hiiinidk if you’re taking requests, if you’re not pls ignore this!!! but imagine park as a vampire 😭 he kinda reminds me of dracula
him only working night shifts, always looking exhausted, freezing cold hands, and the reader slowly realizing there’s something seriously wrong with him after catching him staring a little too hard at blood during a trauma case
When you first started at ptmc, you made it a point to meet the nurses, residents, and attendings.
You wanted to be at least somewhat familiar with the people you worked with and for them to know you, even just by a name.
The only one you couldn’t manage to come in contact with was Dr. Brendon Park. He was the lead orthopedic attending and from what you heard, not someone to mess with.
This warning didn’t deter you as you still wanted to introduce yourself. The only problem was you could never seem to find him.
You inquired of his whereabouts and found out he strictly worked nights. At the time you were only on days so running into him was never on the radar.
Then one day Jack Abbot came to you and brought you onto the night shift due to a shortage of residents. The switch was indefinite as it was now month 4 of being on night shift.
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Tonight was another night as you came into the pitt, greeting the day shift as they were leaving and greeting your fellow nightcrawlers as they came in.
The chaos that normally ensued during the night came around leaving plenty of traumas to work on.
It was around 3 a.m. when one particular trauma came in. It was a nasty tibia fracture that had penetrated through the skin, exposing the broken bone.
“Get Park down here immediately. This is a bad one.” Jack said as he monitored the pain meds being given to the patient.
Finally, you’d get to lay eyes on the infamous Dr. Park.
You were double checking the chart when you felt a chill in the atmosphere. Voices became hushed and feet shuffled to move back.
You look up and there he is.
Tall, wide frame, and a scowl that should’ve scared you but was only intriguing.
His eyes meet yours for a brief moment and you swear they dilate with a sort of shine. One that acknowledged you as his prey.
Park walks up to examine the break, eyes roaming meticulously.
“Tibia’s definitely fractured but still slightly attached. It can be fixed. Bring it up to…”
His voice trails off and you notice his eyes locked in on the broken bone.
Or so you thought.
It seemed he was more so eyeing the blood that was still dripping from the open wound. Small beads trailing slowly down the man’s leg.
Park stared a little too intently and you almost miss it as his tongue pokes out just a tad as he swipes it across his bottom lip.
Looking almost… hungry for it.
No, no that can’t be right.
He’s just very focused.
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This continues for a few weeks. Small moments where you see Park show odd behavior.
Sniffing around bad traumas with bloody wounds, literally sniffing.
He also seems to be in trances, so intently focused on things that his eyes dilate like crazy. And you could swear they have a reddish shine in the light.
It’s probably all the caffeine you consume during a shift getting to you.
—-
Everything is speculation, a mystery really, until tonight.
There’s a lull in the pitt and you’re in search of a quick snack to keep you functioning until your post shift meal. The nearest vending machine with the good snacks is one floor down by the morgue.
An odd place for food to be placed but honestly you’re too desperate for a bag of Doritos to care.
You take the elevator down.
When you exit the first thing you notice is the empty silence of the floor. Not a soul around, which isn’t unexpected given it’s almost two in the morning.
With light but brisk steps you make your way to the vending machine. As you approach it, something catches your eye.
The door to the blood bank is slightly cracked.
That’s odd.
You approach quietly and peek through the crack.
Nothing out of place until slight movement makes you hold your breath.
Dr. Park.
He’s covered in blood as if he walked right out of a trauma surgery. And then you notice the broken blood bag by his feet. That must be the culprit of his early Halloween costume.
You go to turn away when you see him swipe some blood from his scrubs with a finger.
He looks at it closely before bringing it to his mouth and licking it clean off.
What the actual fuck.
He swipes some more off and repeats the action.
You’re so in shock that you don’t watch your step as you back up and your shoe lets out a loud squeak as it catches on the floor.
Park freezes and his head turns to the door with inhuman like speed, catching your gaze.
You move away and sprint towards the staircase to get back to the pitt.
It wasn’t real.
You didn’t actually see that happen.
He didn’t lick human blood and…enjoy it?
Nope, didn’t happen.
You rotate these thoughts to ease your mind as you continue the shift, Doritos long forgotten.
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Over the course of the week, Park seems to appear more and more. Always in your proximity with a stare that could unnerve a statute.
It’s almost like he’s waiting for you to tell someone what you saw.
But if it’s a figment of your imagination, what’s to tell?
It had to have been a hallucination, right?
—-
It’s not until around 3 a.m. that he peaks your curiosity again. Another bloody trauma rolls in and he’s needed as a consult for it.
He seems to hold his composure and then he starts staring a little too hard and you catch it.
The red shine appears again.
He makes the professional recommendation and then he excuses himself quickly.
This time you follow as you silently slip from the patient's room.
You follow behind him quietly, taking every turn carefully to not alert him.
Just as you turn a corner he went around, he’s gone. It’s like he was never there. You’d be inclined to believe it was your imagination but he had been in your sight for the consult and then as he left.
This was very real.
You look around and then you see it. The morgue door was left open just a touch.
He’s gotta be there.
You peek inside and see nothing out of the ordinary, so you venture further in.
As you survey the cold and dimly lit room, chills run down your arms. It feels like there’s eyes on you. Following your every move.
You chalk it up to the fact you’re in a room with bodies so technically there may be a pair of eyes on you.
There’s nothing around, it seems every dark corner is empty.
You huff in annoyance that you lost sight of him.
You were so close.
With one last look around, you reach your hand out to grab the door handle when a cold hand wraps around your throat from behind.
“It’s really not polite to follow people” the deep voice says into your ear.
You hold your breath.
“I-I um, was just curious.”
He chuckles softly.
“Curious about what?”
You take a quick breath as his fingers press into your throat. A bit of pressure to subdue you but not enough to harm you.
“I’ve seen you… acting weird. Something’s not right.”
“And do pray tell what you think is not right?”
You gulp as you feel his breath against your ear and cheek.
“T-The way you stare at an injured patient too long. Especially when it’s bloody. You also don’t ever work during the day, always gone before the sun comes up. Not sure what that’s about but I’m calling it weird. And your gaze, seems hungry for something or someone all the time.
His chest presses into your back.
“So… you notice me?”
“I mean yeah, y-you’re you.”
“Oh sweetheart,” something sharp drags along the side of your neck lightly, “that curious mind of yours may just cost you.”
A light flicks on and a mirror hangs on the wall across from you.
Then you see him.
Body stood behind yours but eyes holding your gaze.
Calculating.
Observing.
You then notice what had poked the side of your neck.
His mouth is almost on you, elongated canines pressed gently into your throat, not piercing the skin.
Although he easily could.
And his eyes, glowing a dim red as they watch your every breath.
Your mind races
He’s a…a vampire?
Weren’t those only in movies & old romance novels?
Yet here he was.
That would explain his weird behavior and mannerisms.
Your heart races with fear and…. Infatuation? Arousal?
Your lost in your thoughts until the calloused hand on your throat tilts your neck to the side. His other hand banding across your waist, hold you firmly against him.
“Well, let’s just say I’ve been watching you too.”
He now has his nose buried into your hair, taking a long inhale.
“I think I’d like very much to keep you sweetheart.”
His hand squeezes your throat a bit tighter.
“I think an eternity will do.”
You close your eyes to avoid his because you know if you look into them, you’d do anything he’d ask.
“So?” he says before dragging his tongue from your collarbone to the underside of your chin “What do you say?”
Park the Shark who orders breakfast for the whole OR floor making sure he got bagels because that’s what you’d always come back with during your morning break, because of course he noticed your little habits
Park the Shark who gets nervous when he sees that the 'everything bagels' are starting to run low, and you’re still no where to be seen. He knows that those are your favorite so when an intern makes a grab for the last one he lets out a little growl, arms crossed to make his muscles pop, eyebrows furrowed. The poor intern almost gets a heart attack, hand stopping mid-air to change course as he settled for a blueberry bagel instead. “Thank you Dr. Park, blueberries are my favorite" (he actually despises blueberries).
Park the Shark who sees you finally exit the OR as you untied your hair, letting it drop on your shoulders and he gets a flashback of how these same strands had been around his face when he had taken you from behind, the scent resurfacing as though he was back in your bed.
Park the Shark who looks at you expectantly until you finally make your way to the central station, your eyes glazing over him until you finally notice the bagels. “I made sure you’d get the last everything bagel” Park had muttered, arms still crossed, eyebrows still furrowed, but his eyes had lightened from the darkness he had sent to the unlucky hungry intern.
Brendon Park who finally relaxes as you look at him gratefully, the expression of indifference you had shown him this past week disappearing with a bite of your breakfast. “Thank you Dr. Park.” And he wished you would call him Brendon, just like you had that night, but he later realises that he loved the way his name sounded in your mouth and that the others around weren’t worthy of hearing you say it out loud.
Park the Shark who then brings you bagels every morning without fail, even on his days off. And somewhere deep inside you realised you weren’t just a one night stand for him, especially when he finally grabs his courage with both hands and asks if you would like to try the new place that just opened close to the PTMC… with him.
Park the Shark who blubbered as you teased him with a “Are you asking me out on a date Dr. Park?”. Words weren’t his forté so he ended up just nodding profusely, making you smile.
Park the Shark couldn’t wait for the end of the day, the promise of another of your smile being sent towards him as the only thing getting him through his appointments.
Brendon Park who notices you, the new OR nurse who's so cute, so sweet, yet so capable that even though he racked his brain for something to complain about he couldn't come up with anything
Brendon Park who leans closer when you're talking about your plans for your day off with the other nurses, smiling when the only mention of a man's name was that of your brother who you were going to help move into his new place. Too bad you weren't close, he'd have used the move as an excuse to throw around heavy furniture with his shirt off
Brendon Park who always checks which nurse is scheduled for his surgeries, using his influence and bad mood to make sure your name was on the schedule, next to his
Brendon Park who for once doesn't refuse the ortho team's invite to the sleazy bar next door, though maybe that had to do with him hearing you tell another ortho surgeon that you were going, and maybe he hadn't liked how his colleague had smiled at your admission
Brendon Park who pays for your drinks, angling his thick muscular body in a way that you don't notice the other surgeon who's been searching for you for the past half hour
Brendon Park who takes you home, inviting himself up to your apartment without you necessarily asking, it's tidy and neat which he approves, he sees remnants of your life around, pictures with friends and family, bookshelves filled to the brim
Brendon Park who accepts the glass of wine you're handing him and he knows he shouldn't, knows how he gets with alcohol in his system, how he can't control himself
Brendon Park who fucks you everywhere in your home, on the couch where you two had been drinking and talking, on the floor because he didn't want to leave cum stains on your pretty plush couch, in your bathroom where you both were just supposed to clean yourselves up, and in your bed because he just couldn't help his hands from fondling you, dipping down to collect some of your wetness mixed with his cum just to lick his fingers clean, satisfied. He knew you'd get along with him,,,
Brendon Park whose heart breaks when you don't even acknowledge him the next day at work even though you both woke up in the same bed, he's even more in a sour mood than usual until he realises that you think that he sees you just as a one night stand. He now has to prove that he wants more than just a fling with you
Park the Shark x Evans!Reader—you're Dana's daughter but no physical descriptions
The Pitt men (Robby, Abbot, Park, Shen, Langdon, Jesse, and Whitaker) when you show up in their lives again...with a child that looks a lot like them.
TW: 18+ MDNI, NSFW. Explicit sexual content. Fluff. Park cries with happiness. Some doubt and angst but overall just happy. Park is very excited to be a dad but is a jerk in the beginning.
A/N: This is Park's version of my new collection. Let me know if you wanna be tagged in the rest
Tags: (Sorry if you didn't want to be tagged, just wanted you to be able to find it) @lunamoonbby @justreadinghere7 @amuhseen2003
Friends with benefits is only good up to a point. It’s only good when there aren’t feelings involved, when feelings are never involved, but the thing is, is that intimacy like that only holds out against feelings for so long. No one is made of steel—everyone has a heart.
Although, maybe not Brendan.
“You almost decided on what you’re doing after?” he asks you now, his body half-in a tight black shirt and half-out, his back to you, a sliver of that toned back still showing.
“Still debating my options,” you tell him, your hands still pressing the covers to your chest, your body naked underneath them from the filthy yet wonderful acts the two of you have just committed, the evidence still leaking from between your thighs onto his sheets.
“But surgery for sure, right?” he replies and you sigh, shrugging even though he can’t see you, that same burning and constricting feeling emerging in your chest.
“Yeah, I’m thinking of a paediatric surgery fellowship,” you say as he turns around, those perfect ocean eyes locking onto you, one eyebrow arched as he snorts, shaking his head, his finger-mussed hair so different from the way he normally gels it back.
“Why would you want to work with kids?” he asks you, his tone harsh and punishing, the meaning cutting you to the quick, the dismissal.
“Because I like them,” you counter and he sighs, shrugging and running a hand through his already mussed hair, the hair you mussed pulling on it as he ate you out just moments ago.
“Sounds like hell,” he says and the way you press your lips into a thin line is enough to end the conversation.
“Did you apply?” are the first words out of your mother’s mouth as you step out onto the floor of the ED, her blond hair coming loose from the chignon she insists is fine for her hair’s health.
“Geez, Ma,” you call out, “you couldn’t even ask me how I’m doing first?” Dana simply narrows her eyes at you, jaw flexing as she bites down on her gum, a particularly hard chew, emphasizing her displeasure at your tone.
“Did you apply, sugar, or not?” her tone leaves no room for argument as you step deeper into the ED, watching as your friends rush past, a Trauma arriving through the ambulance bay, the noise and hum of the place you’ve been raised in sending a form of calm through you.
“I did,” you reply, your sardonic enough to match hers, enough to make her smile at you, the one that only you get, the one of the mother not the nurse. “But I’ve also looked into attending positions open here at PTMC.” You can see your mother’s face fall, just slightly, the way it folds in, in the expression you’ve grown up with, the one you see when she disagrees with your choice, your thoughts but she won’t say anything because you’re growing and to grow means to make your own decisions.
“Did anyone say anything to you?” She’s too carefully neutral and that’s when you realize what she’s getting at, what she’s saying—what she’s hinting.
“Brendan has nothing to with that, Mom,” you tell her as you reach the nurse’s station, leaning on it on your forearms, right hand straying to fiddle with the bracelet your mom got you when you graduated med school, the one with the handmade charm in the shape of a compass, the back inscribed with however far you go, you are the one who will get you where you need to go.
Something she’s told you all your life.
“I didn’t say anything, sugar,” she says, but the way her lips curve up just slightly on the edges tell you all you need to know.
“Uh-huh,” you reply, rolling your eyes as she lifts her hand, fingers closed around the digital pencil, her hand ruffling your hair like she’s done since you were a kid, small enough to tuck up against her side, curled up in one of the chairs at the station, claiming that the daycare was for kids and you were not a kid.
Your daycare was the ED; you grew up on Traumas and broken bones and consults. You grew up on adrenaline and flashing lights. You grew up on codes, knowing the order of them before you knew the alphabet. You grew up with your mother and your Uncle Robby and your Uncle Jack, your sisters ensconced at home with your dad while you snuck behind the pillars to make out with med students.
It’s not Brendan that you want to stay for as much as you feel for him, for his sardonic nature and easy cruelty that he never even realizes is cruel. You want to stay for this place, this hospital, your home away from home. It’s the place you had your first kiss—a sloppy make-out with an MS3 that Uncle Jack walked in on and dragged the boy from you, swearing that he’d have the kid’s tongue. It’s where you met your first boyfriend—John Shen, now an attending and your closest friend.
It’s where your life began, your mother having gone into labour on the job because she refused to take maternity leave when she should have. It’s where everything started for you and you don’t want to leave, don’t want to travel halfway across the country for a pediatric fellowship, yet at the same time you do.
You want to leave and grow and change in a place that is your own and not the place where you were molded into the person you are now.
You want it and you don’t.
And maybe Brendan has a bit more to do with it than you care to admit. Maybe you’d miss him a bit too much.
Friends with benefits fucking sucks.
“Brendan!” you cry out as your back arches, rising at the same time that he thrusts into you, his hand pressing you down onto the mattress, his hands pulling your hips back until he’s completely sheathed inside, his one hand playing with your clit and folds, stroking and twirling, playing at every sensitive part, his fingers working magic, his knowledge of anatomy making it all the smoother.
“Shh, baby,” he whispers as he presses down with his thumb on your clit, a pressure building in your body, the kind that hurts while also heals, the kind that has every part of you burning and writhing underneath him. “I got you, sweetheart. I got you.”
He pulls back, pulls out completely, dragging the head of his cock along your entrance, between your folds to take the place of his thumb, circling it on your clit, the feeling so good that you moan, your hands fisting in the sheets.
When he called you, telling you he needed release that it was a hard day at work, you expected it to be rough, for him to be angry and needing the harshness and the quick and the rough edges that both of you have—not this. Not him being gentle and sweet and coaxing you through it, praising you. Assuring you that he’s there, that he’s not leaving.
The head of his cock is still circling your clit, and he guides it, pressing it just slightly, just enough that the coil snaps and your orgasm rams through you, just as he enters you again, the flutters of your walls, wrapping around his cock as he thrusts in and out, just once before spilling inside of you as your walls clamp down around him and he groans, eyes closing in bliss, his head tipping back.
“Jesus!” you hiss as he pulls out, guiding you off your stomach, to sit up before him, your body hyper-sensitive, the Greek god of a man before you having coaxed four orgasms out of you, most with his mouth, that tongue of his that bring people to tears from biting words reducing you to whines and mewls, body burning.
“That good, huh?” he asks you, with a smirk, guiding you up and to your feet, pulling your body tight against his, his semen and your release dripping down your thighs in a way that tickles and itches at the same time.
“Shut up, Park,” you reply, one side of your mouth curving up into a grin as you push him away, one hand connecting with his solid shoulder, already missing his presence against you, the way his body felt when pushed up against yours.
“That’s not what you were saying, like, thirty minutes ago,” he counters, his hand twining around your wrist, pulling you back against him, your breasts pressing against his chest. “You were urging me to make noise, if I remember right,” he says, his voice dropping to a whisper as he trails his free hand down the side of your face, your skin lighting up under his touch, the shiver running through your body at his tender touch.
“A lot can happen in thirty minutes,” you reply, your lips curving in a sardonic smile, one he kisses off, pressing a quick, open-mouthed kiss against you, his teeth drawing your bottom lip between them, nipping playfully.
“I know,” he murmurs, pulling back and placing his forehead against yours, pupil-blown eyes gleaming, “wanna find out just how much?”
And you say yes, but a twinge in your stomach tells you that something isn’t the same.
That maybe nothing will be the same again.
“Have you ever wanted kids?” you ask Brendan, leaning back against his counter, your body clad in only his t-shirt, hands twirling a spatula between them as he spins from the fridge, a container of milk in his hand as one eyebrow arches, his hair loose, not slickly gelled back like a Gator Tillman wannabe.
“No,” he says, the word abrupt and harsh and stinging even though it was just a question, just…a curiosity. “Told you, kids are little demons. Why the hell would I want my own?”
“You were a kid once, you dick,” you reply and he glances over his shoulder at you while he pours milk into the bowl, the cookie dough not quite resembling dough. Yet.
“That’s how I know if I had one, they’d be a terror,” he says and you roll your eyes at him, shaking your head affectionately while he sets the milk back on the counter and waves his hand, gesturing you over, which you follow, tucking up into his side and pressing a kiss to his cheek. A tender gesture you usually avoid.
“Good thing you don’t do relationships then,” you tease him, feeling him stiffen against you before he joins in your slight laughter, the sardonic chuckle.
“You’re right, sweetheart.”
The bile burns in the back of your throat as you race for the bathroom, reaching the toilet in just enough time, your eyes watering and noise stinging as you hurl, coughing, into the porcelain basin. Your eyes are streaming, tears falling from your cheeks into the bowl as you cough and burn, the smell of your own stomach acid permeating everything, sinking into your skin and when you’re done, your body empty, you slump back against the bathroom wall, pressing a hand against your stomach, a small fear creeping into your mind as you take into account that this is the fifth morning you’ve been sick.
You might just be pregnant.
In front of you sit two things, an acceptance letter for the pediatric surgery fellowship and a white a pink stick with two digital pink lines, six more identical tests sitting in your bathroom garbage.
It took six to get the meaning to stick, the idea that you were pregnant to resonate as real and not fake, not some cosmic joke.
It took calling your mother, crying that you were stupid, that you messed up and ranting to her about how much of a fuck-up you are for that idea that maybe you didn’t fuck up to stick.
It took hearing your mother’s soft voice, the encouragement, the facts and the options for you to decide that you don’t want to get rid of it. You want to raise a child like you were raised, with endless opportunity and belief and hope and love.
And you don’t want to wait and risk losing that chance.
In front of you sit two things, both chances given to you to give you the life you’ve always wanted, the only thing holding you back is Brendan, his part in all of this. Because a part of you wants to tell him, but the other part knows that it wouldn’t go well, that you can’t. You can’t because you don’t want to see how his face twists in anger.
You can’t handle that. So, your choice is easy—you make the choice that sets you free, that sets Brendan free.
Looks like you’re going to California.
When Brendan found that you had left, his heart had left him completely. It was like the ground beneath him had cracked and everything had fallen away. He thought things were good, he thought that you liked him—for more than just casual sex.
He had thought you understood until that one night that you whispered “good thing you don’t do relationships then” and he realized that you still thought it was FWB, not something real like he did.
He had thought that you had noticed the way he started making cookies after sex because you’d once mentioned that you always wanted something sweet after. He thought you had noticed the dinner; the coffees he brought to you on your floor for your break. He thought you had noticed the change in the sex, the way he focused more on you, the way he wanted you and you alone and not for stress relief, simply because he wanted to be close to you, as close as he could get.
But apparently, he had thought wrong. Because you were gone—completely and totally absent from his life.
And you didn’t even say goodbye, just up and left for California, to the pediatric surgery fellowship.
Which was great…he just wished you could have said goodbye.
And from then on, life was rote and boring and empty for three long years, the most he would hear of you was the proud bragging of Robby and Abbot when he went for ED consults and they couldn’t not rave about you.
Dana remained close-lipped no matter how he pried, no matter how he tried to get any updates about you. She wouldn’t talk.
“If she hasn’t reached out then she doesn’t want you knowing. Now go back to your job, Dr. Park.”
He just hoped, with all his heart that you would come back after the fellowship was done. That you would come back when it was over so he could try and tell you how much he fucked up. How sorry he was. How much he loved you.
How he would do anything to have you back.
Moving back to Pittsburgh wasn’t really a choice—it was just something you had to do. The pediatric surgeon attending position was open, you needed help looking after your two-year old son and your family was there and, if truth be told, you needed to confront your demons. You needed to be in the same place as your family, the same place you ran from to spare yourself the look in Brendan’s eye when he found out that you were pregnant when he never wanted kids at all.
Moving back to Pittsburgh was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. You missed your family and you missed the seasons and you missed PTMC, your home away from home. You missed Brendan too. More than you cared to admit.
“Look at this little one!” Cassie calls out, striding over to the nurse’s desk, her lips curving up in her characteristic grin as she smiles at your son, bending just a little so her eyes are level with his as he stands on the top of the desk, held up by his grandma’s hands. “How old are you, bud?”
“Just turned two,” you answer, your lips curved up in that perpetual smile that you have now, the smile that you have at everything your son does, everything he manages to do. He’s the light in your life, the star that guides you back because here is this life that needs you. Needs you not just to give him food and shelter, but love and guidance. He needs all of you and you have to stay to give him that.
“You’re gonna miss these years when they’re gone,” she says, straightening up and taking an iPad from the holder, smiling again at your little boy, the smile tinging with sadness as she looks up, her eyes meeting yours. “They go by fast.”
“That they do,” your mother chimes in, turning back to you, her eyebrows knitting together as she looks at you, her eyes gleaming with sadness and love and loss. “It seems like just yesterday that it was you, I was holdin’ on this desk, missy.”
“Ah, Ma,” you reply, pressing the heels of your hands against your eyes. “You’re gonna make me cry on my first day.”
“I’m sorry, sugar,” she says, “but I just miss the times before. You’re my little girl and now…you’re not so little anymore. Now…you’re a mother of your own and I…I’m a little emotional about it, that’s all.”
“Ma,” you whisper, your voice cracking at the same time your name resounds through the ED, through the walls that have been your home for so long, through the walls where your life began and continues. Your voice resounds in a voice that you had hoped you wouldn’t have to hear again.
“Bren,” you breathe out, flicking your eyes up, landing on the man who hasn’t changed, who still wears his hair gelled back like a Gator Tillman wannabe, his face still stern and predatory like the shark he’s nicknamed for, his body still built, large and imposing. He’s still the man who took the word scary and made it a public personality.
You wonder if he still melts to soft in private.
“You’re back,” he says, the whole ED having fallen silent as he walks to you, every step slow and yet too fast, the world frozen and yet speeding by as your heart tightens in your chest, lungs constricting and burning.
“Ma,” you whisper, tearing your eyes from Brendan even when you want to know what will happen if you stay. “Ma, I gotta get Reed to the daycare.” Dana lifts your little boy—a solid two-year old with dark brown hair and ocean blue eyes—pressing a kiss to his chubby cheek and passes him to you, settling him on your hip.
“It doesn’t hurt to talk, sweetheart,” she whispers in reply, eyebrows arching in the way that only a mother can have before she turns back to her desk, barking out an order at Whitaker who looks like a startled deer at her voice. And you take off to the elevator, bouncing Reed on your hip while he claps his hands, gurgling happily, murmuring some small words like mama and teddy.
You tap your foot, impatient for the silver doors to open and let you in, let you run from the man who gave the chance to have a child and yet doesn’t know.
You hear him call your name again as the doors slide open and you step in around the crowd of people rushing out, pressing the button for the daycare floor and the button to close the doors, the silver halves sliding to one another as your eyes lock with ocean blue ones, glimmering with hope and love.
With knowledge.
Brendan knew as soon as he saw you, saw your son that you had been pregnant when you left. Because the boy is old enough to be his and those eyes that he saw in that perfect, chubby face are his, exact. Father to son. His grandfather had them and his dad had them, and if the stories are to be believed, every single man in his family—including his son.
He knows you, loves you and he knows that you need time. You need to wrap your head around him being here, being present.
Being real.
You need to figure out how to tell him and he’s patient. He’s patient because he loves you and he wants whatever you are willing to give him.
And as the elevator doors slide closed before him, sealing you and his son away, he’s willing to accept that you just might give him nothing after all.
“Reed is my son, isn’t he?” you hear Brendan call out, his voice echoing across the parking lot, reverberating through your body, echoing down your spine.
“Yes,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper, yet carrying all the same through the still night air, broken only by the vague sound of sirens, the night sky polluted by streetlights and skyscrapers and emergency lights, the blue and red flashes strobing across and silhouetting Brendan.
He stands not far from you, his backpack over his shoulder, normally pulled back shoulders hunched in, rolled close.
You’ve been avoiding him for weeks, arriving early and leaving late, taking your lunches in the daycare or the ED, bringing Reed up on those times to join his grandma and hang out in the place you spent your formative years, molded into a person by adrenaline junkies and jaded, near-suicidal doctors.
“Do you want me in his life or no? If it’s no, I’ll never bring this up again,” he says, his steps soundless as he steps closer to you, your heart in your throat, pulsing as you feel the sting of tears in your eyes.
“You said you didn’t want kids,” you whisper and his hands reach out and cup your cheeks, Reed’s chubby hands slapping up on his forearm and something in you breaks when you see him take in Reed, his expression melting into one of awe and disbelief, one that says I can’t believe this is real. And then, one warm calloused hand leaves your face to cup Reed’s, his touch reverential and gentle, as if Reed is both the strongest and most breakable thing he’s ever seen.
“I said that because I didn’t think I deserved them,” you hear him whisper, the words cracking something open inside of you. The idea that this man, this perfect brutal man didn’t think he deserved a family even when he wanted it, destroys you.
Especially because you deprived him of a part of that because you didn’t want to risk telling him and seeing him change.
“I didn’t…” you pause, swallowing around the lump in your throat as he looks up at you, his eyes reflecting back the question of can I hold him? and you nod, helping Brendan take his son, watching as his face breaks into a smile as he lifts the boy, laughing just slightly, the sound rich and deep and warm as Reed claps his hands on Brendan’s cheek, gurgling happily.
“Thank god, he got your nose, sweetheart,” he says and those are the words that undo you, make you fall apart, the tears that were threatening now falling in earnest down your cheeks, searing the skin as your son giggles, one small hand closing around the point of Brendan’s nose.
“He…uh, I guess he thinks so too,” you whisper, your throat thick and voice shaking as your one hand goes to stifle the sob that works its way out of your throat, tearing free as you glance away, glance away from Brendan and the way he rests Reed on his hip, his touch gentle and paternal and perfect.
“You okay, Evans?” he asks you and you hear the pause and you know he wanted to say your name but he wasn’t sure if he should, or how he should and you give your head one quick shake before back to him, your arms outstretched for your—his—son.
“I just need to get home,” you say, your voice still cracking, still broken in a way and breaking more. “It’s way past Reed’s bedtime.”
“Then let’s get him in his seat,” Bren whispers, his eyes soft and worried as he looks at you, waiting while you open the backdoor, Reed’s back-facing car seat right there. It hurts your heart to see the way Bren carefully lifts Reed into the seat, doing the buckles like he’s been doing them forever, his face soft and open and tender.
Like scary has never been a part of his persona at all and he’s only ever been this man before you, this soft and sweet man who tweaks your—his—son on the nose, his lips still in that same awed smile.
And your heart breaks even more when Reed says, “dada” the sound a question not a statement, his large ocean eyes tired and innocent yet looking at you beseechingly.
“Yeah, that’s Dada,” you whisper in reply, watching as Reed’s face brightens and he claps his small, frail hands together, letting out a squeak of excitement. “Bren?”
“What is it, sweetheart?” he asks you, turning, his face shuttering just slightly, worry and fear seeping in and tainting the image of him always being there with reality—a man afraid of what you will say, of what part in the family you are giving him. What role you will relegate him too.
“I didn’t not tell you because…” you pause, coughing, trying to dislodge the block in your throat, the crack in your voice, the tears that stopped some time ago that have now started again. “Because I didn’t want you to know, I…I didn’t t-tell you because…I was…I was scared.” You can feel his hands on your arms, his touch soft and gentle and calming. Just there.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispers, pulling you against him, his one hand smoothing down your hair, the other holding you, palm flat in the middle of your back, his chin on your head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You were under no obligation to tell me…and…I know I didn’t make it easy to believe that I wouldn’t react in anger or…something else. I know, Evans. I know.”
“But I—” you break off, a sob tearing its way out of your chest again, muffled by him, by his body, his embrace. “I took those early days with Reed away!” He pulls back just enough that you can see him, see his expression, the way his eyes shine with love and pain and hope.
“You took nothing from me, sweetheart,” he says, his tone leaving no room for argument, the tone he uses when telling a patient something they can’t ignore. “I am here and will take only what you’re comfortable to give me. If that means I see Reed on week-ends only and I’m not—” here he pauses, swallowing hard and glancing away from you for a second, looking like he’s gathering his composure before continuing, “a part of your life, then I will take that. Whatever you want to give me, Evans because you’re the one driving this boat. You’re in charge—always. I’m just the hopeless idiot in love with you.”
“You’re not an idiot,” you whisper, a small smile creeping across your tear-stained face, skin drying from the salt tracks.
“Then I’m just the one in love with you?” He phrases it like a question, but you know him well enough to know that it’s a statement, that he’s telling you he loves you.
“Yeah, I guess so,” you whisper and you watch his arm move, can feel his palm as it presses against your cheek, his thumb moving back and forth across your cheekbone, your skin feeling alive in a way it hasn’t in three years, not since the last time you were with him. “And…I want you in our lives…I just don’t know how, yet.”
“Take your time, sweetheart,” he whispers, leaning forwards and pressing a kiss against your forehead, one that will linger. “I’m not going anywhere because you don’t have to go it alone anymore.”
“You need to eat,” calls out Brendan, his voice flat. His work voice, he used to call it, the one he has when at the hospital, when he doesn’t want people to question him, to see him as anything other than Park the Shark.
“I’m fine,” you call out, not even lifting your head from the computer where you sit, charting, your watch buzzing against your wrist—texts from your mother, telling you to get your ass down to the ED to have lunch. “I’m heading down to the ED in a couple minutes for my lunch break. I’ll have something to eat with Ma and Reed when I pick him up from the daycare for a bit.”
“You’ll have something like actual food?” he asks, his body now just in your sight frame, leaning on the table of the nurse’s station where you sit. You have an office; you just don’t like to use it because it makes you inaccessible to patients.
“I packed a smoothie,” you tell him, leaning back in your seat, crossing your arms, one eyebrow arching. “Why?”
“Because, I was wondering, if you wanted to pick up Reed and get lunch with me,” he says, his shark expression faltering, turning to the softer one he has—the one for you, the one for your son.
“Yeah,” you say, watching as his expression brightens. “Yeah, I’d love that.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” you say, your eyebrows up to your hairline as you look over at Brendan who holds Reed on his hip—Reed whose hair is slicked back just like Brendan’s. “You’ve made our son into a mini you.”
You look over at Brendan, noticing the way his smile has shifted, brightened and softened, his eyes warm and deep and perfect, reflecting love at you.
“What?” you ask him, one hand flying to your face, checking your cheek while you run your tongue over your teeth. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No, sweetheart,” he says, stepping closer to you, closing the small distance in no time, Reed’s small hands stretching, one landing on Bren’s shoulder and the other clasping around your fingers, “you called him our son.”
“Because he is, Bren,” you say, stepping closer, your free hand coming to rest on his cheek, his eyes locked on yours, the expression in them so vulnerable that it takes you by surprise for a moment. “He’s our son. And…I was thinking…do you want to give him your last name?” You watch as Bren breaks down for the first time, a strangled noise escaping from his throat as tears slip down his cheeks. Tears you wipe away with one hand, gentle ever so gentle.
“Please,” he says when he’s calmed down, when the tears have slowed and he can speak again, his throat no longer strangled.
“Reed Flynn Park,” you whisper, delighting in the way that Brendan’s face completely changes with awe and love and hope. “I like the sound of that.”
“Sweetheart,” Bren calls out and you turn, taking in the sight of him in a plaid overshirt, tight grey tank top underneath and dirt-stained jeans on from the work you two have been doing all day, assembling Reed’s play-structure outside.
“What’s wrong? Is Reed okay?” you ask, hands stilling from their task of putting Reed’s toys away, instead helping push you to your feet.
“Reed’s fine,” he says, stepping into the room, his eyes steady in a way that you love, have always loved. The Shark steadiness, but the Brendan warmth. “I just have a question.”
“What is it?” you ask him, tongue darting out to lick your lips, the skin dry from the heat of the summer’s day. It’s been a year of this—of Brendan being present, being a dad, proving that he’s here for Reed, for you. It’s been a year of slowly falling in love. Slowly returning to the man you remember, the man you fell for when you shouldn’t have—yet he fell for you all the same.
It’s been a year of waking up in an empty bed, wishing he were there beside you. Wishing the house wasn’t just a home for you and Reed, but you and Reed and Brendan. A family unit.
It’s been a year of pining.
“You know I love you, right?” he asks and you nod, the movement cautious as your brows knit together. “Well, I loved you even before you left and I’ve fallen even more in love with you this year…this year of raising our son so I was…Well…Will you marry me?” As he speaks, he gets down on one knee in the room of Reed’s playroom, a platinum ring inset with three stones—your birthstone, his and Reed’s.
“Yes,” you whisper and then he’s up and sliding the ring on your finger, his hands cupping your face and pulling you to him, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against your lips, one that tastes of passion and hope and love and second chances. One that tastes of family and promises and permanency. One that has the lingering sweetness of raspberries and the sour notes of lemon.
Summertime in a kiss; promises in an embrace.
And Brendan never goes back on a promise.
“ICK! Mama and Daddy, no kiss!” comes the shriek of your son and you pull back from Brendan just slightly woozy as you turn to your son, one eyebrow arching.
“Oh no?” you ask him and he shakes his head, violently, his whole little body following on the movement. “While, then we just have to kiss you instead!”
And in a move so synchronized, you would have thought it was planned, the two of you bend and press kisses against his chubby cheeks, his giggles echoing through the room as Brendan’s hand finds yours, his fingers tangling with yours as if he can’t fathom letting you go for an instant.
And in that moment you can hear him, a year ago, telling you “you don’t have to go it alone anymore.” And you realize that you never will go alone again.
Because you have Brendan.
You have your family.
You aren’t going it alone anymore, not so long as you have him.
Brendon had just gotten done with a long list of consults in the pitt. A massive car pileup mixed with a family reunion made for broken bones central.
Exhausted, he was in search of something to eat from the break room. On his way there he sees a lot of the staff talking and looking at their phones.
“She’s sooo talented. I can't believe she's gonna make some in our hospital.” one resident says to another
A group of nurses form a half circle “See! I told you it was her! She did a gallery downtown a few months ago. My aunt bought one of her pieces”
He looks around ‘whaaat is happening?’
Spotting Dana at the nurses station, he makes his way over to her.
“What’s all the fuss around here?”
She glances up “Well hello to you too Park. The fuss is about the mural artist that's here.”
“Mural artist? For what?” He furrows his eyebrows .
She stands up “The hospital hired her to paint a few murals. To bring some life into the building. The first one is gonna be here in the pitt. She started not too long ago. Want to walk with me to see?”
Brendon looked at Dana and gave her a slight nod.
“Alright Shark let’s swim” she grabs her phone and leads the way down the hall.
They both turn a few corners before they get to where you are. There’s a tarp laid out, a few buckets of paint, and then there's you.
In a tank top, an apron, and paint covered jeans. You’re halfway up the ladder, sketching out something across the wall.
You're meticulous with your movements yet elegant. You’re also unbelievably gorgeous.
He’s immediately enamored.
He can tell it's gonna be a big piece. Hopefully that means you’ll be staying a while.
Dana tells him your name.
“She’s also very single last time I checked” she says casually.
Brendon doesn't make any movement “And you're telling me this why?”
She shrugs “Just thought you could use the info.”
He continues to watch your movements as you create your piece.
“Wouldn’t hurt to introduce yourself, Shark”
His head turns to Dana with a half frown.
She holds her hands up “Just a thought. I also think we both know a girl like that will get snatched up if you're not quick enough”
“I’ve gotta go but let me know if you get that first date” She pats his shoulder with a teasing smile.
“Dana…” he turns to where she's walking off
“Don’t be a scaredy-shark! Tell me allll about it later!” she yells as she disappears around the corner.
He huffs out a sigh.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
You, the local city artist, had been hired by the hospital after someone had shared your work with the board. They had commissioned you to do several large pieces in various departments. This had been the biggest job you had been hired for, so to say there were nerves was an understatement.
Which is why you were currently sketching out your piece for the emergency department with a frazzled mind but steady hand.
Everyone had been super friendly and welcoming. Some had recognized you, your work or both. The attention was flattering but a bit much since you didn’t think your work was any Van Gogh.
Regardless, you were very appreciative of the love and support shown your way.
You were so zoned into getting a shape just right that you didn't sense the looming figure to your right until he spoke.
“This is incredible.”
Turning to the right you see the source of the deep voice.
A tall, buff man in scrubs stood there. He must be a doctor. A very hot doctor at that.
You give him a smile, opposite of the slight frown he had.
“Thank you, it's not much now but it’ll get better as I go”
He still stands there surveying your work carefully.
“From what I've heard, you're beyond talented. So I have no doubt this will only look more incredible. I'm Brendon. Brendon Park” he says looking at you, a small smile on his face.
You giggle at his soft demeanor shining through and the compliment.
“Thank you Brendon, really. So, if you've heard about my work then you must know about me.”
“I know your name but no, I don't know much about you” he says now fully facing you.
He smirks “Care to change that?”
Your eyes widen. This gorgeous man? Asking you out?
Someone pinch me.
You didn't realize you hadn't responded yet when you heard him talk again.
“I'm sorry, that was really forward of me. You don’t hav-”
“YES, I- I mean yes” you rush out “I’m so sorry, you just took me by surprise. But yeah, I’d like that” you smile, face flush with heat.
A soft but beaming smile appears on his face “Sounds great. I’ll swing by sometime tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it Park” you wink.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Brendon replayed the interaction in his head all night. He loved hearing you talk and how your face lit up with smiles.
He was hooked.
He planned to talk to you some more on his break today, hopefully get numbers exchanged and a potential date solidified.
His break technically didn't start for another ten minutes but he was so excited to see you that he was already making his way towards you.
He takes the same route Dana took him yesterday and as he turns the last corner he stops short.
You're there as anticipated but to the side of the ladder you're on…..is Michael Robinavitch. Dr. Robby.
His body stands stiff and a frown makes its way on his face. You and Robby were in a conversation, something he said making you laugh.
He didn't want Robby making you happy.
He wanted to make you happy.
Brendon realizes he has no official claim on you, neither you or Robby doing anything wrong.
‘Well’ he thought ‘I’ll make sure that changes today’
He walks up to the other side of the ladder, arms crossed and staring at your sketched work.
“Ladders can be dangerous you know. It’s best to stay vigilant and be careful” he says in a flat tone.
You turn to him with a bright smile “Hey Brendon! I didn't know you were ladder enforcement” you tease.
“Yeaaaah” Robby chimes in with a knowing look “since when did you become a ladder expert Shark?”
Your head swivels between the two “Shark?”
“Don’t listen to him” Brendon mumbles to you.
He then looks at Robby “Ladder expert? No. The guy who fixes injuries from ladder accidents? Yes.”
Before anyone can respond, A phone rings. Yours.
You grab it from your pocket “sorry guys I gotta take this” you answer it quickly.
Brendon still frowns but stands close to the ladder, just in case.
Robby gives him a knowing smirk “Well Park, great as always to see you but I gotta go. She’s all yours buddy.” He pats his shoulder as he goes to walk by “All yours. Promise.” He chuckles and continues to walk.
Robby figured Brendon was interested in you by the way his jealousy was permeating the hallway. He had no interest in you but he was not in the mood for a silent duel with Park, hence him leaving to reassure the brooding attending.
Brendon turns back to you when Robby is out of sight, you just getting off the phone.
“Sorry Bren I-I mean Brendon. That was so rude of me.” you look at him as you put your phone away.
“Bren is fine, sweetheart,” he smiles.
“So Shark,” you focus your full attention on him “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
He shakes his head at the name with a smile “I wanted to come see you. Maybe get your number?”
You pretend to consider it.
“Hmmm, seems like a good idea” you smirk, holding your hand out.
Brendon passes you his phone and you enter your number.
“So how would y-” a beeping interrupts him. He picks up his pager, an emergency surgery.
He frowns and then looks at you “Sorry, sweetheart, duty calls.”
You give him a reassuring smile “It’s okay Bren. I’ll forgive you as long as you promise to tell me why they call you ‘Shark’ “
He chuckles as he walks backwards down the hall to the O.R.
Before turning the corner he winks at you
“It’s cause sometimes I bite.”
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Its been a few hours since Brendon left for his emergency and you were getting to another stopping point to take a break. You pull the paintbrush back back from the wall when two guys come running around the corner. They’re shoving each other as they go when one of them accidentally runs into your ladder. The force knocks you and the ladder over.
“SHIT-” you barely get out before hitting the floor.
You immediately feel pain in your head, arm, and ribs. The tears come instantly in response to the agonizing pain.
“What was th-oh sweetheart! Someone get a gurney!” you hear a voice yell as the sound of footsteps gets closer.
The woman leans down at your side, her badge in your face. Dana. A nurse.
“Dana?” you wheeze out in pain
She looks up at you “shh shhh sweetpea its okay. Just focus on breathing”
“I-It hur-rts” you whimper as tears still fall.
She smooths your hair back and wipes some tears “I know, I know. We’re getting you some help. I gotcha darlin”
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
Brendon had just finished back to back consults and needed a breather. He pulls out his phone and sees a message from anunknown number from a few hours ago. He clicks on it.
'𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘬 ;)'
That pulls a wide smile from him. You were something else and he loved it.
He gets ready to reply but the beep of his pager pulls his attention.
Emergency consult in the pitt.
He groans as he gets to his feet. Only a little while longer and he’ll get to talk to you.
—
He makes it to the room number paged, pulling gloves on as he moves past the curtain.
“Hello I’m Dr. Park, lead ortho attending, what are we dea-” he looks up and the words stop.
So does his whole world.
Its you.
You’re laid on the bed, covered in some paint, face wet with tears and holding your arm to your chest.
The quiet whimpers leaving your mouth grip his heart.
He’s pulled out of his tunnel vision by hands on his shoulders. Dana.
“Shark listen to me. I need you to calm d-”
He grits his teeth with the next words “What fucking happe-”
“No Brendon. That girl is in a great deal of pain. Do not act like an ass. She needs you.”
He huffs loudly and closes his eyes to center himself.
“Okay. Now move please” he says moving around her.
Brendon goes right to your side, wiping some tears from your face.
“Hey sweetheart” he says gently “I need you to tell me what happened and where it hurts so I can check it out.”
“I-I was taking a b-break and these guys came a-and ran into the ladder. I fell over and hit my h-head and arm on the ground. My side landed on the p-paint cans, my ribs…” you say through tears.
He turns his head so you don’t see the anger on his face at what happened. He’ll find out who those assholes were later.
Turning back he helps you sit up
“Did someone look at your head yet?”
You nod.
“We already had a head CT done before you got here. Just a bump and soreness” Dana verbally answers.
He nods as he gently examines your arm, lightly prodding around, earning a grimace from you.
“I know sweetheart, I’m sorry” he frowns apologetically
After a few more minutes he lets you cradle your arm back to your lap.
“Well, good news is your arm isn’t broken that I can tell but we’ll get an x-ray done to rule out any fractures that I cant find just by touch.”
He looks up at you making eye contact.
“Now I just need to take a look at your ribs. Is it okay for me to move your shirt to see and feel?” he asks.
You nod gently “It’s okay Bren”
His heart warms at the nickname.
“Okay it’s likely gonna hurt as soon as I start touching the area so just bear with me sweetheart”
He lifts your shirt just enough to get a good look at your side. It’s already starting to bruise. He touches your side lightly and you groan low.
“I know, I know” he murmurs.
Feeling some more, he doesn’t find anything broken.
“Didn’t think this would be how I got my hands under your shirt for the first time” he jokes to try and take your mind off the pain.
It works as you laugh lightly and then wince, the laugh jostling your ribs.
“Ow ow-ha-ow, Bren dont make me laugh” you wheeze out trying to stop the laughter.
Laughter wracks his body “My bad, my bad ha, but more good news. It seems your ribs are very bruised but nothing broken.”
You nod at his statement and lean your forehead against his chest.
He gently holds you to him and rubs your back with soothing motions.
It’s silent for a few moments.
“I got your text” he murmurs against the side of your head.
“You did?”
“Yeah” he chuckles “was about to respond and then I got paged for this cute girl’s consult”
You turn your head a little “cute huh? She sounds nice.”
Seeing you smile he continues “Yeah, beautiful, funny, and she paints. Pretty fuckin cool if you ask me.”
“Sounds like a catch there Bren”
“She definitely is. I was gonna ask her out today but got interrupted. Think she’ll say yes?” he rocks you back and forth lightly.
“She’d be dumb not too but take her out for chinese” you smile against his chest.
His eyebrows furrow “Chinese huh? Think she’ll be okay if we take the food back to my place so she can relax from the day she’s had. I promise I’ll take her out somewhere nice once she feels better.”
You lift your head to look at him “Promise?”
“Of course pretty girl.” he grins at you
“I accept”
“Good”
You lean back to sit up “You still haven’t told me why they call you Shark”
“I told you, sometimes I bite.”
He makes a biting motion with his teeth and smirks
Summary: 3 times you meet Brendon on accident and one time it's planned (2.7k)
Warnings: teacher!reader, dad!Brendon, use of pet names, mentions of an accident with a nail g*n, mentions of blood and ER, reader wears summer dress in one part, mentions of food, not really proof read
You are waiting for the last parents of the day to show up, but you are slowly losing hope of that actually happening.
They are already thirty minutes late and you really don't feel like waiting until it gets dark outside. No matter how much you adore those children.
You are just about to pack your things when a knock sounds on your door and a few seconds later a man steps in. An impossibly tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man.
You have no idea who he is, you haven't seen him before. But you guess.
"Mr. Park?" He nods as you stand up to offer your hand along with your name to him.
"I'm sorry for being late. I got held up at work." Is all he offers as he takes the seat across from you. God, he is really handsome.
"You break people's bones for a living?" You joke because that's all you can remember from his daughter's words.
"I'm a surgeon, yes." He says not even a hint of a smile on his handsome face. Your smile falls and right away, your professional expression is back on. I guess, he doesn't really like jokes.
"Oh, that's cool." You clasp your hands together after you push his daughter's report card towards him.
"Okay, so let's start....."
The whole time you talk about his daughter his face doesn't move. He listens closely, nodding every once in a while, but it's like his expression is set in stone. Almost brooding type of thing.
You are so happy when it's finally over. Because his intense, never wavering gaze almost made it hard to breath.
And don't even get me started on how attractive you find him. Like even though his face was bordering on annoyed, you could tell he was genuinely interested to see how his daughter was doing. Not like many of the other dads that were forced to come there by their wives.
You scold yourself for thinking about him when you think about the fact that the man has a wife and a child. You have no business thinking about a married man.
You are walking towards the bus stop, exhausted from the long day and annoyed that it's in fact already dark outside, when a black porsche stops next to you.
"Need a ride?" His deep voice almost startles you.
"Oh, that's really nice of you, but my bus stop is just there." You point towards the end of the street. God, is it possible that the guy could get any hotter?
"Where to after?" He asks, still not moving.
Stupidly enough, you tell this random dad where you live. "Oh, that's on my way. I don't mind taking you. It's the least I can do for making you wait so long."
And It's the most you've heard him speak during the whole time so gingerly you nod. You don't expect him to get out of the car and open your door for you.
That is very much evident as you sit in the passenger seat, blushing the whole way home. You don't attempt a small talk because a guy like him definitely doesn't do that. Guy like him looks like he could break your heart and smile about it after.
So you just sit there in awkward silence, getting a ride home from one of the hottest dads you've ever seen.
Finally, he parks in front of your apartment and you get out of the car eagerly. Squeaking a quiet, little thank you before you run off home.
You hear him drive away only when the lights in your apartment turn on.
And you see him turn the car around, definitely not heading in the direction of the house he mentioned.
-
The next time you see Park is when you are softly weeping in the ER waiting room. You were trying to do a little DIY (trying to build your new bed alone) when you like absolutely missed with the nail gun and the nail went flying straight into your thigh.
You somehow managed to get yourself to the hospital (yeah that uber drive was interesting), but like many other people you are still waiting. The kitchen towel is slowly soaking through with the blood as you sniffle. It hurts so fucking much and no painkillers are working.
But even though you are in so much pain, you still brought work with you. You promised the kids you'd have their tests graded by tomorrow so you try to correct the papers and not get the tears on them while you wait.
Somebody clears their throat in front of you, and you feel like dying from the embarrassment when you see him standing and frowning in front of you.
"Hello, Mr- Dr. Park." You hastily wipe away your wet cheeks even though it's not use as another tears fall down.
"What are you doing here?" He frowns even more at you and at the papers in your hands.
"Ughh, I just had a little accident." You whisper, averting your eyes from his.
He crouches down in front of you and carefully removes the clothing from the wound. You hiss in pain as he shakes his head at the sight.
"They have you waiting with a wound like this? Jesus, what a bunch of idiots." And then he's moving before you can stop him. You hear him speak to the nurse at the window before he stalks back.
"They'll take you now. Can you walk?" He asks, invading your space once more. His expensive cologne overwhelms your senses in a good way, making you forget the pain just for a few seconds.
You nod and then you try to get up. You wince even as you try not to put weight on the injured leg. And it doesn't take long before Dr. Park scoops you up bridal style and carries you inside without breaking a sweat.
He barks orders as he goes and everyone just listens to the man. They scurry away to do what they are told while you try not to die of embarrassment.
And don't even get me started on the way your naked thighs burn as he holds you in his big hands. You have just pyjamas shorts on and an old t-shirt.
Getting carried in the arms of the dad you think is hot while looking like s hot mess was not on your to-do list, but neither was getting shot by the nail gun.
"You didn't have to do that." You whisper as he gently puts you down on an empty bed.
"More quick this way." He shrugs. He takes one look at you and then leaves without another word, leaving you a flustered mess.
Jesus, you really should pull yourself together. You can't let him have this kind of an affect on you.
A soft-spoken doctor King replaces him and somebody even brings your bag to you.
They asses the wound and somehow the nail missed anything important. No bone, no veins, just went through the meat of your thigh.
So it's a quick route from there. They numb the wound, pull the nail out, clean it and stitch it up. And even though everyone is just so nice, your mind keeps wandering to that stony faced doctor.
"So how do you know, dr. Shark -I mean Park?" One of the nurses finally asks as Dr. King stitches up your thigh. Shark? Yeah, that definitely suits him.
"Umm, his daughter, she's in my class. I mean, I'm her teacher." You ramble nervously.
"Oh. That's very cool. Tell me, is he a helicopter parent?" The nurse asks, wiggling her eyebrows. Whst you don't know is that the gossip in this hospital is hotter the the centre of the Earth. And everyone will be eager to hear a lil something about Park's private life.
"Uh, no, I don't know. I've only met him and his wife a couple of times." You whisper, cheeks burning. You are afraid that he'd suddenly appear from around the corner and hear you talk. Even if you aren't saying anything bad.
"Ex-wife." The nurse giggles like a schoolgirl, exchanging cheeky glances with the other nurse. "I heard that he was a real gentleman during the divorce. Let her keep the house and all."
You can't believe that these ER nurses are so chatty and gossipy. You would giggle with them but your attention gets snagged by the fact that Dr. Park isn't married. It makes you feel a little bit better about your stupid crush.
"All done. "Dr. King says, clearly just as flustered by the conversation as you.
"Thank you so much. I'm really sorry for this." You say apologetically. You hate that you created more work for these exhausted medical workers by being an idiot.
"Oh, please. Nothing to be sorry about. Just next time, please don't try to put the bed frame together alone."
"No more stuff like that. I promise." You sign the discharge papers and thank them profusely for the great work, you didn't feel any pain or discomfort.
Just as you are about to leave the nurse, Princess, whispers into your ear. "You should go for it, girl. I hear he likes to bite."
You chuckle because she's being ridiculous and because you're obviously doing a poor job of hiding how flustered the man makes you.
"It's not like that." You deny it but she just wiggles her eyebrows at you. You shake your head at her, giving her one last smile before you start to walk away.
Or more like limp away because your thigh really fucking hurts. You pass by the nurses station and that's when you notice that Dr. Park is still there.
He's still there, towering over everybody and still frowning.
You try to get away without him noticing, but that doesn't happen.
He pops up at your side immediately. "Hey, everything okay now?" When you look in confusion at him, you realise he in fact is asking you about your wellbeing.
"Yes, yes. All good, got couple of stitches but I'm okay now." You say sheepishly averting your gaze from him.
You don't know how you will be able to look at him next time he comes to the teacher-parent meeting. This is truly one of the most embarrassing things that's ever happened to you.
"Good." He nods and you expect him to leave again, but he doesn't. He walks next to you slowly, and you catch him a few times looking at you like he's itching to scoop you up again just so you don't have to limp so slowly next to him.
"Did you drive here?" He suddenly asks as you finally get out of the hospital.
"No, I don't have a car, saving money, the planet and all of that you know. I took an uber." You chuckle nervously, it's like your only responce when you are embarrassed. "I'm taking the bus home."
"I'll take you home." He offers with no hesitation.
"I couldn't possibly ask you to do that again."
"You didn't ask me, I offered. Now c'mon, I'm not letting you limp and wince all the way home. Doctor's orders." There's a hint of smirk on his face as he says it and somehow it's the thing that convinces you to say yes.
"Thank you, Dr. Park."
"Brendon." He tells you in return, eyes almost glinting as he takes you in.
"Thank you, Brendon." And that's all it takes for him to scoop you up again. You squeal in surprise and chuckle because what the fuck is happening.
He carries you towards his car and puts you down only so you can sit down. And you try so so hard to get the heat to dissappear from your face the whole ride.
But it's useless because he keeps smirking at you, finally letting the stony expression fall.
Just as you are about to get out of the car, he hands you a card with his personal number written on the back.
"Next time something like this happens, just give me a call, yeah?" And you both know that the way he's looking at you isn't saying that you should call him only then. He wants you to text, call him whenever. Preferably soon.
-
The third time you meet Brendon is just as embarrassing as those 2 times before.
You don't call him. You save his number in your phone, but you are too nervous to actually call or text him. You don't know what you would even text.
So you just try to ignore it for a week. That is until you bump into him. It's a sunny Saturday so you decide to go for a walk. You put on a pretty summer dress and head to your favourite café.
And just as you wait in line for the coffee, you hear one of your kids greet you. You turn around dramatically slow, but put on your smile as soon as you see her.
She's not alone. Her handsome, brooding father stands behind her.
"Hi, Lizzy. " You greet her sweetly and then your eyes flick towards him. "Hello, Dr. Park."
"Hey." He says smoothly. His eyes sweep over your figure, and you see him clench his jaw. Suddenly, it's not the weather making you all hot and bothered.
His daughter runs towards the cakes and cookies selection, completely dismissing you, which makes you smile. There's not much that beats sweets for the kids.
"You didn't call, doll." He is suddenly leaning down to whisper next to your ear. You didn't even notice him move towards you.
"I-I..." You don't know how to explain that you wanted to but didn't know how to actually take that leap.
"It's okay, you don't need to explain." He hums, once again his face doesn't let you see any hint of emotion, well besides the pure love he has in his eyes for his daughter.
"I-I wanted to." You quickly reassure him.
"Oh, yeah?" He averts his gaze from his daughter to you for a few seconds. Soaking in the sight of you in that dress some more.
You nod, giving him a shy smile. God, why is it so hard to talk to him like a normal functioning human. "I just didn't know what to say."
Brendon gives you a small smile and says. "It's okay."
Lizzy calls him over to her and he goes immediately. Leaving you to stare after him like a fool. The barista calls your name with the coffee order and maybe it's the one sip of the drink or maybe it's the way your tummy is full of butterflies as you see him, but you text him.
Just a simple 'Hi'. His phone vibrates in his pocket and when he notices the new text, he just smirks your way before he buys every single cake his daughter sets her eyes on.
-
The fourth, the fifth and the n-th time you meet Brendon is on your dates.
You get pleasantly surprised of how easy-going and talkative he really is when you get to know him.
You saw a few glimpses of that even before, but once you start dating, it's a complete 360. No more brooding, stony face around you.
There's a relaxed, easy smile on his face most of the time. Or the stupid smirk whenever he leaves you all flustered. He's like a brand new person when you get to know him.
And right now, he's snoring softly in your bed. (The bed he helped you build after your first date). In your light purple sheets in all of his glory.
Your bed is smaller so it's not as easy to fit you and broad-shouldered, heavily muscled Brendon on it. But you make it work.
He's still sleeping as you decide that you could make breakfast for the two of you. You start softly peeling yourself away from him but it's like he has a sixth sense of something. He always knows whenever you try to leave the bed without him.
His arms tighten around you. "Where you going, doll?" He mumbles sleepily, voice all groggy.
"Want breakfast?" You reply, giggling quietly as his hands practically trap you. God, Brendon could stay forever like this. Just with you in his arms.
"Later." He murmurs before he buries his face into you, breathing you in.
Your big, scary, stony faced boyfriend is in fact just a huge teddy bear that loves to cuddle with his girl in her purple sheets.
pairing: jack abbot x resident!reader
summary: After accidentally sending your attending Dr. Jack Abbot a nude, you delete it, panic-text an apology, and spend the rest of your shift waiting for a response that never comes. Jack doesn’t say a word until he gets you alone in his office—and by then, the apology texts are the least incriminating thing between you.
wc: 7.8k
a/n: shoutout to @in-ky and pinky (lol) for beta reading and confirming that yes, unfortunately, this is exactly what should happen when you send your attending a nude by accident. saw jack abbot on his phone and immediately made it everyone’s problem. enjoy the HR violation.
warnings: power imbalance, attending/resident relationship, inappropriate workplace behavior, explicit sexual content, dirty talk, accidental nude (then on purpose >:)), semi-public sex, fingering, handjob, orgasm denial-ish, praise kink, jealousy/possessiveness, hair pulling, biting/marking, cumplay/eating, clothed/semi-clothed smut, no piv, age gap dynamics, no use of y/n
MASTERLIST
You didn’t know a mistake could feel intentional until Jack Abbot stopped replying.
For almost a full minute after it happened, you couldn’t move. You just stood in the staff bathroom with your phone in your hand, the harsh white light buzzing overhead, your pulse slamming so hard behind your ears that the whole hospital seemed to muffle around it. The sink was still running because you’d forgotten to turn it off. Water rushed uselessly into the drain while you stared at the thread on your screen and tried to convince yourself that your eyes had rearranged the letters.
They hadn’t.
Jack Abbot sat at the top of the conversation in clean, merciless text.
Below it, the blank space where the photo had been.
You’d deleted it almost instantly, but instantly didn’t mean unseen. Instantly meant your thumb had moved faster than your brain, faster than your lungs, faster than the sick drop in your stomach when the picture appeared in the wrong thread. It meant you’d watched one of the most obscene photos in your camera roll land in your attending’s messages and then vanish under your panicked attempt to erase evidence.
Not erase memory.
Just evidence.
“Oh, no,” you whispered, and the words sounded too small for the scale of the disaster.
The photo had been from two nights ago. Your apartment, your bed, the lamp beside your mattress giving everything that warm, dirty glow. Not soft. Not tasteful. Not a picture you could call accidental in spirit even if the send itself had been. You’d taken it because you were alone and turned on and feeling reckless enough to admire yourself, body angled deliberately across twisted sheets, hair messy, eyes on the camera like you knew exactly what kind of thought you wanted to plant in someone’s head. There was nothing clinical about it. Nothing coy. It was the kind of photo that said look, want, imagine.
And Jack Abbot might have seen it.
Jack, who had corrected your charting that morning with a tired flick of his eyes.
Jack, who had stood behind you at the board, close enough for you to catch the smell of coffee and hospital soap, and said, “Try again,” when your answer hadn’t been specific enough.
Jack, who was older, gruffer, sharper around the edges than anyone had any right to be while still being that unfairly attractive.
Jack, who was your attending.
You turned off the sink with shaking fingers and immediately made the situation worse.
You:
oh my god
that was not meant for you
please ignore that
i deleted it
i’m so sorry
please delete it if it still shows up
i’m actually going to resign and move states
You stared at the messages, then at the empty space above them, then at the messages again. Your face burned. Your throat felt tight. Any other person might’ve replied by now. Any normal person might’ve hit you with a confused question mark, a reassurance, a threat, a joke. Something.
Jack gave you nothing.
No typing bubble. No acknowledgment. No read receipt. Just that awful, professional silence.
It was very Jack of him, which somehow made it worse.
A knock hit the bathroom door. “You dying in there?”
Mel’s voice. Thank God and also absolutely not.
You shoved your phone into your scrub pocket like you’d been caught with something you weren’t supposed to have. “No.”
“You sure? You sound weird.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re needed in three. Abbot’s looking for you.”
For one second, your entire body went cold.
Then hot.
Then somehow both.
“Great,” you said, and if Mel noticed that your voice came out like you’d just swallowed a battery, she was kind enough not to comment through the door.
You took one last look at yourself in the mirror before leaving. There you were: wrinkled scrubs, tired eyes, badge clipped slightly crooked, mouth pressed into a line that looked almost professional if no one knew you were internally preparing to fling yourself into traffic. You were a doctor. You were an adult. You could walk into a room with Jack Abbot and not immediately confess to everything like a criminal under interrogation.
Probably.
The hallway outside was too bright. Too loud. Too full of witnesses. The hospital had the particular cruelty of continuing to function during personal catastrophes, monitors chiming and carts rattling and nurses calling over their shoulders while your entire nervous system stood at attention. You passed Whitaker near the supply cart, who gave you a distracted little nod. You passed Santos at the board, half-listening to Robby. Nobody looked at you like they knew.
Then you reached trauma three, and Jack looked up.
He was standing at the foot of the bed with one hand braced on the rail, the other holding a chart, short sleeves leaving his forearms bare and his watch stark against his wrist. Stubble roughened his jaw, his hair was slightly mussed from the kind of shift that had been bad before noon and would only get worse, and his expression was exactly what it always was: tired, focused, unimpressed by the existence of chaos.
No guilt. No surprise. No flicker.
That was the first real blow. If he had reacted, you might’ve known how to feel. If he’d avoided your eyes, you could’ve built a theory around it. If he’d looked at you too long, you could’ve hated him or wanted him or both with more certainty.
Instead, he just watched you enter like you were late with labs.
“Nice of you to join us,” Jack said.
Dana, at the monitor, winced under her breath. “Damn.”
You forced your mouth to move. “Sorry.”
Jack’s eyes stayed on you a fraction too long. “Are you?”
There was no reason for it to hit the way it did. The words were ordinary. Dry. Annoyed, maybe. But you heard every unanswered text underneath them. You heard the deleted photo. You heard the question he wasn’t asking in front of Dana and a patient with a bleeding scalp.
Your stomach folded in on itself.
“What’s the situation?” you asked, because medicine was safer than silence.
Jack handed you the chart. “Fall from a ladder. Brief LOC. Walk me through what you’re ordering and why.”
You could do this. This was easy. This was normal. You’d done this a hundred times. You moved through the exam, named imaging, neuro checks, wound care, the things you needed to rule out. Your mouth worked. Your hands worked. Your brain mostly worked.
Your body, unfortunately, remembered that your phone remained unanswered in your pocket.
Every time Jack shifted near you, you became aware of him all over again. The low gravel of his voice. The way he stood close enough to take the chart back from your hands without asking. The blunt competence in his movements. The fact that he didn’t soothe, didn’t explain, didn’t give you even one quiet aside to release the pressure building under your skin.
He let you suffer.
Worse, he made you work.
For the next several hours, Jack Abbot became a masterclass in professional cruelty. Not actual cruelty. Nothing anyone could report. Nothing anyone would even notice unless they were living inside your body and could feel the way your pulse kicked every time he said your name.
He asked you questions in front of Robby.
He corrected your note beside the nurses’ station.
He handed you a printout without looking at you and said, “More specific,” in that gruff, flat tone that made you want to argue and obey at the same time.
He touched your elbow once, only to move you out of the path of a gurney, but the contact burned through your scrub sleeve because now there was a version of you in his possible memory that had nothing to do with the hospital. Not capable, not composed, not holding a chart or presenting a patient. You in bed. You in low light. You looking at the camera like you wanted someone to imagine being there.
And Jack still didn’t reply.
At some point, Santos appeared beside you at the counter while you were pretending to review labs and absolutely not refreshing your message thread.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“Like you’re waiting for a disciplinary hearing.”
“I’m busy.”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice as if delivering a diagnosis. “You and Abbot have been weird all day.”
Your grip tightened around the tablet. “We have not.”
“You have. He’s doing that thing where he gets quieter when he’s mad, and you look like you’re being hunted for sport.”
“I’m not being hunted.”
“Mm.”
“Santos.”
“What? I’m observant.”
“You’re nosy.”
“That too.”
Across the department, Jack stood with Robby near the board, arms crossed, head tilted as he listened. He looked exhausted. Unmoved. Utterly unreadable. Then, as if he felt you looking, his eyes lifted and found yours.
You looked away first.
Santos made an obnoxious little sound. “Loud.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it loudly.”
She grinned, entirely too pleased with herself, and moved off before you could throw something at her.
The shift dragged on. Or maybe it flew. Time had gone strange, measured less by the clock and more by every non-reply from Jack, every glance that might have meant something and might have meant nothing, every brush of proximity that left you a little more humiliated by your own reaction. By the end of rounds, panic had curdled into something hotter and harder to name.
You still wanted to disappear.
You also wanted to know exactly what he’d thought.
That was the unforgivable part. The part you couldn’t blame on the photo or the send button or exhaustion. Under the mortification, there was want. Ugly, bright, undeniable want. The kind that made you wonder whether he had paused when he saw it. Whether his jaw had tightened. Whether he had deleted it right away or looked long enough to regret it.
You were finishing a note when his shadow fell over your workspace.
You didn’t look up immediately. You knew.
“My office,” Jack said. “Now.”
The words were quiet. No one else would’ve heard them as anything but an attending giving an instruction. Dana barely glanced over. Robby kept talking to Mel. The world did not stop.
Yours did.
You stood carefully. “Okay.”
Jack turned without waiting to see if you followed. The walk to his office felt like a march toward sentencing, except sentencing probably wouldn’t have made your thighs feel weak. He didn’t touch you. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back. That made it worse, because it meant he knew you would follow.
His office was dim, cramped, and cluttered in the way all hospital offices became cluttered no matter how hard anyone tried to keep them human. A desk lamp threw warm light over a stack of charts. Half-closed blinds cut the room into narrow bars. His mug sat beside the keyboard, coffee gone cold. The air held the stale sharpness of the hospital layered with something that was just him: clean sweat, soap, coffee, fatigue.
Jack closed the door.
He left it unlocked.
That detail lodged in you. The unlocked door meant this was still a conversation. Still professional, technically. Still something you could leave.
Or something he wanted you to know you could leave.
He leaned back against the edge of the desk, arms crossed loosely, and looked at you for long enough that you started talking just to make him stop.
“I’m sorry,” you said. “I know I already said that in the texts, probably too many times, but I really am. It was an accident. Obviously. I deleted it right away, and I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you saw it before then, but I swear I didn’t mean to—”
“Stop.”
You stopped.
Jack’s gaze stayed steady. “Explain.”
You blinked. “I just did.”
“No. You apologized.” His voice was calm, which was somehow worse than anger. “Explain what happened.”
Your face burned. “I sent the wrong thing to the wrong person.”
“What thing?”
“Jack.”
His expression didn’t change. “Say it.”
The floor seemed suddenly fascinating. You looked at a scuff near the leg of his desk and wondered if it was possible to die from embarrassment after all.
“A nude,” you said.
The word changed the room.
Jack didn’t move, but something in his face tightened. A small thing. Controlled. There and gone.
“I saw it,” he said.
You closed your eyes for one second. “Okay.”
For a moment, that was all there was. The confirmation. The silence after. The awful, humiliating knowledge that the image had reached him before you could take it back.
“I didn’t keep it,” he said.
Your eyes opened. “You didn’t?”
“No.”
The relief was sharp enough to hurt. It should’ve ended there. It should’ve made everything clean again, or at least survivable. He had done the right thing. He had refused to keep what hadn’t been meant for him. You could apologize one more time, leave his office, and spend the rest of your life avoiding direct eye contact.
But Jack was still looking at you.
And his voice, when it came, was lower.
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t look.”
Something low in you pulled tight, panic and arousal twisting together until you couldn’t tell which one had hit first.
He pushed off the desk, not moving closer yet. Just standing straighter. “Who was it for?”
“No one.”
“No one.”
“I took it for myself.”
Jack’s mouth twitched, not amusement exactly. More like disbelief with nowhere innocent to go. “You take pictures like that for yourself?”
There were a dozen sensible answers. Defensive answers. Clean, professional answers that would’ve made this easier to survive. Instead, you heard yourself say, “Sometimes.”
The tiredness in his face thinned, and beneath it was something intent, almost indecently awake—a look that moved over you with such slow, controlled heat that your body reacted before your pride could stop it. Like the picture had burned itself into his retinas and left him standing there with nowhere innocent to put his hands.
For the first time all day, you saw the effect. Not much. Jack wasn’t a man who gave much away for free. But there it was in the pause, the shift of his jaw, the hand he dragged briefly over his mouth before dropping it again.
“You’re not helping yourself,” he said.
“I thought I was being honest.”
“That’s the problem.”
The words should’ve embarrassed you further. They did. But they also did something else, something low and hot, because he sounded less like your attending now and more like a man trying very hard to remember he still was one.
You took a careful breath. “Why didn’t you answer?”
Jack looked at you for a long moment, and the silence wasn’t empty anymore. It had weight. The shape of all the things he’d refused to put in writing.
“Because if I answered then,” he said, voice lower now, “I would’ve said something I shouldn’t.”
Your mouth went dry. “Like what?”
“Don’t.”
“You brought me in here.”
“To handle it.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
His jaw worked once, and for the first time, his control looked less like indifference and more like effort. “I’m trying.”
“Trying to handle me?”
That did something. You saw it in the brief drop of his gaze, the pause before he pulled it back to your face.
“Trying not to,” he said.
There it was again—that small crack in the professionalism. Not a confession, not exactly, but close enough to make the room feel suddenly too small. Close enough that you felt it move through you before you had time to decide what to do with it.
Jack saw that too.
Of course he did.
He stepped closer, not quickly, not carelessly. Slow enough that you could move back if you wanted. Slow enough that the choice stayed yours.
You didn’t.
“You sent me that,” he said, voice low, “then walked around my department for the rest of the shift like I could just forget it.”
“I didn’t know if you’d seen it.”
“You knew.”
“I hoped you hadn’t.”
“No.” His gaze held yours, steady and merciless in a way that made your skin feel too tight under your scrubs. “You hoped I had, and you were scared I had. Not the same thing.”
You hated him a little for being right. You wanted him more because of it.
“That’s not fair,” you said.
“I didn’t say it was.”
He was close enough now that you could see the fatigue at the corners of his eyes, the rough shadow along his jaw, the controlled set of his mouth. Still Jack. Still gruff and older and dangerous mostly because he looked like he’d spent a lifetime refusing himself the stupid thing, the reckless thing, the filthy thing that would feel good for exactly long enough to ruin him.
“You wanted to know what I thought,” he said.
Your throat tightened. “Did I?”
His gaze dropped to your mouth for half a second before returning to your eyes. “You tell me.”
The worst part was that you couldn’t. Not honestly. Because you had wanted to know. Under the embarrassment, under the panic, under every frantic apology you’d typed too fast and regretted immediately, there had been that awful, helpless need to know what he’d seen when he looked at you afterward. If he’d been angry. If he’d been disgusted. If he’d imagined it again.
If he’d wanted to.
Jack watched the silence work through you, watched your breath catch, watched your face give away what your mouth refused to say.
Then he stepped back half a pace.
The loss of him was so immediate your body nearly followed before you could stop it.
“Tell me to forget it,” he said, “and I’ll forget it.”
“You just said you couldn’t.”
“I’ll act like I can.”
That was very Jack. Honest enough to hurt. Restrained enough to be decent. He had refused to keep the photo. He had left the door unlocked. Now he was putting distance between you, giving you a clean exit with the kind of brutal practicality that somehow made you want him worse.
You should’ve taken it.
Instead, you said, “I don’t want you to.”
The room went quiet in a new way.
Jack’s face barely changed, but your body took the look like contact, nerves flaring under your scrubs as if he’d reached across the room and found you bare. For one dizzy second, the clothes felt pointless—like he was already picturing what was underneath and remembering exactly where to look.
“Be clear,” he said.
Your throat felt tight. “I don’t want you to forget it.”
His hand moved to the door.
The lock clicked.
Small sound. Huge consequence.
Not loud. Just final. The kind of sound that doesn’t ask permission. Jack’s hand left the deadbolt, but he didn’t turn around right away. He stood there facing the door, shoulders rising once, falling once, like he was giving himself a countdown.
You were already backed up against his desk. Metal cold through your scrub pants. You watched his back. The way his scrub top pulled between his shoulder blades. The gray hair curling at his nape, damp from twelve hours of running a floor that wouldn’t stop coding.
He turned.
His eyes had changed. Not tired, not distant—fixed on you now with a hunger he’d spent the whole shift forcing down. It had been there through rounds, through the silence, through every clipped order and every time he’d looked at you and then looked away like one more second would give him away.
“Stand up.”
You did. Your thighs hit the desk edge behind you. He crossed the space in two strides and then he was there, close enough that the heat of him hit your skin before his body did, close enough that you could smell the antiseptic and coffee and something underneath—just him, just warm skin and a long shift.
His hand found your hip. Not gentle. Not rough. Just certain. His thumb pressed into the bone there and you felt it in your teeth.
“You sent me a picture,” he said.
His voice was low. Not the attending voice. Not the one that cut through chaos in the trauma bay. This one was quieter. Worse.
“I know.”
“You tried to take it back.”
“Yes.”
“I saw it anyway.” His thumb moved—just a fraction, just a small circle against your hip bone through the thin cotton. “You know I saw it.”
Your throat was dry. “I wasn’t sure.”
“Bullshit.” The word landed soft, almost kind. “You knew. You watched me not look at you for six hours and you knew exactly why.”
You couldn’t answer. He was too close. His other hand came up, slow, and his fingers found the edge of your jaw. Not gripping. Just resting there, his palm warm against the side of your throat, his thumb tracing the line of your chin like he was memorizing bone.
“Describe it,” he said.
“What?”
“The photo. Tell me what you sent me.”
Heat crawled up your neck. Your chest. Your face. He felt it—his thumb was right there on your pulse, and you watched his eyes flick down to your throat, watched him feel every beat of your heart slamming against his palm.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” His grip didn’t tighten. It didn’t have to. “You took it. You sent it. Say it.”
You swallowed. His thumb rode the movement. “It was—I was on my bed.”
“Go on.”
“On my stomach. The camera was—it was angled down. You could see my back. My shoulders.” You stopped. Breathed. He waited. “My ass. I was wearing—”
“Nothing,” he said. “You were wearing nothing.”
The word hit your stomach and clenched there. “Yes.”
“And your legs were spread.”
Not a question. He’d seen it. He’d looked at it long enough to know exactly how you were positioned, exactly what was visible, exactly what you’d offered up without saying a word.
“Yes.”
“And between them.” His thumb traced down your throat, just a whisper of pressure. “What could I see.”
“Everything.”
He exhaled. It was the first crack you’d seen—just a shiver of air through his nose, his jaw tightening, his eyes going darker. “Everything,” he repeated. “You sent your attending a photo of your pussy and you want me to believe it was an accident.”
“I panicked. I deleted it—”
“After it delivered. After I saw the notification. After I opened it in the middle of rounds and had to stand there with a patient’s chart in my hand and your pussy on my phone.”
Your knees nearly buckled. He said it so flat. So clinical. Like he was naming an anatomical structure, except his voice dropped on the word, roughened, and his grip on your hip tightened once before releasing.
“Jack—”
“Dr. Abbot.” His eyes snapped to yours. “In this hospital, I’m Dr. Abbot. You don’t get to call me Jack until I tell you to.”
Your breath stuttered. "Dr. Abbot."
"Better." He stepped closer. Your bodies touched—chest to chest, his scrub top against yours, the heat of him bleeding through the fabric. His thigh pressed between your legs and you made a sound before you could stop it, small and humiliating and honest.
"There it is," he murmured. His mouth was near your ear now, stubble scratching your temple. "That's the sound. That's what you wanted me to hear."
You grabbed his arm. You didn't mean to—your hand just found his bicep and held, fingers digging into muscle, and he let you. His arm was solid under your grip, hard from years of compressions and lifting and holding bodies together while they bled.
"I'm sorry," you said.
"Are you." He pulled back just enough to look at you. His face was close—you could see the exhaustion in the lines around his eyes, the gray threading his stubble, the way his mouth was set in something that wasn't quite a frown. "Or are you just scared I know what you look like when you want someone."
You didn't answer. Couldn't. He was right and you both knew it.
His hand left your jaw. Slid down. Found your wrist and lifted it between your bodies, his thumb pressing into your pulse point, feeling the blood hammer under your skin.
"You're shaking," he said.
"I know."
"Good."
He kissed you.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful. His mouth hit yours with the same certainty as his hands—hard, demanding, his stubble scraping your lip and his tongue pushing past your teeth before you'd even registered the impact. He tasted like black coffee and something sharp, something that burned going down, and you opened for him immediately, helplessly, your whole body sagging into his grip.
His hand left your wrist and grabbed your other hip. Both hands now, fingers digging into the meat of you, pulling you against him so hard the desk edge bit into your thighs. His cock was hard already, pressing against your stomach through his scrub pants, and the knowledge of it—the fact that he'd been hard, maybe this whole time, maybe since he saw the photo, maybe since he locked the door—made you moan into his mouth.
"Quiet," he said against your lips. "The walls are thin."
You bit his lower lip. Harder than you meant to. He inhaled sharp and something flashed in his eyes—surprise, and then heat, and then his hands were moving, one sliding up your back under your scrub top, palm rough and hot on your spine, the other fisting in your hair and yanking your head back until your throat was exposed.
"You bite me again," he said against your pulse, "and I'll make you regret it."
"Maybe I want that."
His teeth found your neck. Not a kiss—a bite, real pressure, his incisors denting the skin just above your collarbone. You gasped and your hips bucked against his thigh and he held you there, teeth still clamped, tongue pressing flat against the mark he was making.
When he pulled back, his mouth was wet. His eyes were wrecked. "You want it," he said. "You want a lot of things. That's the problem."
Your hands moved. You didn't decide to—they just went, desperate, grabbing the front of his scrub top and pulling until the V-neck stretched, your knuckles brushing the sweat-damp hair on his chest. His skin was hot. He was hot, all of him, furnace-hot and solid and real against you.
"Touch me," you said. It came out wrecked. "Please."
"Please what."
"Please—fuck." You couldn't think. His thumb was rubbing circles into your spine, his other hand still fisted in your hair, his thigh a solid line of pressure between your legs. "Please touch me. Dr. Abbot."
His eyes flared. "That's right. That's my name. You remember that."
"Yes."
"And you remember who you're with. Not some resident. Not your ex. Me."
The jealousy landed like a slap. Your mind flicked back—the photo, who it might've been meant for, who he thought it was meant for—and you opened your mouth to explain, to tell him there wasn't anyone, but then his hand was sliding around to your stomach, fingertips tracing the waistband of your scrub pants front to back, and words dissolved.
"I don't share," he said quietly. "Whatever this is. Whatever you thought you were doing. You don't send something like that to more than one person. You don't get to."
"I didn't. It was only—"
"Only me." His fingers dipped under the elastic. Not far. Just the first knuckle, the rough pad of his index finger dragging through the hair below your navel. "Good. That's good. That's how it stays."
You nodded. You would've agreed to anything. His finger moved lower, just a centimeter, and your hips lifted toward his hand like a reflex.
"You're soaked," he said. Not surprised. Not smug. Just observing. "I haven't even touched you yet and you're soaked through your pants."
"I know."
"Say it."
"I'm—" Your face burned. His eyes didn't leave yours. "I'm wet. Soaked. Is that what you—"
"That's what I wanted." His finger withdrew. You nearly cried. But then both his hands were at your waistband, thumbs hooked in, and he was pulling your scrub pants and underwear down together, one sharp motion, the fabric scraping your thighs and pooling around your ankles.
He didn't look down. Not yet. He kept his eyes on your face while his hand found your knee and pushed—firm, steady—until your legs fell open, his hips slotting between them, the rough fabric of his scrub pants brushing your bare cunt.
"There," he said. "Now you're exactly where you should be."
You grabbed his shoulders. Needed to. Your fingers dug into the muscle there, the solid bulk of him, and he let you hang on while his mouth came back to yours, still brutal, still messy, teeth and tongue and the scrape of stubble that would leave your chin raw.
His hand dropped between your bodies.
First touch: his middle finger sliding through your folds, just parting you, just feeling. The sound it made—wet, obscene—filled the tiny office. He groaned into your mouth, a low vibration you felt in your chest.
"Jesus," he breathed. "You're dripping. You've been dripping all shift."
"For you."
"I know." His finger circled your clit—once, light, barely there—and your whole body jerked. "I know you have. Every time I looked at you. Every time I didn't."
He did it again. Slow circle. Then again, harder. Then his finger slid lower, found your entrance, and pressed in.
Just one. Just to the first knuckle. You clenched around him instantly, a helpless spasm, and he laughed—low, dark, right against your ear.
"Tight," he said. "Tight little pussy. And you sent me a picture of it. What'd you think would happen."
"I didn't—I wasn't—"
"You were." His finger pushed deeper. All the way in, slow, until his knuckle pressed against your entrance and his palm cupped your clit. "You wanted me to see. You wanted me to know. You wanted this."
He curled his finger.
Your vision whited. Your head fell back, throat bared again, and he took the invitation—mouth on your neck, sucking hard, his stubble a bright burn while his finger found that spot inside you and pressed.
"There," he said. "Right there. That's what you wanted me to find."
"Yes. Yes. Fuck—"
"Quiet." His voice was steel. "I said quiet. You can be quiet or I can stop."
You bit your own lip so hard you tasted copper. His finger pumped—once, twice, slow and deep, the wet sound of it filling the room. Then his thumb found your clit, pressed down, and you nearly screamed into your own mouth.
"Good girl. That's good. You can listen."
He pulled out. Your cunt clenched on nothing, empty and aching, and you made a noise of protest that he ignored. His hand came up between your faces, his finger glistening, slick coating his knuckle all the way to his palm.
"Look at this," he said. "Look at what you did."
You watched him bring his finger to his mouth. Watched his lips close around it. Watched his eyes flutter shut for just a second while he tasted you, his tongue cleaning his own skin with an obscene thoroughness that made your stomach drop.
"Sweet," he said, pulling his finger free. "I knew you'd be sweet."
"Please. Please, I need—"
"I know what you need." His hand was back between your legs before you finished, two fingers this time, sliding through your slick and then pushing in, stretching you open, filling you so fast your breath caught and held.
"Breathe," he said. "Breathe through it. You can take it."
You could. You did. His fingers were thick—surgeon's fingers, strong and precise—and they knew exactly what to do. Pumping deep, curling, finding that spot again and again while his palm ground against your clit and his mouth covered yours to swallow every sound.
The kiss was sloppy now. Desperate. You were breathing into each other, sharing air, his tongue pushing past your teeth at the same rhythm as his fingers. You could taste yourself on him—salt and musk and something sweeter underneath—and it made you wild, made your hips buck against his hand, made you ride his fingers like you'd die if you stopped.
"That's it," he growled. "Fuck my hand. Show me how bad you want it."
Your fingers clawed at his shoulders. Found his neck. Dug into the short hair at his nape and pulled, and he hissed, and his fingers drove deeper, faster, the wet slap of his palm against your clit turning filthy and loud.
"You're close," he said. "I can feel it. You're clenching—yeah, like that. You're gonna come on my fingers. Right here on my desk. And you're gonna be quiet while you do it."
"I can't—"
"You can." His lips brushed your ear. His breath was ragged now, finally losing that iron control. "You can because I'm telling you to. Because you're a good girl. Because you want to be good for me."
The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere you didn't know existed. Your cunt spasmed around his fingers and he laughed again, dark and pleased, and then his thumb pressed hard against your clit and circled and his fingers curled and—
You came.
Silent. Or close enough—a gasp that died in your throat, your whole body locking up, your cunt milking his fingers in rhythmic pulses you couldn't control. He held you through it, hand steady, murmuring something low against your temple that you couldn't hear over the roar in your ears.
When you came down, your forehead was pressed to his shoulder. His scrub top was wet—sweat, tears, spit, you didn't know. His fingers were still inside you, still, just resting there, letting you feel the fullness.
"Good girl," he said again. Quieter now. Almost gentle. "That's my good girl."
You lifted your head. His face was inches away, dark eyes searching yours, and for a moment the mask slipped—just a second of something raw, something that looked almost tender before he blinked and it was gone.
"Now you," you said. Your voice was wrecked. "I want to—let me."
He didn't stop you. His fingers slid out of you, slow, and you felt the loss like a physical ache. Your hand dropped to his waist, found the drawstring of his scrub pants, and pulled.
His hand caught your wrist.
You froze. Waiting. His grip was tight but not painful—just stopping you, holding you still while he looked at your face like he was making a decision.
"This has to be quick," he said. "Someone's going to notice we're both gone."
"Then quick."
He held your eyes for another beat. Then his grip loosened. "Go on."
You untied the drawstring. Your fingers were shaking—from the orgasm, from the adrenaline, from the sheer impossibility of this moment—but you managed. His scrub pants sagged, and when you pushed them down his hips together with his boxers, his cock sprang free, thick and flushed and already leaking at the tip.
He was bigger than you expected. Not just long—thick, the kind of thick that would hurt in the best way, the kind that made your cunt clench just looking at it. His shaft was veined, curving slightly toward his stomach, the head a deep angry red and slick with pre-cum.
"You're staring," he said.
"I'm admiring."
"Admire faster."
You wrapped your hand around him. His breath caught—loud, sharp—and his hips jerked into your grip before he controlled himself. His cock was hot in your palm, silk-soft skin over iron-hard flesh, and when you squeezed, a bead of pre-cum welled at the tip and dripped down over your knuckle.
"Fuck," he breathed.
You stroked him. Slow at first—learning the weight, the shape, the way he twitched when your thumb pressed against the underside just below the head. His hand came up and fisted in your hair again, not pulling, just holding, like he needed an anchor.
"Faster," he said. "Come on. Faster."
You sped up. Your wrist found a rhythm, twisting on the upstroke the way you knew felt good, and his head dropped forward, forehead pressing to yours, his breath hot and uneven on your lips.
"You've done this before."
"A few times."
"Not to me." His hips were moving now, fucking into your fist, uncontrolled in a way that made heat pool low in your belly all over again. "Not—like this—"
You squeezed harder. Twisted faster. His hand in your hair tightened, the other slamming down on the desk beside your hip, and the sound of his palm hitting wood was loud enough to echo.
"Look at me," you said.
His eyes opened. Glazed. Desperate. His mouth was wet, lips parted, and he looked nothing like the cold controlled attending who'd locked the door. He looked ruined.
"I want to watch you," you said. "I want to watch you come in my hand."
"Jesus—"
"Come on." Your voice dropped, mimicking his from earlier. "Come for me. I want to see it."
His hips stuttered. His cock pulsed in your grip. And then he was coming, silent, jaw clenched so tight you could see the tendon stand out in his neck, his cum spilling hot over your fingers and dripping down your wrist in thick white ropes.
You stroked him through it. Milked every pulse, every spasm, until he was shuddering and oversensitive and his hand shot down to grip your wrist and stop you.
"Enough," he rasped. "Enough."
You stopped. Your hand was a mess—his cum coating your palm, your fingers, dripping between your knuckles. You could smell it, salt and musk and him, and without thinking, without planning, you lifted your hand to your mouth.
He watched.
Your tongue touched your palm first. The taste was sharp—bitter and salty and undeniably male. You licked a stripe up to your wrist, gathering the slickness, and then you wrapped your lips around your own index finger and sucked.
His pupils swallowed what was left of the thin blue rings.
You pulled your finger free with a lewd pop and licked your lips. "Tastes like you."
He didn't say anything. Just stared, chest heaving, cock still wet and softening against his thigh.
Then he kissed you. Not fast this time. Not punishing. His mouth dragged over yours with a filthy kind of patience, tongue sliding in like he was tasting himself there and hated how much he wanted more of it. His hand stayed at your jaw, thumb pressed beneath your chin, holding you still while he licked into your mouth again, deeper, making the kiss feel less like an ending than a promise he had no business making in his office.
When Jack finally pulled back, it wasn’t because either of you had cooled off. It was because whatever sense he had left had finally clawed its way back to the surface.
You stayed on the edge of his desk, breath wrecked, fingers still curled in his scrub top. He looked almost composed, which would’ve been insulting if his mouth weren’t swollen from yours, if his chest weren’t moving with too much effort, if his gaze didn’t keep dropping to all the places he had just touched. For a second, he only stared at you, taking in the mess he’d made: your loosened scrubs, your bare thighs, the flush crawling up your throat, the way your body still hadn’t figured out how to stop wanting him.
Then he reached for his phone.
You went still.
He saw it immediately. Of course he did. Jack caught everything.
“No,” he said, voice rough but steady. “Not unless you say so.”
The phone stayed low in his hand. He didn’t lift it. Didn’t angle it. Didn’t take anything just because he could. That was the worst part, maybe—how badly he wanted and how clearly he still made it your choice. He stood there with his scrub pants retied badly, his hair mussed, your taste still on his mouth, and waited like permission mattered more than whatever filthy thought had put the phone in his hand.
“I got rid of the first one,” he said.
“I know.”
“It wasn’t mine.”
Your throat tightened.
His gaze moved over you again, not detached, not clean, not pretending. “This one would be.”
The words went through you with a fresh, obscene little twist. The first photo had been panic and accident, a naked image thrown into the wrong hands. This one would be different. You were still open on his desk, still marked by his mouth, still shaking from what he’d done to you and what you’d done to him. This wouldn’t be a mistake sitting in a thread. This would be proof. Permission. Something given on purpose.
Jack watched your face. “Say no, and I put it away.”
You looked at the phone, then at him. “Yes.”
His jaw tightened. “Full sentence.”
Your face burned, but you didn’t look away. Not after everything. Not with his cum still barely wiped from your skin and your body still aching from his fingers.
“You can take a picture of me.”
For a second, he didn’t move.
Then he lifted the phone.
He only took one.
That made it worse somehow. Hotter. No posing you over and over. No making a show of it. Just one photo in the dim office light: you perched on the edge of his desk, wrecked and unmistakably touched, your scrubs shoved out of place, his hand visible at your thigh like a signature he had no right to leave. The first photo had been you alone in your bed, naked and deliberate. This one had him in it without showing his face—the watch at his wrist, the edge of his sleeve, the possessive press of his fingers against your skin.
Jack looked at the screen.
Whatever he saw there hit him. You watched it happen in the clench of his jaw, the pause in his breathing, the way his thumb hovered before he locked the phone like he needed to put the image away before he did something stupider than taking it.
“That one stays?” you asked.
His eyes lifted to yours.
“That one stays.”
The words settled low and dirty, right where his voice had already ruined you.
After that, he fixed you with the same practical attention he gave everything else. Scrub top straightened. Badge adjusted. Hair smoothed back into place, though his fingers lingered for half a second longer than necessary. It should’ve felt clinical. It didn’t. It felt intimate in a way that made your chest ache a little.
“You okay?” he asked.
You nodded.
His brows drew together. “Words.”
A small, breathless laugh escaped you. “I’m okay.”
He studied you for another moment, then handed you the water bottle from his desk. “Drink.”
You did, because saying no felt pointless when your legs were still unreliable and he was looking at you like he would stand there all night if that was what it took to make sure you could walk out without falling apart. When he was satisfied, he took the bottle back and set it down.
Then the mask started returning.
You watched him pull himself together piece by piece. The rough edges tucked away. The heat banked. The attending sliding back over the man who had just ruined your ability to think clearly. By the time his hand reached the lock, he almost looked like himself again.
Almost.
Before opening the door, he turned back. “No more accidents.”
Your pulse jumped. “No?”
His gaze dropped once to your mouth. “You want my attention,” he said, low enough that only you could hear, “you ask for it properly.”
Then he opened the door, and the hospital rushed back in.
The fluorescent light felt obscene after the dimness of his office. Voices, alarms, wheels, footsteps, the relentless machinery of the department grinding on like nothing had happened. Jack stepped out first. You followed a few seconds later, trying to look normal with your pulse still everywhere it shouldn’t be.
At the nurses’ station, Mel glanced up. “You good?”
You picked up a chart mostly to have something to do with your hands. “Yeah. Fine.”
Across the department, Jack didn’t look at you once, but that almost made it worse. He didn’t have to. The proof was already in his pocket, locked behind his passcode, tucked against his body while he moved through the rest of the shift like nothing had happened. You watched him speak to Robby near the board, watched him take a chart from Dana, watched him disappear behind the curtain of trauma two with that same gruff composure he’d worn all day, and all you could think was that there was a photo of you on his phone now.
Not the accidental one. Not the one he had deleted because it hadn’t belonged to him.
The other one.
The one you had given him.
That thought followed you through sign-out and the locker room and the cold shock of night air when you finally stepped outside. It sat low and warm in your stomach on the ride home, getting worse every time you remembered the way his jaw had tightened when he looked at the screen. By the time you unlocked your apartment, the silence felt different from the one he’d given you earlier. Not cruel this time. Anticipatory.
Your apartment was dark except for the lamp by your bed. The same bed from the first photo waited at the end of the room, sheets still rumpled from the morning, low light spilling over the fabric in a way that made your heart skip. Last night, that room had been private. Tonight, it felt altered, like Jack had already been invited into the idea of it.
You dropped your keys into the bowl by the door and stood there for a second, still in your scrubs, looking at the bed.
Your phone buzzed.
You turned it over.
Jack Abbot:
Home?
Your mouth went dry.
You:
Yes.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. You stood in the dark with your scuffed Dansko clogs still on, heart beating too hard over a text message from a man who had spent all day saying nothing. Then his reply came through.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am not someone who does a lot of research regarding doctors, nurses, and medical techniques. Please take everything in here with a grain of salt; if the accuracy is shit, please let me know and I will update it.
Less than a minute of Park the Shark. LESS. THAN. A. MINUTE.
And now I’ve got to write about him.
This is part one of…I don’t know how many parts, but protective!Park is my jam, so if it is yours as well, please enjoy.
Warnings (for the fic as a whole): Apologies again for any medical inaccuracies, blood and injury in a medical setting, patient on doctor violence, creepy guys following women (nothing happens!), graphic description of blood and injuries.
Chapter 1
It was nice taking time on your day off to have dinner with college friends.
A few of them were in town for a teaching conference and, once they’d learned that you were doing your rounds in the emergency department at PTMC, they were eager to text you if you had time to spare to join them for dinner and drinks.
You take the time to walk to the restaurant, since it was a nice afternoon and it wasn’t too far away from your apartment. You like walking around the streets during the day, the area around your complex not too shady. Nights were a different story, but with your rotations, you ended up getting out with someone that was willing to drive you home. You figure that for one night, you can take the chance to walk alone, so long as you don’t overdo it on drinks.
Your friends are waiting at the door and they squeal when they see you, grabbing you and passing you around in a circle of hugs that has you laughing harder than you have in months. You end up at a booth, ordering a round of drinks as you peruse the menu.
“Sooo,” Annie asks, sipping on a margarita, “anyone new in your life?”
“With the different rotations and my last exams in a few weeks, I’m lucky if I even get to have enough time to sleep,” you mutter, taking a sip from your beer. You did have a shift in the morning, so you were sipping slowly and deliberately.
“But once that’s over, do you think you’ll start dating?” Michelle asks, flipping her menu to check out the appetizers for the fifth time.
“Guys, I’m literally going to be even busier once I finish this rotation. I’ll be an actual doctor. I won’t have time to see anyone!”
Your friends drop the subject, but you can tell they want to bring it up again, skirting around the subject between bites of flatbreads and cheese fries.
It’s not that you’re opposed to dating, but it’s not something you’re interested in at the moment. You’ve been working for years to get your degree and never really felt like anything was missing from your life. Maybe that would change in a few weeks when you were officially done with all of your exams and settled into The Pitt as an actual doctor.
Who knows? For now, you pay your part of the bill, hug your friends goodbye, and start the walk towards your apartment.
The area’s well lit at night and the cool air is a balm from the close quarters of the restaurant. You take a deep breath in and exhale, looking above you to see if you can see a few stars.
“Hey, girlie, how you doin’?”
Of course, the one night you decide to walk along, you’re getting catcalled. You can hear footsteps behind you now and you stick to keeping to the streetlights. You didn’t think to go out and buy pepper spray because you didn’t have to worry about going home alone. You took that for granted and now, you have a shadow.
It’s not like it’s just you and the guy nearby. You can see a jogger on the other side of the street, along with a light-up leash of someone walking their dog. If you needed help, you could yell.
It’s when you pass the circle of the streetlight that you feel a hand grabbing at your wrist. You can smell the alcohol on the catcaller’s breath as he tries to pull you back.
“What’s your hurry, girlie? Jus’ wanted to say hello.”
You turn to him. Just from the way he’s swaying, he’s definitely drunk, but his grip on your wrist is hard enough that you know tugging yourself away won’t make him loosen it.
So, you smile, take a step towards him, and calmly say, “Let go of me or I’ll make you regret it.”
The guy just smiles back. “Oh…you’re feisty.”
You take one more step closer. “You could say that.”
Then, in the high heels that you had gotten for the dinner date, you slam your right foot down on the top of his shoe. You can feel the give, thankful that he wasn’t wearing boots.
The man howls in pain and lets go of your wrist and you start backing up, not wanting to lose sight of him if he tries to grab you again.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” he screams, raising his arms and charging at you.
You brace yourself for the impact of a fist, raising your hands to shield your face. Instead, you hear a bitten off curse and open your eyes to see that there’s someone else standing in front of you.
You consider yourself average in terms of height, but the man in front of you exudes a presence that makes you feel like you’re three feet tall. His back is to you and you have to peer around his torso to see what has happened. You recognize his hoodie from the jogger that’d been across the street.
The man in the hoodie has the catcaller’s wrist in a white knuckle grip. The catcaller looks like he’s about to piss himself.
“She owes you nothing,” the man in the hoodie growls, “She was polite and ended the conversation. You’re the bitch who expects more.”
The catcaller whimpers something and, after another moment, is let go. He runs across the street, wobbling as he does.
You let out a small sigh as the man in the hoodie turns back to you. It’s hard to see his face, since you’re out of the light, but you can make out a sharp jawline from the shadows it makes along the fabric.
“You alright?” he asks.
“Yeah,” you say, a little breathless, “Thanks for that. I don’t know what he would have done if you hadn’t stepped in.
“He was a little loud. I figured you had it handled, but he should have never grabbed you like that.” He looks down at your right wrist. “It doesn’t look bruised.”
You flex your fingers and look at what you’re able to in the dim light. “I think I’ll be fine. Doesn’t hurt.”
“Can I take a look?”
At least he’s asking. You’re not sure why you’re trusting this guy so easily, even if he did stop a drunken catcaller, but you hold out your wrist all the same.
His fingers and hands almost engulf your wrist, but his touch is warm and gentle. He pokes and prods at a few places, but you don’t hiss in pain. He is probably right; you’ll most likely have some sort of bruise by tomorrow, but so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work, you’ll be fine.
The large man pauses for a moment as he drops his hands. “There’s an apartment complex two blocks away. There are benches and it’s well lit. Good place to wait for a ride.”
You know the complex, since it’s the same one your apartment’s in. Still, the man’s concern is welcome and you take a moment to nod at his recommendation.
“Thank you,” you say, but the man’s already jogging in the opposite direction. The lingering warmth of his hands on your wrist makes your stomach flip as you head back to your apartment.
Your cat, Twinkie, greets you at the door with a crispy meow and an affectionate rub against your legs.
“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s late. Lemme get your food and we’ll head to bed then, okay?”
—
Your morning starts off normal with the usual controlled chaos of the ED on a Monday. You take the lead on a few cases, checking in with Dr. Robby from time to time to make sure you're on the right track. The other rotators ask for your opinion before going to Robby and you can’t help the swell of pride in your chest, knowing that you’re helping out the next batch of doctors.
It’s in hour five of your shift that Dana shouts out. “Incoming trauma, 5 minutes out, got some detached fingers.”
You snap on a new pair of gloves as the EMTs rush in a few minutes later. You already had a room prepped and ready, grabbing some saline just in case you can flag someone down from ortho. The man on the gurney is awake and responding to questions, holding onto a very bloody washcloth. Princess, Whittaker, and Dr. Robby head in behind you to help transfer the patient and start asking questions.
“Where are the fingers?” you ask. One of the EMTs hands you a plastic bag that’s cold to the touch, even with your gloves on. “Ice ready?”
“Got it,” Whittaker says from your left, a small bucket of ice
“A call to ortho, please,” Dr. Robby calls out, Princess already heading to the phone. He’s already gotten an x-ray of the hand, holding it up to the light. “Looks like a clean cut. Sir, can you explain exactly what happened?”
The man’s face is pale, but he gulps in a breath and starts talking. “I was outside on our patio. One of the kids broke a window on the third floor and the glass…one of the shards literally cut straight through.”
“It doesn’t look like there’s any smaller shards in your skin,” you say, trying to keep your voice level, “That one piece was probably super sharp and, from three stories up, that’s a large amount of force.” You look him in the eyes. “I know the adrenaline is probably wearing off at this point, but I need you to take a few deep breaths with me so we can get your heartrate down. Can you follow my breathing?”
You went through the exercise with him as Dennis got him a fresh bandage and Dr. Robby monitored his vitals. Princess had hung up the phone and nodded, heading out of the room.
“Alright, Mr. Davis,” Robby said, “We’re gonna have one of our orthopedic surgeons coming down to check on your fingers for a chance of reattachment. Based on your x-rays, the cuts were very clean, but the surgeon will know better and advise.”
Dennis looks to Robby with hopeful eyes. “Please tell me ‘The Shark’ isn’t on?”
Dr. Robby shoots him a sad smile. You look between them, confused.
“‘Shark’?” you ask. Whittaker gives you a dumbfounded look.
“You’re R4 and never met ‘The Shark’? Lucky.”
Robby is giving you a grin that you’ve learned is ‘this is going to be fun’ or ‘I am going to be laughing with you about this later.’ You open your mouth to ask more, but are interrupted by the door opening.
Heading through the doorway is the same man that defended you last night. You hadn’t even seen his full face, but you know it’s him just from the way he’s holding himself.
His eyes don’t even glance your way, focus solely trained on the patient.
No wonder the guy bothering you had left; seeing the man under a streetlight probably looked terrifying, especially with his hoodie up. The ortho doctor was tall and burly, about a head taller than you were with a sharp jawline and bright blue eyes that seem to be picking up every detail as he examines the patient.
“Two fingers missing, what’s their status?” Even his voice, which had been warm to you last night, is clipped and no nonsense. He heads towards the bag in the ice bath, reaching in to study the digits.
There’s a beat of silence and it takes you a moment to realize you can contribute. “43 year old male, had been outside and a shard from a broken window sliced through two digits. Minimal bruising, clean cut all the way through both digits. Fingers iced immediately before the ambulance took off, so ten minutes at the most.”
“X-ray.”
The film is handed to the intimidating doctor. He holds the results up, eyes scanning each detail.
“Clean as it can be, minimal splintering on the bone. As for cleaning-”
“One liter of saline on deck,” you pipe up, handing the bag you already procured over to Whittaker.
It’s then that his eyes slide to you. No recognition colors his face, but he does give a slight tilt of his chin. “I’ll have an OR prepped in five. Get him up there in one piece.”
And then, he’s gone, out of the door and you and the rest of the team begin prepping Mr. Davis for surgery.
You head out the door with Dennis at your side towards the hub, Princess and Jessie wheeling the patient out to the elevators. “That was…intense.”
Dennis actually looks a little relieved as he takes some sanitizer. “We must have caught him on a good day. Usually he’s a bit more prickly. The fact that he wasn’t snarking and didn’t insult anyone is weird.”
You hum as you settle at one of the computers, knocking your shoulder against Trinity playfully. “I mean, his job probably needs him to be very to the point. Especially with amputations, there’s not a lot of time to think about anything else.”
Dennis ends up on Trinity’s other side. “She finally met ‘Shark’ today.”
“The fact that you’re not crying right now, Huckleberry, makes me think that she actually didn’t.”
Dennis rolls his eyes. “It was one of the first things I had to deal with and he literally looked like he was going to bite my head off because I didn’t get the ice bath ready ahead of time.”
“Ah, hence ‘Shark’,” you say.
Santos nods. “She gets it.”
—
Tuesday’s shift starts out with a bang, a trauma patient being wheeled in as you’re heading into the building. You all but throw your coat and lunchbox into the hub as you follow alongside the unconscious woman whose arm is hanging on by a few inches of skin and muscle.
“30 year old woman, Mrs. Armitage. Neighbors called 911 when she was trimming her bushes and got the other end of the chainsaw in her arm,” Jesse says, backing her gurney into a free room, “Pulse is thready from bloodloss. BP isn’t reading, but she’s still breathing. Ortho already on their way regarding reattachment, but they want her stable.”
“Alright, we’ve got to do something about that arm,” Robby says, snapping on a set of gloves, handing you a pair, “I need you to finish exicising the arm. Grab a scalpel and cut through the remaining muscle and tissue. We’ll handle sedation and getting her heartrate up.”
It takes you a moment to realize that he’s talking to you. Your body moves on instinct to grab the closest scalpel and head to the patient’s arm. There’s still a good chunk of flesh between it and the rest of her body. It’s been moved so that there’s a towel resting in the places where skin should have been and you try not to feel nauseous.
You distantly hear Robby shouting out orders and hear the door to the room open behind you.
You can feel your hand shaking, but bite the inside of your cheek to try and get yourself to focus. It has to be done and it has to be done quickly. Mrs. Armitage’s wellbeing depended on it.
Before you can start to move, you feel someone’s body press alongside yours.
“I’m walking you through this,” a familiar voice whispered, “Do exactly as I say. Big breath in, and plunge straight down.”
You could only nod, the world narrowing to Dr. Park’s voice against your ear and the incision you were making.
“Nice and easy, let the blade do the work. All you need to focus on is where it’s going. Keep your hands steady. If you’re losing your grip or start going in another direction, just lift the blade up.”
For a minute, you’re fine. But as soon as you feel your grip drifting, you lift the scalpel up. Dr. Park is literally right behind you and your back is flush against his chest as you straighten.
“You’re okay,” he whispers, “Take a breath. One last push should do it. We’re waiting on you.”
Perfect. All of the pressure. A hand rests on your shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. You take another deep breath and bend back down. You find your cut and move the scalpel through the last bit of muscle.
“Once more to get through the skin. That’s it.”
One last bit of pressure from under your scalpel and Mrs. Armitage’s arm flops onto her torso. You straighten up, but don’t feel Dr. Park’s weight against you. He’s already assessing the arm, calling for saline and an ice bath.
You take a step back towards the room’s door and look to Dr. Robby.
“Can I take a few?”
He nods. “Head to the lounge, I’ll swing by in a few minutes.”
You stop by the hub first after getting rid of your gloves and gown to grab your things (which Perhla had so nicely arranged on a chair for you to find) and apologize for throwing your stuff. Then you head to the lounge and settle at one of the tables. You’ll go to your locker after checking in with Dr. Robby, for now you just needed to sit and breathe.
The buzzing of the vending machines is white noise in your ears and you feel a bit more yourself by the time Robby arrives. He sits in the chair in front of you, giving you a knowing look.
“First time?”
“I’ve only read about procedures like that; it was a lot.” The fact that you had to finish severing someone’s limb in order to save it felt odd. From what you’d learned, it needed to be done, especially for the injury your patient had. In a case like that, there was a threat of pathogens settling in the connective tissue if it wasn’t properly cleaned or cauterized, which could only occur if it was detached.
This was a moment that made you wonder if emergency medicine was the right path for you. You could work with members of the public with issues, you’d been in customer service long enough to have a full persona for yourself if there was a difficult patient. But a spur of the moment excision of an arm was not something you’d prepared yourself for.
“You handled yourself well,” Dr. Robby says, a wider, softer smile on his face, “You were calm for the patient and listened to Dr. Park. I don’t think that Mrs. Armitage will have to worry about issues after her surgery because of what you did.”
You can’t help but perk up. “So, the arm was viable?”
“Absolutely. I know we can sometimes second guess ourselves in situations like that, but you just needed a little nudge to do something for the betterment of the patient.” He gets up from his seat and gives you a pat on the shoulder.
“Get some water and then get back out there.”
—
You bump into Dr. Park as you’re leaving your locker. His body is solid as stone and you’re pretty sure you bounced off of his chest when you bumped it. The man is literally a wall of muscle.
“Hi!” you squeak. All you get in return is a raised eyebrow.
“Um…thank you for the instruction. That was my first time with a situation like that.”
That got a bit more emotion out of him, a small crinkle around his eyes and the slightest lift of his lips. “You took it well.”
Before you realize it, you can feel one of his large hands on yours, turning your arm around to look down at your right wrist.
“Doesn’t seem like there’s any latent bruising. And the fact you were holding a scalpel tells me it hasn’t affected your grip.”
You can’t help but grin up at him. “So, you did recognize me from Sunday night.”
He nods. “I figured you didn’t want someone airing out your weird encounter during a consultation. Besides, I’ve got an image to uphold.”
“Ah yes, I’ve learned your nickname around here.” You click your teeth together and watch as Dr. Park rolls his eyes.
“That’s the ED’s nickname, I had no say in it.”
He’s still holding your wrist as silence settles around you. His grip is warm, just like it was two days ago, his hands holding your wrist like it’s something precious.
You hear someone clear their throat and you both turn to see Trinity standing in the doorway. Dr. Park drops his hand and retreats immediately. You watch him leave, feeling heat rising to your cheeks.
Looking over at Trinity, she has a smug grin on her face. “I thought I was saving you from the Shark. Should I have waited a few minutes?”
“Nope. All good. Going back to work now, leave me alone!”
—
“Twinkie, please don’t do this to me.”
You finally made it home after the whirlwind of a Tuesday. You had been ready to collapse on your bed for at least an hour before you attempted to get some food in your stomach and take a long hot shower before you properly went to bed, but a neighbor had knocked on your door to ask about something and, during the exchange, Twinkie had decided to make a break for it.
He didn’t usually sneak out of the apartment when you opened the door, but whenever he did it, it was like he knew you were either tired or had a bad day. This time, he was playing keep away, heading down the hallway at a slow pace, then picking up speed as if he could feel you start to reach for him. Your neighbor hadn’t stayed to help and it was taking all of your composure not to start screaming curses into the hall.
You realize too late that Twinkie’s making a beeline for the elevator. You prayed to whoever was listening that no one was stopping on your floor, but as soon as the thought left you, the elevator dinged. You watch Twinkie’s ears perk up as one of your neighbors exits and he starts heading inside.
“No, no, no, no!!” you call out as the doors start to close.
Then, there’s a large boot stopping the door and you back away as the doors open.
Dr. Park exits the elevator with Twinkie under one arm. His eyes widen a fraction at seeing you, but masks it by maneuvering the cat to hold out to you.
“Looks like you’ve got quite the escape artist,” he says, dropping the orange cat in your waiting arms.
“He knows he’s bad,” you mutter, cradling the cat like a baby. Twinkie is purring, looking at you with wide eyes as he slow blinks like a perfectly behaved gentleman. How dare he look so cute when you are in the midst of having a full blown panic attack because Dr. Park lives in the same building as you and now knows you have a cat and has held said cat without getting bit.
Also, you can’t help but admire him out of scrubs. It gives him a softer look. Even his hair looks softer…or, did he just have his hair slicked back for work and now it doesn’t have product in it?
Oh god, you needed to sleep.
Dr. Park clears his throat as you realize you’d been staring at him for a little too long. “Thank you for grabbing him.”
“Glad I could help,” he mutters, then heads back to the elevator doors. Before you turn, you watch him hit the ‘up’ button. The doors open immediately and you turn back to head to your place before you can see him turn back around.
summary: as a way to relieve stress from being a resident in the PTMC, you sleep around. over the years, you’ve managed to keep it uncomplicated by following one strict principle: never sleep with coworkers. however, unbeknownst to you, your attending physician, Jack Abbot, wants to be an exception to that principle.
this was based on an idea that i posted weeks ago!
chapter 1, chapter 2
wc: 4.5k
warnings/tags: +18 mdni, jack abbot x reader, resident!reader, sex positive!reader who sleeps around just for stress relief, jealous!jack abbot, jack is a little toxic and an ass to reader, switch!reader, implied switch!jack, yearning jack, one-sided yearning (maybe or maybe not), masturbation, jack feels guilty for jerking off to his resident lol, ellis is reader's bestfriend, may be a lil ooc
a/n: first time writing smut so im saying sorry in advance, i kinda went a lil crazy writing this one so i decided to make it two chapters dsahjahjs (i worked on this for almost a month sdhjshjadshad but i hope i fixed this enough after reading thru it many times. i may need a beta reader for the next chapter) also wanna put it out there that i heavily fw characters thinking to themselves a lot so sorry hjsdahjas
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.
Surrounded by busy healthcare workers, patients, and their concerned significant loved ones, Ellis was the first one who noticed how you're in such a great mood despite being surrounded by such chaos and uncertainty if things are gonna go well in the ER.
She has known you for the entire time you started working here, immediately clocking it the moment you step out of the locker area, still adjusting your scrubs, eyes already scanning the board.
She takes a step beside you, looking at the same board.
"You got laid?" Ellis asks casually.
"Mhmm," you confirm, almost absentmindedly, a stupid grin on your face. Jesus, you're in bliss.
"How was it?" she asks, with a neutral face.
"I almost passed out," you grin slyly, giving her a summary of how the guy you met from the bar gave you a really, really good time in his apartment.
She breaks, laughing shortly, impressed, "Damn. So I'm assuming you're gonna see him again?"
"Yep," you pop the last letter.
"Oh, now I'm intrigued," she now looks at you, arms crossed, "So, are you gonna give me some details?"
"Of course, anything for my favorite doctor," you chuckle, already expecting this question as you pull your phone out of your scrubs to show her the guy's picture.
"It's a good thing he works at night shift like me, so we can bang after work and—"
You stop when you hear someone clearing his throat, a familiar one. You already know who it is, from how deliberate he's being.
You turn around, lowering your phone.
"Apologies, did I interrupt something more important than saving people?" Jack says almost innocently, the kind of tone he uses to make you feel worse. He looks at you with his shoulders squared up and his hands on his back.
"Oh uh.. No, sorry…" you say softly, unable to meet his eyes as you put your phone back into your pocket, keeping it in mind for later. Your attention drops briefly to the floor before you straighten again.
Beside you, Ellis shifts her weight, keeping her face neutral and unaffected by the intrusion, but she straightens up her posture in front of the attending as well.
Jack tilts his head, as if he's trying to figure out what your business was before he approached you.
He doesn't reply for a moment, keeping you on your toes.
"Save the girls' talk when we're not getting swarmed by patients, okay?" he says, almost sternly but not quite.
"Okay," you answer, making yourself feel small.
"Good, now come along. I need more hands on this patient," Jack nods towards trauma room 3, and walks ahead of you, not waiting to see if you follow, because he already knows you will.
─────────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───────────
Jack Abbot liked it more when you came into the ED with a frown on your face.
Sure, he's not fond of his favorite resident being in an awful mood. That's not something he would ever admit, because it sounds wrong the moment it’s put into words, especially coming from an attending physician. It's obviously selfish and petty, completely out of character with the kind of person he’s always been.
He is a very generous man, and the man who has gone out of his way to provide the help, comfort, and care anyone needs. He doesn't like it when people he cares for aren't happy.
But seeing you displeased—unsatisfied —also meant that whoever you chose, whoever you gave your time and attention to, that version of yourself he never gets to see didn't give you what you wanted. Which means you're still free, that no one has gotten a hold of you yet.
It sounds disgusting when he puts it that way, but he can't help it.
You are known to be that one resident who has a pretty active dating life, maybe more accurately, just a very active sex life.
Surprisingly, the people in the department didn't find it scandalous. They knew that this part of your personal life was something that you do to relieve stress. Nothing more, nothing deeper. It just so happens that this is how you cope with the stressful environment you willingly chose to be in the moment you decided to pursue this specialty.
It's not like you're reckless as well, you're… well, safe and careful. Hell, some of your co-workers approach you for advice. Some nurses and residents would approach you, trying to be discreet when asking you for your input or a tip when they're dealing with something related to their sex lives.
You were oddly respected for being that resident who, well, to put it simply, sleeps around.
Because you don’t let it interfere with your work in the PTMC.
You still show up promptly. You still work well with your peers and handle patients with the utmost care and knowledge that you have. Your charts are well-written, your decisions well-thought-out, and your hands steady even when your work environment isn’t. There’s no sloppiness to pin on you, no mistake anyone can trace back to a distraction or a bad decision the night before.
And of course, Jack knows about your reputation and, to be blunt, he's not a fan of it.
Not that he thinks it's shameful. Jack Abbot is sex positive! He doesn't care what the hell people do when they're horny as long as they're doing it safely and no one is getting hurt.
The issue is that it's you.
He doesn't think less of you because of it. God, he'd never do that. He understands coping mechanisms. He respects boundaries.
Everyone finds their own way to cope with the pressure, the exhaustion, the constant emotional whiplash that comes with this job.
Yours just happens to look like fleeting relationships and temporary release.
Over the time you have been working in his department, it took him a while to notice your pattern— whether you had a good fuck or not. Your work was consistent, which is impressive— but your mood, mannerisms, and body language are big indicators.
When you’re lighter, looser, almost amused by everything, he knows that the person you bed with was good and you'll probably see them again. When you’re sharp-edged, antsy, and just a little more reckless with your words, especially with stubborn patients, he knows that you just wasted your time with an asshole who is all talk but no fucking bite and that you probably already ghosted them.
He hates himself for taking note of it. It's none of his business. It has never been his business.
He knows to himself that it is creepy. It's almost cruel. Why would an attending physician even take note of something that isn't connected to their work at all?
Still, he finds himself watching you more closely on those nights when the frown lingers. Not out of concern alone, though that’s the excuse he tells himself—but because there’s something much more selfish in it. A selfish, fleeting satisfaction that settles in his chest when you seem to be in a bad mood, unimpressed, when whatever—or whoever—you gave your time to failed to meet your standards.
He knows better than to insert himself into something that is, by all accounts, none of his business. But despite understanding all that, it doesn't really help the gnawing feeling that haunts him every day.
It doesn't stop the jealousy that burns in his chest every time he overhears another story, another name, another reminder that people who barely know you get the parts of you he secretly wants too.
And another thing that he isn't a fan of is that you are a woman of discipline in your sex life. You are so stuck up on this rule of yours:
"Sorry, it's part of my principles not to sleep with co-workers."
That exact line is what you always say when someone from the hospital tries to hit on you—fellow residents, nurses, people from other departments.
Jack has heard it enough times to anticipate it before you even open your mouth. He’s watched it land on different people; some laugh it off, some push, some look almost insulted, but you never waver. He loves and hates how firm you are.
It is surprising and somehow irritating that you managed to uphold that stupid principle of yours for almost three years.
You would rationalize this rule of yours as the inevitability of ruining the rapport you have built with the people in the workplace. You have no plans of adding to the already messed-up environment in the emergency room.
The inevitable fallout between your co-workers seems small. But you just don't want to deal with what happens after. The day after. The shift after.
You don't want to have any friction with the people you work with. And in the ED? Friction might cause someone's life.
But Jack, the selfish man that he has become ever since you came to his department, wants to be an exception to that.
Although, he sees why you're so ironclad with that rule. Some people in the ED, of course, let their curiosities and genitals get the best of them, which resulted in a very awkward and tense working environment springing up from time to time. Witnessing what happened with Robby and Collins, along with Santos and Garcia, was enough for you to decide it isn’t worth it.
Jack can see the logic. He can respect it. He can even agree with it in the abstract.
And still, it doesn’t sit right with him that he is automatically included in the same category as everyone else. But he knows that being your attending physician? That is absolutely off-limits for you.
Being your co-worker and your superior. He definitely doesn't have a chance. The imbalance alone is enough to shut the door before it ever even opens.
But you have no idea how much he is willing to put in line to have you.
How much he wants you, and how much this want and need haunts him every fucking day.
─────────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───────────
Jack finds himself absolutely fuming when he still hears about your latest boy toy a few weeks later. You have been seeing him for weeks now, specifically 20 days—not that he's counting, and that that he would admit, of course.
Apparently, his name is Jake. A typical name for a douchebag, Jack thinks.
If you change the last two letters of that douchebag's name, it could've been his name instead.
The fact that this one hasn’t faded out the way the others usually do. That’s new. That’s… irritating.
The longest one before him lasted almost a week.
*
"That must be a record," Ellis teases, looking over your shoulder as you send a text back to Jake.
"What?" You lock your phone, putting it back in your pocket
"Aren't you guys technically in a relationship?" She raises an eyebrow.
"Jesus, it's not that serious," you roll your eyes.
If it's not that serious, not even deep. Then why the hell is this guy still in your life?
"What's so special about this guy?" she nudged your shoulder.
"He's good, I already told you," you shrug.
"That absolutely tells me everything and nothing at once," she scoffs
"What do you even want to know?" you sigh in exasperation.
"Juicy stuff. Come on, why are you weirdly discreet now? Is he special?" Ellis probes
"Oh my god, since when have you been nosy?"
"Can you even blame me?"
"Fine, well. He's really good. He knows what he's doing, with his hands, his mouth,," you say in a hushed tone, telling Ellis the juicy stuff but keeping it vague to not further expose yourself.
But of course, Jack can still hear it. His hearing is weirdly good when he's around you, despite his age.
Ellis lets out a sharp laugh, immediately catching on. “Oh, that kind of good.”
"Crazy stamina too," you giggle.
God, you sound so cute when you giggle, but he hates what provoked you to make that noise.
"It's nice that he also works at nights. Makes things convenient. Helps me loosen up a lo—"
Jack walks up behind them again, clearing his throat. He sees you stop still for a moment.
Fuck. You thought to yourself.
"Done with your charts, Doc?" Jack raises an eyebrow, his tone gentle and polite as ever.
"Uh.. I only have one to finish—"
"Then you should be finishing it, chop chop," Jack’s gaze lingers on you for half a second longer than necessary—making you feel exposed and ashamed of what you were just talking about.
He shifts his attention toward the floor, patients filling the room.
“Trauma’s filling up,” he adds,“I expect you both ready.”
“Yeah,” you murmur, already stepping back slightly, slipping your phone deeper into your pocket as Jack turns to the other way.
─────────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───────────
This feels very demeaning, Jack thinks to himself as he pulls down his pants along with his briefs.
Whatever this is, it feels humiliating but it's enough to get him off. He can settle with this: to think of you in times of his need and, when he's done, momentarily get you off his mind.
He feels like a teenager, holding back his stiff cock until he gets home. He always gets riled up when he's around you. This is almost a daily routine for him every after shift.
He sits down on the edge of his bed as he fully discards his scrubs, and hurriedly removes his prosthetic so he can lie down on his bed—a bed too spacious for him, but would fit if he's with a certain resident he's about to jerk off to.
The moment he got rid of what he needs to be comfortable, he lies down, head resting on his pillows as he starts palming himself, closing his eyes.
He likes to start thinking about kissing you. How your lips would feel on his, how soft and warm it would be pressed on his. He has always liked looking at your lips, and he struggles not to especially when you're presenting a case because if he indulges himself too much, you'll see through him.
He wraps his rough hand around his cock, slowly stroking it, his breaths getting heavier as he focuses on thinking about his pretty doctor.
Jack likes to think that it's him you spend your intimate moments with, instead of whoever the fuck you chose to be with that day. He wishes to be the one on top or under you, whatever you prefer. He'd do anything you'll ask him to do; he's flexible like that.
If his hypothesis is correct, supported by the stories he has overheard, you like being a sub and dom— a switch, as Santos would define it, when she and Whitaker were talking about you while they were gossiping instead of doing charts.
Sometimes he likes to imagine himself taking charge of you. He loves thinking of himself right on top of you, and there you are, lying on your back with your legs spread and glistening, every pretty part of you in front of him.
He groans softly, hand slowly pumping his hard shaft to relieve himself.
'Fuck yeah,' he whispers, picturing you asking for it, begging for it. You were always so polite when you would ask him for help with your cases, how you would sweetly ask, "Doctor Abbot, can I get your opinion?"
But you were always so polite, always so professional.
Jack can't help but wonder what you would sound like when you're not polite and professional anymore. Would you be needy? stubborn? or just bratty? Would you give in or put up a fight when he's being rough?
But then he is also very curious of letting you take charge. Just like how you would use your strict tone on him, the same tone you use on stubborn patients, younger residents and interns.
He imagines you telling him what to do to please you. Hovering over him, looking down on him like he's some pervert who is under your mercy. He has heard how you have taken care of people you dominate in bed. It's nothing really explicit but he imagines you being on top of them, grinding your core on theirs with a menacing smile as you take in every bit of reaction you get out of them as you move your hips.
He moves his hand faster now, collecting the precum leaking on his tip to spread all over his throbbing member, making it easier for him to pick up his pace. He keeps tugging himself, breathy moans filling the silent room.
God, he wishes it was him. He always does, everytime you're in a good mood after a night out, he wishes to be the one behind your delightful mood when you enter the ED.
It's selfish to think of you like this and he shouldn't entertain it. That's what he always tells himself before and after he jerks himself off, but never during. It's a painful cycle, a painful ethical dilemma that he's been struggling with.
He shouldn't be thinking of a senior resident like this. The power balance is tricky. But how can't he?
You're— everything he respects, first. You're smart and unshakably competent. You always know what you're doing in the emergency room.
You are so gorgeous too, with or without even trying. You are just so exceptional and Jack cannot get over how you plague his brain so much when he's alone on his bed.
Because there is so much of you that he doesn't know, what you're like outside of the department.
He moves his hand faster, relieving himself all of the tension and warmth building up in his cock. God, he wishes you would just let him take care of you so you wouldn't have to go through that awful cycle of hookups.
He hates how it twists in his gut, this need clawing at him, making him stroke harder, the slick sound of pre-cum easing the friction. It's pathetic, really, jerking off to the thought of you while trying to push you away, to erase the way your voice echoes in his head, the way your body radiates heat when you're close, and the way your pretty face looks at him when you're listening to his instructions intently.
Sweat beads on his forehead as he pumps his fist, He shakes his head, biting his lip to stifle a groan. He wants to forget about you, because this is just so complicated to be in.
Everytime he gets too deep into this, he spirals. All the want, need, lust turns into this ugly anger that he feels guilty for.
Not angry at you, of course. But at himself.
Anger for feeling this way for his resident. Anger for not being the one you spend your time with outside of the ED.
He couldn't stop the spiral, the way his mind twisted the envy into something vicious. Jack's hand tightened around his cock, veins bulging under his grip as he thrust into his fist, imagining it was you around him instead—tight, slick, pulling him deeper with every roll of your hips.
The stories you'd shared in the break room, casual as if discussing shift schedules, replayed in his head:
Fuck, why them? Why not him? Jack's breath hitched, his free hand clawing at the sheets as he pictured himself instead of the people you slept with.
His thumb swiped over the head of his cock, smearing the leaking pre-cum, and he groaned low, the sound ragged in the empty room.
Jealousy burned hot in his chest, mixing with the building pressure in his balls.
It's always like this when Jack masturbates to the thought of you. All the want, the need, the ugly guilt, jealousy and anger mixed up in his body. He always puts himself through this, willingly too as much as he's afraid to admit. Because he just can't get you out of his head and his heart.
He hated how you laughed off the exhaustion of the ER, turning to strangers for release while he watched from the sidelines, pulse racing every time you brushed past him in the hallway.
He has been working with you for years and yet he knows so little about you.
Yes, he wants you, bad. But it’s about the fact that you keep choosing people who don’t see you the way he does.
People who don’t know how your mind works, how sharp you are under pressure, how steady your hands stay when everything else is falling apart.
Yet, they're the ones you go to.
They’re the ones you let in, even if only temporarily.
How can a beautiful person settle with people who don't even know how to actually take care of you?
Jack's hips bucked involuntarily, fucking his hand faster, the wet schlick echoing in shame.
He wants to be the one who makes you feel good. To outdo them all, to be the best one you have ever had, to make you come so hard you'd shatter, and you wouldn't seek this relief from anyone else because he would be always there for you. There for you to use, to go to either for comfort, for release, and even for love.
His abs clenched, sweat trickling down his temple as the fantasy peaked. He imagined how your face would be all hazed and gorgeous, as he pleases you. How you would say his name, so vulnerable under him.
With a choked curse, Jack came, ropes of hot cum spilling over his knuckles, splattering his stomach. But even as the aftershocks faded, the emptiness hit harder, his need for you, and his shame tied with it, lingering like a bruise.
─────────── ⋆⋅ ♰ ⋅⋆ ───────────
You take the rare silence in the ED as your opportunity to catch up on your charts. You settle on one of the computers easily, typing away on the keyboard when you hear a chair slide next to you.
"Someone's awfully quiet," she breaks the silence.
"I'm working," you mutter, eyes on the screen.
After another moment of silence, Ellis moves closer to you.
“By this time you’d be talking about what your cat just did,” Ellis continues, nudging your arm lightly, “or whatever random thing you watched last night, or which fictional character you’re currently obsessed with—honestly, I can go on.”
You huff out a quiet breath, eyes still fixed on the screen. “I'm just not in the mood, Ellis."
"I'm guessing something happened," she slides her chair closer to you.
"Can't I just focus on work?"
"Nope."
"Whatever."
"How are you and your boytoy by the way?" she asks out of curiosity, not that she's looking for anything juicy, but you've been seeing this guy for more than a month already as far as Ellis knows.
"He ended things," you answer, a little abruptly, and a little too flatly.
“What?” she turns fully now, eyes narrowing like she’s trying to read past your tone. “Wait—what do you mean he ended things?”
You shrug, too quickly, like it’s nothing. Like it doesn’t bother you. "It's whatever. It was bound to happen."
“Oh no,” she mutters, stepping closer, arms crossing. “Absolutely not. You don’t get to drop that and then act like it’s nothing. What happened?”
“Nothing happened,” you insist, already turning back to your chart, hoping that’ll be the end of it.
“Uh-uh,” Ellis leans in slightly, lowering her voice but sharpening it at the same time. “Spill.”
You hesitate, filling out one section before stopping, taking a deep breath.
"It sounds weird."
"We deal with weird shit all the time, I can take it."
"Stop it."
"Come on"
"Ellis."
Ellis says your name, with a pleading tone. You sigh and remove your hands from the keyboard.
"I uh.."
"Hmm?"
"Well.."
"Just spill it out!"
"Okay!" you huff, getting annoyed by her persistence.
You take a deep breath, closing your eyes monetarily.
"When we.. when we were well, doing it..I may have said another name," you say quietly.
"But! I genuinely misspoke!" you follow up a little too quickly.
Ellis raises an eyebrow.
"Whats his name again?" she tilts her head.
"Jake."
"And you misspoke how?" she emphasizes the last word.
You gaze away, feeling your head about to explode from embarrassment.
"Come on, don't tease me."
"Well it's…" you trail off.
"What?" Ellis pushes it.
"Jack" you say softly, almost a whisper.
"I'm sorry what?" Ellis asks again, thinking she may have misheard.
"I may have said Jack instead of Jake," you say in a harsh whisper
Ellis's jaw drops, "Oh my fucking god. You mean our attending?"
"It was an accident! I—"
“An accident?” she repeats, incredulous. “You accidentally said your attending’s name—your attending’s name—in the middle of—”
You smack her arm to shut her up, your face heating up so badly now.
“I know,” you cut in quickly, dragging a hand down your face. “I know, okay? That’s why he ended things.”
“Yeah, no shit he ended things,” Ellis mutters, still staring at you like she’s trying to process it. “I would’ve ended things too!”
“It wasn’t like that,” you insist, though your voice lacks the conviction you want it to have. “It just slipped out.”
Ellis narrows her eyes at you.
“Mm-hmm.”
You glare at her. “Don’t.”
“I’m not saying anything,” she says, holding her hands up in mock surrender—but the look on her face says otherwise.
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking a lot of things.”
“Ellis—”
"What?"
"God, just leave me alone."
Ellis just chuckles, messing with your hair.
"You know I can see through you right?"
"And what the fuck does that mean?" you grumble.
"Jesus, getting hostile?"
You huff, rolling your eyes.
"I'm sure it's not obvious to anyone but, you've kind of had a thing for Jack for a while, haven't you?" she says in a low voice that you can only hear.
“That’s insane,” you say, too fast.
Ellis doesn’t react to the speed. Just watch you settle back into pretending this conversation isn’t happening.
“Is it?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Mhm.”
The sound is infuriatingly calm, you just turn to the computer again.
You click through the chart harder than necessary, eyes locked on the screen.
“This is not a thing,” you add.
"Oh come on, I'm not gonna tell anyone"
"Ellis."
"And I mean, I've seen how you looked at him and—"
"Stop."
"You dont have to stick with that rule of—"
"Ellis, please stop."
"I’m not even judging you! I’m just saying maybe there’s a reason you accidentally said his na—"
"Will you please shut the fuck up!" you say a little too loudly.
The sound cuts through the low hum of the ED just enough that a couple of heads subtly shift in your direction.
You let out an exasperated sigh, grounding yourself from how that conversation rattled you a little more than you expected.
"I.. Sorry everyone. I need a break," you excuse yourself, walking straight outside the ER.
You didn't even notice that Jack has been sitting just a few feet away from you this whole time, watching you walk out of the floor.
Summary: When faced with your awful, cheating ex at an old friend's wedding, a desperate lie suggests a date that doesn't exist will be arriving soon. Enter Jack Abbot, a face you never expected to see here, thousands of miles from Pittsburgh where you both work together in the Emergency Room. [Inspired by this anonymous prompt.]
Word Count: 4.1 (OOPS)
Content Warnings: No huge warnings to give, it's Jack Abbot so age gap is basically to be expected (Unspecified age, but Jack is implied to be "uncle" age). Some rude commentary, some language. Mostly just fluff an comfort and feelings. The biggest warning I have to give -- Jack in a suit with the sleeves rolled up. No use of y/n, lots of pet names instead.
You shouldn’t be here.
As stunning as it is, tables adorned with delicate wildflower centerpieces, chiffon draped through the exposed beams in the ceiling, rainbows reflecting off of the mirrorball on the dance floor. Pretty faces plastered with pretty smiles, cutlery clinking against crystal, hoots and hollers and laughter filtering through the air amongst the dinner service playlist.
As stunning as you are, draped in chartreuse satin and glowing at the hands of a professional makeup artist.
The ceremony was beautiful and the hall is beautiful and you feel beautiful but you should not be here.
To be clear, you were honored when your childhood best friend asked you to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, thrilled. You stood dutifully by her side through planning and shopping and bridal showers and bachelorette parties. You met her husband-to-be with open arms and didn’t even have to pretend to laugh at any of his jokes. Long distance travel from your current residence in Pittsburgh to your hometown for wedding events meant that you didn’t get to mingle much with the groomsmen, but were promised you would love them.
Upon arrival at the rehearsal dinner two days ago, you were struck with the realization that you did love one of them, once. The best man, also known as the big ex that broke your heart right before you started your intern year at PTMC.
“Lovebug!” He greeted, interrupting the bride introducing you, with a smarmy smile and overly affectionate use of his former pet name for you. “Fancy meeting you here!” An evil sort of shine glimmered in his eyes, reminding you of a predator locked in on its prey. One arm, clothed in a too-expensive Armani suit, wrapped snugly around the rail-thin blonde beside him and the pair of them exude an overall better-than-you aura.
“Oh, you know each other?” Your childhood friend, Kate, asked with a small, excited gasp. She reached for your hand as well as his and held them both with a small shake. “What a small world!”
“Uh, you could say that.” You mumbled, eyeing your ex uneasily. He flashed the pre-loved Piaget watch that you gifted him for his law school graduation, and you couldn’t quite tell if he was doing so just to rub it in, or if he actually forgot that you gifted it to him and was trying to show off.
Voice thick with self-importance and false humility, he cut in again. “Lovie here and I helped each other survive the hallowed halls of Columbia together.” The girl on his arm looked less and less interested the more he referred to you with soured old pet names, but she clearly still had the satisfaction of being the one on his arm now, a fact that only made you pity her, want to warn her to get out now.
The gasp that tore at Kate’s throat could rival a soap opera star. “You mean that this Brandon, my fiance’s best friend Brandon is YOUR Brandon?”
“Formerly my Brandon, yes,” you hissed and shook her hand from your wrist, “but that is all in the past, a fact that I’m sure your lovely date would appreciate being kept in the past, so you can address me by name if you don’t mind. I’m not your Lovie anymore.”
A few more awkward moments of conversation passed. Conversation in which he continued to talk down to you and make you feel small, feel silly for showing up here alone when you didn’t even know he would be in attendance. Conversation in which you could not stop reliving the pain of catching him cheating on you at your own med school graduation party. Conversation in which you stupidly put your foot in your mouth and told him that no, you aren’t going alone to this wedding, your plus one just had to work late that night and would be joining you for the wedding itself.
Sitting here now, as Brandon wraps up what was admittedly a pretty compelling best man speech with a disgusting, drunken double entendre, you can’t help but wonder why you said that. It’s not like it was an easy lie to back up. You hardly know anyone here, nobody even close to being able to pretend they are your plus one.
As the night goes on, all eyes are on Kate and her new husband. Or, all but two. You can feel his smug stare as they cut the cake, as they shared their first dance, and a familiar shame comes creeping back up your neck. The longer the night goes on, the more it feels like he is practically gloating, that he somehow won, coming up on top from your breakup with the successful career and beautiful sorority girl arm candy and not showing up to a wedding alone and lying about having a date. As if you weren’t killing it in your emergency medicine residency and saving lives every damn day.
When the dance floor opens to the guests, you beeline for the bar and order a double of your go-to drink, scanning the room desperately one last time for a familiar face as Brandon and his date head right for you.
“Where’s this date I heard so much about?” He asks, just to be the asshole he is, he clearly doesn’t care much past humiliating you. He greets the bartender by name in a slimy voice and orders his usual beer, not once asking his date what she would like.
You sweep your hair over one shoulder and fidget with the pendant at your chest. “He um, had to work longer than expected.” The bartender hands over your drink and smiles graciously when you toss a ten into the tip jar. You shift your weight from one foot to the other, preparing for more scathing remarks from your ex. He makes some sort of fake sentimental comment that lets you know he knows you’re lying, but it falls on deaf ears as you catch someone new walking through the double doors at the back of the room. You’re so desperate to find a familiar face that you could swear this newcomer approaching the bar is –
“Jack! You made it!” Kate’s mom shouts the name and bounds over to the man who you can now confirm is your night shift attending physician.
Brandon’s arrogant voice is still buzzing next to you, but you pay him no attention and mumble, “uh, if you’ll excuse me,” without even looking at him and make your way toward Jack Abbot.
He catches sight of you over her shoulder, and he nods along with what she is saying but his eyes are fixated on you the second he recognizes you. Confusion colors his stare, but there’s something heavier there, a slow smirk that spreads onto his features as you approach and his eyes track your movement.
“ –Oh, but please, go get a drink, what’s important is that you’re here now! We’re so glad you made it. Katie will be so happy to see you.” Your friend’s mom pulls Jack in for another quick hug and then is flitting off to greet more guests that she hasn’t had the chance to speak with yet, leaving you the perfect opportunity to interject.
“I thought that was you, Dr. Abbot.” You say in greeting, a small grin gracing your lips. He cleans up well, not that you ever doubted it, in a well tailored navy blue suit and crisp white shirt pulled almost too-taut across his chest, no tie. “Pardon my French, but what the hell are you doing here?”
He appraises you with his stare, eyes following the way that the satin bridesmaid dress hugs you in all the right ways, rolling his lips between his teeth before grinning again. You and Dr. Abbot are no stranger to lingering glances like this. Whether it’s your Sunday best at this wedding, or rumpled scrubs after a long shift, the two of you always seem to find each other in the chaos and appreciate what you see. Still, in this context, when you can feel his breath fanning against your sweat-damp collarbone, when you catch a whiff of his woodsy cologne instead of sterile antiseptic…it somehow all feels heavier.
“I could say the same to you,” he breathes, reaches a hand out as if he were going to hold your waist, but hesitates and drops it once more. “We’re a long way from Pittsburgh.”
“I grew up here,” you explain, wrinkling your nose at the memories, “Kate and I have been best friends since we were three.”
“Small world,” he hums, lost in thought as he twists his wedding band in place on his finger. He seems to contemplate his next sentence for a moment, looking up to the ceiling with a steadying breath. “My late wife,” he finally utters, voice low and tinged with a melancholy fondness, “was her mom’s roommate before we got married. You wanna talk about best friends, those two were thick as thieves. If I hadn’t been stationed overseas when Katie was born we would have been her godparents.”
You take the last sip of your drink, surprised to find it empty already, and let out your own, “small fuckin’ world.” Your eyes drop to the silver stubble along his jaw, the open collar of his dress shirt, and you bite back a grin, feeling lucky that you’ve found yourself in such a context to get to see him like this.
“What’s that look for?” He prods.
You manage to giggle out a quiet, “nothin’.”
Feeling a distinct lack of eyes on you, you turn back toward the bar to confirm that your ex and his date are no longer there, feeling a slight weight off of your shoulders, even for a moment. “I don’t mean to keep you, Dr. Abbot,” you say with a sigh and reach out to squeeze his shoulder affectionately, “go, find the people you came here to see.”
“Alright, yeah,” he nods once, shoving his hands in his pockets, but if the tone of his voice and the way his eyes rake over your features suggest anything, he couldn’t care less to do anything but stand in the middle of the dining tables and keep this conversation going. “But honey,” his voice is warm, the term of endearment lingering between you, “we’re not at the hospital, please call me Jack.”
“Sure,” you beam, turning to head back to the bar. Before you make it too far, you look over one shoulder to catch him still standing in the same place, watching you go. “Save a dance for me later, Jack?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he promises.
A blissful hour of cake and champagne and dancing carefree with the other bridesmaids later, you’re reminded all too suddenly of the reason your mood was sour to begin with. His date is sitting at their table, giving her feet a rest from the 5-inch heels she refuses to take off, and he has found a comfortable spot at your side, being annoying as ever.
The bar staff is busier now, but the same bartender from earlier recognizes you and the fact that you’ve tipped every single time, so she prioritizes taking your order. It, regrettably, still takes some time to get made, and as you wait, Brandon talks your ear off about how well things have gone for him in the year and a half since your breakup. You’re rubbing your temples and contemplating slamming your head into the wooden bartop when he gloats about your very real date still not being in attendance.
Not for long, though.
A warm hand finds the small of your back, and you stiffen for just a moment before the masculine scent of Jack Abbot’s cologne convinces you to relax once more. He presses against you in an embrace more familiar than you would expect, and the gravel in his voice sends a shiver up your spine when he leans down to ask, “you okay, honey?”
When you turn to steal a glance at him, for all the warmth in his tone, his stare is harsh and cold and fixated on your ex. You wonder if he’s caught on, if he heard what Brandon was saying about your date and decided to play the part. That’s when you decide to lean into it, to put on a bit of a show.
You pull your best pout and lean back into his chest, silently thanking the powers that be when he follows suit and drops his other hand to tangle his fingers with yours.
“Yeah, I’m sorry darling,” the pet name feels foreign on your tongue but you pour all the sweetness you can manage into your tone to combat it. “I completely forgot what you asked me to order for you, I was just trying to remember when Brandon here came up for a chat.”
Jack steels his resolve, tries not to jump to conclusions, because how many Brandons are there in the world? But he recognizes that look in your eyes, the pinch between your brows and the hesitation when the pompous asshole in front of you talks. He remembers the name Brandon from your very first week at PTMC, when Trinity practically forced the story of your breakup out of you, and Jack is a pretty smart man, he’s confident in his ability to put two and two together.
“It’s okay,” he assures, squeezing your hand affectionately, then orders an aged scotch on the rocks from the bartender who was patiently waiting. He plays the part of the doting boyfriend and smiles as he tucks your hair behind your ear gently. “You’ve had a long day, lots on your mind–”
“Stuck at work, huh?”
Both you and Jack turn to Brandon in a snap, his bitter tone cutting through the sickly sweet moment, no matter how fake it may have been.
“Uh, yeah.” Jack answers dryly. “Happens sometimes in emergency medicine. Which is something that you understand all too well, don’t you, sweetheart?” He asks the question into your temple, and places a kiss there for punctuation. When did he get so good at acting? Your cheeks flame and you have to hold back the snort of a laugh at the way Brandon stutters in front of you. As soon as Jack’s scotch arrives, he steers you away from the conversation and back to his table.
“Thank you,” you mumble pathetically into your own glass once you sit down. You giggle again at the absurdity of the situation. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
Jack leans against the back of the chair, elbow perched on the backrest of your own, arm dangled casually around your shoulder. The ice in his drink rattles as he taps your shoulder with the cool glass and shrugs. “Maybe not, but I didn’t like the way he was talking to you. You are so much more than what one asshole makes you out to be. Especially one that cheated on you after four years.”
“How did you–”
“C’mon,” he laughs, and it’s contagious. “Same name as the guy who had you moping around for the first half of your intern year. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never seen anyone get under your skin like that, not even Robby when he’s in a mood. Wasn’t too hard to put together.”
Emotion swells in your chest, your throat constricting at the mere feeling of being seen.
You sit with Jack in the quiet as the DJ fades between songs. The room is alight with merriment, joyous laughter and shouting from the dance floor, cutlery clinking as the catering staff clear tables, a few people on the outskirts of the room chatting jovially, but between you and Jack it’s quiet. You sip on your drinks and occasionally catch the other staring, looking away all too quickly, until the DJ announces that he’s going to slow things down for a bit before switching to what he calls the “after the grandparents leave” playlist.
The first few notes of Elton John’s Your Song drift through the room, and this time when you look at Jack, he doesn’t look away. Instead, he tilts his head to the dance floor in invitation, and you happily accept. He shrugs out of his suit jacket, abandoning it on the back of his chair and god bless it, rolls his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing the taut muscle and freckled skin on his forearms in a way that should not be so delicious. Luckily, he doesn’t catch you staring before offering a hand to lead you to the dance floor.
Among the other happy couples in the room, Jack Abbot holds you at a respectable distance, one hand on the small of your back and holding your own hand with the other. Together, you sway to the music and the rest of the room melts away.
“I can’t believe I haven’t told you yet,” he says, so low and honey sweet that it feels dangerously intimate. His hand tightens on yours, “you look radiant tonight.”
“Now that’s a million dollar compliment,” you hum, dropping his hand in favor of twining both of your arms around his neck, pulling him closer still and burying your fingers in the peppered curls at the base of his neck. “You clean up pretty well yourself. ‘S nice getting to see each other in something other than scrubs.”
With your change in position, his hands now rest on your hips, drawing you more and more into his body heat as the song fades from tinkling piano to soft, acoustic guitar. He shakes his head at your words, eyes falling shut in thought, and he squeezes gently at the flesh on your hips. “No, I mean it,” looking back into your eyes, there’s a ferocity there that makes your steps falter, breath caught in your throat. “Not just as a pleasantry or as someone putting on a show for some asshole…I think you’re incredible, sweetheart.” He pauses, deliberates on his words, like he is making sure his point lands. “I mean, you’re a sight in scrubs too, especially when you’re making sure everyone knows you’re the smartest one in the room, but you’re a goddamn knockout right now. This dress. This dress was made for you.”
“I think you’re letting all the romance in the air get to your head, Dr. Abbot.” You tease, continuing to toy with the hair at his nape and savoring the way his hands grip your hips tighter again when you say his name.
“Please,” he huffs and finally pulls you flush against him, arms wrapping tight around you, and he murmurs directly in your ear, “drop the formalities. It’s just Jack here.”
“Mmm, if you insist,” you sigh and rest your cheek on his shoulder, enjoying his closeness for the remainder of Dylan’s original Make You Feel My Love.
When the song is over, you don’t part, not all the way, but you lean back enough to squint up at the man in front of you affectionately. He holds your elbows and savors the way you’re admiring him for just another moment.
You’re about to say something when there’s a beat drop and an air horn and lights all dim. Some of the dancers around you hoot and holler, and suddenly Kate is at your side yelling something about “our song.”
“Oh, yeah,” you shoot her a tight smile, then back at Jack with drawn brows. “Give me just a minute, Kate?”
“No, go ahead,” Jack insists, patting his right leg sheepishly, “I need a break anyway, you girls have fun, I’ll still be here when you’re done.”
You give him a sympathetic look, but he isn’t having any of it, insisting you go enjoy your night and celebrate with your friend.
From the semi-privacy of the dance floor, in low lighting and pumping bass, she asks you, “Okay, what was that about? You know that’s basically my uncle, right?”
You only shake your head and promise to tell her whenever you figure it out for yourself.
The rest of the night passes in a blur of dancing and flashing lights. You celebrate with your friends, share a drink with Kate’s mom and reminisce on your childhood, catch her up on your residency, and even join her new husband, Jack, and her father out on the balcony of the venue, enjoying the cool night air as the three men talk over celebratory cigars. The one thing that you don’t miss as the evening goes on is the spiteful stare of an ex boyfriend whose attendance you couldn’t care less about.
When the attendance dwindles, you hang back to help break down some decorations and make sure the couple isn’t left with loads of work for themselves. Kate’s parents and siblings practically have to shove you out the door, insisting that they have it from there and you’ll miss the last shuttle back to your hotel if you stay any longer. So you grab your clutch and dangle your heels from your fingertips, padding out to the shuttle bay with bare feet and a happy, exhausted little smile.
“‘Bout time.”
Jack is leant against the brick exterior of the venue, his jacket dangling from two fingers over his shoulder, sleeves still rucked up, hair and shirt collar still rumpled from your hands earlier, and he looks like he could eat you for dessert.
“You didn’t have to stay!” You simper and tap his chest with your clutch.
“Wanted to make sure you made it back safe,” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like he actually was your date. You aren’t sure if it’s the weight of his sentiment or the light breeze that makes you shiver, but Jack picks up on it immediately and he’s quick to offer his jacket, holding it open for you with a quiet, “here.”
You envelop yourself in the warmth of the jacket, surrounded by the comfort of his scent and hum of cicadas. Suddenly shy in the vast open air outside of the venue, you mumble your thanks to his shoes, peering down to avoid eye contact.
His knuckle catches your chin, lifting your face to meet his eye, shifting his hold to stroke absently at your cheek with one thumb.
You don’t realize how close you’ve leaned in, eyes flicking rapidly between his own, until he speaks, barely a whisper and you can feel his breath fanning across your lips. “When we get back to Pittsburgh,” he drops his own gaze to your lips, ever so quickly before meeting yours again. “Can I take you to dinner?”
He waits for the ghost of your nod before finally closing the miniscule gap between you. His free hand joins the other, caressing both of your cheeks with eager hands and pressing his lips to yours. Jack swallows your small noise of surprise, and you can’t help but grin into his lips, bringing your hands to rest on his chest as he kisses you, unhurried, like he’s studying every reaction, every hitch in your breath.
The hotel shuttle arrives and the brakes squeal as it pulls up to a stop beside you, but you’ve only just gotten a taste of kissing Jack Abbot and you have no intention of stopping now that you’ve started. You pout when he pulls away from your lips, twist your hands in the fabric of his dress shirt, and savor the low rumble of his laugh at your disappointment. You chase his lips and kiss him once, twice more, not wanting to burst the dreamy bubble you’re in just yet.
“Honey,” he near chastises, “the shuttle’s gonna leave us,” this time he interrupts himself to pull you back into him, pressing one last soft kiss to your forehead that makes you melt a little bit more.
“Fine,” you hum, and let go of his shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles from where you held it. He guides you onto the shuttle and nods at the driver in thanks. Once he’s seated next to you, you lean your head on his shoulder and blink up at him. “But I wanna keep kissing you back at the hotel.”
The shuttle driver suppresses a laugh as he pulls off of the curb, but neither you nor Jack pay him any mind.
“Of course, sweetheart,” he relents with a sly smile, brushing your hair out of your face, “all night if you want to.”
and he’s so grumpy and his back aches all the time and he’s gotta take viagra to get it up for you. and he’s got so much money stashed away in his savings and ISAs and retirement fund and he refuses to waste it on trivial things
type of man whose got a little bit of a beer gut going on, somewhere nice and soft for you to rest your head after he’s fucked you into the mattress. his big meaty paw stroking through your hair, shushing you softly when you begin to yap a bit too much for his tired brain
the food shop is always a bit too expensive because he refuses to eat any meal that doesn’t come with a big chunk of red meat on the plate. wether it’s steak, lamb or pork. sometimes you just want a nice plate of pasta but god forbid you make a fettuccine alfredo without a sirloin on the side for him
leans back in his chair to unbuckle his belt and pop open the button on his jeans when he’s stuffed with food. his hand stroking the back of your thigh when you come beside him to clean his plate. rumbling a soft, “thank you, dolly…”
spends his free time on his back under his truck or renovating part of the house or fixing the leaky plumbing in the bathroom. he’s just a good capable man overall.
It's a strange feeling when you see your childhood crush after all these years; he's grown up, and I've grown up and fallen even more in love with him.
summary: even after swapping from nights to days, you just can’t seem to escape the inconveniently attractive night shift attending. then a ptmc night out, a sparkly dress, and a not-so-innocent game of never have i ever leads to dr. jack abbot making sure you can never utter the words “never have i ever finished during sex” ever again.
notes: i really hope you guys enjoiy this! it was so much fun to write and i just feel like jack is a little easier to put into silly situations than robby, so here i am torturing the poor man! i'm sorry in advance if the smut is kind of mid, i was fighting tumblr's block limit rule with this fic so i feel like i didn't get indulge as much as i would have liked, but still! i hope you guys love it, and please, please let me know what you think! (p.s. i think i mentioned the title was originally 'unaffected' but i like this one better)
warnings: swearing, alcohol, blushing, italics, jealousy, implied age gap, jack is a yearner, reader wears a "revealing" dress (but description is very vague and there's zero detail about body-type), mildly uncomfortable male encounters, friend!santos, pittlings chaos, garsantos mention, jack gets a little possessive, reader has long enough hair to sweep off her neck, and SMUT (making out, fingering, "panties", a tiny bit of dirty talk, unprotected piv, "good girl", and jack says sweetheart a lot) 18+ only please, mdni.
word count: 18889
Jack Abbot had never thought of himself as a jealous man.
Possessive, maybe. Protective, definitely. But jealous? Never.
He had never really had anything to be jealous of.
Until now.
Now there are far too many things.
Like the pen between your lips—and the way you bite down just hard enough to leave a little dent in the plastic while you read through Dana’s notes.
Or Dana herself, and the way you’re looking at her—soft, sleepy, warm in a way that twists something tight in Jack’s chest. The same way you used to look at him in the quiet hours at the end of a night shift.
Or your scrubs—God, your scrubs—and the way they fit just a little too well tonight. Too tight in all the right places. Distracting in ways that are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Jack has never needed to be jealous of anything before, but now he finds himself jealous of inanimate objects, coworkers you barely glance at, and your goddamn clothes.
So, yeah. Jack Abbot had never thought of himself as a jealous man—until you came along.
“Dr. Abbot,” Dana calls, peering over the top of her glasses. “You’re early.”
Beside her, you glance up from your tablet, meeting his eyes across the ER with that same soft smile.
“Dr. Abbot,” you say, like you can’t quite help yourself.
Jack squares his shoulders and starts toward the nurses’ station, determined not to let Dana and her all-knowing, all-seeing bullshit clock exactly why he’s at work almost two hours earlier than he needs to be.
“Yeah, I’ve got some stuff I didn’t get to wrap up this morning,” he lies.
Princess pops up from behind the desk. “I thought you said you stayed back this morning to make sure everything was sorted?”
Jack’s gaze cuts to her. “Yes. But I forgot something.”
Dana narrows her eyes. “Mhm. What’d you forget?”
“A few notes from the three a.m. GSW,” he replies quickly—too quickly.
It’s weak and he knows it, but there’s nothing else he could think of with Dana watching him like that and your warm, sleepy gaze still lingering from across the desk.
Dana nods slowly, adjusting the chart in her hands. “Right. Two hours early for a few notes.”
Jack just shrugs, avoiding her gaze as he walks past—and he doesn’t look back until he’s safely around the corner, standing in front of his locker. Only then does he risk a glance, just briefly over his shoulder, quick enough to catch a glimpse of you disappearing down the North hall.
God. It’s ridiculous, really. He’s a grown man.
More than that—he's an old man.
Yet here he is staying late at work and coming in early just to see more of you. Because ever since you swapped from nights to days, Jack doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. Sure, he could barely concentrate when you were on shift together, but who knew not having you around would be even worse?
He spends the first half of his shift hating himself for being so hung up on someone so young and so impossibly out of reach—then spends the second half anxiously awaiting your arrival for the day shift.
And it’s only been two weeks.
But the absolute worst part?
He doesn’t even know why you swapped shifts. You never even spoke to him about it. You just told him at four a.m. two Saturdays ago that you were switching to day shift. No reason. No explanation. That was it.
At first he wondered if it was his fault—if maybe you’d simply decided you didn’t like working with him.
But you still greet him every morning and every evening with that same warm smile. You still look to him first whenever someone asks for an attending and he’s still around. You still text him whenever the ER cat shows up outside the ambulance bay—which apparently happens much more often during the day shift.
And Jack still buys a packet of freeze-dried liver treats every Sunday to keep in the cupboard above the break room fridge—because he knows how much you love feeding that cat.
“What’re you doing here?”
Jack’s head whips around at the sound of his friend’s voice.
“I—uh—came in early to fix up a few notes,” he says, turning back to shove his bag into his locker.
Robby’s brows lift. “Two hours for notes?”
Jack sighs, slinging his stethoscope around his neck and shutting his locker before turning to face his fellow attending. “Are you of all people really going to lecture me about not having a life outside of this ER?”
Robby chuckles quietly, lifting both hands out of his pockets in surrender. “I wasn’t judging.”
“Good,” Jack mutters, already starting back toward central. “Anything I need to know?”
Robby falls into step beside him. “North Three’s waiting on a CT for possible appendicitis. Kid in Five came in with chest pain but his labs look clean so far. Dana’s still fighting with bed control about moving the pneumonia admit upstairs.”
They both stop at the nurses’ station, glancing up at the board.
“Otherwise it’s been unusually calm,” Robby adds. “Which probably means you’re about to get slammed.”
Jack gives him a flat look. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” Robby claps him on the shoulder. “Oh—and that R2 you gave me?”
“What about her?”
Robby shrugs. “She’s great.”
“I know,” Jack says, keeping his voice carefully even.
Robby studies him for a second, eyes narrowing just a fraction, the corner of his mouth threatening to lift. The man might be a disaster when it comes to his own feelings, but he has an uncanny talent for spotting everyone else’s.
“We’re alright out here if you want to catch up on your notes,” he says after a moment, already turning away. “Or go make the rounds. Get some very thorough handovers from the residents.”
Jack keeps his eyes fixed on the board. “I hate you.”
Robby huffs out a quiet laugh. “Then why are you here two hours early?”
Jack exhales sharply and steps forward, pulling one of the tablets from the rack.
“Notes,” he says, a little louder than necessary.
Robby just shakes his head, still smiling faintly as he disappears down the North corridor.
For a moment, Jack doesn’t move. He lingers at the nurses’ station, tablet in hand, pretending to analyse the board while ignoring the incredibly unsubtle looks from Perlah and Princess—both of them watching him with the kind of interest that usually means someone’s about to become the subject of a very entertaining conversation.
Then, with a polite nod to each of them, he clears his throat and steps away, turning toward the break room—trying very hard not to hope he runs into you on the way.
And trying not to be disappointed when he doesn’t.
The break room is empty when he steps inside, the noise of the ER dulling as the door falls shut behind him. He sets his tablet on the table—next to someone’s half-eaten lunch and a discarded Lean Cuisine container—and grabs a clean mug from the cupboard, pouring the last of the coffee pot into it.
Then he drops into the seat furthest from the door, his back to the bulletin board, and taps the tablet awake, pulling up the notes for the three a.m. GSW. The same notes he already finished in detail while staying back this morning—before Robby told him to get the hell out of his ER and get some sleep.
He barely makes it through two lines of the chart before the door swings open again.
“Shit, sorry,” you say quickly, stepping toward the table.
Jack’s pulse does the same stupid thing it always does whenever he sees you, making his chest feel hot and his head a little fuzzy.
“What are you sorry for?” he asks, as if it isn’t obvious.
You’ve already stacked the Lean Cuisine container on top of the half-eaten bowl of something grey and mushy-looking and are halfway to the sink with them.
“I only got, like, a five-minute break today and had to run out for a trauma, then completely forgot about my lunch,” you explain, cheeks flushed as you glance down at the bowl. “This is gross. I’m so sorry.”
Jack shifts in his chair. “I’ve seen worse in here, I promise.”
You glance over your shoulder as you turn on the tap, the corner of your mouth lifting just slightly. “Really?”
He nods. “Really.”
He could almost swear your smile lifts a little higher before you turn back to the sink, scrubbing hurriedly at the bowl of slop that probably shouldn’t be going down the drain anyway.
Jack clears his throat. “But—uh—Lean Cuisine? Really?”
You look back at him again, brows drawn. “What’s wrong with Lean Cuisine?”
“Nothing,” he says lightly. “If you’re trying to survive a very stressful twelve-hour shift on only four hundred calories.”
You huff a quiet laugh, turning back to the sink. “I actually managed to eat lunch today. That’s already a win.”
“It’s mostly sodium and sadness,” he adds, almost absently. “Not much protein.”
You finally turn the tap off and spin around, leaning a hip against the counter. “Alright, Dr. Abbot. When I find the spare time to start meal prepping between my very stressful twelve-hour shifts, I’ll let you know.”
Jack opens his mouth—then closes it again. Because what he wants to say is ridiculous.
But it comes out anyway.
“…I cook.”
You blink.
“You cook?”
Jack clears his throat, suddenly very interested in his coffee mug.
“Yeah. Well.” He shrugs. “I’ve been told I’m reasonably good at it.”
You stare at him for a second, brows knitting slightly as you clearly try to figure out where the hell that came from.
“Well,” you say with a quick smile, “I guess your dinner guests are pretty lucky.”
Before he can respond, you grab the Lean Cuisine packet, toss it in the bin, and step toward the door.
“Sorry again for the mess.”
Then you’re gone—leaving Jack alone with his coffee, his notes, and the growing suspicion that there might actually be something seriously wrong with him.
-
“Is that Dr. Abbot in the break room?” Santos asks, falling into step beside you.
You keep your eyes fixed on your tablet.
“Yep.”
She leans closer, steering you out of the way of a gurney.
“But night shift doesn’t start for like two more hours.”
“I’m aware.”
“So, why is he here?”
You exhale sharply and finally look up from your tablet. “I don’t know, Trin. Maybe because the universe hates me.”
She snorts. “Or maybe because he likes you.”
You roll your eyes, turning toward the South corridor. “Please don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything,” she insists. “I seriously think that old man has a thing for you.”
“Don’t call him that,” you mutter.
“Okay, fine. I seriously think that hot, older man has a thing for you,” she says, stopping beside you at the South desks. “And we all know how you feel about him, so—”
“No,” you snap. “We don’t all know how I feel about Ja—Dr. Abbot.”
She presses her lips together to keep from laughing.
“Besides,” you go on, dropping into a chair. “I swapped to day shift so I could stop being distracted by my attending and actually focus on being a good doctor—so could you please stop distracting me?”
She leans a hip against the desk, completely ignoring you. “And don’t you think that’s a little strange? I mean, you swapped to day shift—what, two weeks ago?”
You glance at her from the corner of your eye. “And?”
“And,” she says dramatically, “for the past two weeks Dr. Abbot has been staying back every morning and coming in early every afternoon.”
Your gaze slides back to the computer. “So?”
She sighs, exasperated. “It’s not a coincidence.”
“Actually, I think it is,” you argue.
She stares at you for a second, eyes narrowing. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re annoying.”
She rolls her eyes and pushes off the desk. “Whatever. You’re still coming out tomorrow night, right?”
Your fingers hesitate over the keyboard. “Uh—I’m not sure yet.”
“Dr. Ellis is the only person from night shift that’ll be there,” she says.
You let out a quiet sigh of defeat.
“Fine,” you mutter. “I’ll come.”
“Good.” She grins, already turning away. “Come to my place around six. We can get ready and pregame.”
“Why can’t I get ready at home?” you ask.
“Because,” she calls over her shoulder, “I get to pick what you wear.”
And before you can argue, she slips into a patient room, effectively ending the conversation.
“Great,” you mumble, turning back to the computer. “Can’t wait.”
It’s not like you’re not looking forward to finally joining in on a night out now that you’re no longer on the night shift.
You are. You’re just... nervous.
Nervous, perpetually stressed out, and still adjusting to life as a day-walker. And Santos knows that. She probably knows you better than anyone else at PTMC—even though you’ve spent the better part of ten months working opposite shifts.
Which is exactly why she’s pushing you to join this night out. Because she knows you need it. She knows you need to relax, forget about work, and do something other than obsess over the night shift attending who’s had you completely undone since the day you first met.
God.
Jack Abbot. The single most dangerous man in Pittsburgh.
Not only is he stupidly hot, but he’s also annoyingly competent, irritatingly attentive, and has the starring role in every single one of your most inappropriate fantasies.
He’s also the very reason you’re terrified of having to redo your second year of residency, because that man affects your focus so much you literally can’t function. Like three weeks ago, when you walked straight into the glass door of Trauma One because you were too busy watching him take his jacket off.
His damn jacket.
That was the moment you finally decided you needed to swap shifts—because Dr. Shen couldn’t look at you for the rest of the night without bursting into laughter.
Jack Abbot is a liability to your health and wellbeing—which means he is a liability to your career. And even though asking Dr. Robby to swap to day shift was one of the most ridiculously difficult things you’ve done since starting at PTMC, you stand by the fact that it was the right decision.
The smart decision. The professional decision. Even if… it might not be working yet.
Because now you can’t just glance across central anymore and see Jack leaning against the desk, talking through a case with Lena. You can’t have him step up beside you when you’re unsure about something and quietly walk you through it. He’s not the one across from you in the trauma bays. And there isn’t a coffee cup that magically appears in front of you during the three o’clock lull.
Now you just… think about him instead.
But it’s only temporary. You’re sure of it. You just need to get used to the day shift and figure out how to get Jack Abbot out of your head.
Which… you have a sneaking suspicion is what Santos plans on helping you with this weekend.
You’re pretty sure you overheard her the other day telling Whitaker that the only way to get over someone is by getting under someone else. And maybe that’s exactly what you need to do—get under someone else so you can stop thinking about the maddeningly hot man who’s nearly twice your age and most definitely does not have a thing for you. Regardless of what Santos seems to think.
You spend the rest of your shift catching up on charting and trying very hard not to think about Dr. Abbot.
When someone asks for an attending, you call Dr. Robby. When you hear his voice just around the corner, you change paths as quickly and inconspicuously as you can. And when your notes are up to date and night shift starts rolling in, you find Dr. Ellis and give her—and only her—the rundown on your patients.
By the time you shut your locker and sling your bag over your shoulder, the sky outside is dark and there are only a few day shifters left lingering around the nurses’ station.
“Did you drive today?” Whitaker asks, shutting his locker only a moment after you.
“Yeah,” you reply. “Need a ride?”
He nods sheepishly. “That’d be great. Santos left already, said I was taking too long.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, I bet it had nothing to do with whatever she and Garcia were whispering about in the stairwell.”
Whitaker winces. “I just hope they’re at Garcia’s tonight.”
You huff a small laugh and hitch your bag higher. “You ready?”
He nods.
You both turn and start back toward central—but just as you reach the nurses’ station, his steps slow.
“Do you need to…?”
He jerks a thumb over his shoulder.
You frown. “Need to what?”
He hesitates. “Don’t you normally say goodbye to Dr. Abbot?”
Your eyes widen slowly. “Uh—no. Why would you say that?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just thought you two were close.”
“We’re not close,” you say, a little too quick.
“Sorry,” he mutters, raising both hands in surrender. “I just—I don’t know. I thought because you were his resident you two were… close.”
“I’m not his resident,” you snap. “I’m just… a resident. I don’t belong to him.”
“Okay,” he says slowly, brows drawing together. “I’m sorry, I just thought—”
“You thought wrong,” you mutter, glancing over your shoulder to make sure no one is listening.
Thankfully, the two nosiest nurses in the ER have already gone home for the day.
“Let’s just go.”
You grab his wrist and walk quickly toward the ambulance bay doors, giving Ellis and Shen a small nod as you pass—completely missing the middle-aged attending who just overheard most of your conversation.
The car ride to Santos and Whitaker’s isn’t long. Whitaker fills most of it anyway—rambling about the shift, about the kid in Five and whether night shift is going to get slammed, about how Dana looked like she was two seconds away from strangling bed control by the end of the day. And every few minutes he circles back around to apologising for making you drive him home.
You wave him off each time.
“It’s fine, Whitaker.”
“Seriously though,” he says as you pull up outside their building. “I really appreciate it.”
He slings his bag over his shoulder and climbs out of the car, pausing on the sidewalk to give you one last wave before heading toward the front door.
The moment the passenger door falls shut, the quiet settles in. You let out a long breath, tipping your head back against the headrest and letting your eyes fall shut for a moment. And immediately—inevitably—your brain drifts straight back to the same place it always does.
Jack Abbot. Of course.
You scrub a hand over your face before shifting the car back into gear and pulling away.
The rest of the night passes the way most nights do—with a quick shower, something vaguely edible scavenged from the fridge, and half-heartedly scrolling through your phone until exhaustion finally drags you to bed.
When your head finally hits the pillow, you tell yourself you’re too tired to think about him. It’s been a long day—long week—and all you need right now is sleep, not fantasies.
But that doesn’t stop your brain from doing it anyway. Because sometime in the early hours of the morning, Jack Abbot shows up in your dreams. Not in the ER. Not standing beside you at the nurses’ station or leaning over a chart.
He’s in a kitchen. Cooking.
Sleeves rolled up to his elbows, moving around the stove with the same quiet confidence he carries through the hospital—like he knows exactly what he’s doing and expects the rest of the world just to trust him.
And in the dream, you do.
You lean against the counter and watch him the way you sometimes watch him in the trauma bays, telling yourself you’re just observing. Just curious. Just learning.
He glances over his shoulder eventually, catching you staring—and says something you can’t quite hear over the soft clatter of the pan. But he’s smiling.
Then the dream shifts the way dreams tend to—logic slipping sideways until suddenly you’re standing much closer than you should be. Close enough to smell whatever he’s cooking. Close enough that when he turns toward you the space between you disappears entirely.
His hand settles at your waist like it belongs there.
Your back meets the edge of the counter.
And when his mouth brushes your neck—
You wake with a sharp inhale, staring up at the ceiling, heart racing.
“Fuck,” you mutter, dragging a hand over your face.
So much for getting him out of your head.
For a while, you just lie there, staring at the ceiling, watching the first pale line of sunlight creep across until it touches the wall opposite your window.
At some point you realise you’re still replaying the dream in your head.
The kitchen. The way his hand had felt at your waist. The warmth of his mouth against your neck.
You groan quietly and drag the blanket over your face.
“Get a fucking grip.”
Then you throw the covers back and force yourself out of bed, heading straight into the kitchen in search of coffee.
Your small apartment is always quiet—but this morning it feels too quiet. Too still as you silently sip your coffee, one hip leaned against the kitchen counter. Which, unfortunately, leaves far too much room for your brain to wander right back to its favourite topic.
Jack Abbot.
After coffee, you take yourself for a long walk around the block, hoping the cool morning air might help clear the remnants of the dream from your head.
It doesn’t.
But by the time you make it back to your apartment, your legs feel loose and your mind feels a little quieter, and for the briefest moment you almost manage to convince yourself that you’re excited about tonight. That you’re going to be able to do what Santos is clearly angling for and go home with an attractive stranger so you can stop draining your vibrator battery with inappropriate thoughts of your attending.
The rest of the day drifts past in a slow blur of small, forgettable things. Laundry. Answering a couple of messages in the group chat. Half-heartedly reviewing a few notes from earlier in the week before deciding you absolutely refuse to think about work on your day off.
Eventually the afternoon light begins to soften and stretch across the floor, which means it’s probably time to start getting ready if you’re actually going to make it to Santos’ place before she decides you’re bailing and comes knocking to drag you there herself.
So you shower, change, pack a bag, and throw it over your shoulder on the way out the door—trying very hard not to feel disappointed that Dr. Ellis is the only person from night shift who’s going to be at the bar tonight.
It really is for the best.
You, alcohol, and Jack Abbot in the same room is a terrible idea.
“Alright, I’m ready,” Santos announces, finally stepping out of the bathroom.
You, Javadi, and Whitaker—who have spent the last twenty minutes on the couch chatting and sipping beer—look up.
“Aw, I wish I could do winged eyeliner like that,” Javadi says. “It just doesn’t suit my eye shape.”
“Don’t look too close,” Santos mutters. “It’s super uneven, but I don’t have time. I still have to fix this one before we go.”
She tips her chin toward where you and Whitaker are sitting on the opposite end of the lounge.
Whitaker’s eyes go wide. “Me?”
Santos scoffs. “Not you, Huckleberry. God, I don’t have enough time in the world to fix whatever’s going on there.”
Whitaker frowns, glancing down at his navy-blue button-up shirt. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Everything,” Santos says, already turning away.
Whitaker lifts his head, glancing between you and Javadi. “Is it really that bad?”
Javadi leans forward, lowering her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with it, Whitaker. You look great.”
You pat his shoulder. “It’s fine, really. She’s just—”
The words die on your tongue as Santos reappears, holding what can only be described as a sparkly scrap of fabric on a hanger.
Javadi tilts her head. “What’s that?”
Santos grins. “A dress.”
Whitaker chokes on his beer. “That’s… not a dress. That’s a glittery napkin.”
“Oh my God.” Javadi snorts. “My mom would kill me just for buying that.”
“I didn’t buy it,” Santos says lightly. “A friend in college gave it to me, but it’s never fit quite right.”
She steps forward, extending the hanger toward you.
“But I know you’ll be able to pull it off,” she adds, her grin sharpening.
You stare at it—glinting in the low evening sun spilling through the windows.
“Santos… this is a work thing,” you mutter.
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not a work thing. It’s just an outing with people from work.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?” Whitaker asks.
Santos sighs. “No, it’s not. And are you forgetting our main objective?”
You blink at her.
“To get you laid.”
Javadi giggles nervously, trying to hide it behind a swig of beer.
“Come on,” Santos says. “Just put it on and if it doesn’t work, we try something else.”
You hesitate, staring at the glittery thing like it might catch fire at any moment. Which, given enough sunlight, it probably could.
“Fine,” you say at last, pushing off the couch. “I’ll try it on, but that does not mean I’m wearing it.”
Santos’ eyes sparkle with excitement. Or maybe it’s just the dress.
“That’s my girl.”
You take the hanger from her and trudge into her room, nudging the door shut behind you. It takes a minute for you to figure out how the glittery napkin is supposed to go on—but once you do, you shed your comfortable clothes and shimmy into the most sparkly piece of fabric you’ve ever worn.
And somehow, the shimmering scrap of nothing turns out to be an actual dress—short, sparkling, and just structured enough to stay where it’s supposed to while still feeling mildly illegal.
With a deep breath, you turn away from the mirror and open the door, stepping back out into the lounge room.
“So?”
For a moment, no one says anything.
Whitaker’s mouth falls open.
Javadi’s eyebrows lift. “Oh.”
Santos, meanwhile, tilts her head appreciatively, one hand on her hip, eyes gleaming as she looks you over from head to toe.
“I knew it,” she says smugly.
Whitaker blinks. “That is not a dress.”
Javadi elbows him. “Stop talking.”
You tug awkwardly at the hem—which doesn’t actually move much because there isn’t very much hem to tug.
“Santos,” you say carefully, “I’m not sure—”
“Relax,” she says. “You look incredible.”
She circles you slowly, like a stylist inspecting her work.
“And you’re definitely going to get laid.”
“I feel like I shouldn’t be here,” Whitaker mutters, his face bright red.
Santos rolls her eyes. “You’re only here because you live here, Huckleberry. Now go grab that bottle of tequila from on top of the fridge—we’re going to need some liquid courage before we head out.”
After two shots of tequila and Santos’ finishing touches to your makeup, you all head out the door. Whitaker calls an Uber, the four of you pile in, and you carefully keep Santos’ leather jacket wrapped around yourself for some semblance of modesty.
You don’t really plan on taking it off for the rest of the night—even if it isn’t that cold.
The ride to the bar isn’t nearly long enough. Javadi spends most of it excitedly talking about how she can finally go out drinking now that she’s twenty-one, which Santos encourages with the enthusiasm of someone who clearly intends to make the most of that milestone.
You mostly just stare out the window. Trying not to think about the dress you shouldn’t have agreed to wear and the night shift attending you definitely shouldn’t be missing right now. Because if someone asked you where you’d rather be tonight—the bar or the ER with Dr. Abbot—your honest answer would be incredibly depressing.
Who would rather be at work than out with their friends on a Saturday night?
“We’re here,” Santos announces, nudging your side a little too hard.
You all thank the driver before climbing out, gathering yourselves on the sidewalk in front of the familiar establishment Santos loves dragging everyone to.
“Relax,” she says, dropping a hand on your shoulder. “You don’t need this.”
She tugs at the leather jacket, pulling it off your shoulders until it’s bunched at your elbows.
“I feel naked,” you mutter. “Like this is some nightmare where I show up to work in my underwear.”
Whitaker snorts. “Not far from it.”
Santos rolls her eyes. “Well, you’re not at work. You’re at a bar. And this is supposed to be fun.”
Right. Fun.
That is the entire point of tonight. Go out. Have a drink. Meet someone who isn’t Jack Abbot. Ideally forget Jack Abbot exists for at least a few hours.
Completely achievable.
Right?
“Fine.”
You draw a deep breath and drop your arms, letting the jacket slide off completely. Santos grins as you sling it over one elbow, trying not to instinctively hold it in front of your body like armour.
“See?” she says. “Much better.”
“Let’s just go inside before I change my mind,” you mutter, already starting toward the door.
Javadi loops her arm through yours. “You look amazing. Seriously.”
You give her a small smile, trying not to feel quite so awkward as Santos leads the way toward the main entrance.
It’s just a bar. Just a normal Saturday night. You’ll be fine after a few more shots of liquid courage.
You glance through the front window as you approach—more out of habit than anything else, your eyes drifting lazily over the crowded room inside.
People. Low lights. Patrons lingering around the bar.
And—
Your brain stalls.
Because there’s a man leaning against the bar with one elbow braced on the countertop, his shoulders broad under a tight black shirt, head tipped slightly as he talks to someone beside him.
A familiar someone.
Dr. Ellis.
And the man—
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Your stomach plummets.
Jack fucking Abbot.
Your feet stop moving, your whole body suddenly forgetting how to function.
Your pulse kicks violently against the inside of your throat as a wave of heat rushes up the back of your neck, sudden and dizzying and sharp enough to make the edges of your vision blur for half a second.
Because he looks—
He looks so good.
Relaxed in a way you’ve never seen at work. One hand curled loosely around a glass as he frowns slightly at something Ellis is saying, that small crease between his brows you know far too well.
And suddenly you are extremely, violently aware that you are standing outside a bar wearing approximately three square inches of glitter.
“Hey,” Javadi says beside you. “What’s—”
“Santos.”
She doesn’t stop.
“Santos,” you say again, your voice almost breaking.
She glances over her shoulder. “Hm?”
“You knew.”
She stops, her hand hovering near the door.
Whitaker glances between the two of you. “What’s happening?”
“Technically,” Santos says slowly, “I didn’t know. I just... suspected.”
“You said Ellis was the only one from night shift who’d be here.”
She winces. “I did, but what I meant is… Ellis is the only one who actually told me she’d be here.”
You stare at her. “So you did know?”
“I knew it was his night off.”
“Santos, I—” You glance back at him through the bar window. “I can’t go in there like this.”
“Like what?” she asks. “Smoking hot?”
“Half naked.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you can.”
“I will actually die.”
“No, you won’t,” she says firmly. “You’re an adult. You can wear whatever you want, talk to whoever you want, and just because your incredibly inconvenient attending crush happens to be inside does not suddenly revoke your civil liberties.”
She pulls the door open.
“Now stop panicking and get in the bar.”
-
“He swore the chest pain had nothing to do with the seven energy drinks he’d had that night,” Ellis says, still rambling about a patient who pissed her off two nights ago, “which was a bold position to take with a heart rate of one-forty.”
Jack snorts softly. “And did you believe him?”
Ellis’ eyes go wide, and she takes a long drink before continuing her rant about night shift patients and the strange confidence people have when explaining why their terrible decisions definitely have nothing to do with the symptoms they’re currently experiencing.
Jack nods along, offering the occasional comment or question where needed, meeting her gaze now and then—but mostly keeping his attention on the door. Waiting. Because he’s not stupid enough to ask anyone if you’re going to be here tonight, but he is naïve enough to hope you will be.
He wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight—his first night off in two weeks.
He was supposed to be at home, cooking something decent for dinner, enjoying the rare luxury of not wearing scrubs, and inevitably indulging in his favourite guilty pleasure—involving nothing but his hand and some very inappropriate thoughts of you.
But he’s not.
He’s here. In a crowded bar, sipping cheap scotch, listening to Ellis complain about the night shift patients and their weird confidence, just… waiting.
For you.
He’d wanted to ask you yesterday if you were coming to the bar tonight—before he agreed to join—but he’d barely seen you before the end of your shift. And you didn’t even say goodbye. Which isn’t unusual, given how chaotic the ER can be, but then he’d overheard your conversation with Whitaker—and something about it made his chest feel too tight.
It wasn’t anger. Not exactly. Not jealousy, either. It was just... wrong. Not because what you said was wrong, but because he hates that it was right. That you don’t belong to him. Even if Robby calls you ‘his R2’ and Whitaker thinks you’re close because you’re his resident—none of it changes the fact that he has no real claim over you.
Which is ridiculous. He knows it.
He shouldn’t feel territorial. He shouldn’t want this. Want you. And yet, his chest still feels too tight—a slow, hot coil of frustration and longing curling up into his throat, and he hates it. Hates hearing it out loud, hates how much it matters, hates that he can’t make it not matter.
“Oh.” Ellis glances over her shoulder. “Looks like Santos and the others are here.”
Jack’s gaze flicks back to the door.
He tries not to react, not to straighten, not to square his shoulders as if he’s bracing for something—but he can already feel his composure slipping.
Santos steps in first, her head turned slightly as she talks to Whitaker, who walks in behind her. Then it’s Javadi, an unusually wide smile on her face as she looks at—
You.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Jack stops breathing.
His chest burns. His stomach flips. His hand tightens dangerously around his scotch glass.
It’s you. Of course it’s you. You’re perfect.
But then—
That dress.
God.
That dress—short, sparkling, clinging just enough to make every nerve in his body snap awake. It shimmers under the low lights as you move, and he hates himself for noticing every subtle curve, every shift of fabric, as if time itself has slowed just to torture him.
It’s all too much.
He can feel his pulse in his throat, heat burning beneath his skin, blood rushing in the one direction it really, really shouldn’t be right now. In public. In front of his coworkers.
He blinks, finally tearing his gaze away from you.
And that’s when he notices the rest of the bar. All staring. All stunned.
He hates them all.
He hates that they can even look at you. Hates that the universe allows it. Hates that they might see even a fraction of what he sees—and feel a fraction of what he feels.
And he hates, more than anything right now, that you’re not his.
“Dr. Abbot,” Robby says, appearing beside him and slinging an arm across his shoulders. “What’s your poison tonight?”
Jack lifts his drink, knuckles still white around the glass. “Scotch.”
Robby claps his shoulder, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “You might not want to have too many of those.”
Then he slips past both Jack and Ellis and raises a hand to flag down the bartender.
“Alright,” Ellis says, pushing off the bar. “I’m going to go grab a seat before the table gets too crowded.”
Jack nods, but he doesn’t follow. He stays beside the bar, rigid now, eyes fixed on the group of men at a high table just a few feet from the front door. They’re muttering to each other, leaning in, voices low—but nothing about it is subtle. Their gazes are glued to you as you weave through patrons and tables to greet the rest of the PTMC crew gathered in a booth near the back.
One of them—the dumbest looking one, Jack’s already decided—slowly slides off his stool, nodding along while his friends murmur their advice.
Jack glances back at you, now standing beside McKay, sliding your arms into the leather jacket you’d been carrying. Santos grabs your wrist, tilting her head toward the bar as she starts dragging you with her.
And, like a fourteen-year-old boy with a crush, Jack’s pulse starts racing.
“Dr. Abbot,” Santos says, grinning as you both approach the bar. “Fancy seeing you somewhere other than the ER on a Saturday night.”
“I do have a life outside of work, you know,” he says dryly, lifting his drink and looking anywhere but at you.
“Like playing bingo at the senior centre?” Santos asks, resting both forearms on the bar.
You step up on her other side, squinting at the shelves of liquor on the back wall like they’re the most interesting thing in the room.
“Bingo’s on Wednesdays,” he says mildly. “Try to keep up.”
Santos snorts, shaking her head as she reaches for the small leather-bound bar menu. But out of the corner of his eye, Jack sees your head dip—just slightly—and you try to hide a small laugh against your shoulder.
Jack feels it like a punch to the ribs.
Because you’re listening.
And apparently… you think he’s funny.
“Alright,” Santos says, lifting a hand. “I think we need some tequila over here.”
The bartender steps away from where he’d been serving farther down the bar, but his attention quickly drifts past Santos and lands on you. He leans in, resting one palm flat against the bar while he wipes down the counter with a rag that doesn’t really need wiping.
“So,” he says to you, not Santos. “What are you drinking tonight?”
Santos blinks.
“I just told you,” she says flatly. “Tequila.”
The bartender barely glances at her.
Jack’s jaw tightens.
You look briefly confused, glancing between Santos and the bartender.
“Uh—whatever she orders is fine.”
“Yeah. Tequila,” Santos repeats, slower this time.
The bartender laughs like she’s joking—and Jack sets his scotch down slowly. Carefully.
His eyes stay locked on the man now lining up four small glasses in front of you, still completely ignoring Santos. The way he’s watching you is too much. Too close. The faint curl at the corner of his mouth makes Jack want to punch the smirk right off his face.
And by the way you shift a little closer to Santos—pulling your jacket tighter around yourself—he knows you’re uncomfortable.
His hand clenches at his side.
Robby pauses as he walks past, a beer in each hand.
“Easy, tiger,” he mutters. “She can handle herself.”
“I know,” Jack says, voice low. “Doesn’t mean she has to.”
Robby gives him a look—a brief, knowing glance, somewhere between amusement and warning. “Careful.”
Jack doesn’t respond. He just turns back to you and Santos, watching as you each knock back two shots of tequila, your nose scrunching as the burn hits. And he can’t help the small twitch at the corner of his mouth, because the face you make as you set the second glass down is ridiculously cute for someone wearing a dress like that.
“Okay,” Santos says. “I need a vodka soda before I start making bad decisions.”
The bartender nods, already reaching for another glass—and before he can even ask if you’d like another drink, someone else steals your attention.
“Hey,” the guy says, stepping up beside you. “Can I get you another one?”
He leans in, just enough to be heard over the noise—but it’s still too close.
You shift slightly, angling toward him. “Oh. Uh—sure.”
Santos presses her lips together, clearly fighting a smile as she turns back to the bar, suddenly very invested in whatever the bartender is doing. The second he sets the vodka soda in front of her, she scoops it up and drops a few bills on the counter.
She lifts the drink to her lips as she turns away, pausing just long enough to glance at Jack over the rim of the glass.
Her brows lift. “You really gonna let that happen?”
Jack frowns. “What—”
But Santos is already gone, drink in hand, halfway back to the booth where everyone else is.
Where Jack should be headed too—because there’s no reason for him to stay here. No reason for him to linger, to hover, to make sure you’re okay, to stand there glaring at the guy buying you a drink like that’s going to change anything.
It’s not like he can blame him. If Jack thought he had a shot with you, he’d take it too. The difference is, Jack wouldn’t need the dress. Or the drinks. Or the crowd. He’d take that shot with you even when you’re tired and stressed out and covered in blood at the end of a bad shift in the ER. He’d take it any time. Any place.
But Jack doesn’t get that shot.
Because you’re young. You don’t have baggage. And you’re a resident—maybe not his resident, but still a resident.
It’s just too inappropriate.
Jack sets his glass back on the bar a little harder than necessary—and the bartender glances over, brows raised as if silently asking if he’d like another, but Jack just shakes his head.
His eyes flick back to you. To the way you’re smiling now—soft, not uneasy. To the way you seem to have forgotten about keeping your jacket closed, and now the idiot talking to you is looking anywhere but your face.
Then you laugh—light, easy—and something in Jack’s chest tightens again.
He looks away. He can’t keep standing here. He’s not going to stand here and watch you flirt with some idiot at the bar like he has any right to care.
With a deep breath, he forces himself to turn away and start walking back to the table.
Where he should have been five minutes ago. Where he plans on staying for the rest of the night.
Half an hour later, most of PTMC’s day shift staff are gathered in the booth, half still wearing their scrubs after coming straight from the hospital. The volume of conversation builds with the growing collection of empty glasses in the middle of the table, voices overlapping, getting louder with every round—but Jack doesn’t order another scotch. At some point, Ellis sets a beer in front of him, which he nurses until it’s too warm to enjoy.
Every now and then, he makes a point of nodding or laughing or glancing at someone across the table—pretending to follow the conversation, pretending he’s paying attention—when really, all he can focus on is you. You and your smile. And your laugh. And the way your hand settles lightly on a man’s bicep when he says something that makes you blush.
Not the same man as before, either. No—this one is new. This one swooped in when the first one excused himself to take a phone call, and now that one is back at the table with his friends, sulking.
Kind of how Jack is right now, sitting at the table with his friends. Sulking. Glaring. Plotting.
He knows he shouldn’t. He knows it’s none of his business. But he can’t stop himself from trying to come up with an excuse to interrupt you. To get you away from those men and their lingering stares.
Not that he’s any better.
“Abbot.” Robby nudges his side. “Hungry?”
Jack blinks, finally dragging his gaze away from you to where Ellis is standing, looking expectant.
“Hm?”
“Are you hungry?” Ellis asks. “I’m going to order some wings.”
Jack frowns. “Uh—no. I’m good. Thanks.”
Ellis nods once and turns away, heading straight for the bar.
Robby huffs a quiet laugh beside him. “You might want to turn your hearing aids up, old man.”
Jack doesn’t even look at him. “Funny.”
“I’m serious,” Robby says mildly. “You’ve missed, what, three questions in the last five minutes?”
“I heard her,” Jack mutters. “I was just... thinking.”
Robby hums like he doesn’t believe that for a second.
Jack shifts, pushing his chair back as he sets his warm beer on the table. “I’m gonna hit the head.”
Robby’s brows lift, slow and knowing, his gaze flicking briefly toward the bar.
“Mm,” he says. “Sure you are.”
Jack does, in fact, turn toward the bathrooms first—mostly because he needs a second away from all the music and chatter to try and clear his head. To try and stop himself from doing what he really left the booth to do.
He locks himself in the accessible bathroom—not that he needs it, but it’s more private than the men’s—and stands in front of the vanity. He presses his palms into the porcelain sink, shifting his weight forward with a deep, steadying breath.
This is ridiculous, and he knows it.
He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t be acting like this.
This is trivial shit, for God’s sake. Jack is a vet. A seasoned ER doctor.
So why is a goddamn crush undoing him like this?
Why are you undoing him like this?
He lifts his head and stares at his reflection—jaw tight, shoulders rigid—trying to get a grip. Trying to remember that he is a grown ass man, not some idiot who can’t keep his shit together.
His gaze drifts across his face—the day-old stubble, peppered hair—then to the reflection of the bathroom behind him. The graffitied walls, covered in stickers and spray paint, a chaotic collection of late nights and inebriated thoughts. He wonders, briefly, how many people came in here intending to leave something behind.
Then he spots something scrawled in the corner of the mirror in thick black marker.
HESITATE AND SOMEONE ELSE WON’T.
Jack tilts his head.
That’s not exactly... subtle.
But that’s the thing, isn’t it?
He doesn’t hesitate.
Not in the trauma bay. Not out in the field. Not when it matters. Not when someone’s life is on the line and everyone else is waiting for someone to make the call.
So what the hell is this?
This… standing back. Watching. Letting it happen.
Like he doesn’t know what he wants. Like he hasn’t already made up his mind.
He drags a hand over his mouth, shaking his head once—sharp, annoyed.
“Jesus Christ.”
It’s not caution. It’s avoidance.
With another deep breath, Jack reaches for the tap and braces his hands beneath the stream. He scrubs them together—quick and thorough—then turns off the water, grabs a paper towel, and dries his hands with more focus than necessary. He tosses the towel in the bin on his way out the door, his gaze sharpening as he scans the bar—finding you immediately.
You’re still standing where you were, maybe a few steps closer to the back of the room. There’s a new guy in front of you now, closing you in, crowding your space just enough to make Jack’s eyes narrow.
The man’s hand settles at your waist, a little lower than what could be considered innocent. And anyone else watching might think you’re okay with it—but Jack knows you. He sees the small flicker of discomfort that crosses your face, the subtle drop of your shoulder as you try to angle yourself away without seeming rude.
Good thing Jack doesn’t mind being rude.
He’s already moving before he’s fully decided to. Just a few long strides and he’s there—close enough to cut through the space between you and the guy without touching either of you, his presence alone enough to interrupt whatever the hell this is supposed to be.
He looks at you. Just you.
“Hey.”
Your head turns immediately—and the shift in your expression is instant. Relief.
“Oh—hey,” you say, a little breathless.
And then you step into him. Not too close. Not in a way that draws attention or suggests anything—but enough to make Jack’s pulse jump. Enough for him to feel your warmth and the way it settles under his skin.
“Hey, man,” the guy says, holding out a hand. “I’m Trent.”
Jack ignores him.
“You alright?” he asks you.
You nod slowly. “I am now.”
Your fingers curl into the back of his shirt, just for a second—like you didn’t even think about it. Like you just needed something solid to hold onto.
Jack goes still.
Trent clears his throat. “Sorry—uh—who are you?”
You glance at him with a tight smile. “This is my attending.”
Jack likes being called your attending.
Trent frowns. “What?”
“Remember how I said I was a doctor?”
Trent just stares at you.
“Well, Dr. Abbot is my attending,” you go on anyway. “He’s like my supervisor. I’m his resident.”
His resident.
“Right,” Trent mutters, eyeing Jack. “Cool. So—you’re a doctor?”
Jack doesn’t even look at him. His eyes stay fixed on you.
“Are you hungry?” he asks. “Ellis is ordering wings—we can grab a menu.”
“Starving,” you reply, the corner of your mouth lifting slightly as you look up at him.
“Great.” His hand settles at your shoulder, firm but casual. “Let’s get back to the others.”
“Wait,” Trent says. “Are you—”
“It was nice meeting you,” you cut in, flashing him one last tight-lipped smile before Jack steers you away.
He keeps his arm around your shoulders until you’re halfway back to the booth of PTMC doctors and nurses. Only then does he pull back, clasping his hands behind his back like he needs the physical restraint.
“Thanks for that,” you murmur. “He just wouldn’t take a hint.”
Jack nods. “I noticed.”
He doesn’t look at you as he turns back toward the other end of the table, toward his seat beside Robby—because if he did, he might not be able to leave your side. From the corner of his eye, he sees Santos reach for you, already asking what happened as she pulls you into the seat between her and McKay.
And for twenty blissful minutes, Jack feels okay. The most okay he’s felt all night.
Because you’re here, at the table, talking to Santos and McKay—and not some idiot who thinks he deserves a chance with the prettiest girl in the room. In the world, according to Jack.
But only for twenty minutes—because once you finish your drink, Santos drags you back to the bar.
Another shot. Another drink. Another guy.
Jack shifts in his chair, trying to listen to whatever it is Ellis and Mateo are arguing about, but he can’t focus—not when your hand settles lightly on this new guy’s shoulder. And especially not when it slides down his bicep, flirty in a way that makes Jack want to get out of his chair.
He tells himself he’s not going to. That he shouldn’t.
But the second the lights dim and the music gets louder, he pushes out of his seat.
He finds you at the edge of the dancefloor, catching your wrist before you can disappear into the crowd.
“Hey,” he says, voice raised over the music.
Your head whips around, your brows lifting slightly in that soft, expectant way—like you’re waiting for him to say whatever it is that’s so important he had to stop you right here.
Jack clears his throat. “Have you been drinking water?”
You frown. “Um. Not really.”
“You should really drink some water,” he says, tipping his head toward the bar.
You hesitate, glancing back over your shoulder at the man waiting for you to follow him into the crowd.
Then you look back at Jack.
“Uh, yeah. Okay. Water.”
He knows he shouldn’t have done it. He knows it was stupid and petty and jealousy-driven—but he can’t help the flicker of satisfaction when you follow him to the end of the bar with the self-serve water tower.
The music is too loud for conversation—and even if it wasn’t, he’s not sure what he’d say. Not when you’re looking at him like this. A little drunk. A little curious. Your brows drawn, your skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, your lips wet from the water.
God. This has the be the finest form of torture.
Because here you are—so young and so sweet, so trusting in Jack that he’s just trying to look after you, when all he can think about is the fact that you’re not his. That they think you’re fair game. That every man in this room thinks he has a chance.
And the fact that he’s not going to let them anywhere near you.
-
The third time Jack Abbot appears at your side, he catches your elbow just as you’re about to step out the door with a man named Leo. Not to leave the bar—just for some air—but then Jack says something about Mateo buying a round of shots and guides you back inside.
You don’t mind. Not really. Especially not when a free drink is involved.
So you line up beside your coworkers and sink another shot of tequila with a grimace before Santos drags you back to the dancefloor.
The fourth time Jack Abbot intercepts you, you’re just about to start dancing with a handsome stranger Santos accidentally made you bump into—but before you can even take the man’s hand, Jack pulls you away, insisting you take a seat for a minute and drink more water.
Which, fine. Whatever.
But by the fifth interruption, you’re starting to notice a pattern.
And you’re getting a little annoyed.
“Oh my God,” Santos says, her eyes going wide as the opening notes to ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! start blaring through the speakers. “We have to dance. Come on!”
You barely have time to scoop your drink up off the bar before she’s dragging you onto the dancefloor—into the throng of warm bodies all moving to the beat beneath the single, sparkling disco ball.
The music pulses through the floor beneath your feet, the bass thrumming in your chest as Santos drags you deeper into the crowd. Somewhere between Mateo’s round of shots and your tenth song on the dancefloor, your jacket disappeared—and now your dress catches the light with every movement, glittering under the shifting colours as bodies press in from all sides.
The bar is still pretty full, even if the PTMC booth has already lost a few soldiers. There are still plenty of prospects—plenty of strangers who might offer to take you home and make you forget all about Jack Abbot. Which is still very much the plan.
If only the man himself would stop interrupting every interaction like he’s doing you a favour.
At some point during the second—or maybe third—chorus, Santos subtly steps away and a guy ends up in front of you. You’re not even entirely sure how. One second you’re dancing and screaming the lyrics, the next he’s there—close enough that you can feel the heat of him, his hands hovering like he’s trying to decide where to put them.
You let it happen. Because this is what you want, right?
This is the plan.
He leans in and says something you don’t quite catch over the music, but you laugh anyway—more out of obligation than anything else.
Then his attention shifts.
His eyes flick past you. And just like that—he falters.
It’s subtle, but you feel it. The hesitation. The way his body pulls back a fraction, like something just snapped him out of it.
“Uh—actually,” he mutters, already stepping away. “I—yeah. Sorry.”
Then he’s gone.
You blink, frowning slightly as you glance over your shoulder and—
Of course.
Jack Abbot, standing just beyond the edge of the dancefloor, drink in hand, eyes locked on you with a look that makes your stomach drop.
Not angry. Not exactly.
But intense. Sharp. Focused in a way that feels… deliberate.
You stare at him for a second—frustration flickering across your face—then turn back to Santos, who is still dancing with her vodka soda lifted in the air.
You lean in, raising your voice just enough to be heard over the music. “Your plan isn’t working!”
She turns to face you, frowning. “What do you mean it’s not working?”
You stare at her. “The plan to get me laid? It’s not working.”
“Why not?”
You huff out a laugh, incredulous.
“Because of him,” you say, nodding toward Jack. “Because I let him save me from one bad interaction and now he’s just—hovering. Interrupting. Scaring people off.”
Santos’ mouth twitches.
“I think he thinks he’s being helpful,” you add, shaking your head. “Like he’s doing me a favour or something, but—God, I’m never going to get a stranger to take me home with a hundred-and-ninety-pound war vet glaring over my shoulder every five minutes.”
Santos just looks at you for a second—then smiles. Slow. Knowing.
“And what part of my plan isn’t working?”
You frown. “Are you even listening to me?”
“I said I was going to get you laid,” she says, lifting her drink to her lips. “I never said anything about going home with a stranger.”
It doesn’t land straight away.
You blink at her, still frowning as you try to follow the logic—because that doesn’t make sense, that’s not the plan. If you’re not going home with a stranger, then who—
And then it clicks.
Your stomach drops.
“Wait—Santos,” you start, eyes widening. “You don’t mean—”
Santos just looks at you over the rim of her glass. Calm. Patient. Smiling faintly, like she’s been waiting for this exact moment all night.
You glance toward the side of the dancefloor again—to the man still focused on you in a way that feels far too intentional now. Arms folded, jaw set. He doesn’t even pretend to look away when you meet his stare.
“Actually,” Santos says, her hand closing around your wrist. “I think my plan is working perfectly. Now, come on—” she nods toward the booth where everyone else is, “let’s play a game.”
A game?
Before you can argue or even question it, Santos is dragging you off the dancefloor toward the booth at the back of the bar. The thrum of the music dulls the further you get from the crowd, and by the time you both slide into empty seats at the table, you no longer feel like you need to yell just to be heard.
The PTMC crew has thinned since you were last sitting here. Robby, Dana, and Donnie are gone, and McKay is holding her purse in her lap like she’d been trying to leave when Mateo cornered her with another rant about how no patient actually seems to understand the pain scale.
“Alright,” Santos announces, picking up someone’s abandoned drink and taking a sip like she owns it, “we’re playing a game.”
Whitaker leans forward. “A game?”
“Yes, Huckleberry. A game.” Santos glances around the table with a lazy half-smile. “It’s called Never Have I Ever.”
Mateo snorts. “That’s a middle school sleepover game.”
“Great,” Santos replies. “Then it should be easy for you.”
There’s a ripple of laughter around the table, but no one else seems to object.
“Can I start?” Mohan pipes up beside Santos. “I’ve got a good one.”
Santos nods. “Be my guest.”
You’re not entirely sure when Jack rejoined the table, since he’d been at the edge of the dancefloor just a few minutes ago, but now you’re suddenly very aware of his presence across from you. Like the few people that called it a night have unintentionally left a smaller, more intimate group behind—and now Jack Abbot is almost directly across from you while you play one of the most notorious, tension-raising middle school games of all time.
“Okay,” Mohan says, sitting up a little straighter. “Never have I ever… called in sick when I wasn’t actually sick.”
McKay laughs. Mateo groans. Almost everyone at the table lifts their drinks.
“Really?” Santos says. “That was your good one?”
Mohan shrugs. “I thought—”
“Never mind,” Santos cuts her off. “My turn.”
Her gaze moves slowly around the table before landing on you, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly.
“Never have I ever,” she starts slowly, “fantasised about someone else sitting at this table.”
Your pulse jumps.
McKay snorts.
Mateo leans forward. “Like, intentionally. Or…?”
Whitaker frowns. “You’ve accidentally fantasised about someone here?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes the wrong people pop up, you know?”
Santos rolls her eyes. “Oh my God. Whatever. Intentional or not.”
Mateo nods once and lifts his drink. Javadi sinks lower in her chair as she lifts hers—and you try not to look around at the rest of the table as you bring your own up to your lips.
Beside you, McKay drops her purse to the ground and straightens, clearly invested now.
“Alright, I’ve got one,” she says, grinning. “Never have I ever… faked it.”
Javadi chokes, Santos snorts, and across from you, Jack huffs out a quiet laugh.
“Never?” Ellis asks, eyes wide. “So you always—”
“Oh, God, no,” McKay laughs. “Definitely not. I just refuse to fake it.”
Laughter moves through the table again, a little louder this time, and everyone takes a second to decide whether or not to raise their drinks.
You lift yours slowly, looking anywhere but at Jack.
“Okay, my turn,” Ellis announces, shifting in her seat. “Never have I ever… hooked up with someone at work.”
The table reacts around you, a mix of laughter and quiet protest, but it all blurs at the edges when you finally glance up—because Jack is already looking at you.
Not surprised. Not amused.
Just… watching.
He doesn’t laugh or say anything. He just lifts his drink, slow and deliberate.
And something sharp twists in your chest.
“What’ve you got, Langdon?” McKay asks, nodding at him across the table.
Langdon strokes his chin thoughtfully for a moment—then sighs.
“Alright, I already know I’m going to get shit for this, but—” He clears his throat. “Never have I ever… had sex in public.”
McKay laughs, loudly, and lifts her drink to her lips without hesitation. Ellis and Santos drink too, while Mohan laughs into her hand and Javadi sinks even lower in her chair.
Across from you, Jack sips his drink again like it’s nothing.
And that sharp twist in your chest doesn’t ease.
Because of course he has. Of course there are other people. Other women.
And you—
You catch Santos’ gaze from the other end of the table—sharp, knowing, daring.
Your grip tightens slightly around your glass.
And before you can talk yourself out of it—
“Okay, my turn,” you say lightly, sitting up a little straighter.
Everyone turns to you, but you keep your eyes fixed on your glass.
“Never have I ever,” you say slowly, “…finished during sex.”
For a second—nothing.
Then the table erupts.
“What—no—” Mateo is already laughing, leaning forward like he thinks you’re joking. “You’re kidding.”
Javadi chokes on her drink, coughing as she turns toward you. “Wait, seriously?”
“Oh my God,” McKay says, half-laughing, half-staring at you like she’s trying to figure out if you’re lying.
Langdon huffs out a quiet, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “Well… that’s unfortunate.”
Whitaker just blinks at you, caught somewhere between surprised and confused, like he doesn’t quite know what to do with that information.
Santos doesn’t say anything. She just leans back in her seat, watching you over the rim of her glass with a slow, satisfied smile.
And across from you—
Jack just goes still.
Completely still.
His expression doesn’t change, but something in his eyes does—sharp, dark, focused in a way that makes your stomach flip.
It takes you a minute to remember how to move. How to breathe. How to laugh and sip your drink and keep playing the game that doesn’t stop just because it feels like your heart did.
Eventually, everyone eases off the third-degree on your embarrassingly real confession, and Mateo pipes up next with something ridiculous that makes the table groan. Then Javadi comes out with something surprisingly rebellious—and blushes hard when Mateo flashes her a wink.
And so it goes on.
You know it does.
You can hear it—voices overlapping, laughter breaking out again, someone arguing over what counts, someone else swearing they’re being misrepresented—but it all feels… distant.
Like it’s happening a few steps away from you instead of right here at the table. Because now, all you can focus on is Jack. On the way he’s hardly moved. Hardly spoken. Hardly looked away from you.
At some point, he mutters his own confession with a small smirk and everyone laughs—but you don’t catch the words. You’re too aware of everything else to hear them. Too aware of your pulse pounding in your ears, the thrum of the music beneath your feet, the way Jack’s jaw ticks every time you glance back at him.
Another round starts. Then another.
Someone groans. Someone laughs too loud. Santos says something that earns a chorus of reactions—but it all slips past you, unimportant, forgettable.
Time stretches. Blurs.
Your drink empties, refills, empties again.
People shift in their seats. Someone stands. Someone leaves.
Then suddenly—
“You ready?”
You blink.
Santos is standing beside you, brows raised.
“Ready?” you echo.
She nods toward the door. “Time to go. Most of us have to work tomorrow.”
You glance around at the empty table. “Oh.”
Santos is already halfway to the door by the time you gather your things and catch up to her. You’re still pulling your jacket on as you step outside, bracing against the cool night air that nips at every inch of exposed skin—which, in this dress, is a lot of skin.
“The Uber’s just around the corner,” Whitaker says.
“Great,” Mohan mutters, hugging her jacket tighter. “I’m freezing.”
You’re not sure if it’s the alcohol or just the heat lingering beneath your skin from the way Jack had been watching you earlier, but you’re not nearly as cold as you should be.
“You sure you don’t mind if I stay over tonight?” Javadi asks, glancing between Santos and Whitaker.
Santos shrugs. “As long as you don’t mind the couch—and Dr. Shamsi isn’t going to have us arrested for kidnapping.”
Javadi lets out an awkward laugh. “Uh—no. It’s totally fine. I told my dad.”
“Are you working tomorrow?” Whitaker asks.
Javadi shakes her head. “Day off. You?”
Whitaker sighs. “Yeah.”
“So am I,” Santos adds. “And if I don’t get at least five hours sleep, I cannot be responsible for other people’s lives.”
“That’s reassuring,” Jack mutters, almost startling you as he steps out of the bar.
He buries his hands in his pockets, hardly sparing you a glance as he steps closer to the group. There’s a faint hitch in his step—something you recognise from the waning hours of a night shift, when he’s been on his feet for too long and starts to favour one leg.
“This is us,” Whitaker announces, nodding toward the car pulling up at the curb.
Mohan hurries forward first, yanking the door open and climbing into the back seat—and Javadi is next, flashing you a smile before she ducks in beside her. You step forward—then hesitate. Whitaker is already holding the front passenger door open, and Santos is standing at the curb, about to join the others in the back.
“Wait.” Your pulse jumps. “There’s too many—”
“You’re with Dr. Abbot,” Santos says lightly, her mouth twitching like she’s trying not to smile.
Your stomach drops.
“I—I’m what?”
Santos shrugs. “Javadi’s staying over and Mohan’s place is on the way to ours. Just makes sense.”
Then she climbs into the car, shuts the door, and rolls the window down.
“See you tomorrow!”
There’s a chorus of goodbyes from the others before the car pulls away from the curb—and the cool, quiet night settles in too quickly. The only sound is the dull thrum of music from the bar, and the pounding of your pulse in your ears.
For a second, you don’t turn around. You can’t. Not now that you’re alone with him.
Then—
“I’m this way,” he says, voice low and rough and maddeningly hot.
You nod, but don’t dare look at him as you start following the line of parked cars up the street.
The night air feels sharper now, cooler the further you get from the bar—and it makes you pull into yourself, arms folded tightly while your jacket barely does anything to help.
Jack keeps an easy pace beside you, not crowding you, not touching you, but close enough that you’re aware of him anyway. Of the space he takes up at your side. Of the way he adjusts slightly so you’re walking on the inside of the path, further from the curb, without making a thing of it.
Neither of you says anything.
It’s not awkward. It’s just… quiet in a way that feels heavy, like the silence is holding onto everything that happened inside instead of letting it go.
Your heels click unevenly against the pavement, catching slightly every few steps, and you’re suddenly, painfully aware of everything—the way your dress shifts as you move, the cool air against your skin, the way your pulse hasn’t quite settled.
You feel too sober. Too aware.
When his car finally comes into view, he moves ahead of you just slightly—just enough to reach the passenger door first and hold it open.
God. He’s so annoyingly considerate.
You give him a small, tight smile before climbing into the passenger seat.
The car is still warm, still holding onto the heat from earlier in the day, and it smells like him in a way that’s subtle but unmistakable—clean, familiar, something faintly sharp beneath it that you can’t quite place but instantly recognise. The seat gives slightly beneath you, softer than you expect, and for a second you just sit there, hands hovering like you’re not entirely sure where to put them.
It’s his.
All of it.
The way everything is exactly where it should be, nothing out of place. The faint scuff on the console. A pair of sunglasses tucked neatly into the centre compartment. His backpack thrown into the back seat like he’d discarded it in a hurry and never thought about it again.
The sound of the driver’s side door opening almost startles you.
You drop your hands into your lap, shifting slightly and smoothing your dress down over your thighs like that might ground you somehow.
The car immediately feels smaller when Jack climbs in. More intimate. Closer in a way that’s almost stifling.
You keep your eyes fixed out the windshield.
Waiting.
For the engine to start. For the car to move.
But nothing happens.
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating, settling into every inch of the space between you.
And then—
“You can’t say shit like that around me.”
You blink, finally turning toward him—and regretting it immediately. He’s so irritatingly handsome, so annoyingly gorgeous in a way that makes you want to be stupid and reckless and climb across the console into his lap.
“Say what?” you ask, your voice embarrassingly thin.
He looks at you—not fully, just turning his head slightly.
“You know what,” he says, his voice low and rough with something that sounds a little too close to control slipping.
And you do.
You know exactly what he means.
But before you can say anything else, he turns the key and the engine rumbles to life. The radio crackles a little before some late-night news station fills the silence—and he doesn’t move to turn it off, doesn’t even turn it down. He just drives.
The radio reporter’s voice hums through the car like white noise, talking about something you’re not really listening to as you try to focus on keeping your breathing even.
You can still hear his voice.
You can’t say shit like that around me.
The way he said it. Low. Controlled. Like it cost him something to keep it that way.
Your fingers shift slightly in your lap, smoothing over the fabric of your dress again without thinking, and your mind starts turning his words over before you can stop it—pulling at them, testing them, trying to make them mean something that makes sense.
Because what does that even mean?
You glance at him, quick, like you might catch something you missed—but he’s focused on the road, jaw set, one hand loose on the wheel like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just change everything with eight little words.
You look away again.
No. He didn’t mean it like that.
He’s just—he’s your attending. He’s responsible. Of course he’d say something. Of course he’d—
Except he didn’t say it like that.
Your stomach tightens as your thoughts circle back, slower this time, more deliberate.
The way he kept pulling you away from people tonight. The way he’d been watching you. The way he didn’t laugh, didn’t joke, didn’t let it go.
The way he said it.
Around me.
Not here. Not in front of people.
Around me.
Your breath catches slightly, and you shift in your seat, suddenly very aware of the space between you—of how close he is, of how easy it would be to just turn your head, lean in and—
No.
No, that’s not—
You swallow, gaze fixed stubbornly ahead.
You’re just reading into it. You have to be.
Because the alternative—
Your pulse jumps.
God. The alternative is too much to even consider.
But the thought lingers anyway.
It settles in the back of your mind, quieter now, but heavier—pulling at everything he said, everything he did, everything you might have missed until now. The words circle back, sharper this time—until—
The car stops—and you blink.
For a moment, you don’t move. You can’t.
Then Jack clears his throat.
“Oh—uh—thanks,” you mutter, reaching for your seatbelt buckle.
He nods once. “Anytime.”
You push your door open before you can think too hard about it, stepping out into the cool night air that hits a little harder this time. Your heart is still beating in your throat, your pulse still too loud, your thoughts are still circling those eight words—eight little words that feel like they weigh far more than they should.
You hesitate—one hand on the door, the other gripping your keys in your jacket pocket.
God.
This is stupid.
This is reckless.
This is—
“Do you—” You clear your throat, the words catching slightly before you force them out. “Do you want to come up?”
He stares at you for a second, then lets out a short, disbelieving breath, like he’s not quite sure he heard you right.
“You can’t be serious.”
Heat rushes up your neck, quick and unwelcome, and for a second you just stand there, wishing you could take it back—rewind a few seconds and keep your mouth shut.
What the hell were you thinking?
“Yeah,” you say, a little too quickly. “No, that was—that was stupid.”
You turn away before he can say anything else, pushing the door shut harder than you mean to as you step back onto the sidewalk. You don’t look back. You refuse to. You just keep walking toward the lobby door, drawing your keys from your pocket and fumbling through them to find the right one.
It takes longer than it should, but eventually you find the lobby key and wriggle it into the lock.
This door has never been your friend. It’s old, a little rusted, and the lock has always been janky—but now your hands are shaking, and this stupid old door seems to think that’s funny, because it won’t budge.
You jiggle the key and try again, but nothing changes.
Then—
“Here.”
His voice is low. Close.
Your hand stills as he steps in behind you, not touching, but close enough that you can feel the heat of him at your back—the solid line of his chest just shy of pressing into you as he reaches past your shoulder.
His fingers brush yours as he takes the key—and the lock turns easily this time.
Of course it does. Traitorous fucking door.
His arm lingers there for a second longer than it needs to—then he pushes the door open.
You don’t even glance at him as you step inside, already turning back to grab your key before the door swings shut—but he’s still holding it, barely a step behind you.
He tilts his head slightly, nodding toward the lobby. “Go.”
It’s quiet. Controlled.
Not a suggestion.
Your breath catches, just for a second, and you hesitate—long enough to feel it, whatever this is, tightening between you—
Then you turn and keep walking.
And he follows.
He follows you across the lobby, up the fire stairs, down the corridor, all the way to your apartment door. He stands a little closer than necessary as you unlock it—almost like he doesn’t think you know how doors work now—but the key turns smoothly this time.
You push the door open and step inside.
The apartment is quiet, dim, and you shrug out of your jacket without thinking. You can feel him watching you as you drape it over the arm of the sofa, and it’s a little... thrilling. Dangerous. Because Jack Abbot is in your goddamn apartment right now, looking at you like he’s a man on the edge—
And you’re daring him to jump.
“Drink?” you offer, keeping your voice light—innocent.
He clears his throat. “Water, please.”
You can’t help the small smirk on your lips as you brush past him, a little closer than necessary.
“So polite,” you murmur.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t shift—but you can feel him there, tense just beneath the surface.
You open the fridge and bend over to grab a bottle of water, letting your dress ride up the backs of your thighs in a way that’s totally unnecessary. Jack clears his throat again, just a little too sharp, and when you glance back toward him, he’s turned away completely.
You press your lips together to keep from smiling too wide as you straighten again.
“Here,” you say, stepping toward him and holding the water out.
He turns hesitantly, taking it. “Thank you.”
Your eyes catch his, a slow smile tugging at your lips before you bite the corner gently, just enough for him to notice. He looks away quickly, jaw tightening as he focuses on uncapping the water bottle.
You brush past him again, still a little too close, and move toward the sofa, dropping onto it and leaning forward to take off your shoes.
Jack takes a long swig of water, then clears his throat for the third time.
“Are you working tomorrow?” he asks.
You glance up, still leaned forward, and it’s hard not to notice the way his eyes dip from your face.
“Isn’t that something you should already know?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, like he can’t quite help himself.
“You’re impossible. You know that?”
Heat rushes up your neck at the way he says it—short, sharp, loaded—and you bite back a grin, letting your eyes glint just a little as you straighten.
“Am I?” you murmur, tilting your head just slightly. “Only one way to find out.”
He freezes for a second, shoulders tight, hand curling slightly around the water bottle—and it crackles softly under his grip. His breath hitches, just barely.
“I should go,” he mutters, voice low and clipped.
He takes a step toward the door—and you shoot up from the sofa, heartbeat racing.
“Wait—uh—before you go,” you say, stepping toward him, “could you help me with something?”
He hesitates, turning slowly, as if every second in here is costing him something.
You move until you’re almost between him and the door, looking up at him through your lashes.
“Could you help me out of my dress?”
The second the words leave your lips, you forget how to breathe.
Jack’s jaw tightens, his shoulders coiling ever so slightly. His fingers twitch around the bottle, just a whisper of movement, as if holding himself together by force. His eyes catch yours, dark and sharp, taking in the faint scrunch between your brows, the small pout on your lips, the way you’re offering him something he never thought he’d be allowed to have.
He nods once—careful, controlled—but the tension radiating off him is almost unbearable.
Your stomach flips.
Without a word, you turn, sweeping your hair out of the way while your pulse hammers in your ears.
You feel him shift, his warmth, and the ghost of his touch at the nape of your neck. And that first, tiny contact sends a shock straight through you—hot, sharp, impossible to ignore.
He pauses, just a heartbeat, and you catch the tiniest hitch in his breath.
Then he moves again, slow, deliberate, dragging the zipper down almost painfully slow, his knuckles grazing your skin—warm, rough, controlled, just enough to make your heart pound in your throat.
“How do you do it?” you whisper, voice catching slightly. “How are you always so… unaffected by everything?”
“Unaffected?” he murmurs, almost tasting the word, as if testing it against himself.
His knuckles brush the small of your back, pausing where the zipper ends—but he doesn’t stop. His fingertips graze your skin, deliberate, teasing, tracing the line of your spine upward again, slow enough that it drags your breath with it, sharp enough that heat blooms through every nerve.
“You have no idea,” he whispers, voice low and rough, almost breaking, “how much you affect me.”
Your breath catches, sharp and sudden. Everything in your chest pulls tight, something hot and dizzying blooming low as his words sink in.
You turn before you can stop yourself—and he’s closer now. Close enough that you can feel the warmth of him, the shift of his breath, the space between you narrowing into something fragile and dangerous.
For a second, neither of you move.
And then his hand finds your neck—
Not rough, not rushed—just firm enough to anchor you there, thumb pressing under your jaw like he needs to feel that this is real, that you’re real. His other hand tightens where it still holds the loosened fabric of your dress at your back, fingers curling into it like restraint is slipping through his grip.
He hesitates, just for a breath. Like he’s giving himself one last chance to walk away.
Then he kisses you.
It’s not tentative. There’s nothing careful about it. It lands like something he’s been holding back for too long, all that control finally snapping under the weight of you standing here, asking for him, looking at him like that.
His mouth is warm and certain against yours, a sharp inhale breaking through you as you lean into him without thinking, your hands finding him just as quickly—his stomach, his chest—anything to hold onto as the world tilts. He makes a low sound, barely there, but you feel it more than you hear it, the vibration settling deep in your chest as his grip tightens.
You melt before you can stop yourself.
Your head tilts back, giving him more, and he takes it immediately, deepening the kiss with that same quiet intensity that steals the breath right out of you. His thumb shifts along your jaw, not lingering, just enough to guide you where he wants you, and the control of it—God, the way he still tries to control it after everything, after all that restraint—makes something in your stomach flip hard.
His hand at your back slips under the loosened zipper, fingers pressing into your bare skin now, warm and steady, but there’s tension in it. You can feel it in the way his grip flexes, like he’s still trying—still—to hold the line even as he pulls you closer.
It doesn’t work.
Not when you press into him like this, not when your fingers curl tighter in his shirt, not when you kiss him back without hesitation, without thinking about consequences or lines or anything except how he feels against you.
He exhales against your mouth, sharp, like you’ve just undone him, and for a second the kiss falters—not because he’s pulling away, but because he’s trying to.
You feel it. The conflict. The split second where he almost stops.
Your hand slides up to his jaw, fingers catching there, holding him in place before he can even try.
“Don’t,” you whisper, barely pulling back, your lips brushing his as you speak.
And something in him gives.
You see it in the way his eyes darken, in the way his hand tightens at your back, pulling you flush against him this time, the last inch of space gone like it was never allowed to exist in the first place.
When he kisses you again, it’s deeper.
Less restrained.
Like he’s finally stopped pretending this isn’t exactly what he wants.
It’s different now—harder, hungrier, like something in him has shifted for good. His hand slides from your jaw to your waist, gripping tight as he steps into you, crowding you back without breaking the kiss, without giving you a second to think.
Your back meets the door with a soft thud.
He doesn’t stop.
If anything, it only makes him sharper, more certain, his mouth moving against yours with a kind of urgency that steals the air right out of your lungs. You barely get a breath before he takes it again, and you let him—God, you let him—tilting into him, giving him everything he reaches for.
His hand tightens at your waist, then slips lower, dragging you flush against him again, like he needs to feel exactly how close he can get before he loses control completely.
And you can feel it—how close he is.
It’s in the way his grip flexes, in the way his breath turns uneven against your mouth, in the way the kiss keeps deepening like he can’t quite stop himself from taking more.
Your fingers find his shirt again, pulling him closer, and he breaks the kiss just long enough to drag in a breath, his forehead almost brushing yours, like he’s trying—one last time—to get a handle on this.
He doesn’t.
His hands are on you again, immediate, sliding up your sides, pushing the straps of your dress from your shoulders in one smooth, decisive motion. The fabric gives easily, slipping under his hands like it was never meant to stay there in the first place—and it falls to the floor, pooling at your feet.
His breath catches, and his gaze drops—just for a second, but it’s enough.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, voice low, rough—nothing steady about it now.
You meet his eyes, chest rising and falling fast, heat still sparking under your skin.
“Bedroom,” you murmur.
For a second, he just looks at you.
Something in his expression shifts—tightens—like that word landed exactly where it shouldn’t. His gaze searches yours for a moment, checking for hesitation, for doubt.
But he doesn’t find any.
He nods once—and you turn, already moving toward the bedroom. You can feel him right behind you, close enough that his hand finds your waist again before you’ve even taken two steps, steady, grounding, like he’s not about to let you get too far ahead of him.
It’s barely a walk.
More like being guided—pulled—across the apartment toward your room, your pulse loud in your ears, every step charged with the knowledge of what you’ve just set in motion.
The door barely makes it closed before he’s on you again.
Not rushed—never rushed—but certain, like the decision has already been made and there’s no point pretending otherwise. His hands find you first, steady at your waist, turning you back toward him before you can take another step into the room.
Your breath catches as you look up at him. There’s something in his expression you’ve never seen before. It’s not soft, not gentle—just stripped of whatever distance he’d been holding onto all night.
Gone.
His gaze drags over you, slow and deliberate, and this time there’s nothing in the way of it—nothing to hide behind, nothing to buffer it—and the heat in it settles low in your stomach, heavy and immediate.
“Still want this?” he asks, voice rough, quieter now—but it lands heavier here.
You don’t answer. You just step into him.
And it’s all the permission he needs.
His hand tightens at your waist as he pulls you back into him, and the kiss this time is slower, deeper in a way that feels intentional—like he’s choosing it, not chasing it. His mouth moves against yours with a kind of controlled hunger, every shift measured, every breath deliberate, like he’s letting himself feel it fully instead of fighting it.
Your fingers curl into his shirt, and he exhales against your mouth, something unsteady finally breaking through.
His grip shifts—firmer now—guiding you back a step, then another, not hurried, not careless, but unrelenting all the same. You feel the edge of the bed behind your knees before you fully register moving at all, your focus too caught in the way he’s kissing you, the way his hand anchors you like he’s not about to let this get away from him.
His mouth breaks from yours just long enough to draw in a breath, his forehead pressing briefly to yours.
Not hesitation. Control.
Or what little he has left of it.
“Last chance,” he murmurs, quieter now.
You drop back onto the bed, gaze locked on his, breath still uneven.
“I’m not the one holding back.”
You barely have time to move up the mattress before he’s there, crowding over you, hands braced on either side as he follows you down. The mattress dips under his weight, the space between you gone in an instant—replaced by the solid heat of him, the firm press of his hips against yours.
His mouth finds yours again, hot and insistent, teeth catching your bottom lip just enough to pull a soft sound from you—but it’s different now. Slower. Not restrained, but deliberate. Curious, almost.
Like he’s learning you.
The way you react. The way you move under him. The way you give.
Your hands slide up his chest, fingertips digging in as heat coils low in your stomach—but they don’t stay there long. He shifts his weight slightly, steady, controlled, one hand lifting off the mattress to catch your wrist.
His fingers close around it—not tight, not forceful—just certain, guiding.
He lifts your hand above your head.
“Jack,” you whisper. “I—”
He shushes you.
“Let me do this, okay?” His voice is rough, thick with something unsteady beneath it—something that makes your stomach knot. “I’ve got you.”
And you believe him.
His hand slides down your body, slow and sure, brushing over your chest, your waist, the curve of your hip—each touch deliberate, like he’s taking his time even now, even like this. His fingers hook at the inside of your thigh, grip firm as he nudges your leg wider.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Good girl.”
The words go straight through you.
You can already feel the damp heat between your legs, the slick fabric pressed close, but the way he says it—the way his voice drops—makes your hips shift up instinctively, chasing something you can’t quite reach.
Chasing him.
And he notices. Of course he does.
You only just catch the faint lift at the corner of his mouth before his lips are back on yours, swallowing the breath from you as your back arches, pressing yourself up into him without thinking. Your fingers curl into the sheets above your head, tension pulling tight through your body as everything narrows down to where he’s touching you—where he isn’t touching you.
His hand drags back up your thigh, slower this time. Intentional. And when his fingers finally press against you through the thin fabric, you gasp.
He takes the sound from you immediately, mouth moving against yours, deeper now, like he’s feeding off it, like every reaction just pushes him further. His fingers start to move—slow, circling, testing—while his mouth leaves yours to trail along your jaw, your cheek, the side of your neck.
With your mouth free, the sounds slip out before you can stop them.
Soft. Unsteady. Needy.
And he loves it.
You feel it in the way his breath shifts, in the way his grip tightens just slightly, in the way his hips rock—slow, controlled, a subtle pressure of denim that’s more suggestion than friction.
“Jack—” your voice catches, breaking on his name. “Please. I want—”
“Tell me, sweetheart,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your shoulder, voice low and coaxing.
“More,” you manage, breath shaking. “Need more.”
He groans against your skin, the sound low and rough, his body settling heavier over yours like any space between you is something he can’t stand.
Then his hand shifts.
Your breath catches as his fingers slide beneath the damp fabric, dragging through your wet heat in one slow, deliberate stroke.
Your whole body jolts. “Fuck—Jack—”
The reaction pulls something from him—a sharp inhale against your neck, his mouth pressing there like he needs to ground himself for a second before he loses it completely.
You’ve never felt like this before. Never this hot, this open, this aware of every inch of your own body.
And you’ve never wanted anyone like this before.
“God,” he murmurs, voice thick, lips tracing back up your throat. “You’re so wet for me, sweetheart.”
All you can do is nod, whimpering softly, your hips lifting without permission, chasing him, asking for more without the words—and he gives it to you. Of course he does.
His finger slides inside you, slow at first, letting you feel it—the stretch, the heat—before he pushes deeper, and the sound that breaks from you is swallowed instantly as his mouth finds yours again, your back arching beneath him as he starts to move. Not fast. Never fast. He sets a rhythm instead, steady and controlled, curling his finger just enough to make your breath catch, just enough to make your hips move against him again.
And when you press into it, when your body starts to chase that feeling properly, he adds another finger, the stretch pulling a broken sound from your throat as your hands tighten in the sheets and your body rolls beneath him, helpless to it now, completely caught in the slow, deliberate way he works you open.
Every movement is intentional. Every curl hits deeper, sharper, building something tight and aching low in your stomach that makes your whole body tremble, your breath coming out in uneven gasps as you press into his hand, chasing, needing.
Then his thumb finds your clit, and the contact is immediate—devastating.
You cry out, sharp and breathless, your whole body tightening as he starts slow, deliberate circles that send heat spiralling through you, your hips lifting again, desperate now, unable to stay still under him.
You can’t answer—not when his mouth is everywhere, your throat, your jaw, the corner of your mouth, like he can’t decide where he wants you most before he finds your lips again, and this time the kiss is different again. Hungrier. Messier. His tongue presses into your mouth just as his fingers push deeper, his thumb working harder, more deliberate now, and the moan that tears from you is swallowed whole.
“Please,” you whimper against his mouth, breath breaking. “Please, I—need you.”
He lifts his head, dark eyes searching yours, brows pulling together just slightly.
“You sure?”
You stare at him, trying not to whimper as your whole body clenches around his stilled fingers, the sudden stillness almost worse than anything he was doing before.
“Never have I ever finished during sex, remember?” you manage, breathless but steady enough to land. “You gonna fix that, or what?”
Something feral flickers across his face.
And then it’s gone—replaced by something heavier. Something decided.
He kisses you again before you can catch your breath, all teeth and tongue, the restraint he’s been clinging to snapping clean in half as he groans into your mouth, the sound dragged straight from his chest. You feel the loss of his fingers immediately, your body protesting it, but it’s replaced just as quickly by the slow, deliberate roll of his hips, the friction of denim against your soaked panties making you gasp against him.
“Fuck,” he breathes, like he can’t quite believe it.
He pulls back just enough to shift, bracing himself on one arm while the other moves to his belt, not rushed but far from steady now. There’s a hitch in his breath, a tension in the way his fingers work at it, shoving his jeans and briefs down just enough to free himself, and your gaze drops before you can stop it.
He’s already hard—fully, heavily—flushed and slick at the tip, and the sight of it sends a sharp pulse of heat straight through you, your mouth going dry even as your body reacts in the complete opposite way.
“Fuck—” he chokes, the word breaking out of him. “I haven’t been this hard in—” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark and molten, and whatever he was going to say changes. “—ever.”
It hits you low and deep, twisting something tight in your stomach that makes your hips shift under him without thinking. You finally let go of the sheets, your hands finding him, sliding up to wrap around his neck as you pull him back down, needing him closer, needing him everywhere.
Your legs come up around his waist, drawing him in, urging him forward, and his breath stutters as he presses in, his swollen tip dragging against the damp fabric between you. The contact is just enough to make your head fall back, a broken sound slipping from your throat as he tries—tries—to hold himself up, one arm braced, the other moving between you.
You can feel the strain in him now, the way everything is slipping in real time, in the slight shake of his arm, in the uneven rhythm of his breathing as his hand hooks into the waistband of your panties.
“I’ll buy you new ones,” he murmurs against your mouth, voice rough, almost distracted, like the thought barely registers before it’s gone. “Promise.”
And then the fabric gives.
The sound of it tearing—sharp, sudden—goes straight through you, your breath catching hard as he pulls the fabric out of the way, the last barrier gone in an instant.
It shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
But it is.
Jack Abbot—controlled, composed, always holding the line—losing it enough to rip your panties off you?
Fuck.
He sinks into you in one steady thrust, and both of you gasp at the stretch—the sudden, overwhelming closeness, the way want crashes hot and heavy between you. Your pulse hammers in your ears, that dizzy edge of fear and urgency tangling together until all you can think is him—here, now, inside you.
For a moment, you just breathe—pant, really—eyes squeezed shut, hands locked on his shoulders as your body clenches around him, like you’re trying to keep him right there, like you never want to let him go. He drops his head to your neck, breath hot against your damp skin, and you feel the way it shakes out of him.
“You—fuck—you’re so tight, sweetheart,” he pants, voice rough and muffled where his mouth presses into you. “I’m not gonna last—”
“Then don’t,” you murmur, your voice softer but no less certain. “Just fuck me. Please, Jack.”
A groan tears out of him, low and wrecked, and you feel it through his chest as he shifts above you, hips pulling back, his cock dragging against your walls in a way that makes your stomach coil tight, sparks chasing across your skin. You suck in a sharp breath, your grip tightening on him—and before you can brace, he drives forward again, deeper this time.
“Fuck—” you cry out, the sound breaking loose without warning. “Jack—”
He doesn’t stop. His hips roll back again, slower now, controlled in a way that almost makes it worse, his head lifting so he can look at you, really look at you, like he’s checking, like he needs to see it.
The anticipation coils tighter in your chest, sharp and electric, lighting up every nerve in your body until it almost hurts.
“Mhm,” you manage, breath unsteady, nodding as your arms wind tighter around his neck, pulling him closer, needing him closer, like it still isn’t enough.
For a second—just a second—you’re distracted by something stupid, the feel of his shirt between you, the barrier of it, the way you want it gone, want skin on skin, want to see him, feel him, all of him—
And then he thrusts forward again. Harder again. And the thought disappears completely.
Your body jolts beneath him, every movement knocking the breath from your lungs, and the sound that leaves you is loud—too loud—echoing back off the walls in a way that would make you self-conscious any other time.
But not now.
Right now, you don’t care who hears. Not when it feels like this.
His name spills from your lips in broken gasps, tangled with raw cries, and he answers with a rough sound against your shoulder, biting it back as his hips drive into you at a relentless pace. He’s barely holding himself up now, his weight pressing into you in a way that feels like too much and somehow still not enough, the strain in him obvious in every uneven breath, every sharp exhale against your skin.
His hand drags down your side, back to your thigh, fingers digging in as he pushes your leg wider, and the shift—small as it is—hits something deeper, sharper, your vision flashing white as your head tips back and the knot in your belly pulls tight. His grip slides to your hip, anchoring you there, holding you in place so every thrust lands exactly where it needs to, deep and unrelenting, the sound of it filling the room, wet and rhythmic and impossible to ignore beneath the broken sounds you’re both making.
And then his hand moves between you.
You feel it immediately—the change, the focus—as his fingers find your clit in the slick mess between your bodies, steady despite everything else, despite the way he’s losing himself in every way. Your back arches, breath catching sharp as his touch turns deliberate, circling, pressing, coaxing, sending jolts of sensation straight through you until it’s too much, not enough, everything all at once.
“Jack—” you whine, the sound falling apart as soon as it leaves you. “Fuck, I—”
“I know, sweetheart,” he mutters against your jaw, voice wrecked. “Come on my cock, yeah?”
Your hips lift to meet him without thinking, chasing the rhythm he’s set, chasing the pressure, the friction, the way he’s working you with a precision that feels almost cruel now. His hand doesn’t falter, his fingers moving with intent, building and building, every touch sending sharp bursts of pleasure up your spine as the tension in your stomach pulls tighter, tighter, until it feels like it might snap.
It’s never felt like this before. You’ve never felt like this before.
Your whole body tightens, back arching, legs trembling around him as your hips grind up against his, desperate, chasing something you can’t hold onto. He keeps hitting that same spot, again and again, relentless, his pace rougher now, less controlled, while his fingers stay locked on you, steady, practiced, pushing you right to the edge and holding you there.
You cry out, the sound raw, breaking from your chest as everything finally tips.
The release hits all at once—sharp, overwhelming, tearing through you in a rush that steals your breath and leaves nothing behind but heat and tension snapping loose. Your body locks up around him, tightening, pulsing, your hands gripping at him as your legs shake, your hips still moving against his like you can’t stop, like you don’t want to.
“Fuck,” he groans, burying his face in your neck, his voice wrecked as he keeps moving inside you—slower now, but deeper, like he’s chasing every last pulse of you, like he doesn’t want to miss a second of it. “That’s it. That’s my girl.”
His rhythm falters, hips stuttering, and then he loses it completely—a broken sound tearing from him as he drives into you one last time, deep and hard, spilling inside you as his whole body tenses, shuddering above yours.
You feel it—every part of it—the way he comes undone, the way he clings to you through it, like he needs something to hold onto just as much as you do. Your bodies keep moving together, slower now, instinctive, chasing the last fading edges of it as your breathing stays uneven, your chests rising and falling in sync, skin slick and overheated where you’re pressed together.
It takes a moment to come back down—a long one.
But eventually, the tension drains from him and he collapses almost fully above you, face buried into your shoulder, his weight heavy and grounding as he exhales, slow and spent. It makes it a little harder to breathe—but you don’t mind.
Not when you can feel his heartbeat against your chest, strong and real, still racing like yours.
-
For the first time in two weeks, Jack Abbot isn’t stupidly early for his shift. He couldn’t be, really. Because he’d woken up late this morning, limbs tangled with yours in warm sheets that smelled so much like you it made his head spin—and that had thrown off everything else he needed to get done today.
If it was up to him, he wouldn’t have left at all—but he had to. He had police paperwork to finish, a neighbour’s cat to feed, and sleep he should’ve caught up on before being back in charge of an entire emergency department for twelve hours. But on the bright side? He knows you have a swing shift today, which means he doesn’t need to be early to see you, because you’re going to be stuck at PTMC until at least ten p.m. tonight.
With him.
And he really shouldn’t be looking forward to that as much as he is.
“Afternoon, Dr. Abbot,” Dana says, glancing over the top of her glasses. “Wasn’t sure we’d see you today. Aren’t you usually here by now?”
“I’m on time,” Jack mutters. “I’m a busy man.”
Dana hums, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly as her eyes drop back down to the tablet in her hands.
Jack tries not to appear too conspicuous as he scans the department, glancing toward the trauma bays and South corridor as he passes the nurses’ station. He shouldn’t be this anxious to see you again—not in the apprehensive kind of way, but in the way that makes it feel like his lungs won’t quite fill until you’re near him again.
“She’s not here,” Dana says without looking up from her chart. “Wasn’t feeling well, so Ellis came in early.”
Jack spots Ellis across central, exiting one of the rooms with Santos at her side, and he opens his mouth to say something—defend himself, maybe, lie about what or who he was looking for—but he hesitates, unsure what he could say that wouldn’t incriminate him further.
So instead, he just drops his head and keeps walking, fumbling for his phone in his pocket.
He’d seen you this morning. Just this morning. You were sleepy, had a headache, so he got you water and Tylenol and kissed you before he left—but you hadn’t said anything about feeling so unwell you were going to call in sick.
Jack doesn’t stop until he reaches the lockers, then turns back to survey the ED one last time before leaning a shoulder against the wall and pulling up his text thread with you. He hadn’t texted you today because he knew he’d see you tonight and didn’t want to seem… overbearing. Even now, he’s not sure if he should—but he feels off in a way he hasn’t in years, like he’s waiting on something he can’t control and it’s making him feel sick.
What if last night hadn’t meant what he thought it did? What if you regretted it? What if it was just—
“Hey, kid,” Dana calls from the nurses’ station. “Big night?”
Jack’s head snaps up—and there you are.
The relief hits before he can stop it, sharp and instant, loosening something in his chest he hadn’t realised was wound so tight. He swallows it down just as quickly, his expression settling before anyone can clock it.
“You don’t know the half of it,” you mutter.
Dana huffs a short laugh. “I have a feeling I don’t want to know.”
Jack can’t help but watch as you cross the floor toward him, your backpack hanging from one shoulder while the other hand presses two fingers to your temple, like you could massage the headache away. There’s a smug little smile on your lips when you reach him, slowing your steps until you pause just beside him—not too close, but enough to make his breath catch.
You glance down at his phone, at the open message thread where his thumb is hovering, and your smirk curves a little higher.
“Miss me?”
Jack locks his phone and tucks it back into his pocket.
“Thought you were sick.”
You lift one shoulder. “A little hungover, so Ellis swapped with me.”
For a second, neither of you move. He just looks at you—and you look right back, like you both know exactly what’s changed, even if neither of you is about to say it out loud. Not here. Not now.
“And I missed the night shift attending,” you say finally.
Then—before he can respond, before he’s even fully processed what you said—you lean in and press a quick kiss to his cheek. Only brief. Barely anything.
But it feels like everything.
And just like that, Jack Abbot is done pretending he isn’t yours.
it's not easy to anger rafe... until someone decides to sit on what he considers untouchable.
c/w: pogue!reader. rafe cameron x reader. there's no sex, but let me know if you want a part two.
⚠︎ english is not my first language so pls keep that in mind
there weren't many things rafe truly cherished, but his truck was definitely among them. he always made sure to keep it spotless, without a single scratch to ruin it. his truck stood out among all the parked cars; too well-maintained for the usual chaos of the outer banks.
rafe was leaving the bar, heading towards his truck to drive home. but once he crossed the threshold, he stopped when he saw you calmly leaning against the hood, as if it were a public bench.
you were engrossed in answering a few messages on your phone, completely unaware that you were comfortably leaning against rafe cameron's vehicle. you swung one leg while continuing to look at the screen.
"does that feel comfortable?" he had his arms crossed, his brow furrowed, waiting for a reaction from you.
but he didn't get it. you didn't even bother to look up; you already recognized his irritating voice. you just raised an eyebrow, shifting more on the hood, seeming to be getting more comfortable. "yes," you said indifferently.
"perfect. because it's my car." he was frustrated; he'd had a bad day. the last thing he needed was to find a pogue with her ass in his car.
"ah," rafe was waiting for at least a glance from you, but you just reverted to your curt tone while completely ignoring him, and that seemed to deal a heavy blow to his ego. you yawned a little, smiling slightly as you looked at the messages kiara was sending you.
"i recommend you get out." he was starting to get irritated, watching your every move on top of his vehicle. finally, you looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. you turned off your phone, leaving it on the hood. rafe secretly hoped you hadn't left even a scratch. "that sounds more like a threat than a recommendation."
"it's my truck, you'd better not have left any marks on it."
"then you should have parked it better," you paused, crossing your legs. "besides, if i scratch it, your dad will probably be able to buy you another one." you looked at him with a barely perceptible sarcastic smile.
"fuck. are you always this annoying?" he tilted his head, took a few steps closer, this time his hands inside his pockets.
"only when someone believes the world is theirs." you lean slightly in his direction, staring at him intently.
"not the world," he paused, "just my truck." once he saw that his words hadn't gotten you off him, he thought a more serious tone would make you get out. "get out. now."
"make me." you narrow your eyes, challenging him, even though you knew that rafe cameron would make you get down from there with his own hands.
rafe smiled at that. if there was one thing he liked—besides his truck—it was a challenge, especially if you were involved. he moved closer to you, invading your space. his hands rested on the hood, on either side of you.
making it difficult to escape his arms at your sides, you didn't feel intimidated; you seemed to enjoy what was happening.
rafe's eyes lit up, observing every feature of your face, "do you know what bothers me the most?"
"let me guess," you pause, "that I'm not afraid of you?"
"no." he lowers his gaze, then looks back at you, admiring you, "you seem to be having fun."
his words made you think, causing you to look away from his blue eyes. rafe felt it as a victory; he had managed to intimidate you.
"am i wrong?" he searched for your gaze, speaking to you in a seductive tone of voice that he knew couldn't fail you. until, slowly, he leaned close to your ear and whispered: "get your fucking ass off my car."
you groaned lazily, rolling your eyes as you weakly pushed him away. rafe, like you, rolled his eyes, placing both hands on your hips; it took no effort at all for him to push you off in the blink of an eye.
you glared at him, grabbed your phone, and walked away, looking somewhat indignant. rafe couldn't help but smile, watching you leave in annoyance until you were out of sight.
and finally he took the keys out of his pocket, but before opening the door his eyes stopped at the hood. a long scratch ran across the black paint. his jaw tightened. "I'm definitely going to kill her."
𓂃✍︎ rich dad!rafe cameron and cool mom!reader on parents teaching day . . .
Based off this pairing.
summary: for all you knew, there's no way rafe and you would ever say no to the puppy eyes of your daughter when she practically begged the two of you to volunteer for parents teaching day in her class.
content: husband!rafe x wife!reader, full fluff!
taglist: @calumsargwife @maryjaneeeee
"Not doing it." Rafe sighed out with his head shaking in denial that he did in fact gave in to your daughter, Izzy's wish for the two of you to be the volunteering parents for parents teaching day in her classroom. It was tiring reminding him that it was too late to have second thoughts, considering the two of you were literally already walking down the hallway that leads to Izzy's classroom.
A soft chuckle slipped past your lips, an arm snaking through his to link both your arms together, "A bit too late for that." You said as you reach up with your other hand to fix his hair, "Man up, dude."
"What can I even fuckin' teach these kids? How to run a company?" He complained, leaning down to let you fix his hair easier.
"Rafe, they're 6 goddamn years old."
You gave his forearm several taps as you both approach the classroom's door. Rafe, though still sulking, put on a charming smile and one last deep breath. He was tense, you could feel it. Oddly enough, more tense than he usually is before business meetings. On the contrary, you were such at ease, rocking on your heels just a bit out of excitement at this chance.
"Okay... Don't forget to smile!" You practiced your cheerful tone.
Rafe's words came out in a mutter, "I fuckin' am."
Your smile falters just a bit, shooting him a warning glare. "And wipe off the attitude." You said before putting the smile back on as the door in front of you opens.
The moment the homeroom teacher left the two of you in the room with all the kids, Rafe only got more tense, nudging your back a tad bit as if signaling you to take the lead in talking, coughing a bit and darting his eyes away from the kids and to the ceilings as if the spider web on the corner was more interesting. He was such a pathetic coward outside of the business world, you might as well smooch him on the spot.
Then, both Rafe's and your eyes met your daughter's, who was sitting close to the back, standing up and waving both of her cute arms at you two, "Mommy! Daddy!" She cheered before sitting back down and bragging to her friends that you were her parents.
You spot Rafe's shoulders relax, a wide, happy smile appearing on his face as well as yours.
A small laugh escapes your throat, "Morning, everyone." You greeted them with waves, "As you can already tell, we are... izzy's parents." You shot Izzy a wink as you pat Rafe's shoulder, "And today... we will be your teachers."
Rafe didn't know what you had in plan for today nor what you had in the large paper bag you've been carrying all the way from home, but he surely didn't expect you to pull out two large sturdy wood boards out of it.
"Today, we're making ocean dioramas!" You cheerfully announced, smiling even wider when all the kids started jumping around in excitement while several others asked to their friends; "what's a diramama?"
Rafe chuckled softly, seeing how happy you were to know the kids were excited. Then, his smile dropped when you added, "We'll be splitting into two teams! Mine and Izzy's daddy's! Let's see who can make it better."
"What?" He uttered out, grabbing your arm with wide, panicked eyes. "I love you, but no."
"Scared?" You taunted and smirked, "Loser cooks dinner tonight."
He let out a scoff, a small grin on his lips despite being frustrated, clearly amused by your playfulness as always. "Game on, gorgeous."
So you spent the next hour doing precisely that, in that same classroom. The class was divided into two, your team taking the space in front of the classroom while Rafe's team, which includes Izzy, was all the way in the back, his eyes never stopped darting towards your team, hoping to see you looking back at him and realize he needed help, only to find you completely in your own world with the kids.
There you were, smiling and happily braiding a little girl's hair just so her hair wont get in the way while painting the diorama. He could hear so many of them giggle every now and then, sounding completely infatuated by you.
Despite being stressed out, he still found the sigh of you being so motherly even to children that weren't yours to be very... heartwarming.
"Mr. Cameron?"
He snapped out of it, eyes flickering to the little boy that have scooted closer to him on the floor, holding an adorable little paper fish in his hands and happily presenting it to him, wide smiled with several teeth missing.
Rafe's eyes soften, chuckling lowly. "That's really good, buddy... Here, let me help you put it on the diorama." He said, taking the fish gently.
"Mr. Cameron, what d'you do...?"
The man pauses, still trying to put the fish onto the diorama. "Like for work?" He asked, glancing back at the boy to find him nodding enthusiastically, "Well... I run and manage a development company." He explained, "We uh build and develop homes." Rafe smiled.
The little boy's eyes lit up, "So you must be rich, sir!"
It was only when a little girl chime into the conversation did he realize his whole team was listening into it, "Mrs. Cameron must be very lucky and happy all the time!" The little girl said.
Rafe let out a gentle laugh, cheeks warming up as he glance at you again, "Yeah, kiddo?" He smiled sheepishly, "Well, I'd say I'm the lucky one." He said, "Mrs. Cameron is way more than what you see. She's responsible for all of my happiness and success. A lucky charm. A really really cool lucky charm."
Izzy raises an eyebrow at her dad, who didn't even notice she was spreading a thin layer of glitter glue on the back of his hand. "Daddy, you called her scary last week."
He shot a playful warning glare at Izzy, "Scarily amazing, sweetie, keep up." He poked her nose and turned back to the other kids listening, specifically the boys as he say, "So, boys... when you grow up, choose a woman like Mrs. Cameron, yeah? No matter how wealthy you get, a woman like her is the true treasure." He explained, grinning proudly at himself.
A boy let out a hum as he think, "So... Like Izzy?"
"No."
On the other side of the classroom, your team was doing perfectly well at creating the diorama, already on finishing touches. The kids were adding more elements to make the diorama much more alive while you were helping on painting the background, successfully capturing the ocean ambiance.
"Mrs. Cameron, you're very good at painting." The little girl sitting beside you said, smiling sweetly as she glued a seaweed onto the base of the diorama.
You return her smile, chuckling, "Why thank you, sweetie. I must say, I can never make a whale as good as you did though." You pointed to the clay whale she had made previously.
The girl giggled softly before gasping when she saw your manicured nails, "Whoa... Cool nails, Mrs. Cameron!"
"Thanks!" You laughed softly, "I did them myself."
"Really?" Her eyes lit up, before dimming yet again, "I wish I could... Even if I could, my mommy wouldn't let me..."
Your heart softens at her pouty face, "Well... your pretty face will outshine your nails either way." You smiled and mover her bangs to a better position.
The smile returns to her face, turning her head away as she giggled softly yet again, flattered by your words. "You know, Mrs. Cameron... I know a secret." She said, looking at you with enthusiastic eyes as she lean up to whisper into your ear, "I know Mr. Cameron loves you very very much... He have been looking here again and again..." She whispered.
As she lean back and continue her work giddily, you raise your eyebrows in amusement and stifle a laugh as you glance over at Rafe's team to seek for confirmation, eyes immediately meeting his- to which he reacted to by quickly turning away and helping the kids.
As the day ended, you ended up with glitter all over your hair from some of the kids that were playing, while Rafe had paint on his pants- done when he accidentally wiped off his hands on his thighs out of reflex. The two of you walk behind Izzy towards your parked car in the school's parking lot, arms linked together once again as you try to peel off the glitter glue Izzy had previously spread across Rafe's hand, trying to get them all of in one go for your satisfaction.
"I'm telling you, our diorama had a meaning." Rafe grumbled out, "Your team's just artsy and perfectionist." He complained to the fact that the classroom had all mutually agreed that your team had the best diorama.
"Rafe, I told you, I'll still cook dinner. No one wants to eat your cooking anyways."
"Ouch- OUCH!" Rafe yanked his hand away when you rip the dried out glue off roughly.
Laughter erupts from both you and Izzy, amused by Rafe's typical frustrated face: eyebrows sewn together and his lips in that disgusted scowl.
"Calm down, princess." You teased as you take his arm in yours again, rubbing the back of his hand with your fingers to soothe the pain, still snickering quietly. "You'll live."
Rafe looked at you, silent for awhile before letting out a deep and dreamy sigh. He leaned in a bit before he started whispering, "You were really good with the kids today." He whispered, smiling, "Maybe we can make-"
the relationship between you and rafe were clear, the deal had been made long before it started. you took it seriously—understanding the boundaries set between the two of you without any complaint—why would you not when you did agree to it, right?
but it's way different for rafe. he acts like they don't exist, crossing the line every single time just to apologize and promising not to do it again—which is a lie. he swore that it was the too much hennessy he had, not realizing how he had broke everything on the list knowing full well he did it because he wants to.
it was another night where you find yourself with him, face buried in the too many pillows in your bed with your ass up in the air, his hands holding them in place. he was lost in the pleasure you seem to give, eyes shut as he pound into you from behind. he was gripping your skin so hard you're sure it'll bruise the next day.
"oh, fuck—" he panted, pace going faster the more he hear how you sound under him. you were a mess, drunk in the way he's moving in and out of you as words tumble out of your mouth—they were all nonsense to both your ears—with your hand reaching back for him.
turning your head slightly, you can see him—eyes fluttering shut, hair sticking to his forehead as sweat ran down his neck—and it only turns you on even more as you grind back against him, chasing the high. he just had that effect on you and it drives you wild, needing more than you already got.
when he opens his eyes slightly, you can feel his pace faltering and you swore you heard him whimpering when he made eye contact with you before pulling out without a warning, making you whine at the sudden loss of him. he didn't waste any second to turn you over so you're laying on your back instead before plunging back in, bringing both your legs up to his shoulders.
the new position had you seeing stars as he went faster than he did before. both your hands reaching out for him, urging for him to be closer and he didn't hesitate to lean down, kissing his way up your neck—your legs now pushed up—you didn't notice how he's marking you, leaving hickies on your collarbone up to your neck before connecting his lips with yours.
your fingers went up into his hair, tugging them slightly when he pounded into you as you moan into the kiss. "rafe, please—" you choked, tears of pleasure escaping, making their way down your temples. he leaned his forehead against yours, you can feel his breath against your lips as he pick up his pace.
"open your eyes f'me, baby." he brushes your hair away from your face to look at you better, "need you to look at me," as his hand went down to where the two of you're connected, finding your clit as he circles it in a punishing pace that has you screaming his name. his free hand went up to your face, his thumb brushing your lower lip and you took it in your mouth without any warning—sucking and swirling your tongue around it—as you look at him in the eyes.
you didn't know what happened—one second, you're noticing how his pace is starting to get messy and the next, he's already cumming inside you with a moan of your name—that's one rule broken again. "shit, shit, shit—i'm sorry—" he quickly pulls out of you, your legs dropping from where it was folded against your chest when he sits up to pull away from you.
you were still trying to catch your breath, trying to process everything that had happened. you can feel him dripping out of you as you sit up, mouth agape when you look at him. "you should be glad i'm on the pill." your voice were still hoarse, hair sticking to your face from the sweat.
"i know, i'm sorry—" he sighs, reaching out to touch your arm before pulling you into a hug—just to comfort you—knowing that he doesn't mean the apology even the slightest bit. truth is, he's not sorry for what he did—from the way he had left the marks on your body to the way he had filled you up. "can't have you looking at me like that. it drives me crazy,"
he takes care of you then, running a damp cloth against your still sensitive skin before dressing you up in his shirt. he basically force-feed you to drink some water even after you had pushed him away, telling you how good you're to him as he watches you fall asleep in his arms.
your phone vibrating on the nightstand made him pull away, declining it when he sees that it's one of the too many guys that have been plotting on you. he didn't understand why you're entertaining them when he's right there in front of you. why wouldn't you just give him a chance?
so he takes the chance to have you right where he wants you to—right where you're supposed to be—not wanting to waste any of the time. it felt like forever to him, although the forever is only a night with you. he'll take his time to let you know that you're his even if it's only by wasting the night together.
masterlist!
ᝰ.ᐟ🖇️ a little something for you guys to celebrate me hitting 500 followers!!!! thank youuu soo much for the loveee 🫶 i lovee you guys smm
