringing you in for one true, sweet kiss, before reaching into his pocket. “Do me a favor. Please. If you see something that’s right- really the one, you love it, please don’t even look at the tag, okay? Just close your eyes and swipe. You get whatever you want, got it baby?” He pleaded, hading you his credit card. “Bren-“ “I’m serious. Don’t think about money. Whatever the heart wants, sweet girl.”
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