Icarus

| Criminal Minds and The hunger games | requests open!!

[hyperfixationstati0n]

Welcome to my blog!

introduction??

I go by Icarus, and i use any pronouns!!

Characters/fandoms I'm currently writing for:

Criminal Minds:

Spencer Reid

The Hunger Games:

Finnick Odair

Peeta Mellark

Sejanus Plinth

Coriolanus Snow

Lucy Gray Baird

Misc.

Billy the Kid (Tom Blyth)

Requests are open!!

REQUEST GUIDELINES

MASTERLIST

[everdeensmellark]

haymitch says himself katniss is like him, but luckier.

katniss realized the berries were nightlock before peeta ate them.

[richeeduvie]

when the age gap isn't just hot but also angst-inducing :(

During a shift, an elderly man, eighty, in fact, is brought in by his fifty-three-year-old wife. She's a woman who has clearly spent years organizing her life around his aging body.

She hands Jack a detailed list of his medications, in what order he takes them, and his diet. She monitors his symptoms better than he does.

"You're gonna worry...you're gonna worry yourself sick over me."

"You're the one with an IV line. I think I'm allowed to sweat over you a little, honey."

She loves him, that's obvious, but she's also exhausted.

"You know what? Good for him...can't imagine what they've had in common to keep their relationship thriving for the past twenty years, but good for him nonetheless..."

The jokes about the patient's age gap with his wife amongst the night crew die immediately when they realize they have the exact same number of years between them as you and Jack do.

Dr. Abbot and his sunny nurse.

"Shen, not the time workshop that bit."

Jack, throughout the case, watches this woman practically dote on this man as she, really, does worry herself sick.

There's no punchline to be made here. He's smart enough to see that this is a woman who's sacrificed time for this old, old guy that she loves, to the point where she's also sacrificed pieces of herself to keep him afloat.

"Lenora, sweetheart, I think it's a good time to say that I want you to go out more. We'll get a caretaker. These are your years where you relax, you don't...you waste away because I am---"

"Stop saying things like that! These are my years? You took care of me when you were my age. It's not wrong for me to do the same."

And one day, she'll be left alone with no husband to show for it.

You catch the husband with his guard down, listening as the old guy weakly apologizes for all the work he's become, but the wife refuses to let him call himself a burden. Still, all the fatigue in her shows the truth of how much work he is for her.

Jack hears all of it, and the realization hits him like a fucking bullet.

This could be us, kiddo. If I'm too selfish to let you go.

He's already ruined you. He's ruined himself with the obsession with you, but that's what he wants. That he'll never regret at this point, but he's already ruined you.

He can't ruin the rest of your life, too.

No. No. Fuck that. He won't...he won't do that to you.

"They're cute, huh, Jackie?"

They're what loving him could someday cost you. Not just losing him, but slowly, wastefully spending your best years taking care of him.

"...Yeah, kid. They're cute."

Funny. For the first time, Jack's self-hatred doesn't come from his obsessiveness, resentment at your perfection, or his need for you. It just seeps in with the absolute certainty that one day you'll ruin your life over him for the sake of devotion, like he isn't the only one who should be oh so fucking devoted in this relationship.

Like he could deserve that. What a fucking joke.

The worst part is that you'll do it willingly.

"He's right, though. They should hire a caretaker. It's too much for one person."

"Well, if she wants to---"

"It's too much. There's nothing...heroic about turning yourself into a pile of exhaustion and making the person you're taking care of guilty."

Even if it's rightful guilt.

"...Jack?"

Jack's already grey and wrinkled, and he's going to leave you alone in this world with how much closer to death he is. And he is too selfish to let you go.

He guesses he'll just have to kill himself before he gets any more grey. Save you the trouble.

[dartonaldson]

I got bored in class and wrote a detailed dick and bush analysis of characters from the Pitt in secret code. Would anyone like me to post that.

[kiraavi]

silver soul

Summary: Jack returns home and finds himself achingly desperate for his wife. CW: smut, pwp, unprotected piv, creampie, oral f!receiving, praise, dirty talk, a smidgen of sir kink, a sprinkle of power dynamics, a dash of pussy pronoun usage, and everything nice! Note: Hi, it's been awhile and my writing chops may be a lil rusty, but respectfully I am obsessed with handsome with an edge, attending physician, Dr. Jack Abbot, meow. And just Shawn Hatosy in general atp. The Pitt to Animal Kingdom pipeline is real folks. Anyway, enjoy a fluffy smutty morning with Jackie! Credit to @/saradika-graphics for the divider. Word Count: 2.7k Ao3 Link: Read here!

The sky is bruised and purple. Sunlight streams through clefts between mottled pewter clouds. It looks like it’s going to begin to spittle as Jack walks up the drive. The house is swathed in silence, and he is the first to break it when the door falls shut behind him. He shrugs his bag off his shoulder to let it fall onto the crowded entryway floor, cluttered with shoes and a jacket that has slipped off the hook. He’s too tired to tidy much. A hand coming up to rub over his face as he takes another couple steps inside. 

Exhaustion has settled into his marrow—burrowing into the bags beneath his eyes and the ache in his joints as he moves to the kitchen. On the counter there is a singular tupperware topped with a sticky note, sitting next to the wilting vase of flowers he’d gotten you earlier that week. Jack moves toward the flowers first, lifting the bunch from the crystal vase, and dumping the mucky water down the drain before flicking the faucet on and refilling it. He carefully places the bouquet back into the vase, taking care not to accidentally lob any of the delicate flower heads off their stems.

Jack reaches for the sticky note next, thumbing at the furled edge with a fond smile. A little heart next to the excessively neat handwriting. ‘Please eat!!’ He does not heed the note. Instead he tucks the leftovers away in the fridge and makes his way upstairs, his weight creaking the wood on the fourth step. 

You are exactly where he expects you to be, sprawled on your shared bed and fast asleep, swaddled in one of his band tees—the print fissured and faded after countless cycles through the wash. He passes about the room quietly, shrugging off his scrubs and then reaching into the waistband of his pants, tugging something free. A shoelace looped through his wedding band. He unknots it and pulls it back through his belt loop, safely landing the ring in the palm of his hand. The motion had become muscle memory since he’d begun knotting the ridiculous contraption out of the spare shoelace everyday in order to keep himself from losing his ring again.

When he’d lost it in his scrubs a couple years ago, he’d damn near suffered a heart attack. An hour or two spent tearing apart the bedroom before coming to terms with the fact that it was probably lost somewhere on the hospital floor, kicked under something or swept up and tossed. He was prepared to get on his knees and beg for your forgiveness when you came home to find the bedroom turned upside down and him dejectedly admitting that he had lost something so precious. 

And he had gotten on his knees for you, anyway, after you took one sweep of the room and found his wedding band lying on the carpet next to the hamper—his hands landed on either side of your thighs, chin resting against your stomach while he looked up at you as though you hung the moon and the stars. You laughed over the whole ordeal, reassuring him through all his guilt and as he made countless promises that it wouldn’t happen again. Sure enough, Jack had kept that promise thus far—only after teaching himself some Navy SEAL level knot tying techniques. He slides the ring onto his finger, rightfully returning to where it belonged after hours spent tucked away.

Next to go are his pants. He hurries to unbuckle his belt and shuck them off before finally crossing the room, quickly closing the distance between you and him. He forgoes doffing his prosthetic. His body seeks yours, coveting that sacred closeness that feels so wretchedly rare these days—so incredibly finite between his lengthy shifts and sleep filled days. He’s on you in an instant, slinking up the end of the bed, hands parting your legs so he can begin to cozy himself between them. One broad palm glides down and grasps your ankle, bringing it to his lips to start placing a dotted trail of kisses up your leg. He inches closer and closer, up and up and up until—

“Jackie…?” Your voice leaves you as a quiet croak. You shift and peer down at him bleary eyed. You look a little confused. Sleepy and your hair a mess, but adorable all the same. Something uncoils in his gut as he watches your expression shift until you’re gazing at him with the warmest, fondest look in your eyes. The gaze you give him whenever your sleep-addled mind has only just barely registered his return home. The kind of look that telegraphs to him more than your words could ever begin to. “Sorry, I meant to be up before you got ho-”

“Uh uh, shh,” he tuts softly, shaking his head as he hushes you. He skids his hands up further, stopping at the backs of your thighs, and then he pushes gently until your knees are hinged and your feet are flat atop the bed on either side of his broad shoulders. “You, my love, are exactly where I want you to be.”

You go pliant. You’re just about to accept and give into your husband's incessant pawing, but he can see the moment of your disillusionment. Your eyes flicker, narrowing as you slowly begin to shuffle up the bed, creating a distance that feels like a yawning chasm, but is, in reality, a mere few inches. 

“Did you eat?”

He groans, his head falling forward slightly, cushioning his forehead against the comforter. “I was… about to,” he says, lifting his gaze again and tilting his head. He’s giving you that look of his. He thinks he’s so clever. Jack can predict your eye roll before it comes, and he watches intently as you turn over your thoughts in your head.

“Please…” he finally utters, and the plea leaves him a little breathless. His thumb is a whisper against your inner thigh. It brushes a wide arc over the soft skin, coming back the second time to catch gently on the edge of your underwear. The angle he’s working is one you can scarcely, if ever, deny—your husband, forlorn and pleading, laying between your legs. 

Your hand lifts to cup his face, temporarily leading him astray from his set and charted course.

“And here I was, worrying about my husband,” you begin, your voice lilting ever so slightly. You string him along, and he hangs onto every word as he melts into your tender touch. Your thumb swipes along the pleated lines at the corner of his eye, mimicking his own touch. “While he’s only got one thing on his mind.”

“Don’t act so surprised,” he counters, leaning down to nip at your thigh. He pulls back the slightest amount only to take in the way your hips twitch. He’s hovering so close. His breath fans over you. “I spend every moment apart thinking about you. Except, when I’m gone, I can’t act on it.”

“Think I don’t know what you get up to when I’m gone, hm?” he says. His thumb moves, finding your clit instantly, and pressing firmly over the thin fabric of your panties. He rubs a circle over it, dipping down momentarily to feel just how worked up you’ve gotten. “Mhm, I can tell she's on the same page as me…” 

Jack revels in the needy whine that falls from your lips—in the way your legs close on him, knees knocking themselves against his sides. He smiles as he taps the side of your thigh in a simple but silent command you’ve come to expect but, as always, you wait for him to speak it aloud as well.

“Lift.” You obediently raise your hips so he can hook his fingers into your panties and drag them down. His gaze locks onto your drooling heat. Your glistening folds and swollen clit betray you. Your act isn’t so convincing anymore in light of such a pretty sight. You’re just as desperate and aching for him as he is for you. There’s no hiding it.

Jack can practically feel how impatient you’re growing as he withholds himself from making another move, instead bringing the tension in the room to a boil. His eyes flit up to meet yours, his smirk barely contained.

“Take a picture,” you mumble, pushing your hips up. Always so damn needy once you’ve given up the act of nonchalance. “It'll last longer.”

“Careful now, wouldn’t want to tempt me.” His smirk is now a grin. Once again, he’s scooping the backs of your thighs into the groove of his palms and shoving them back, opening you up for him. “Next time.”

Not another moment passes before his lips are on you, pouring himself into you and dredging up every needy, warbling sound with each pass of his tongue over your clit. He cages your bucking hips against his mouth, flicking, suckling, lapping with the vigor of a poor man partaking in his first feast. He flays you open and sips from you, groaning into your folds as his hips rut into the mattress.

Your legs quake on either side of him, and when he glances up you’re ensnared in the pleasure he impasses unto you. Back bowed and face caught in an expression of perpetual pleasure. When one of your hands tangles in his curls to tug and the other scrapes your nails down his back, he grunts and pulls off your cunt. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but he knows exactly the kind of games you like to play. A little push, a little pull. A deference of power.

“Behave.” His voice is like gravel. The look he shoots you has you melting, your hands falling away from him with a quiet whine. He shifts up your body. His hands sweep upwards, rucking your—his—shirt up and bringing them to cradle your tits. “You wanna come?”

You avert your eyes, growing shy, but he’s quick to remedy your bashfulness. He moves closer still, stopping when he’s face to face with you. “Yeah?” He asks, demanding eye contact and when you finally meet his gaze through your fluttering lashes he nods approvingly. You hum softly. “Yeah. Be good f’me then.”

Silence stretches between you, so much so that the way your breath hitches is audible amidst it. You give a languid roll of your hips as you speak your next words. “Yes sir…”

It courses through him and sends a molten heat straight to his twitching cock, churning in his gut and pricking his skin. You are something else. He grabs your face, a little rough, pinching your jaw between his fingers and coaxes you forward until his lips are hovering mere centimetres from yours.

“Smart girl.” He releases his grip and pats your cheek.

Jack descends your body again, picking up right where he left off, nestled between your legs until you’re shaking apart—until your pretty words deteriorate into useless ramblings and saccharine mewls—until you’re gushing and your cunt is contracting helplessly around nothing.

He retreats, wiping his chin where your slick clings to his stubble in droplets. He sits up and pushes his boxer briefs down, tossing them somewhere onto the floor. Then he turns you on your side and sidles up behind you, moving up the bed and fitting you into the cradle of his body. His chest to your back. He gives your waist a squeeze, caressing a hand over your supple skin before he snakes it around, fingertips seeking to strum at your clit. He buries his face against the nape of your neck, inhaling deeply. He is home. He is right where he needs to be—exactly where he never wants to leave again. His brows pinch together. One of his knees lifts, nudging its way between your thighs and pressing right up to your heat.

“I missed you,” he murmurs, feeling you shudder in his arms, writhing as he lavishes you in all his affection. His lips purse, pressing to your skin in a tender kiss.

“I know.” You grab ahold of his unoccupied hand, entwining your fingers with his and pressing them to your collar. You slant your chin and brush your lips over his knuckles.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to go,” he continues between kisses, his fingers steady in their movements atop your clit. Your hips press back into his and he groans, rubbing against his stirring erection.

Your legs part in tacit permission. He shifts, bringing his hips forward so he can notch his cock at your entrance. Jack takes his time sinking inside you, inch by inch. The motion draws out a series of sounds from you two in tandem. Something low and grumbling in harmony with your higher pitched mewls. His hips stutter and jerk the moment he bottoms out. He can hardly contain himself when it comes to you. A sputtering exhale escapes him as he tries to ease himself. One hand is tangled with yours—the other rests right over your tummy where he can almost feel himself as he slowly begins rocking into you, breathing out slowly.

“Ahh—Jack…!” you gasp, floundering in his embrace. Your walls clench around his cock and he brings himself closer, leaning over you, to plant a kiss on your temple.

“Beautiful, beautiful girl…” he utters, heaving breaths flittering over you. “Love you so damn much.”

You whimper, eyes fluttering shut as he continues to thrust in and out, pressed flush to you from behind. He begins to rub your clit again in firm, tight circles, working away at you—chipping at every last bit of composure until you’re nothing but putty in his hands. 

“C’mon, honey…” he grunts in your ear, “give me another.”

And you do. Always so obedient. Another moment. Two. He’s all around you, present in every fibre of your being. Your body tenses, contracting around him before relaxing like a sigh. Your walls convulse as your head falls to the side, coming to rest against the cushions below. His own rhythm falters. A coil furls tight and then unravels. He doesn’t pull out. He thrusts his twitching cock deep and curses as he spills himself inside you. 

The two of you idle, turning sluggish and limp. Completely enraptured by one another. He winds his arms around you, nuzzling the back of your head and refusing to let you go just yet. He wishes to bask in this moment for as long as possible before he’s too tired to lift the weight of his own eyelids. Before he slips away from you and this precious time he holds so dearly—so tightly despite the fact that no matter how firmly he tries to cage it, it inevitably slips through the grates. There’s never enough time, not for a man like Jack who harnesses an insatiable craving for your presence.

He can feel your breathing slowing. Jack blinks, barely registering you pulling away—his softening cock slipping from your warmth. You shuffle and turn over to face him, peering at him silently. You extend a hand and smooth it over his sweaty forehead, combing your fingers through his grey curls. 

“You’re running on empty, Jack,” you whisper, “get some rest, won’t you?”

He couldn’t not follow your instructions even though he wanted to not follow them. The tides of sleep were pulling him under, lapping at the edges of his tired mind.

“I don’t want to go,” he echoes the same sentiment from earlier.

“I’m right here,” you say as you sit up. You’re already reaching for his prosthetic. Gently, you unfasten it and slide it off, leaning over the edge of the bed to place it down. You scooch closer again, settling back down next to him. “You’ve got tomorrow off, hun.”

“Mm…” he hums in acknowledgment.

“So…? You’ve got nothing to worry about, mister,” you say, poking his forehead even as he halfheartedly tries to dodge it by tipping his head to the side. He’s always been this stubborn.

“Go. To. Sleep.” You lean down to punctuate each word with a kiss. One on his forehead, then his cheek, then his lips. His lips chase yours instinctually as you pull away. Still, he doesn’t dignify your words with anything more than a grunt. Against his will, his eyes droop closed momentarily. He can barely keep them open any longer.

“Well, you’re going to have to conserve some energy if you’re wanting to fuck me again later.”

That has him cracking his eyes open to peer at you. “Now, that’s some convincing.”

He doesn’t miss the way you roll your eyes, and he flinches when you poke his rib this time. “If you don’t get to sleep there won’t be any fucking later.”

“Jeez, okay okay,” he concedes, raising his hands in surrender before letting them fall slack. “C’mere.”

You snuggle yourself right up to his side, content now that he’s caved to your demands. “Love you.”

“Mhm, love you too…” he mumbles, his eyes falling shut again. He drifts off to sleep at last.

[girlp3rv]

straight to the point- j. abbot

pairing. dom!jack abbot x sub!gn!reader

a/n. teeny tiny little blurb. more like a singular thought than an actual fic, as i’m still trying to get a hang of writing. i toyed with this idea while back and a few people were interested, so i figured i’d give it a go! i’m shocked there’s not more knife content for jack as i think he’s perfect for it. anyways, hope you enjoy!

cw. knife play

“i told you to stay. still.”

you tried to adhere to jacks warning from earlier, you really, really, did.

but as the tip of his knife dragged from your sternum down to your navel, another shudder ripped through your body.

“‘m sorry” you mumbled. your hands fisted the white sheets beneath you as you tried desperately to follow his instructions.

keeping his focus on where the blade met your skin, he brought his unoccupied hand to your hip, applying enough pressure to pin you down on the bed as the weapon continued it’s downward trajectory.

you let out a frustrated whine when his movements stilled momentarily, just above the waistband of your underwear. he then ran the tip of the knife parallel to the fabric, tracing a line across your lower belly before dipping it underneath the elastic.

he angled the blade upwards, letting it catch on the fabric before slowly pulling it away from your skin. the slight tension from the stretch of the elastic caused you to glance down to where the cold steel disappeared under the fabric. he pulled the knife back a little more, silently asking for permission.

your eyes were wide and glassy as you looked down at him, silently begging for exactly what he was dying to give.

“please?”

thought i’d add some knife play p!links to accompany my teeny little blurb. so as always….

all links contain NSFW content, do not open in public!! you will need to be logged into X to view. you have been warned.

-`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- -`♡´- <-links

[kalila]

𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗇 𝗌𝗎𝖽𝖽𝖾𝗇𝗅𝗒, 𝗁𝖾’𝗌 𝗎𝗇𝖼𝗎𝖿𝖿𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗆𝖾 | 𝗃.𝖺𝖻𝖻𝗈𝗍

summary : a police officer threatens your patient and the situation escalates leading to you getting wrongfully arrested

pairing : swat!jack abbot x resident!reader

word count : 2,1k

tags/tw : comfort, one swear word, the patient is implied to be a poc, abuse of power (from the cop) (and lowkey from jack now that i think about it, but in a good way), panic attack at the end but it's the adrenaline leaving the body, reader has hair long enough to be brushed away from the face, inspired by the scene where mckay almost gets arrested and jack steps in

the picture on top is for aesthetic and does NOT represent the reader

a/n : tysm for all your feedbacks on my work lately ! and for the requests it might take a little bit but i'll get to it !!

Everything happened quickly.

One second you were softly explaining the next steps for treatment to your patient, the next you were getting cuffed by a fuming officer.

The patient had been wheeled in by ambulance and rushed into a trauma bay. Male, 22, multiple bruises littering his body and blunt trauma to the chest.

You treated him and made him as comfortable as you could but there was only so much you could do for this type of injury.

When he woke up after the pain meds had knocked him out you were at his bedside to explain everything to him.

"Hi, I am the doctor that treated you today. How are you feeling ?"

"I've seen better days.", he croaked out with a wry chuckle that he seemed to regret as he brought a hand to his chest.

"You came in with multiple bleeding wounds and bruises along with a blunt trauma to the chest. The wounds weren't too severe and didn't need sutures so we were able to bandage them. Concerning the trauma to your chest unfortunately it is an injury that can only heal with time and rest so we gave you some pain relief medication and hooked you up with some fluids." you explained softly as you took a seat on a rolling stool beside him.

"How long will the recovery take ?" he looked up to the ceiling with something in his eyes you couldn't decipher.

"It's hard to tell but with some bruised ribs and your injuries you might want to get as much rest as you can for the next 4 weeks at least."

Since he wasn't answering you tried to turn the conversation to other subjects. "I got told you were a student, what's your major?"

"Engineering."

"That's great! My dad studied engineering in Pittsburgh.", you forced cheer into your voice as you noticed he was getting more and more zoned out.

You sighed, "Hey, you wanna tell me what happened?" you managed to catch his eyes and pressed his hand in what you wished was a comforting gesture.

"I don't even know- I was just grabbing some food for my dorm and the cop started yelling at me. I told him I hadn't done anything and he said I was being uncooperative and hit me a first time when I asked him why he stopped me. After that it's blurry all I know is that I heard people yelling and a woman told me she had called 911." the young man looked like he was reliving the scene and you squeezed his hand one more time.

"Hey, you're safe here. I can call down our social worker Kiara and she'll direct you towards the right ressources if you want help with any procedure or just want support."

"I don't know.. I just- I don't know."

"What happened wasn't normal and the hospital can protect you. I can give you some time to think about it and come back if you want to discuss anything okay?"

"Yeah, I'd like that. Thanks."

You nodded, addressing him a warm smile and left the room, gently closing the door behind you.

You hadn't left him for an entire 20 minutes that as you were charting at the nurse station, you heard a commotion behind you.

When you turned around and saw a cop standing in the middle of the hall, talking way too harshly to Emma, the new student nurse, you immediately walked up to him.

You stepped in between them and asked "Hey ! What's going on here ?" you eyes jumped between them and locked with Emma's long enough to read the panic in them.

"He came in from the ambulance bay asking about a young man who was transported here and is apparently in his custody." she whispered quickly, her eyes darting towards the menacing officer.

You pushed her behind you as the cop answered, his loud voice echoing around the place, catching the attention of more staff. "I arrested this punk just an hour ago and I got told he was transported here. Show me where he is."

You quickly connected the dots and tried to angle him away from the room your patient was in but it was too late.

"That's him." and you turned around to see the terrified kid peeking at the scene through the window of his room, before you were suddenly shoved aside.

You quickly caught your footing and ran towards the room to place yourself between the man and the door. "I can't let you in there."

He looked you up and down with a scorn before leaning in towards your face "Move. Aside. He's in my custody."

"And right now he's my patient and under the hospital protection, so back. off." you spit out those last words as you stood toe to toe with the man.

The officer leaned back, fuming as he went to push you aside again but you stood your ground and pushed him back.

He clenched his fist before adjusting his hat and sneered "Put your hand behind your back."

You raised eyebrows, "Excuse me ?"

"You're arrested for assault of a police officer, now put your hands behind your back before I force you to."

"Well you can go right ahead. Because you won't touch my patient." you spat at his face, planting your feet in the ground.

He didn't waste a second and roughly turned you around before grabbing your wrists in a bruising grip and trapping them in handcuffs.

You couldn't hear Dana and Robby as they tried to reason with the guy, too busy staring him down, refusing to back down, despite your trembling hands behind you.

What you did hear though was the thundering footsteps of a pair of combat boots striding towards you.

"What the hell is going on here." Jack's rough voice echoing like steel in the hall, like all sound had stopped at his arrival.

You felt the relief physically wash over you at the sound of his voice. Your body swayed slightly but you stood tall, not daring to even glance at him.

The officer slightly turned towards him and expected him to take his side at the sight of his uniform, he grabbed your arm to make you face the attending.

"This bitch was preventing me from accessing my detainee and seems to think that being a doctor excuse her from the law."

Jacks jaw clenched at the curse and he spared one look at you, reading your eyes, before moving towards the cop.

"This woman, is a most qualified doctor. So if she says that you do not enter this room, you don't. Now I'm going to give you five seconds to give me the keys to uncuff her before I call your chief for abuse of power and everything that follows." and without glancing away he grabbed the officers wrist whose hand was still gripping your arm, and forced him to let go by what you could guess was a bruising grip.

He was now standing toe to toe with the officer, mirroring your stance from just a few moments ago.

The two man stared down at each other until the officer finally reached into his pocket and handed Jack the keys, his jaw clenched so tight his teeth might give out.

Robby followed him out as he left mumbling half-threats and cursing God knows who.

The second he was out of sight Jack turned to you, his eyes roaming over you, from your scrunched up brows to your reddened wrists.

You looked up at him through your eyelashes, your hands trembling in his hold, lips pressed shut.

He gently turned you around and his hands brushed yours ever so softly as he unlocked the cuffs and made sure the metal didn't hurt your skin.

"You alright?" he whispered searching for your eyes, his face too close to be professionally acceptable.

You nodded quickly, evading his gaze "Fine. I need to check on my patient. He's probably panicked."

And you're gone before Jack gets a chance to stops you.

You didn't check on your patient. You couldn't even look anyone in the eye right now. You felt shaky and overwhelmed, thoughts swirling and ricocheting around your brain making it impossible for you to think.

It took all your self control to not run to the roof, instead you walked to a corridor near the abandoned wing and shut the door to the staircase behind you.

You felt your heart rate picking up the more you walked but it was too late to do anything about it now.

You walked in circles in the empty corridor, a hand on your heaving chest, willing yourself to breathe.

As you turned to walk yet another circle, boots came into your view but not before your bumped into a chest.

Immediately, you know who it is and Jack's calloused hands are steadying you.

His eyebrows scrunch up and he open his mouth to speak but you stop him with one movement of your hand.

"I don't need to be comforted. I'm angry at this- poor excuse of a man. I'm angry for my patient and- And for the system that protects these men and-"

Without realizing tears had started rolling down your face and you took a step back, angrily wiping them away.

Jack stood there looking at you as you tried to process your emotions.

"If it's any help, I called in his station and made sure he was properly dealt with. You can tell this to your patient yourself." he explained softly, taking a few tentative steps towards you.

You gave up on wiping your tears away and faced him, finally meeting his eyes.

He was still in SWAT uniform, the quarter zip hugging his arms and chest but all you could focus on was his eyes, and the pit of concern wedged in them.

Finally you took a steps towards him and explained in a raspy voice your head shaking as you spoke, "He was about to take this kid. I couldn't let it happen. You saw what he already did to him."

Your voice broke and you looked away again trying to prevent more tears from spilling, missing the pained look he sent you.

"He was about to take you too. You shouldn't have gone through that." he murmured like he was replaying the scene in his head.

Finally, he was close enough to place a tentative hand on your arm and just like that, you collapsed into his chest.

Your hand gripped his shirt and he pressed you tightly against him, combing his finger through your hair in a soothing motion.

"It's just- I just need to take my breath." you mumbled against him, and he hummed tilting his head just enough to have his chin rest on your head.

A few tears fell again, wetting the front of his shirt and you felt the need to explain yourself again.

Because maybe, deep down, you didn't want him to think of you as weak. Not him.

"It's the adrenaline coming down. I was frustrated." you knew you sounded pathetic but the words were just spilling out.

"I know you were." he replied simply.

After a few minutes, when you seemed to have composed yourself, he leaned back and slipped a hand against your jaw, not so subtly placing a finger at your pulse point.

You pretended not to notice "I'm sorry, for all this. And thank you. For.. everything."

His lips stretched into the tiniest smile and he brushed strands of hair away from your face with both his hands cupping your face.

"I would come for you everytime you need me, even when you don't." he whispered like a sacred truth, his hazel eyes staring into your soul.

Your cheeks warmed up and you let your forehead fall against his chest again to hide your embarrassment.

"Thank you."

He didn't bother answering and just forced you into his arms again.

A beat passed, "..you stink by the way."

"Oh really?" and suddenly he’s trying to press you into his armpit as you burst in giggles, filling the space with the sound, quickly joined by his own laugh as you tried to lean away from him.

[richeeduvie]

After all this time, Jack being shirtless still makes your brain fry.

based on this drabble, where you first saw him shirtless on shift. you know, before he had you. // FIC DIRECTORY // CRASH!AU TAG // nothing but a lil fluff as you call Jack daddy.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

You’re digging through the fridge for something sweet as the post-shift exhaustion comes over you. You and Jack might be moving on autopilot, and in thinking of your perfect old guy, you make your way to the pantry to skim for his beef jerky. 

The beefier Jackie gets, the better. Even though that might be impossible. 

“Jack, do you want your jerky or a granola bar?” You project the question, and it almost echoes as you walk back to the fridge. “Or…a jello cup? All three?”

Footsteps sound out as they get closer to the kitchen, and with a low, throaty hum, you know Jack’s only a foot or two away from you. 

“We don’t eat in bed.”

You snort, turning. 

“Oh, so whipped cream on my nipples and your crotch doesn’t count? Got it—”

You freeze. 

…Speaking of nipples. 

“No, it doesn’t. Don’t ask me why.”

Jack’s standing there without a shirt, and it’s everything you’ve seen before. His shoulders are broad and lined with the quiet map of muscle and old tension, glittered with freckles that trail down to his thick, thick biceps.

His torso stretches wide and strong enough that you’re always thinking someone would break their hand if they ever punched him in the belly. 

He’s nearly naked and strong-boned while he is.

“...What?”

Jack’s suspicious, and maybe he should be, considering you don’t understand how your brain still short-circuits when you find him half-naked. You’ve seen him in more conventionally arousing ways, fully clothed.

The fact that you have to stop yourself from drooling over him in the kitchen he shares with you is…

“Kid. What?”

Jack scratches his belly before his fingers find the place between his large, pale pecs, and you know it’s his tell—that he’s nervous waiting on your answer.

…It’s nothing short of what Jack deserves.

It’s what you and he used to be, before you had him, when he could be so beautiful and slick, inducing that you couldn’t even sputter out a flirt or a tease at the sight of him, and instead, you could only just, well, internally collapse in horniness and embarrassment. 

“I—” You start. You stop. “You’re…very…symmetrical.”

Jack stares at you, crossing his arms. 

The newly brought attention to his man-tits does not help you. 

“Symmetrical?”

“Yes!”

You gesture vaguely at his torso, like you’re presenting the Dr. Abbot PowerPoint slide. “You’re pecs. Very balanced. Never noticed that before.”

The worst cover-up in the world is what gets Jack to blink. Once. 

He steps forward, and you instinctively back up, because he’s coming towards you with his tits out, with the fine freckles across his shoulders, with the faint dusting of grey in his chest hair. 

And with that stupid pseudo-serious look on his face that tells you he’s reveling in this, a tease probably ready at his lips. 

Your hips and ass hit the counter. 

Jack lets out a slow exhale. 

Ridiculous kiddo. So needy. I don’t deserve her getting wet over me so easily. But I don’t mind. I never will. 

“You’re acting very strange, you know that?” Jack steps closer. You have to keep your knees from buckling. “You’re acting like…I don’t know, Sleepy, like you didn’t fuck yourself to sleep on my cock a day and a half ago?”

Your breath hitches as your cheeks burn, and it’s where you hide your face in your hands. 

“Can’t you just take this as a compliment—?!”

You break your own plea with a wounded sound when Jack fully presses his bare chest against you, and even through your own clothing, you can feel the warmth of his skin beautifully.

Dr. Abbot is as beautiful as he is a meanie!

“Oh, I am, Baby. I think I have to. Just…I’m just surprised that I can get you squeaky and…overwhelmed with my pecs after all this time.” Jack clears his throat. “But. I’m very flattered.”

If I can get kiddo overwhelmed like this, what’s she gonna look like when I put her legs to the sides of her tits and fuck her like there’s no tomorrow? Or…like how I do always?

“I am flattered, baby. C’mon.” 

Jack softly kisses the back of your hand, and you’re not sure if that soothes the burning inside your thighs or worsens it, but you don’t stop the next kiss that’s laid on your cheek when he peels back your palm.

“You can breathe now. My nipples aren’t going to attack you.”

“Shut up!”

Jack kisses your nose, a faint smirk placed there. Whatever.  

“What happens when you talk to me like that?”

You need to hold your ground. You’ll collapse into the bare of him if you don’t. 

So. You simply smile with a bit of cheeky stupidity. You’re bad enough to know that gets to him, and you think the fading of his smarmy smirk means you’re right to. 

“Nothing. Because you can’t help but spoil me.”

Jack blinks before he nods once and stiffly. Yeah. You got Daddy there. 

“Yeah. I spoil you a lot.” Jack pulls back your hand on your other cheek, kissing there. “Might as well live up to the kid’s word.”

…No.

“Daddy! Don’t—”

Your heart speeds up to the point of possible death when he manages to press his body into you even more, and it’s where you can feel his nipples rubbing against you through the fabric of your shirt—his shirt that you’re wearing. 

“I…I—”

Your brain’s shutting down, and you hear Jack’s gentle snort in your ear. 

You squeak a pathetic, closed-lipped sound when he squeezes your waist. 

“It’s okay, Sleepy.”

He presses a kiss to your forehead, arms snaking tight around you. 

“I like seeing your brain fry. Sometimes.” 

…Whatever.

[deerfawnn]

drunk

pairing: jack abbot x fem!reader ( no use of y/n ) summary: in which you get drunk, and jack abbot takes it upon himself to take care of you. content warnings: implied age gap, sort of a size difference?, reader's drunk so she's veryyyy dizzy, they are kind of aware of the fact that they like each other but also they're doing nothing about it, i think that's it? lmk if i missed something a/n: hii!! this is my first jack fic ever, so i'm quite nervous!! but i hope you like this <3

The bar was loud enough to be comfortable, quiet enough to pretend you were having actual conversations. You'd stopped trying to follow conversations along about an hour ago.

Your finger traced the condensation on your glass.Under the table, your foot found Jack's. You'd started this maybe thirty minutes ago, toying with his foot idly while he talked to Robby about whatever. You weren't listening anymore.

Jack let you.

He didn't pause his conversation or acknowledge it at all, except he also didn't move his foot away. So you kept going, brushing against him, hooking your foot around his, pulling back, finding him again. A lazy game only you were playing.

After a while, your foot got tired. You stopped toying and just settled your foot over his, letting it rest there and he held it.

You'd been careful, obviously. You knew which leg was his prosthetic. But honestly? You were pretty sure he'd have let you do it anyway. Jack was like that with you. Let you get away with things he'd never let anyone else try.

Jack kept talking and holding your foot. But when you stopped moving, he turned.

You were slumped slightly in your seat, one hand against your cheek, finger still tracing the glass mindlessly. The position made your lips pucker slightly, your focus entirely on the nothing you were drawing on the condensation. Bored. Tired. Drunk enough that you'd forgotten to pretend otherwise.

Jack had to suppress a smile at that. He lifted your foot gently, then set it back down and slowly untangled his from yours.

"You okay?" he mumbled, low enough that Robby wouldn't hear over the bar noise.

"Yeah." You kept tracing the glass.

Jack turned his body fully toward you now. His hand came up, barely touching, just fingertips as he brushed your hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear from the side he was seeing.

"I'm not sure you are, sweetheart."

He let his hand drop from your hair, and for the first time all night, got a proper look at your side profile.

You finally lifted your head off your hand and turned to him. "No, I am. I promise." You rubbed your eye softly.

Jack shot you a look, that look, the one that said he didn't believe you but wasn't going to argue.

He turned back to Robby, to whatever conversation they'd been having. But he stayed close. And as he did, his hands found the scarf you'd been wearing all night. He started to work it loose, realizing exactly how overheated you must have been.

You let him.

Because it's Jack. And Jack takes care of you. Always has. Always will.

Even Robby didn't budge, kept talking like nothing was happening, because honestly? This was just how Jack was with you. How he'd always been and Robby had stopped mentioning it months ago.

At some point, Jack finished with the scarf and spoke without looking at you. "You should stop wearing that so much." He folded it carefully. "It's May."

You were slumped against the back of your seat now, warm and loose and not really tracking much. "It's really pretty, though." You sounded like a child. But that was a given. You were drunk off your ass.

"Yeah. It is." Jack glanced at you and shook his head fondly.

While you slouched and let the bar noise wash over you, he reached for your bag and opened it. He carefully tucked the folded scarf inside, then set your purse back down within your reach.

Usually you'd hang out with Trinity at the bar, but she'd gone God knows where with Victoria at some point, leaving you stranded at the table with Jack and Robby and their never ending medical talk. Not that you minded, necessarily. Jack was here.

Plus you were tired. You hadn't slept well, hadn't slept well in days, honestly, though you'd never admit it. So you had no idea why you'd even come in the first place. Maybe it was because this was the first day off you'd had in ages. And sitting at home alone, watching baking competitions while you ate chocolate straight from the wrapper, had sounded kind of sad. So you'd come out.

Maybe it was also your chance to see Jack in outside clothes. Not that you didn't enjoy seeing him in his scrubs, you did, obviously, you weren't blind, but there was something about him in regular clothes that hit different. The way his jeans fit. The shirt he’d worn tonight was dark grey, the sleeves tight against his biceps.

Too bad you were too drunk to really appreciate it tonight.

The bar seemed louder now. You weren't sure if that was your drunkenness perceiving it that way or if the crowd had actually picked up. Either way, the noise was starting to press against your skull in a way that wasn't entirely pleasant.

You noticed a little drip of beer left in your glass, just a swallow, really, and you picked it up and drank it, plopping the glass back down satisfied that the little yellow was fully gone now.

Your not quite existent thoughts were interrupted by Jack’s hand brushing up and down your back. "How are you feeling?" He leaned in closer, mouth near your ear.

Ah. The bar had gotten louder. You weren't imagining it.

You turned your head, slightly caught off guard by how close he was, close enough to count his eyelashes, but you didn't pull back.

"Okay." You mumbled it, then turned your head away again, facing forward. Jack stared at you anyway. You could feel it.

"Jack."

"Hm?"

"Stop staring. I'm fine."

He chuckled, a sound you felt more than heard. "You're not fine."

His hand stopped moving, resting flat against the middle of your back. "Come on. I'm taking you home." His thumb started moving again, just brushing back and forth.

You sighed loudly, turning your head back to him. "Will you carry me home?" You were joking. Obviously. Being ridiculous. Drunk and warm and not wanting to move.

"Sure." Jack said it like it was nothing. Like carrying you home was the most natural thing in the world. He was already scooting off his seat.

"Jack!" You smiled despite yourself, rubbing your eyes tiredly again.

He smiled back, softly. And you knew, even drunk, even with your head spinning slightly, that he would have carried you either way. Joking or not.

That was just Jack.

The bar swayed slightly as you scooted out of the booth. Or maybe that was just you. Hard to tell at this point.

Jack was already standing, waiting at the edge of the seat with his hands.

You stared at his hands. Not on purpose.

Okay, maybe a little on purpose. But in your defense, they were right there, in front of you, and you were drunk enough that staring felt justified. His fingers, the way his knuckles looked, the silver band on his ring finger.

You stared anyway. Your drunk brain had apparently decided this was fine. Normal and acceptable behavior.

Luckily for you, Jack was good at reading the room. Or, more accurately, good at pretending he hadn't noticed whatever embarrassing thing you were currently doing. He tilted his head slightly, trying to catch your eyes. "Come on, sweetheart."

You finally glanced up, shaking whatever expression was on your face into something less obvious, and took his hands. He pulled you gently off the seat, and then the world decided to keep moving even though you'd stopped.

You stood there for a moment. Then another moment. Then a moment too long. Your eyes squeezed shut as you gripped his hands, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

Jack didn't move, instead he stood there, watching you with something soft in his expression that you couldn't see because your eyes were still closed.

After a beat too long, he got worried. "Hey." His voice was quiet. "Don't sleep on me." He let go of one of your hands and touched your cheek. Barely.

Your eyes opened immediately. "'M not asleep." The words came out mushier than you intended. "Just dizzy. Really dizzy." You blinked at him, trying to focus. "Please don't let go."

"I won't." He dropped his hand from your cheek but kept the other one firmly wrapped around yours. "You okay with me just holding your hand, or do you need more support?"

"Waist." You didn't even hesitate. Didn't even have it in you to be embarrassed about how quickly that came out.

Jack smiled. "Okay."

He didn't say anything about how that was exactly what he'd been hoping for. Didn't let on that his heart did something dumb when you said it. Just gently grabbed your arm, draped it over his shoulder, and slid his own arm around your waist. "You good?" He turned his head to look at you, close enough that you could see how hazel his eyes were.

"Good." You smiled up at him.

The walk to his car was long. Way too long, honestly. Jack had parked outside and every step felt like three. You stumbled twice. He just tightened his arm around your waist and kept going.

At some point you realized you hadn't said goodbye to Trinity or Victoria. You mumbled something about it, half panicked and Jack just shook his head. "It's okay. Robby will let them know."

Eventually, finally, you reached his car. And then he had to let go of you to get the door open. You groaned loudly. The kind of groan that belonged in a teenager having a tantrum, except you were a grown adult who was simply too drunk and too tired to care about dignity.

Jack started chuckling.

"You find all of this too funny." You leaned heavily against his car, glaring at him with zero actual heat. "I don't like it." He was still chuckling as he opened the door. Soft chuckles that made him shake his head slightly. "Stop making fun of me." You tried to sound stern. It came out sleepy.

"I'm not." He was smiling. "I promise." His hand found your waist again and you felt yourself relax into the touch before you could stop it. "Watch your head."

He guided you down into the seat carefully, one hand on your waist, the other hovering near the top of the door frame like he'd catch you if you forgot to duck. Which, honestly? You might have. The night was fuzzy.

You plopped down into the seat, your head lulling against the headrest like it was too heavy to hold up on its own. The leather was cool against your warm cheek. Nice. You might just stay here forever.

"There you go." He said it quietly.

Jack pushed the door wider, so he could bend down to your level. The interior light spilled over both of you as he leaned in, reaching across you for the seatbelt.

"You smell nice," you mumbled.

He clicked the belt into place. "I smell like a bar."

"You smell nice." You said it again, correcting him.

Jack paused, looking at you properly now. The kind of look that missed nothing. He realized then that you were much drunker than he'd thought.

He smiled anyway, shook his head slightly. He reached up and carefully tucked your hair behind your ear like it was muscle memory now, so you could see him better.

Not that you were looking. Your eyes were closed again.

But then his fingers brushed your skin, and your eyes fluttered open, startled by the closeness. He didn't mention your staring, didn't comment on how your breath caught slightly. Just held your gaze for a moment, before speaking quietly.

"You want to go to your place or mine?"

Your eyes went wide. Wide enough that if you'd been sober, you'd have been mortified. "Is your place an option?" The excitement in your voice was impossible to miss.

Jack's eyebrows lifted slightly and he pulled back a fraction. His hand rested on the side of the door, steadying himself.

"Yeah." His voice was measured. "I'm concerned about you. You've had way too much alcohol. I'd rather not have you out of my sight."

You tilted your head, processing this. "I can take care of myself."

His arm traveled up to the top of the door frame now, leaning in slightly as he looked down at you. The position made him seem bigger somehow. "I know you can." He reached down, catching your hand just as you were about to rub your eyes again. His fingers wrapped around yours gently, stopping you. "But I'd still like to help."

You stared at him. Then your eyes dropped to his hand holding yours. "Okay." It came out small. Nothing like your usual self.

Jack smiled. Then he let go and straightened up, pulling the door closed.

You watched him through the window as he walked around the front of the car, the night dark behind him. He opened his door, slid into the driver's seat, and glanced over at you. "Doing okay?"

"Yeah."

He nodded back, satisfied with that, and started the engine.

The ride was quiet. Your eyes were closed, just letting the movement of the car rock you gently while the warmth from the seat seeped into your tired body.

"I can't wait to see your home." The words came out before you fully realized you'd spoken them.

Jack glanced at you briefly, then back at the road. A red light was coming up, and he slowed the car to a stop. "Why's that?"

You tilted your head against the seat, turning to look at him properly. The streetlight above cast warm orange light through the windshield, catching the lines of his face.

"'Cause I just wanna know more about you." The words hung in the air between you, and you watched the slight shift in his eyes, the way he held your gaze a moment longer than necessary.

Then he nodded. "Guess you will in a couple of minutes."

You smiled. "Do you have a cat?"

"No, I don't have a cat." He paused, glancing at you again as the light turned green and he started moving. "You think I'm capable of taking care of a cat?"

You raised your eyebrow at him, still smiling. "You're doing a great job with me right now." He'd been taking care of you all night. All the time, really, if you thought about it. Which you tried not to. Usually.

Jack turned his head toward you for a second, but long enough for you to catch the look on his face. He was surprised, maybe, like he hadn't expected you to say that. "You're comparing yourself to a cat?"

You shrugged. "Cats are nice. I'm nice."

He smiled. "Yeah. You are nice."

You felt your face warm, shy in a way you hadn't been a moment ago. "Yeah?" you asked, voice smaller now.

"Very nice." He said it like he meant it.

You made a happy sound. The kind of sound you couldn't have stopped if you tried, because Jack Abbot just called you very nice, and he was your boss, and also your crush, and also currently driving you to his apartment, and none of that made sense but all of it felt right.

"You're nice too," you said softly.

Jack didn't respond. Just kept driving, eyes on the road, but you caught the barely there smile at that.

You stared out the window for a while, watching streetlights blur past. But your brain was still turning, still willing to say things you'd never say sober. "Ellis said you're nicer to me than to everyone else."

There. You'd said it. Put it out in the world.

Jack's hands tightened on the wheel. Ah. He got it now. Drunk you was honest. Vulnerable. The kind of vulnerable that usually hid behind jokes and deflection and pretending not to care.

"Would that be a problem?" he asked, testing the ground.

You shook your head, still looking out the window. "No." you paused. "I just wonder why."

The car slowed. You heard the engine cut out, felt the sudden stillness settle around you. You glanced outside but you didn't really look. Pretended to, though.

"Seriously?" he asked.

You met his eyes. And suddenly you weren't just drunk anymore, you were aware of how the car felt smaller now.

"You're asking too many questions tonight, Jack." You grumbled it, but it came out nervous. The kind of nervous you get when you ask something you weren't sure you wanted the answer to. "Just answer the question."

He chuckled. Almost nervous, if Jack Abbot even got nervous. And you realized, dimly, that you'd never heard him nervous before.

"I'm not answering this one." Your heart dropped, but he kept going. "Because you know the answer already."

He was staring at you and you stared back, frozen, because yes. Yes, you did know. You'd known for a while, probably. Known in the way he looked at you, the way he found you in a crowded room, the way he let you get away with things he'd never let anyone else try. Known in the foot under the table, the scarf folded into your bag, known in the way he was driving you to his place.

But hearing it straight up like this while drunk off your mind was something you hadn't expected.

You looked away first. Your heart was too loud, your face too warm, your brain too fuzzy to process the weight of what just happened.

The silence stretched.

Then, softly Jack spoke again. "Come on. Let's get you inside."

You bit your lip, watching as Jack got out of the car. The door closed with a solid thunk, and then he was walking around the front, headlights catching him briefly before he disappeared into shadow, then reappearing at your door. He opened it softly, the night air rushing in cool against your warm skin, and leaned down to undo your seatbelt.

"Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." He said quietly. "I'm sorry."

You shook your head immediately. "Not uncomfortable." You reached for his hands without thinking. "Just…" You searched for the word. It floated somewhere in your fuzzy brain, just out of reach. "Shy?" You smiled up at him, hoping that was the right one.

He smiled back. "Shy is good."

You smiled back, warmth spreading through your chest. Then he was helping you out of the car, guiding you up and out until you were standing, leaning against the doorframe for balance. He shut your door and the car beeped twice as it locked.

You stayed leaned against the car for a moment, looking at him. He stood in front of you now, arms crossed loosely over his chest, watching you.

"I know your answer." You said softly, barely meeting his eyes. "You know. Before. I know it."

He uncrossed his arms, let them hang at his sides. "Good."

You smiled at him and he smiled right back. "I hope you say it properly one day."

"I plan to, sweetheart." He promised. "Trust me."

You watched him for a long moment. "Soon?"

The word came out smaller than you meant it to. You reached for his hand, not as dizzy anymore or maybe just not noticing it, and he took it immediately. His thumb brushed across your knuckles.

"Soon." He smiled softly.

You smiled back, heart full to bursting, before finally letting him guide you away from the car. He kept looking at you as you walked, making sure you weren't about to fall. You weren't. You were mostly dizzy on love, if that made any sense at all. It probably didn't. You didn't care.

He helped you up the steps to his building, one hand firm on your waist, the other ready to catch you if you stumbled. You managed just fine, though, even found yourself grinning at the ordinary miracle of walking and of his hand warm through your shirt.

At his door, he fumbled with keys for a second before finding the right one. The lock clicked open.

"You're rich," you mumbled as you stepped inside.

He chuckled behind you. "Well, I'd hope so after twenty years of being a doctor."

You giggled at that and you heard him smile even before you turned to see it. He pushed the door open wider, and you managed to walk in on your own, looking around as the space opened up in front of you.

"Woah." yeah, he was most definitely rich.

Jack locked the door behind you, and then he stepped closer, hands coming up to brush softly at your waist, steadying you as you took it all in.

"You like it?" His breath warm against the back of your neck as he helped you out of your jacket.

"You're not messy!" you said, maybe too loudly. "Everything's organized."

You pulled off your shoes and tried your best to put them away neatly by the door. They ended up slightly crooked but together, which felt like a win.

Jack sighed behind you, worried more than anything. You heard him hang your jacket and bag up.

When you turned around, he was watching you with that look. The one that probably meant that he was calculating your blood alcohol content, probably whether you needed water or food or just to be sat down before you fell over.

"You're worrying," you said.

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm always worrying."

"About me?"

He held your gaze for a long moment. "Yeah. About you."

You smiled and then you stepped further into the apartment, still taking everything in, when Jack glanced down at your feet. His eyes caught on two different socks and he grinned to himself.

"Jack, you have a really nice house," you mumbled, wandering toward a shelf against the wall. It was covered in random things. A dusty trophy from some old sports thing. A couple of framed photos, faces you didn't recognize. Some diplomas. A stack of books with worn spines.

"Thanks, sweetheart." His voice came from somewhere behind you. "But we should really get you to sober up."

You turned your head toward him. He was standing there watching you, arms crossed loosely over his chest, a small smile playing at his mouth.

"Am I sleeping here?" You weren't on your tiptoes anymore, trying to see the top shelf. Instead you turned to him, meeting his eyes.

"Would you like to sleep here?" He asked it gently, giiving you the choice.

"Would you like me to sleep here?"

He didn't hesitate. "Of course I do."

"Okay." You tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, suddenly shy again. "If I'm not a bother, I'd like to stay."

He crossed the distance between you, hand finding your lower back as he led you down a short hallway. "You're never a bother."

He stopped at a door, pushed it open, and flicked on the light. His bathroom was clean, just like the rest of his place. He motioned you inside. "Wait here."

He pulled the toilet seat down and you plopped down gratefully, suddenly aware of how tired you actually were.

Jack disappeared. You heard him in the kitchen, water running, a cabinet opening and closing. You let your head rest against the wall behind you and your eyes drifted to his shower.

There was a small collection of bottles lined up along the ledge. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash. Nothing fancy. Just regular guy stuff. But you found yourself staring anyway, head tilted, squinting slightly as you tried to read the labels. Trying to figure out what kind of shampoo Jack Abbot used.

You were still squinting when he appeared in front of you, holding a glass of water. You startled just slightly.

"Drink up." He held the cup out, waiting. You mumbled a small "thank you" before reaching for it, but your hands were less coordinated than you'd realized, and instead of taking it properly you just covered his hand with yours.

He let you. His other hand came up to brush your hair gently away from your face. You felt his fingers graze your temple, your cheek, tucking strands behind your ear the way he always did.

When you lowered the glass, he caught the corner of your mouth with his thumb, brushing away a stray drop of water.

You sighed, content and suddenly so much less thirsty. "Thank you."

Jack took the glass from your hands and set it on the counter, out of the way. Then he crouched down in front of you. "How you feeling, sweetheart?"

You considered the question. Actually considered it, instead of just saying fine like you always did. "Tired," you admitted. "But good. Really good."

He nodded slowly. "Dizzy? Nauseous?"

You shook your head. "Just tired. And warm. And happy." The last part slipped out before you could stop it. You felt your cheeks warm, but you didn't take it back.

He smiled. "Happy's good."

He reached up to softly remove the hair clip from your hair. You felt the tension release as your hair fell loose around your shoulders.

"I look like a mess. I'm sorry." You mumbled it, eyes dropping to your lap. "I got all dressed up for you, and now I'm drunk sitting on your toilet, and I'm going to regret this so terribly tomorrow."

Something flickered in Jack's eyes. Something that he didn't let himself say out loud, like how at least you'd wake up in his bed, at least he'd be there when you did. He stopped himself. But he couldn't help latching onto the other part.

"You got dressed up for me?"

His voice was soft as he reached up again, finding another clip, then another. Little ones now scattered on his sink. He sank back to his knees in front of you, winced slightly, because kneeling on a prosthetic leg wasn't comfortable. But he stayed there anyway. His hands found your knees as he brushed back and forth slowly.

"Yeah. I wanted to look pretty for you."

The words landed somewhere in his chest. He smiled gently, thumb tracing a small circle on your knee. "You always look pretty."

You shook your head immediately, already sighing. "No I don't. Not right now."

Jack shook his head right back at you. "Yeah you do."

You opened your mouth to argue and he just shook his head again. You stopped immediately.

"Uh uh. Enough of that." He shook his head again. "I'm your boss. I'm the one who has the last word here."

You stared at him for a second, then you grinned. "Okay."

He smiled back and started to push himself up. You caugh his reaction this time, the slight grimace, the way he braced himself on the sink, the small groan he tried to hide.

"Are you okay?" you asked concerned.

He waved it off. "Fine. Old man stuff." He stood there for a moment, catching his breath, then looked down at you. "You want to sleep in these clothes?"

You considered it, chewing on your lip for a second. Then you shrugged. "Actually, I wanna wear your clothes."

That stopped him cold. He halted mid step, turning to look back at you. You were smiling up at him with that huge grin. You knew exactly what you were doing. You were aware, on some level, what those words did something to him.

"You're terrible, you know that?" he mumbled, but there was no heat in it. He reached for your hand, pulling you gently up from the toilet seat.

You took his hand, steadying yourself against him, and grinned even wider. "You like me. That means I can't be that terrible."

He shook his head, smiling despite himself. He led you out of the bathroom and down the hall.

His bedroom was nice. A dresser with a few things on top. A lamp on the nightstand. A window with the blinds half drawn, letting in slivers of streetlight

"Nice bed," you mumbled softly, taking in the way he'd properly made it, sheets tucked in, pillows fluffed, a blanket folded at the foot.

"It's good enough," he replied, already moving toward his closet.

You stood there watching him, not even trying to hide it. He was choosing something for you and your drunk brain found that unbearably sweet.

He turned around holding sweatpants and a t-shirt and tilted his head slightly. A question. Okay?

You nodded, reaching out to take them from his hands. The fabric was warm and you hugged them without thinking.

"I'll be in the bathroom. Just call for me when you're done."

You nodded again, suddenly more tired now that you were in his room with his lamp casting warm light and his bed right there looking so comfortable. He slipped out, closing the door softly behind him.

In the bathroom, Jack leaned against the sink for a moment. He turned on the cold water, splashed some on his face, stared at himself in the mirror. You were here. In his home. Sleepy and honest and practically admitting you liked him. Dressed up for him. He pressed his palms against the counter and exhaled slowly, aware of his heart beating faster than it had any right to.

He changed quickly. Sweatpants, a clean shirt. Brushed his teeth. Tried to look normal, tried to calm down, tried to remember how to be just Jack instead of Jack who had you in his bedroom wearing his clothes.

Then you called his name.

He opened the door and walked down the hall. And yeah, the sight didn't help his heart at all.

You were standing by his bed, well, standing was generous. More like swaying gently, having clearly tried to fold your clothes and put them on the chair in the corner. The folding hadn't gone well. Your shirt was half draped over the chair back, your jeans in a heap on the floor next to it. But you were wearing his clothes. His shirt swallowed you whole, the hem falling to your thighs. His sweatpants were rolled at the waist and still too big, pooling slightly at your feet.

He smiled to himself, trying to get his heart to calm down as he reached for the bed, pushing back the sheets, getting it ready for you.

The silence behind him lasted just a little too long.

Ah. You wanted a compliment. "You look as pretty as ever." he said over his shoulder, smiling at you.

"I like your clothes," you giggled, happy over receiving the compliment you'd been waiting for. You shuffled closer until you were standing next to him.

He turned to look at you fondly. "Like them on you, too."

His hand gently found your waist and he guided you backward, lowering you onto the bed until you were sitting, then lying down, your head meeting the pillow he'd just fluffed. You went easily. He thought about how different this was from your usual shyness, how you'd normally get flustered and look away if he got too close. But here, now, you were more than happy to jump into his bed.

But, who was he to judge? He loved having you here.

"God, I'm so tired." You mumbled it, hand coming up to rub your eyes again. "And drunk. So drunk."

Jack still stood above you, watching. He loved the way you curled slightly toward the warmth of his pillow and the way you looked so perfect in his bed.

"I know, sweetheart." He said softly "Just rest now." He reached down and pulled the blanket up over you.

He, then, reached for your shoulder and turned you onto your side. "That's better," he mumbled softly, fingers brushing your hair away from your face. His hand lingered for just a second on the curve of your cheek.

"Sleep well," he whispered. "I'll get you some ibuprofen for your headache and some water tomorrow, yeah?" He gestured vaguely toward the nightstand, even though you couldn't see it. "They'll be right here. On the night table."

You just hummed in response, already slipping under, already gone. You burrowed deeper into his pillow.

He started to pull away, to move toward the door, when your hand shot out. "Don't leave." He looked down at you, at your hand wrapped around his wrist. "What do I get out of being in your bed if you're not here?" you murmured, turning onto your back to look up at him properly.

His heart stopped. He was sure he didn't hear you right.

"Please?" you added, softer now.

"Yeah. Okay." he replied quietly as he rounded the bed slowly, walked to the other side, and laid down at a distance. So much distance you could have fit another person between you. He laid on his back, staring at the ceiling, hands folded over his stomach.

You propped yourself on your forearms behind you, head tilted, staring at him with an open mouth. And then you started giggling.

"Jack Abbot." His name in your mouth was so wonderful, he wanted to close his eyes for a second to cherish it. "Are you nervous? Do I make you nervous?" You seemed genuinely delighted by this discovery. Thrilled, even.

He shot you a look. And yeah. Okay. He was laying very far away from you. The kind of distance a teenager would put between themselves and a date on the first night. He was old enough to not be nervous about this.

But here, now, with you in his bed wearing his clothes and looking at him like that? Of course he was nervous.

"Sweetheart." His voice came out quieter than he meant. "You're in my bed. What do you expect?" Honesty. He'd decided on honesty. "Of course I'm nervous."

You tilted your head, and then you were moving closer, until you were leaning on one elbow, looking down at him from above. Your hair fell forward, brushing against his shoulder. You'd brushed your teeth earlier, used his toothpaste, and you smelled like mint and him. It did something to him. "That's cute."

He huffed out a laugh, reacting the only way he knew when feeling this seen. "Sure."

You giggled again, that wonderful sound that seemed to live somewhere in his chest now, and then your hand found its way up to his chest. And that's when his heart stopped.

Not really. Obviously not really. But it felt like it stopped. Felt like everything stopped.

Your fingers traced patterns on his chest, circles, lines, nothing recognizable. Then they drifted lower, tracing random shapes on his stomach through the fabric of his shirt.

"I am really drunk," you murmured, "but I still know that I'm going to regret this tomorrow." You were watching your hand. "But being drunk also gives me an excuse to touch you. So I'm using it."

"You don't need an excuse to touch me." He watched you, enjoying the view of seeing your pretty face so close. "I promise you, sweetheart."

You tilted your head, looking at him, processing his words slowly, the way drunk people do.

"I'll take you up on that." You said softly. "A lot."

Jack Abbot had never ever felt more thrilled. "You do that, baby."

His hand found the back of your shoulder, gently guiding you down until your head was resting fully on his chest, right over his heart, letting you feel what you did to him.

His hand came up to the back of your head. His big hand engulfed it completely, fingers spreading through your hair, brushing through it slowly. His thumb moved gently against your scalp.

He felt you startle slightly at first and then relax. Your hand finally stopped moving on his stomach. He reached down with his other hand, grabbed the sheets, and pulled them up over you both.

Then he felt your ankle hooking gently over his, just like at the bar. And he smiled to himself in the dark.

He kept brushing through your hair. He remembered watching you once. You'd been stressed about something, pacing the break room, and you'd done this thing where you ran your own fingers through your hair, over and over, until you calmed down.

He hoped this helped.

He could feel it in the way you relaxed further, the way your breathing evened out, the way your body went heavy against his.

You were quiet for a long moment, so long he thought you'd fallen asleep, but then you spoke quietly. "I hope I remember this tomorrow."

He smiled before whispering, “I’ll make sure you do.”

[rizbert]

beyond infatuation | j.a.

professional yearner!jack abbot x nurse!reader

synopsis: jack abbot is obsessed with you and he's going to make it everybody else's problem - or - 5 moments the night shift (and co) observes between you and jack + the 1 they don't

contains: bsf night shift crew!! dana & the pittlings cameo, he fell first AND he fell harder, age gap (reader is in her 20's), suggestive at times, everyone calls reader sweets, no use of y/n, jack is probably ooc but i refuse to believe that man does not yearn deeply and he is written so, and most importantly: NIGHT SHIFT SUPREMACY

note: first fic for the pitt because i think i might have actually read my way through every fic on here and i crave more pls be nice to me :') this started off as a completely different fic and then it became this instead so there's a half written part 2 (and a part 3 …) if anyone really wants it. yes i did write this instead of the giant piles of actual work i have to do i hope you enjoy <3

dividers by @uzmacchiato <3

1. The Crush

It’s been exactly one week since you joined the night shift. Six days, twenty three hours, and thirty one minutes technically speaking but who was counting. 

In that time you’d made yourself indispensable. You were one of the most competent nurses to ever walk through the doors of the PTMC. You were practically hard wired to thrive in the absolute chaos of the night. And, best of all, you’d become Shen’s caffeine addicted partner in crime. Five out of your last seven days you’d dragged him into a pre-shift coffee run and he always complied with your demands. 

The night shift wasn’t easy for just anyone to take to. It was hard and yet here you were, doing it all flawlessly. And Jack couldn’t look away. Not that he’d ever want to. 

It’d taken no time at all, about five hours into your first shift, for him to become borderline obsessed. All it took was one conversation in the ambulance bay just after midnight. A joke cracked under the light of the full moon, one that broke through the stern expression he’d had on with no hesitation at all, for Jack to want to know every single little detail that made up who you were. 

In a normal way of course. 

Now here he was. Watching. Eyes following you as you walked into the ED beside Shen, both of you carrying trays piled high with various hot and iced drinks. He can’t imagine how much even one of those things cost. 

Within moments most of the drinks are gone, taken by Ellis and Lena and whoever else had placed their order with the two of you the night before. Jack, for just a moment, regrets not having done so. Not that he even likes the sugary sweet monstrosities you always chug your way through before midnight, always somehow armed with another one to get you through your second half of the night. 

He’d pretend though. Especially if it meant you’d stop and smile at him and maybe even talk to him for just a couple seconds about something not medicine related before diving into the mayhem. 

“Hey!” Your voice isn’t a hallucination, Jack determines when he sees you walking up to him with a smile. 

He tries not to look too surprised. Or flustered. Or excited. “Hi.”

Nailed it.

“I brought you something.”

Jack thinks he might melt into the floor. 

You hold out a drink, one clearly meant for him. It’s green on top and pink on bottom with strawberry slices floating above the ice. 

“You didn’t have to.” He takes it from you and relishes in the brief moment that his hand touches yours. You need to calm down, he thinks to himself. 

“I know, I wanted to. It’s on me.” You say it so easily and Jack thinks now might be a good time to excuse himself and go jump off the roof because he can feel his whole body warming in a way it shouldn’t be at the sentiment. 

You’d thought of him. Part of him wonders how long you’d been doing that for and if it was for as long as he’d been thinking of you. Day and night. Hour after hour. In ways he definitely shouldn’t be.

“I just figured you could use a little caffeine that wasn’t the stale black coffee in the break room for once,” You shrug like it’s nothing but it means everything to him. “As a certified drink specialist I thought you might like this one. Shen said I was crazy for picking it but I spent every minute I was awake looking through the cafe's menu debating and I think I finally narrowed down something to live up to your incredibly high standards.”

Jack had stopped listening as soon as you looked up at him. Wide eyed and a little nervous but with that sweet smile he was maybe just a little bit obsessed with already. “What is it?” 

Frankly, he didn’t really care. He’d love it no matter what because you’d been the one to hand it to him. You’d put effort into finding something you thought he’d like and that was more than enough for him.

“An iced strawberry oat milk matcha. It’s not too sweet but definitely a step up from a black coffee. I,” You stop yourself for a second, hesitating a little. One look from him though, one that practically begged you to continue, and you kept going. “I see the face you make when you drink it even when it’s fresh so I thought we’d switch it up a little.”

You’d noticed him. He was one more observation away from imploding. He swirled the drink around to distract himself from the fact and then took a huge gulp. 

“Holy shit,” His eyes went wide as he took a second to savor the drink. It was good. Really good. He had no clue how you’d figured him out so perfectly. Part of him was hopeful enough to think that you just knew him. Saw him. He took another sip. 

“You like it?” You were beaming at him now, satisfied and proud of yourself. 

He couldn’t be more obsessed with you if he tried. He was tempted to propose marriage right then and there. Instead all he said was, “This is phenomenal.” 

Jack couldn’t help himself. He looked directly at you and hoped that maybe these abilities of yours to read him perfectly well extended past the drinks and you’d be able to look into his head to see what he really wanted to say. You’re phenomenal. I like you. Probably more than is healthy. Never leave me, actually.

“Oh you’re kidding,” Jack had almost forgotten where he was until Shen walked over, handing you a half drunk iced coffee along with a fresh one for later, just like usual. “He liked it?” 

“Just like I said,” You held up your hand for a high five, which Shen gave you despite dropping his head and groaning. “Which means you’re buying for me tomorrow.”

Jack rolled his eyes at the sight of the two of you. His smile pushed through the serious facade he was trying to put on. Nothing could ruin his mood right now he was positive of it.

“Is it that surprising?” Jack held his drink a little tighter and held back the urge to take another sip of it. He was seriously already starting to understand your guys' shared obsession with always having some kind of drink on you.

“No, it’s just,” Shen paused for a moment and it hit him all at once. Abbot was in a good mood. And all it’d taken was a personal delivery straight from you. He was wearing a smile, a genuine one. Best of all, his eyes kept straying back to you. Like you were some kind of magnet pulling him in against his will. Oh yeah, he’s obsessed. “I’m glad you found something you like.”

Jack heard it. The tone. His eyes snapped back to Shen and narrowed the slightest bit. All he did in response was wink at him and take a sip of his first coffee of the night. 

He could see right through him.

2. The Confession

It had been three days of this and every time Jack saw you he felt the question at the tip of his tongue. And every time something else came out instead. So here he was. Two weeks into your time here and he was obsessed with you. That much he could admit. 

If he wasn’t he wouldn’t be lingering by the nurses desk, pretending to look at a stack of papers he was pretty sure were blank. Every few seconds he glances up to where you were deep in a conversation with Ellis and Walsh. The three of you had gotten yourself partnered on the same case and were taking advantage of the fact that your patient was doing perfectly after surgery to actually talk about something normal while you could since you found yourselves with a little downtime.

“You don’t have to hover, you know.”

Jack freezes. 

He thinks he might’ve actually stopped breathing. He knows exactly what Lena’s talking about though and he’s determined to lie his way through it.

“What?”

Okay, maybe not the best start. He doesn’t look up from where he’s pretending to flip through whatever papers were in front of him. Definitely not eavesdropping. 

“Oh, please,” Lena rolls her eyes and leans back in her chair. “She’s not gonna disappear into thin air. You can get work done and I promise she’ll be there after.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Jack betrays himself when he glances back over in your direction. He smiles to himself when he sees you laugh, a beaming grin on your face. When he looks back towards Lena she’s already staring at him with her arms crossed.

“I think you just might be the world's worst liar,” Lena leans forward conspiratorially. Her voice drops when she asks, “So when are you gonna ask her on a date instead of moping around?”

Jack freezes again, “What are you talking about?”

“Seriously?” She lets out a disbelieving laugh at his bad attempt at faking innocence. “You’re worse than a kid with their first crush, it’s a miracle she hasn’t noticed yet.”

Okay so maybe she had a point, Jack could admit that much. He remembers the first time he’d seen you here clearly. He’d felt some kind of pull towards you the moment you entered the PTMC just over a year ago. It’d been easy to ignore then, though. You’d just graduated and had been doing an emergency medicine residency program under Dana during the day shift and it was only every now and then he’d be there at the same time too. Yet every time he did happen to work with you, even for a fleeting moment, it was like the entire place shifted a little bit.

Dana had even stopped him one time, so casually that he hadn’t even questioned why she was calling him. “You better watch yourself, Abbot. That’s my girl, best one to come through here in ages. Last thing she needs is you distracting her.”

He’d scoffed at the statement at the time, claiming that it wasn’t like that. It had been exactly like that, though. He knew that now. You’d been easy to avoid when you were on day shift but now you were here all the time and he couldn’t imagine not finding every reason he could to stick to your side. 

“She’s not one of yours, you know. She’s one of mine,” Lena’s voice brings him out of it. There’s an I told you so look on her face that he rolls his eyes at. “I’m just saying, the paperwork will be a lot easier to fill out.”

“Aren’t you a romantic,” He knows he can trust Lena, though. If it was really a bad idea she’d tell him so with zero hesitation. So finally, hesitantly, he says, “I’ll think about it.”

***

Jack barely needed time to think about it. He had made his choice quickly and it was eating him up inside. It was just past 7 AM and he could hear the day shift and night shift looking for you both. His time with you was running out and fast. It was just the two of you alone in the room, your patient had just miraculously gotten a bed upstairs and you’d been there to ensure a smooth transition. Maybe that was his sign that you’d say yes. 

He stops you before you can pull the curtain open to let them know the room was now open. He reaches for your hand, grabs your waist, and spins you around to look at him in a single swift move. “When can I see you again?” 

The question doesn’t phase you.

“In about twelve hours.” You answer him with a teasing smile, choosing to stay just a little bit too close to him instead of stepping back. 

“You know what I mean, honey.”

And then you look at him in a way that’s new. Your smile turns less teasing and falls a bit. It makes you look a little more vulnerable. He watches your eyes flicker across his face and he knows you’re trying to see what he’s really made of. If he really means it. He wants to shout the truth to you in that moment. That he can’t get enough of you.

“Say it,” Your voice comes out soft and he wonders briefly if you can read his mind. You step a little bit closer to him. “Tell me what you really want from me.”

Jack is painfully aware of the voices and footsteps coming closer. They’ll walk in any moment now, he knows it. He glances towards the door and when he looks back he can see you about to step away, thinking he wasn’t going to tell you the truth. He blurts it out before you can. 

“Everything.” He says it so easily that it makes your breath hitch a little bit, he can see it happen. “I want to take you on a real date again and then take you home with me because you will not believe how hard it is to sleep without you next to me. When I wake up I want to just lay there looking at you for a little bit wondering how the hell you agreed to all of that. And then I want to do that over and over again until you get sick of me.”

You don’t say anything after his confession. A few seconds pass where you just let the words sink in and then, “Only if your plan includes taking me to that cute little cafe down the street too.” 

“Whenever you want.” Jack’s never agreed to anything so fast in his life.

“Right answer,” You finally will yourself to step away and swing the curtain open. Before you walk away you look at him again and the teasing smile is back. “I’ll meet you outside in a bit?” 

He walks towards you again and he’s really pushing it when he stands so close you can feel the heat of him. “Odds we can sneak out of here before they can stop us?” 

“Abbot!” Dana's voice.

You laugh at the way he groans as his head falls onto your shoulder briefly. “Not likely.”

3. The Kiss

It’d only taken a month for everything the night shift knew about Jack to change. It had also been a month since you’d joined them. The two things had to be related. They just couldn’t prove it yet. 

“Hey,” Ellis whispered as she practically ran to where Shen and Lena were deep in a conversation. There was an uneasy look in her eyes as she looked around, as if she was expecting someone to overhear what she was about to say. “Is he being weird?” 

They look towards where she had subtly nodded and found Jack. He was in an exam room laughing with a patient as he finished stitching him up. Laughing. 

Night shift chief attending Dr. Jack Abbot was in a good mood. For the first time maybe ever, as far as they knew. At least publicly in a good mood. He was never like this at work, always opting for serious and stoic with his patients because he needed to be at a job like this. 

But this was his third patient in a row now that he made easy conversation with. It was a lot more than pleasantries and small talk, it was real conversations. Questions about themselves and their lives and jokes traded back and forth. It was unsettling, frankly. 

“Thank you! I told you something was up with him,” Shen slams a hand down on the counter before looking at Lena and leaning forward the same way Ellis was, mocking concern. “ Have we tested him for any substance use lately?” 

“Alright drama queens,” Lena rolls her eyes at them and leans back in her chair. “Why can’t he just be having a good night?” 

Ellis shakes her head at that, nose scrunching as she disagrees, “No, I think he might actually be physically incapable of that.” 

“Well what do you think it is then?” 

“I think he got laid,” She says it confidently and with zero hesitation at all. Shen chokes on his drink and Lena’s eyes go wide as saucers. “What? He’s all glowy and shit, there is literally no other explanation?”

“Explanation for what?” Your voice comes out of nowhere and Ellis and Shen nearly jump out of their skin. 

“For,” Ellis recovers faster and quickly glances at Lena and Shen, neither of which provide any help. “For why Shen’s guy in south 18 is really concussed.”

“Oh he’s having an affair with his neighbor for sure,” You set your tablet down and swipe your badge along the card reader at one of the computers. “This guy shows up with his pants backwards, shirt inside out, and his left shoe missing and he expects us to believe he just tripped while on a late night walk?”

It’s at that moment that Shen notices it. There’s no iced coffee in your usual place. It’s always right there, tucked in the corner of the desk Lena sits behind. You always reach for it every time you’re nearby, it’s how you make your way through it faster than almost anyone else. He watches carefully as you reach in that exact direction subconsciously before pulling your hand back. Empty.

“Where’s your drink?” He blurts the question out suddenly and you glance up at him.

“What?”

“Your drink,” He glances at Ellis and Lena and they can see the real question in his eyes. “You always leave it right there. It’s barely nine, there’s no way you’ve had enough downtime to finish it already.”

“Oh,” You go back to the computer screen and shrug. “I just woke up late, didn’t have time to stop.”

“Right,” Shen’s eyes narrow at you but he doesn’t say anything else. That’s when he notices Jack leave his patient's room and walk in the direction of the break room. “Hey, my second one is in the fridge if you want it?”

You sit up instantly and immediately a little bit of life fills you again. So maybe you both had a little bit of an addiction. “Seriously?” 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” And that’s all he has to say before you’re making a beeline to the break room, steps faltering just the slightest bit when you see Jack disappear through the door. Then you glance back at them, smile, and disappear in the same direction.

“Hang on,” Ellis immediately leans forward again. “You don’t think -”

“No,” Shen shakes his head immediately. “It's a coincidence. There’s no way.”

“And what makes you so sure?” Lena, admittedly, is invested now. 

“Uh, because Sweets is my best friend in the whole wide world and would have told me obviously,” He rolls his eyes like it's obvious. “Plus there’s no way Abbot would admit how deep he is in his feelings already. He’s due for at least another couple weeks of yearning from afar.”

“I don’t know, he might’ve,” Lena shrugs as she recalls all the little things she’s witnessed the last few weeks. “This is intense, even for him.”

“Besides, look who we’re talking about,” Ellis points out the fact that they all know is right. You were sunshine personified. The piece they didn’t even realise the night shift was missing. And it was just like Jack Abbot to want you all to himself. “He’d be crazy if he didn’t.”

“Wait,” Lena pieces it together first. The missing coffee. The good moods. The hesitation before your smile, the one that was just a little bit different than usual. Softer. “Didn’t they walk in together today?”

There’s a moment of silence as they all realize the same thing at the same time.

“First one to find out pays for the others drinks for the next two weeks?”

“Deal.”

“You’re on.”

***

“You’re insane.” 

Jack only grins at you as he locks the door of the supply closet behind him. He wastes no time at all and immediately wraps you up in his arms, skipping all formalities and letting his mouth fall to your neck. “I thought that’s why you liked me” 

He knows now how easy you are to distract. One glance at you and how your eyes have fluttered shut already confirms that. You let out a content little sigh as you pull him closer to you, “Among other reasons.”

The noise that fills the pitt disappears and suddenly all you know is Jack. His hands wandering underneath your shirt. His mouth on every bit of skin he can reach. The way he cages you in between his body and the shelf behind you and holds you like he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

“Jack seriously,” It takes every bit of your self control to pull yourself back and attempt to look at him for real. “We can’t do this here.”

“We're alone, honey. No one has to know,” He doesn’t even look at you, eyes trained on your lips instead. He slips your scrub top over your head leaving you in just the thin, see-through, white undershirt. You're both quickly losing all sense of rationality. 

“Someone’s gonna come looking for us”

“I'm their boss, I'll make them go away,” One of his hands tangles in your hair this time and he pulls your head back so he can look into your eyes. Blown out pupils, breaths falling heavy, lips swollen from how you’d been biting them in an effort to keep quiet. He groans a little bit at the sight. “Just this once, baby, I swear,” He kisses you. Really kisses you. Long and slow and deep. Enough to make your thoughts go blurry and your knees weak. He pulls away the slightest bit and smirks when you chase the feeling of him. “Promise.”

“You know, somehow I don’t believe you.” He laughs then, pretending he doesn’t notice you start to push his own shirt up little by little. Your hands are cold on the warm, bare skin of his chest and he shivers a little bit, smiling even wider. He's addicted to you, he thinks.

“Can you blame me?” Another kiss, this time picking up where he left off before. “You’re perfect.”

Someone pulls on the door seconds later, just as his hands start wandering lower. 

“Why is this door locked!” 

You slip your scrub shirt back on in record time and Jack pushes you behind him when he goes to open the door as Ellis starts pounding on it. “I swear to god I -”

She doesn’t see you when he opens it. Not at first. 

“Can I help you?” Jack asks the question like nothing is wrong in the slightest. 

Ellis looks around for a second, trying to determine if anyone else was seeing this or if she had finally entered a state of hallucination. “I just need -”

That’s when she sees you. Tucked behind Jack, clothes a little crooked on your body and a little more disheveled than before. You’re smiling at her, only the slightest bit shy but mostly looking a little pleased. “I - hi?” 

She doesn’t know what else to say to you. 

“Hi,” You smile at her and step around Jack. “What did you need to grab?”

“I just - I just need a suture kit.”

You grab one off the shelf next to you and step around Jack, stopping for just a second to shoot him a smile. She watches him return the smile, absolutely noticing the way he reaches for you. His fingers barely skim against you when you step just a little too close to him, like even that feather light touch will get him through the rest of the night. You turn back towards her like nothing happened. “Do you want any help?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Ellis tries not to stare when Jack grabs your hand for real, pulling you back and kissing you again, modestly this time. On your forehead as he whispers something to you that she can’t hear. 

It’s not until you’ve walked further away from the storage closet that she leans a little closer to you. “Hey, are you two…you know?” 

You laugh a little bit at the question. “Dating? I thought it was kinda obvious after that.” 

“I didn’t want to assume.” Ellis laughs along with you and shakes her head, leading you in the direction of one of the rooms. Then she notices Shen and Lena out of the corner of her eye again and stops. “Hey, can you get started? I need to check with Lena about some lab results real quick.” 

“Yeah, go for it! Take your time.”

Ellis watches you pull the curtain of the room closed. Then she waits until Jack has disappeared into another room on the other side of the ED, the most smug looking grin on his face, before she practically runs to the nurses desk. “They’re dating, I told you so.” 

“What?” 

“And we’re just supposed to believe you? How do you know?” 

“I asked,” She pauses for a moment before leaning closer. “And I found them both in the supply closet with the door locked, you connect the dots.” 

Shen’s face scrunches in disgust. “Ew.” 

Lena on the other hand only lets out a sigh. “We’re gonna have to keep an eye on them aren't we?” 

“Probably.” Ellis looks incredibly pleased as she starts walking back to the room you’d gone into. “I’ll send you guys my drink order before next shift.”

4. The Reveal

The day shift doesn’t usually notice when the night shift starts to trickle in. You remember it clearly, the way it feels like every single person with every single ailment known to mankind seems to congregate in the pitt all at once right before it’s time for shift change. That’s something you don’t miss. By the time you guys come in it feels settled. Or maybe you all just like to think so. 

Either way, they definitely don’t notice when you and Jack walk in together, your bag slung over his shoulder. They’re too distracted by the drinks Shen and Lena walked in with, relegated to delivery service after losing some bet to Ellis. 

All the noise is forgotten quickly. This, the rare quiet moment in the staff locker room where it feels like the whole world comes to a stand still, is Jack’s time to breathe. He watches you throw all your things into his locker, somehow getting to the point of sharing custody of one now in the last couple of weeks. 

He knows you’re saying something. He can hear the sound of your voice but you’re also tying your hair up so it’s out of your way for the night and he loses all ability to think straight. Some kind of pavlovian response overtakes him and this feeling fills him up inside and suddenly he can’t help himself. 

He stands up and it's like his hands move on their own without him meaning for them to. They set themselves firmly on your hips and pull them back, completely flush against him. He bunches the scrub top up and settles his hands underneath the long sleeve shirt you’re wearing under it. Your skin is warm under them and the little noise he lets out is perfectly content. 

“Can I help you?” He can hear the smile you’re wearing when you ask the question and he can picture it perfectly. 

“No,” Jack shakes his head a little and kisses your cheek. It lingers for a second before he starts moving down the expanse of your neck. “I’m fine. What were you saying?” 

“You're so needy, you know that?” 

“Are you complaining?” He doesn’t get a response from you. Instead your arms settle over his and you relax into his hold. He smirks. “That’s what I thought.” 

You don’t get very long to escape into the moment. 

“There you are. Robby’s looking for - woah,” The exhausted look on Santos' face turns into a shit-eating grin in a fraction of a second. “What’s going on here?”

Jack frowns when you wiggle out of his hold to turn to look at her. 

“Hey,” You smile at her like she hadn’t just seen what she clearly just did. She shares a look with both Javadi and Whitaker who’d walked in with her. “How was your shift?”

“Uh, I'm sorry,” Javadi laughs in disbelief a little as she looks between the two of you. You, smiling brightly at her in the way she misses seeing so much on the day shift, and Jack, who looks like he’s never hated three people more. She’s pretty sure he’s committing their murders in his head. “What is this? When did this happen?”

Jack all of a sudden feels protective in that moment. Over your relationship that very much fuels his will to live and over you. Part of him is surprised you hadn’t told them yet. The first friends you’d made here, probably some of your closest, clearly had no idea about you and him. Then he remembers your opposite schedules and the constant cycle of work and being completely enveloped by the so-called honeymoon phase of your relationship he thinks might actually never end.

“Wait, did I not tell you guys?” You’re trying your hardest to trace back every moment of the last few weeks. Jack takes it upon himself to hand you your drink and grab his before shutting his locker, taking a second to just listen. One of his arms wraps around your waist again.

“You did not, sweets,” Santos shakes her head and speaks slowly, trying to push through her absolute shock at this revelation. And trying very hard not to stare at the casual display of affection from Jack Abbot of all people.

Whitaker is the one who recalls the last real interaction you’d had with them fastest. Somehow he’s the least surprised. “You spent all of breakfast the other day telling us about that kid you patched up with Ellis. The one who slipped off the fire escape trying to sneak into his girlfriend's room."

“You told Mel, Samira, and Langdon," Jack says it in between sips of his matcha like it’s nothing. “When you had them over for dinner at yours your last night off. You sent me a picture of their reactions.”

“Right!” You try your hardest to hold in a laugh at the recollection. Samira had shouted into a pillow. Mel had asked a lot of questions, incredibly excitedly. Frank had decided he needed to take a walk to process and stood on your balcony for ten minutes. “I guess I forgot, everything kinda blurs together. They didn’t tell you?” 

“Sweets, I think you told the three least nosy people in the ED,” Santos makes a mental note to yell at all of them for keeping this from everyone else. “Of course they didn’t.”

Then your attention slips from Jack completely when Javadi prompts Whitaker to tell you about something that happened earlier. He stops listening completely, now perfectly distracted by the excited look in your eyes and the way you smile at them. And okay so maybe he’s a little bit clingy. 

Jack wraps himself around you from behind again, arms now fully circling your waist. He does not hesitate in the slightest to pull you flush against him again either. He does exercise a little bit of self control though. There’s no kiss this time. Instead he let out a soft sigh and let his head fall onto your shoulder, chin resting against it silently as you talk.

He doesn’t notice the way Javadi covers her mouth with one hand to hold back the comment she wants to make out loud. Instead she points at the sight as subtly as she can and mouths “oh my god!” you only grin at her. You roll your eyes, pretending to be annoyed at Jack’s display, but you settle back into him anyway.

He also doesn’t notice the way Whitaker stares at him, eyes narrowed in his direction and head tipped to the side curiously, debating to himself whether or not Jack was actually in the room with them. Physically or mentally.

Santos, ever curious, is the one who finally cracks and breaks him out of his self induced trance. “Okay, I have to know. How did this even -”

“Hey!” Ellis cuts in before she can even ask the question all the way. She pops her head in the door, eyes skipping past everyone until they land on you and Jack. She doesn’t look phased by the sight in the slightest. She nods at you with a smile in greeting before looking at Jack. “If you don’t get out there in the next five seconds for hand-offs, Robby might just track down a guillotine and use it on you.”

“Alright, alright,” Jack rolls his eyes and takes his time standing up straight again. He lingers for as long as humanly possible. Another kiss, to your forehead this time, before he very begrudgingly lets you go one arm at a time. “I’ll see you out there.”

Jack keeps holding your hand as he walks out of the room, not letting a single second go to waste. He holds on until he takes a step too far and lets it fall out of his own. An absolutely devastating moment in his eyes. 

“Later, kids.” He just barely glances at Whitaker, Javadi, and Santos, saluting them with two fingers before taking another sip of his drink and walking out of the locker room with Ellis, who hands him a tablet.

The silence sinks in around you. In those few moments your friends realize that Abbot’s whole little display is evidently very much normal for the night shift. And then -  

“Since when does Abbot drink matcha?”

5. The Declaration

It was bordering on 2 AM when the trauma came in. A young girl, who’d just wanted some pancakes and coffee while pulling an all nighter studying for her upcoming SAT exam. She’d been hit by a drunk driver on her way home from the diner and was in rough shape.

The room was already tense. She’d coded in the ambulance and they’d only just managed to get her stable. Every single one of you held your breath as you all did everything in your power to try to save her. 

It was really with no hesitation that everyone else took a backseat to you and Jack moving easily around each other. The two of you were the girls best bet at surviving, a well oiled machine at this point. In every sense of the phrase. You could anticipate what he was about to do before he even said it. All he’d have to do is give you a look and you just knew, you’d hand him whatever he needed, or ask someone else if your hands were full, and you were right every single time. 

“Honestly I think the rest of us can go home,” Walsh, who’d been paged to consult and make sure the girl was stable enough for surgery, said from where she stood on the other side of the hospital bed from you and Jack. She was watching closely and honestly, was more than a little impressed. Especially when you pointed something out to Jack that he’d missed right before she could. “Our sweet little angel face over there has this whole place locked down.”

“Including Abbot,” Shen watches from beside Walsh, looking on curiously at the silent understanding between the two of you. “It’s like they have some freaky mind meld thing going on.”

“You think its contagious?” Walsh puts up her side of the bed railing, seeing that Jack was just about done. 

“Hopefully not,” Shen makes a face at the thought. “I'm more than happy letting her be the one to keep him too busy to yell at the rest of us.” 

Neither one of you notice their conversation in the slightest, too involved in each other even in a trauma room. It’s almost unsettling. The small little smiles and the bedroom eyes and whispered comments passed between the two of you. The way Jack pauses for just the briefest moment mid procedure to turn and send you a wink that makes you roll your eyes and grin back at him. 

Walsh watches the whole interaction, positive the two of you have forgotten everyone else is the room. “This can't possibly be normal. Are they like this their whole shifts?” 

Shen thinks for a moment before shaking his head, “It’s usually worse. Boarding on an HR violation is their normal.” 

A moment passes where Walsh realizes that yeah, that kinda tracks considering the moments she’s been witness to up until this point. Then, to Shen’s horror, she smiles. “Hey, do you wanna see something funny?” 

His eyes narrow at her but ultimately his curiosity gets the better of him. “I’m not taking responsibility for your funeral expenses if this goes badly.” 

That only makes her smile wider.

Walsh maneuvers her way to your other side, taking the place of one of the other nurses that was there. Shen’s eyes go wide when she looks at him again. She speaks before he can shake his head to stop her, breaking you and Jack out of the little bubble you’d put yourselves in.

“You know you’re really good at this, Sweets,” Walsh grins when you look over at her instead and Jack hesitates for just a second. “When can I steal you to help me in the OR? You’d be amazing in there.”

“Anytime,” You meet her smile easily. “I’m always down for a change in scenery.” 

“Perfect,” She smirks a little at your answer. “Name a day and time and I'll steal you all for myself.”

“Done,” The other side of the railing snaps up, maybe a little more harsh than it needs to be. Jack looks up, not a hint of the smile he’d been using with you left when he looks at Walsh. “You can go now.”

Walsh looks more than pleased by his reaction. She looks at Shen who’s trying his absolute hardest not to laugh giddily at what he just witnessed. 

“Down, boy,” She unlocks the wheels of the hospital bed and smirks even wider when Jack removes his gloves and loops his fingers into the hem of your scrub top, pulling you back into his side. It’s completely subconscious, she realizes, when neither one of you seems to even notice it happens. “Even when I steal her from you for my OR you’ll still get to take her home at the end of the night.”

“Wait, hang on, that’s where I draw the line,” Shen unlocks the wheels on the other side and starts wheeling the bed out with her. “You are not taking our best nurse all for yourself. Especially not when she’s the one who also brings us our caffeine every shift.” 

“You know, you’re only giving me more reasons to steal her.” 

Neither one of them notices that you don’t follow. Instead, the room empties out and then it’s just you and Jack. The silence settles between you as Jack unties the back of your surgical gown. When you turn to face him again he speaks softly.

“You could go, you know. To the OR. If you wanted to.” Jack says it before you can say anything about it. “Walsh is right, you’d be a natural up there.” 

“Jack -” 

“You don’t have to stay here forever. I mean, Shen is also right. We’d miss you down here. It hasn’t even been a couple months yet and it feels like you were made to be here with m- with everyone -” 

“Jack -” 

“Even if you just wanted to try it out. I think you should. I mean it’s-”

You kiss him. Not in the storage closet or the locker room or in an on call room or behind a curtain like usual. Right there in the middle of a trauma room, windows wide open and the ED buzzing all around you. 

Jack melts into you immediately. Hands moving to your hips to pull you closer before one moves to the back of your neck to deepen the kiss. A small groan leaves him when you pull away, the sweetest, most innocent smile on your lips.

“You talk too much,” A moment passes where you just stare at him, making sure he’s really listening to what you’re saying. “I’m not leaving the ED,” and then you add a little quieter, a little more shy, “You’re here.”

“I love you.”

Jack doesn’t know what possesses him to say it out loud here and now of all places for the very first time. But he feels it and he acknowledges it and there’s no way he can hold it in after that. There’s a need that settles deep in his bones and he knows he’s never going to want anything less than you right there with him always. Forever. He doesn’t know how he’d survive otherwise. 

It takes a moment for what he said to sink in. You can see the intensity in his eyes, how much he feels it and means it. You really wish you were anywhere but the ED right now. Maybe if you wished really really hard you could somehow will everyone and everything to slow down long enough for you to sneak away with Jack for just a little bit. 

Jack Abbot who loves you. The knowledge of that fact makes you feel warm all over. 

“I love you too.” 

+1. The Move

Jack is obsessed. He knows that for sure now. 

With the way you kiss him and how you look at him after. With the way you let him be as attached to you as he needs to be at any given moment and you don’t mind at all. With the way you hold his hand and pretend not to notice when he moves his fingers to rest on your pulse point out of instinct. And especially with moments like these. 

It’s pushing ten am and the two of you have only just left the hospital. A morning rush hour pileup meant that not only was there an influx of trauma’s coming in right before 7 but also that a good chunk of the staff were stuck behind the backed up traffic. 

Despite the fifteen hour shift, you’re still happily nodding your head along to the soft music that fills Jack’s car. He watches you out of the corner of his eye. You’re mumbling the words to the song playing and taking sips out of the drink he’d just bought you, your third one of the day. His drink is sitting the cup holder. His second one, your habits had rubbed off on him.

The song switches once and then twice. By the time it switches a third time he’s watching you frown as you reach the bottom of your drink. 

“Honey, don’t take this the wrong way,” He looks at you for a moment before looking back at the road. “But I think you might have a problem.” 

“I do not!” You feign offense and turn towards him in your seat. “God forbid I treat myself to something nice after a long day.” 

“What were the other two for then?” 

“A treat for going to work and a pick me up for halfway, clearly.”

“Clearly.” Jack shakes his head as stops at a light. Silently, he drops one hand from the wheel and sets it palm side up on the center console. Almost immediately you’re placing your hand in his, the exact way he was craving. 

The light turns green and he makes the split second decision then. He turns right, the direction that’ll let him turn around to head towards his place, instead of continuing straight, the direction that would take him to yours. 

You watch as he does so, driving further and further away from your apartment. “Jack, what are you doing?” 

He kisses the back of your hand. “Taking you back to mine since you’re clearly not planning on sleeping after all that caffeine.” 

“Okay, one,” You turn to face him again, even while he’s driving. “I’ve built up a tolerance. This is nothing. And two, I've been out of clean clothes for like a week. I can only wash the ones I have there so many times.”

“So steal some of mine.” Jack shrugs and maybe the thought of you in his clothes is a little bit for him too.

“Bad idea, cause then neither of us will ever have clean clothes again.”

“I’ll buy you new ones then.”

“Not if I don’t let you.”

“Good luck stopping me.” 

He’s winning and you both know it. So instead you say, “I have to stay at my place sometimes, what’s the point of even having it if I give in and always let you win these fun little arguments.”

The stop is sudden. Jack pulls over into the first empty spot he sees on the side of the road and turns to face you fully before you can ask him what he’s doing.

“You know what, honey? You’re right,” He leans towards you, fully leaning on the center console until he’s close enough to kiss you if he really wanted to. “There’s really no point in you paying for an apartment you’re barely ever in so I think it’s the perfect time for you to let me move you in with me.”

For a second you’re not sure if you heard him right. Maybe he was right and the cocktail of caffeine and sleep deprivation was finally making you imagine things. “What?” 

“Move in with me.” 

So you definitely heard him right. 

“You’re not serious.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

“It’s barely been three months,” You shake your head as if that should explain everything. “And we haven’t even technically been dating for that entire time.”

“What can I say, I know what I want,” You’re still looking at him in disbelief so Jack takes your hand again and he sounds more serious when he says it plainly. “What I want is you. Every morning, every night, every shift, every minute you’ll let me. If you’ll have me.”

“It’s too fast.” You’re only trying to convince yourself at this point.

Jack smiles at you, softer than before. “You’re forgetting I’ve been pining over you for more than a year now.” 

You catch the implication immediately. It went way further back than just three months. All the way back to the day you walked through the doors of the PTMC halfway through him going through shift change. He’d lingered a lot longer than necessary and you had thought it was just normal for him. 

“You’re crazy.” 

“That’s why you love me.”

And he’s right. It’s the reason why you finally give in. “Will you at least let me split the rent with you?”

“I own the place.” Jack shrugs and you know for a fact that he’s not sorry in the slightest. 

“Mortgage then.”

“Already paid off.”

“Bills?”

“Paid in advance for the next three months.”

“Groceries?”

“Not a chance.”

“50 50?”

“90 10.”

You huff a little and pout at him. He doesn’t fall for it, only pausing for a second to kiss the look off your face. “Are you ever going to let me win one of these arguments?”

“Not unless it’s in your best interest.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And you love me for that too.” 

Jack finally thinks for a moment and that’s when his eyes land on the drinks in the cupholder between the two of you, his half full one and your empty one. “How about I let you pay for my drink every time we stop for one?”

You light up at his proposition. “Will you let me pay for mine?”

“Only after the first one. First one I’m paying for,” He leans in a little bit closer, knowing he’s got you on his side now. “Consider it a compromise.”

“Works for me.”

“You can pay for Shen’s too,” He adds quickly before you can agree. “I refuse to fund his addiction, he’s worse than you.”

“Deal.” That makes you laugh and you finally lean in and kiss him, sealing everything in place. 

He can taste the sugary vanilla drink that still lingers on your tongue and it makes him smile against your lips. “Will you let me take you to our home now?”

“Okay,” You kiss him again. You really can’t help it. “Take me to our place.”

[piedpip3rrr]

Shoutout to the al Ghuls (and honorary Jason)

[ashoss]

i miss my father and daughter

[pushingitdownnpraying]

in which jack abbot, your attending, finds out you’re a mom.

The ER at night was a different world.

The lights were dimmer than during the day, the waiting room quieter, but the exhaustion in the air was thicker. People came in when they had nowhere else to go, pain that had been ignored all day, fevers that spiked after midnight, injuries from late-night accidents and bad decisions.

You had learned quickly that night shifts were unpredictable. But one thing in the department was always constant.

Jack Abbott.

Jack moved through the ER with the kind of calm confidence that came from years of doing this. He didn’t rush, even when everyone else was moving fast. His voice was steady, low, and people listened when he spoke, not because he yelled, but because he never needed to.

Right now he was standing beside a patient bed, arms folded loosely while a nurse finished wrapping someone’s ankle.

“Give it a couple days,” Jack told the patient. “Ice it, keep weight off it. You’ll be fine.”

The patient nodded gratefully.

Jack offered a small reassuring smile, then turned and headed back toward the main desk.

You were there, hunched over a computer, scrolling through notes while trying not to rub your eyes. Your hair had escaped the messy bun you’d put it in at the beginning of the shift, and your shoulders ached from hours of being on your feet.

Jack slowed as he approached.

“You’ve been staring at that screen for five minutes,” he said.

You startled slightly and looked up.

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

You gestured vaguely toward the chart.

“This patient with the fever. I think it’s just a bad infection but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.”

Jack leaned one elbow on the desk, glancing at the screen.

“Did you check his lungs?”

“Yeah, clear.”

“Throat?”

“Sore, but nothing weird.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully. Then he pointed at the chart.

“Probably just a nasty bug going around.”

You nodded slowly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”

He looked at you again then, eyes narrowing slightly.

“You’ve been here since the start of shift, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You eaten?”

You froze.

Jack sighed quietly.

“That’s a no.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re squinting at the screen like it personally offended you.”

“I’m concentrating.”

“You’re hungry.”

You opened your mouth to argue. Jack slid a wrapped snack across the counter before you could say anything.

You stared at it.

“…Do you just carry food around?”

“Yes.”

“For everyone?”

“For people who forget they’re human beings.”

You huffed a laugh and unwrapped it. Jack watched you take the first bite, clearly satisfied.

“You’re doing well tonight,” he said casually.

You blinked.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not just saying that because I’m eating now?”

“I’m saying that because you caught three things earlier most people would’ve missed.”

Warmth spread through your chest at the quiet approval in his voice.

Jack didn’t give compliments lightly.

About twenty minutes later the ER doors slid open again. A young mom rushed in carrying a crying toddler on her hip. The little girl’s face was red and tear-streaked, clutching her ear.

You stood immediately.

“Hey there,” you said gently, walking over.

The girl buried her face in her mom’s shoulder, still crying.

“She’s had a fever all day,” the mother said anxiously. “And now she won’t stop crying.”

You crouched down slightly so you were closer to the child’s level.

“Hi sweetheart,” you said softly.

The little girl peeked at you through wet lashes.

“What’s her name?” you asked the mom.

“Lucy.”

“Hi Lucy,” you said gently. “I’m just going to take a quick look, okay?”

Your voice shifted without you thinking about it, softer, calmer, instinctively reassuring. Jack had been halfway across the room when he noticed the interaction. He slowed. Then he stopped entirely. From across the department, he watched you.

You let Lucy hold the small flashlight while you checked her ear, making a small game out of it. Within a minute the crying had turned into sniffles.

The mom visibly relaxed.

“It’s just an ear infection,” you said gently. “Painful, but very common. We’ll get her something to help.”

The relief on the mother’s face was immediate.

“Thank you.”

Jack continued watching as you helped settle Lucy onto the bed, talking softly to distract her. There was something about the way you moved with kids. Comfortable. Natural. Like you’d done it a thousand times before. When you finally returned to the desk, Jack was waiting.

You raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“That was impressive.”

“It was an ear infection.”

“That kid went from screaming to calm in about two minutes.”

You shrugged lightly.

“Kids just need someone to talk to them normally.”

Jack studied you.

“You have kids?”

The question caught you slightly off guard.

“Yeah,” you said. “One.”

“How old?”

“Five.”

Jack blinked.

“You’re serious.”

“Very.”

He leaned back slightly, clearly processing that.

“You have a five-year-old.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re working nights here.”

You laughed softly.

“Yep.”

Jack ran a hand through his hair, looking oddly stunned.

“I would not have guessed that.”

“Why?”

“You don’t look tired enough.”

You snorted.

“That’s because coffee exists.”

Jack’s eyes drifted back toward the room where Lucy was now sitting calmly with a sticker.

“That explains it though.”

“Explains what?”

“The way you handled that.”

You tilted your head.

“How so?”

Jack gestured vaguely toward the patient rooms.

“You didn’t panic when she started crying. You didn’t rush. You just handled it.”

You smiled a little.

“Five-year-olds prepare you for chaos.”

Jack huffed a quiet laugh.

“I bet they do.”

The shift got busy again after that.

But something about the conversation lingered. About an hour later, you were leaning against the counter, rubbing the back of your neck.

Jack walked up beside you again.

“Your son,” he said casually.

You glanced over.

“Yeah?”

“What’s his name?”

You smiled automatically.

“Ethan.”

Jack nodded once, committing it to memory.

“What’s he into?” he asked.

“Dinosaurs. Trucks. Space. Basically anything loud or messy.”

Jack chuckled.

“Sounds about right.”

“He also thinks I’m a superhero because I ‘fix people at the hospital.’”

Jack looked at you then. Really looked at you. Something softer flickered in his expression.

“I can see that.”

You felt warmth creep into your face.

“You’re just saying that,”

“No,” Jack said quietly.

“I’m not.”

There was a pause between you.

Then Jack leaned one shoulder against the desk.

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “this whole time I thought you were just… unusually calm under pressure.”

You frowned slightly.

“And now?”

“Now I realize you’re a mom.”

“And?”

“That’s basically the same job.”

You laughed.

“You’re not wrong.”

Jack’s mouth curved slightly.

Then he added, almost to himself,

“Single mom?”

You nodded.

“Yeah.”

Jack went quiet for a moment.

Then he looked at you again, something like quiet admiration in his eyes.

“You come in here every night,” he said slowly, “take care of a whole ER full of people…”

His gaze softened slightly.

“And then you go home and take care of a five-year-old.”

You shrugged, a little bashful under the attention.

“That’s just life.”

Jack shook his head slightly.

“No,” he said.

“That’s impressive.”

Your stomach flipped a little at the sincerity in his voice. Then, after a moment, Jack pushed off the desk.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat slightly.

“If Ethan ever wants to see an ambulance up close…”

You blinked.

“You’d show him?”

Jack gave a small shrug.

“Kid with a dinosaur obsession seems like good company.”

You laughed.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jack started to walk away, but paused. He glanced back at you once more.

Then said quietly,

“Seriously though.”

“You’re doing a hell of a job.”

And somehow, coming from him, those words meant more than he probably realized.

[weinthepitt]

nsfw jack abbot thoughts

Good evening!!

I have approximately three minutes until my sleepy vitamin pills kick in and I knock tf out, so please accept this disorganised mess of age-gap relationship / older boyfriend Jack Abbott headcanons!!

Here are some thoughts I’ve had about Jack Abbot recently, in no particular order and with no sense of linear procession, because my brain is a hellscape and I am just the puppet at the end of its cerebral strings. This is written as Jack Abbot x fem!reader, she/her pronouns are used. 18+ under the cut.

He likes to play golf on his days off sometimes. Is a member of a fancy-ish country club. Takes you there every now-and-then, shamelessly ‘teaching you’ how to ‘fix your swing. (Which is just an excuse to have his hands gripping your hips, planting your ass firmly against his crotch. “It’s all in the angle, pretty girl. Come on, follow through, attagirl.”

Sleeps naked because he runs at an average bodily temperature of one billion degrees. The first time he’s woken by the wet warmth of your mouth on his cock, he thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. He returns the favour often; likes the way you whimper and squirm before you’ve even gained consciousness.

While many consider the age gap to be taboo, Jack makes sure you know he doesn’t give a single fuck what anybody else thinks. Always holding your hand in public, or guiding you with a hand on your lower back. Lots of kisses pressed to your temple, just casually and out of the blue. Will pull you out of the way if people are being pushy or you’re in a crowded place, one arm wrapped around you, pulling you flush against him. He likes to make sure that everyone knows you’re his. That he keeps his girl well-fed, well-fucked, and happy.

Often seems cool, calm, and collected, but is easily flustered if you know which buttons to press. Picture him in bed or on the couch, a red flush across his freckled chest, creeping up his neck. Sweat beading on his forehead, cock heavy and weeping pre-cum across the toned expanse of his abdomen. Thighs spread, chest heaving, gaze wild with lust and need. He’s never met anyone who brings him undone as thoroughly as you do.

An unexpectedly big fan of having a hand around his throat? Likes biting and being bitten. Takes pride in having scratch marks down his back from your fingernails.

Got a vasectomy a while ago, before the two of you met. (Which he’d gladly get reversed if the two of you decide to have kids.) With the way you always whine and beg for him to fill you up, always taking him deep and raw, it’s probably a good thing he had the procedure done.

Works a lot, and is well aware of how needy you are. Ends up buying you a range of the best, highest-quality, widely recommended sex toys on the market, so you can take care of yourself if he’s not there. (This occasionally leads to him receiving photos, videos, or voice notes of you getting yourself off. Whether it’s an audio recording with the faint droning of a vibrator in the background as you moan his name, or a shaky video of you burying a dildo in your pussy, whining about how it isn’t the same as having him… He’s had to excuse himself to the bathroom on a few occasions, as a result of these little ‘gifts.’

He loves holding you, loves having you close. Think slow, lazy make-out sessions in bed. In the morning, before you leave for work, it’s not uncommon for you to find yourself wrapped in Jack’s embrace. One of your legs hiked up around his hip. His kisses are deep and unhurried, and he usually slips his fingers into your underwear, gently toying with your clit as you moan into his mouth. It’s one of your favourite ways to start the day, to pull together the effort to go to work.

Always makes sure you’re okay, especially if things get rough and you’re a little out of it. A hand on your cheek, a gentle kiss, he’ll capture your gaze. “Hey, look at me, there you go. Hi, sweet thing, you doin’ okay?” Always encourages you to use your words, never wants to hurt you or make you uncomfortable.

Loves to touch you, worship you. Is downright obsessed. But he also loves to watch you touch yourself. Joke all you want about the cuck chair, but there’s one in the corner of the bedroom, facing the bed. You’ll put on a pretty outfit, or maybe just some nice lingerie, and he’ll get you to put on a show for him. “Slow it down, baby,” or “take off your bra, honey, show me those pretty tits,” or “wider, sweetheart, spread those thighs and let me see how wet you are.”

Noisy. This man is grunting and groaning and swearing and praising. Bring! Back! Men! Who! Whimper!

-----

Anyway, that’s all I have. I actually wrote all of this down at my desk, in the office, in my company-branded complimentary notepad. Which, to me, is just a great use of corporate time. Anyway! I think I might piece together something like this for Robby, too. So keep an eye out for that. Thank you for reading!! If you have any suggestions or requests for fics/drabbles, please drop them in my ask box!! It's always open <3

[tatoda]

Recommendations

jack abbot x robby’s sister!reader smau

in which you are robby’s sister and have a crush on his friend and your boss, jack abbot.

next

authors note: oh this is so ass 😀 trying to learn how to do good smau’s i promise. enjoy this snippet. FIXED MY MISSPELLING 🙏🏼

@p1ttlings

[honeyroots]

texting | JACK ABBOT

you’re jack’s favorite controversially younger girl.

Jack Abbot has a nasty habit of getting what he wants. First time he laid eyes on you, he knew it was wrong to view you as some sort of conquest, but he had to have you. It started with subtle flirting, pulling you in just enough to spark your curiosity. As you two found a comfortable pace, the flirting grew more intense with each interaction— to the point where the people around you were rolling their eyes as the sexual tension you and Jack brought into the ER. “Can you two just fuck already?” people would say, hoping that once it happened, the rest of the ER could be free of your antics. After all, everyone knows, Jack gets what he wants and well… So do you. Here’s a glimpse into what your texts with your controversially older boyfriend look like:

[vanillarot]

later, the day turns into night

r1!dennis whitaker x fem!med!student!reader

word count ~8.5k

summary: dennis stops running from love when he meets you. not immediately, and not without pain, but pain is something he knows well.

content warnings/description: 18+ MDNI, explicit sexual content, AFAB reader, protected (PIV) sex, religious themes, familial & religious trauma, parent death, pet death, minor season two spoilers, dennis POV (he hogs a lot of the narrative), despite the angst, dennis gets a happy ending with reader, canon-typical gore & medical descriptions

author’s note: this is my first time writing for dennis, so sorry if his characterization is off. this is just my take on him. i tried a different writing style/structure here. anything that gets revealed in future episodes that contradicts what’s written here is none of my business. i’m a bit nervous about this one. please be kind, lol.

Dennis’ theology professor once told him and the rest of his class that hell, as a concept, was God’s way of upholding his promise.

Without a hell to punish the bad, how can we be sure there’s a heaven to reward the good? One can’t exist without the other.

This was one lesson Dennis didn’t need to be taught. His mother said things in a similar vein to him when he was but a mere gap-toothed child attending the religious school down the road from the family farm, though in a more understated way.

As long as you’re good, Dennis, you’ll go to heaven.

From a young age, Dennis learned that he had to be good. What his mother didn’t say was implied, but the message was clear: if he were bad, he’d go somewhere other than heaven.

He had to respect his mother. Be nice to his brothers. Want for nothing, and even when bad things would happen to him, as long as he was good, he would go to heaven.

When he was older, about the age of fifteen—when his face erupted with acne and his body was mature enough to defend from his brothers’ roughhousing without his mother intervening—his mother explicitly said to him, follow the word of God, Dennis, or you’ll go to hell.

He had already known about fire and brimstone; he was no longer a child but a young man who understood the meanings of words, but nonetheless, it was a scary thing for his mother to instill in him—the belief of an eternal, agonizing punishment awaiting him if he didn’t follow scripture, that is. He had first heard about hell during church sermons while sitting on rotted oak-grain pews, his shoulders squeezed between his two eldest brothers. They would punch his sides and pull on the shaggy hair on the back of his head so that when they forced him to look up at the ceiling instead of down in prayer, his mother, who sat at the far edge of the bench and would peek her eye at her sons, would scold him for not bowing to God.

Dennis, his mother, and his brothers would go to church in their Sunday best—thrift finds from the Goodwill in town—and the pastor would call upon them, as part of his congregation—the lack of central air in the chapel beading sweat along his receding hairline and prickly, poorly shaven upper lip—to pray.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Dennis’ upbringing wasn’t without its trials and tribulations. He might be a little bit… broken because of it.

When he met you, a med student, no less, on the first day of your E.D. rotation, it’s not like he was planning on things to unfold in the way that they have.

Dennis is of the belief that life happens to him as it does, and he has little say in it. He happened to be born into a humble farm family in Broken Bow, Nebraska. His father happened to die when he was just a boy. He happened to major in theology to become a pastor, which, in hindsight, was an obvious choice.

Tab-collar clergy shirt. Black, pressed slacks. A sheen of sweat. A dry throat. A shaky hand reaching for the water bottle placed on the pulpit to wet it. The plastic would crinkle. The congregation would judge the callowness of a baby-faced pastor. He would speak again, resume his sermon. His voice would waver.

But pastorhood didn’t end up happening for him. It was destined for him until it wasn’t.

A single semester into university, his major in theology turned into a minor in theology and a phone call back home to his mother, who burst into tears that her brightest prospect wasn’t going to become a pastor but, rather, a physician.

He explained his decision—one of few he can count on a single hand that he’s made for himself and that has significantly shaped his life—to her in the only way he knew how.

He recited Luke 5:31: those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. And brought up his father, who had been stricken with the incurable illness that led to his demise. And the fact that he would still be doing a good thing: healing. And then she understood.

His argument still holds water, though.

Dennis knows it firsthand—roofs leak, cows get sick, crops die, the owner of the farm, his father, dies—life isn’t in his control. What can he do but do his best to avoid the pain, patch up what he can if need be—a leaky roof or his broken heart—and trek on until the next hurdle comes into view?

As long as he’s good, at least he’ll be rewarded. But that’s just the thing. He hasn’t been. Good.

He’s been angry and jealous and self-loathing and sick in love, and you’re at the center of it all. Hell is coming for him the longer his dead and buried ugliness shows its face, but the fear of doing anything about his feelings for you far outweighs the bravery. He had his chance, once upon a time, and he took it, but then he blew it.

The point is, reiterating, he’s a little broken.

Dennis had this barn cat back when he was in kindergarten.

To his family, she was a chunky, lazy, and useless creature. But to him, she was his friend. His brothers spent time with the dog, and he spent time with her. She waited for him at the bus stop after school and walked him a mile back home day after day. She slept in his lap as he ate homemade ice cream on the porch on summer nights, vanilla cream dripping down his chin, fireflies flickering and dancing their mating dance all around them. She caught the occasional rodent and kept their population down just enough to keep them from ruining the crops and making nests inside the barn, and she would bring the dead thing to him as a gift.

He got close to her against his mother’s wishes. She’s not a pet, Dennis. But he loved cats. He loved this cat. He named her Wheat for her sandy coat and the bed of wheat he had made for her to roll around in. His brothers disagreed with his opinion. Dogs are better than cats. Better than some people too. His father, who was still alive at the time, called him a sensitive soul. Life will force you to toughen up soon‘nuff, son.

When Wheat was killed in an apparent accident, he cried for days and nights and days and nights. He accused his brother of running her over, of having done so knowing that she had been sleeping at the far edge of the gravel pad near where the truck was parked, knowing that was something that she did when the sun was out and wanted to feel its warmth. He claimed ignorance. Jacob, the eldest of his brothers and whom Dennis had pointed blame at, said it was just a stupid cat. Stop cryin’ like a baby.

“Dennis the Crybaby,” his brothers called him. The nickname stuck like a fish caught on a barbed hook, and it hurt, though it was fitting. He wanted to bury it beside Wheat; in her shallow grave a few feet from the bus stop he laid her to rest in. He hadn’t had the time to think. He put her in an old shoebox and ran for it. It was well after dark when he got back home. His fingernails were caked with blood and dirt and mud that was half made of blood and half made of tears. He got a good lecturing after that.

Later, his family got another cat. A better one because he could catch rats and mice with the best of them, and they wouldn’t have to worry about him getting pregnant with a litter. He didn’t let himself get too attached to it this time.

When Dennis’ father died, the tears came back, fresh tracks of salt on his face and peppered over stark white sheets. His father came home—I’ll die in my own damn bed—when the doctors said there was nothing else they could do for him. Dennis held onto his hand until it was cold. He couldn’t be replaced.

When Dennis’ uncle passed a few years after his father did, he didn’t cry. Maybe he was used to the death, to the heartbreak, but truthfully, he just didn’t want to. But he’d always be “Dennis the Crybaby.”

You two had sex several weeks after that July Fourth shift during which he had met you.

Handovers of patients from the night shift, morning rounds, incoming patients from the nursing home, the rest of a given shift’s patients—it was natural that Dennis would develop a rapport with the med students that he was overseeing and teaching with the amount of work that got thrown at you all each shift. But between Ogilvie’s obnoxiousness and Joy’s overall disinterest in emergency medicine, it was no surprise that he would take to you a little more than them.

It started big and small. Macro shots of miniature moments with you that he captured in his head. A snapshot here, click. A snapshot there, his interest growing with every shutter click of the camera.

He noticed your smile more. Wider in the mornings before rounds and narrower in the evenings after shift change. Whether you ate lunch so he could throw you—and Joy and not Ogilvie—a chocolate peanut butter granola bar if you hadn’t. Your hands while you dug into open bodies and held their organs in place with a light in your eyes that he thought made your entire being glow; you were your own golden hour. He wished he had his camera on hand to capture your image.

It didn’t stay big and small. He zoomed out. Wide shot. Thought about the big picture—

(the first girlfriend Dennis had in high school tossed him aside in an instant when a new kid had enrolled. He was shinier and more interesting than Dennis was, and Dennis was dull and boring. That was just the way, as he understood it at the time, relationships worked. Regardless, he couldn’t pinpoint why it bothered him so much. He could get over it. But his mother told him, after he had come home from the bus stop to her with chest pain, that the loss of his friend and first love was manifesting itself as an ache. Love? he thought. He hadn’t even known that he had loved her. He went back to school with the chest pain for the next week. He and his former girlfriend shared the same circle of friends, so he distanced himself from them just to keep from seeing her face. It helped; the pain subsided as it always did when he backed away.)

—he had never been good with romantic relationships. It was best to avoid them altogether.

But after an awful shift, when you invited him back to your apartment after having had a beer in the park, it felt like the natural thing to do to follow you home. Like a gentleman would, he carried your backpack on one shoulder and his on the other, walked on the outer side of the sidewalk, and held your hand as you two crossed the street.

When one thing led to the next, when you two went from the living room to the bedroom, that felt natural too; he had an instinct to follow you for a reason he didn’t want to name. All it was and would ever be was sex, and yet, when you took off your clothes, nervousness overtook him.

“Are you sure about this? You’re a med student. I’m an intern. And what if your roommate comes back?” Dennis shakes his head like a pathetic, wet dog. He’s going to talk himself out of this, isn’t he? Here you are, down to nothing, asking him to take his clothes off, and here he is, getting in his head about it.

Though you’re lying flat on your back and staring up at the ceiling in boredom as you wait for him to make up his mind, he can see your mouth twisting down into a frown. It hurts him that he’s the reason for it.

“I already told you. She won’t care that you’re here. She brings people back all the time. If you’re so uncomfortable with this, you should’ve left before I got naked. Are you trying to embarrass me?” you ask, insecurity, a feeling Dennis knows all too well, thinning your tone.

“What?” He waves his hands wildly in front of him. “No—never—I’d never do that.” He inhales, squeezing his eyes shut, and opens them again on the exhale. “I just don’t want—” pointing his finger between you two in a back-and-forth motion, he continues, “—whatever this is making things awkward at work.”

You sit up in the bed, leaning back on your elbows to look at him directly. Dennis averts his eyes so he’s not staring at your breasts. “This doesn’t have to be anything. This can be a one-time thing. If that’s what you want," you pause and then follow up with, “is that what you want?”

“I dunno, maybe?” he responds, unsure and unfocused, counting each of the fibers of the shaggy carpet in your bedroom. The question strikes him as odd. He’s not used to considering what he wants. “Or maybe this was a bad idea, and I should go home.”

You heave a sigh. “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do, obviously. I just thought…” you trail off, then pick back up with, “this is just a little fun. To blow off some steam, you know? We were both willing to come this far, so I just thought you’d be more up for it.”

Your disappointment is palpable. He can see it on your face, hear it in your voice. Why would Dennis follow you into your bedroom and watch you undress if he would just back out of this out of fear for nothing? This doesn’t have to mean anything, as you said. You’ll go back to being friends and colleagues, and things don’t have to get more complicated than that.

He deserves a little bit of fun, doesn’t he? Indulgence feels foreign to him, like a second skin that wears him instead of him wearing it, but it’s not as if he’s doing anything wrong.

In spite of Trin not believing so—

(is Dennis, you know, like, waiting until marriage? He overhears Victoria asking Trin as he approaches the lockers at the end of a shift. He freezes by the ScrubEX. He never talks about his love life or has even mentioned having a crush on anyone or anything.

Well, not everyone is as obvious as you, Crash. But, no, Huckleberry’s not waiting until marriage because he’s apparently not a virgin. I’ll believe it when I see it, though. Or hear it, I guess, Trin replies with a shrug of her shoulders before slamming her locker door shut.

Ew, Victoria responds with a shake of her head. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that.

Are you telling me you don’t overhear Dr. Shamsi and Dr. Javadi getting it on at home? Trin snickers.

Oh my God. Please stop talking.)

—he’s had sex. Waiting until marriage isn’t something that he ever felt in his heart was an absolute stricture to abide by; a bending of the rules, maybe, to do so, to give in to lust, but then so did his parents bend them when they had his three older brothers before they were married.

Dennis surprises you when he suddenly strips himself, and his clothes fall to the wayside, swallowed up by the dark of the room, forgotten. He nears the foot of the bed and hovers over you, his bare cock inches from your bare pussy, staring down at you. Your eyes widen as you take him in. He does the same. In all his worry, he didn’t get the chance to really look at you. His fingers press lightly into the line of your shoulders, collarbone, the curve of your breasts, tentative, as if you’re made of glass. His thumbs brush over your nipples, hardening them into stiff little peaks. Your skin is warm to the touch, but you shiver, your flesh sensitive, goosebumps rising along the length of your arms.

“Kiss me,” you whisper, snaking your arms around his neck and pulling him down on top of you.

He does, and he forgets what reservations he had about this entirely.

Your lips slot against his, and it’s as if all the life he’s lived, all his memories, future and past, compact into this single moment in time, pinpointed like a constricted pupil, and give him tunnel vision. A vignette; there’s nothing but you.

His heart is beating out of his chest, and his voice is stuck in his throat. This is different with you, somehow. Better. He doesn’t know why.

Or more truthfully, he doesn’t want to admit why.

But maybe it’s as simple as human biology. The reward system in his brain is firing off stimuli because he sees you as a potential partner. You cling to him, arms wrapped around his neck, legs hiked around his waist. Endorphins. Your lips feel soft, featherlight against his. Dopamine. When Dennis’ hands continue to map the terrain of your body, lower and lower until he reaches the curve of your lower belly and brushes your mound and the outer folds of your cunt, the noises you make make a blush rise on his cheeks and his cock swell and bob between his thighs, his pre-come leaking onto the soft skin of your lower belly. Oxytocin.

He wedges his thumb between your sticky lower lips to rub circles into the apex of your cunt, out of curiosity more than anything, to see what kind of noise you will make, your clit jumping at the contact.

“—Dennis. Oh my God. Dennis!”

It takes a few minutes—has it been a few minutes already?—and a few yelps of his name in between your high-pitched moans for him to realize how close he had almost gotten you. He shakes his head. “Sorry, sorry. I got distracted. Don’t you want me to continue?”

“Yeah, I do,” you pant, giggling at his reaction. “but I want to come on your cock.” His ears go bright pink at your straightforwardness. You point to your nightstand, your pebbled clit twitching against his paused thumb. “Condoms are in the drawer.”

When he steps away to open your nightstand drawer for a condom, you make a small noise in the back of your throat, a little whine, because he’s not touching you anymore. An intimacy he’s never known with other partners, and he’s having that with you, just for one night.

He rips open the foil and rolls the condom onto his hardened cock, eyes darting between you and his hands to make sure you’re still comfortable, still wanting to do this. He leans over you, a forearm braced beside your head, his cock gripped in his other hand, and asks, “is this okay?” to which you respond, “yes, please, I need you inside me.”

Using his thumb and forefinger as a guide, he pushes his cockhead in, breaching the tight rim of your wet hole inch by inch. He chokes back on his spit as he watches your cunt swallow him until he’s bottomed out. His eyes meet your eyelids. He says your name, his voice firm yet soft at the same time. “Look at me. Can you look at me, please?”

You open your eyes to his expectant ones. “Oh, sorry, it—you just feel good. You’re a lot bigger than I was expecting. Not that I was expecting—you know what I mean.”

His face reddens impossibly more. Have you thought about this, being here with him, before tonight? He hasn’t. He couldn’t. If someone had told him this morning that by the end of the day he’d be in your bed, he wouldn’t have believed them.

“I’m going to start moving,” he says.

“Okay,” you respond with a nod.

His thrusts are gentle at first. Shallow pulls out and shallow pushes in. Testing the waters. Your nails claw down his back, your legs tighten around the bulk of him. One of his hands moves from the side of your head to trace your kiss-bitten lips. You kiss the pads of his fingers. “Harder,” you whisper. “I can take it.” You suck his thumb into your mouth, and his breath hitches. Then his thrusts get a little more careless, a little more rough, as he fucks deeper. You take him to the root again and again, and you do it so well and with a greed that rocks the foundations of who he is.

“You’re—you’re perfect,” Dennis rasps. “You feel so good.”

You feel much too good. Like heaven, he thinks distantly, so much so that the thought doesn’t feel like his own. Paradise is right here in this room tonight: the warm, molten slice of cunt right between your legs.

“Fuck,” you gasp. “That—”

“What,” he grunts, a choked, strangled sound. He clears his throat. “What is it? Are you okay?”

You nod furiously. “Yeah, I’m good. I’m getting close. Could you touch my clit again?”

The crampedness of your room coupled with the hot, muggy Pittsburgh July as well as the shared body heat between you two makes sweat gather on both of your bodies. Chest to chest. Slick skin sliding against slick skin.

His fingers reach between your bodies to find that little bundle of nerves. His strokes are harried, with little finesse, but they seem to do the job. Your pussy locks up around his cock with your orgasm, and it pushes him closer to that sweet, sweet edge.

Your body shakes like a leaf as the pleasure continues to pour through you. He abandons his strokes at your clit once it ebbs, aware of your oversensitivity, and wraps his arms around your middle, angling you slightly off the bed to work his cock further inside you. He ruts into you as you come back to yourself, running your fingers through his hair and encouraging him with your syrupy words. “C’mon, Dennis—come—ngh—I want you to come for me.”

You nip at a sensitive spot on his neck, and he spills his seed into the condom with a humiliating groan. You don’t seem to mind it, though. In fact, you seem spurred on by his noises. Your teeth sink into the same spot, your canines breaking capillaries and purpling his fair skin. You apologize with wet kisses down the side of his neck and across his clavicle, a messy mash of lips, tongue, and teeth. His cock softens inside of you, and it is only when he starts to feel the condom slip and the tactileness of his release within it that he pulls out from you. You’re just so warm; it’s hard to resist being buried in your heat.

He disposes of the condom in the trash can in your en suite and returns to you with a warm, damp towel, wiping you of all the sweat that has gathered. You’re glistening. He’s starstruck. He almost can’t believe you showed any interest in him beyond that of a colleague, let alone brought him back here and allowed him to touch you. He presses the towel into all your dips and divots and rolls where sweat has pooled on your skin, thinking to himself he wouldn’t mind licking it up instead.

He’s not himself tonight. He blames it on the half can of beer he had earlier and not on what you do to him.

When all is said and done, after checking in with you and making sure you’re okay, Dennis redresses and makes to leave.

“You can stay the night,” you offer, now dressed in your sleepwear and beneath the covers. You look adorable. Not that you aren’t normally, but he hasn’t had the opportunity to see you like this, per se: satiated and sleepy and not in scrubs but in a skimpy sleep set. “We can cuddle. Platonically, of course,” you tack on, likely to ease his worry.

Dennis recognizes your invitation for what it is, though. Nothing about staying the night would be platonic, he is sure. He has the familiar urge to retreat, and it informs what he says next.

“Oh, uh, I think it’s best I go, actually. Trin might… you know, ask questions tomorrow if I don’t make it back soon.”

“Oh, okay. Suit yourself,” you reply, a little forlorn. “See you tomorrow then?”

He nods. “Yeah. We’re good… right?”

Please, please, please say we’re good, he thinks. He couldn’t bear it if you hated him. Worse, if you hated yourself for having done this with him.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”

His shoulders droop as he breathes out a small sigh of relief, wishing you a “goodnight” before seeing himself out.

Dennis doesn’t like to regret, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any.

His uncle came to live with him and his family after his father had passed. Partly to help his mother out with some of his father’s remaining affairs, but also because his uncle now had no other family.

The drinking became a problem that his mother refused to do anything about.

Hush now, Dennis, she scolded him after he complained to her about it. His uncle had slept in a hay bale overnight after getting black-out drunk. Dennis was the one to stumble upon him in the morning while retrieving some tools for a house repair. The kitchen sink was clogging up again, and it was up to Dennis—you’re better than anyone at usin’ your brain, baby. I leave these things to you because I trust you with ‘em. But don’t tell your brothers I told you that—to fix it. He had to help him back to his room; one of his uncle’s arms was hooked over his shoulders, leaning on him, as they walked the property back to the house. Not even his two older brothers, the ones who hadn’t moved out yet, seemed to care about losing their uncle, the last living tether to their father, to the drink.

Your pa’s passing was hard on all of us, but remember that he was in your uncle’s life longer than he was in yours. After losing him and your aunt… he’s coping the best way he can.

His mother brought up a good point. He hadn’t thought of it like that. So, like with most issues, he let this one go until his uncle wasted away a few years later. He had no tears. Just the sinking regret of not doing more for him than, as his mother said, let ‘im be.

Dennis couldn’t fall asleep after he had gotten home from your apartment.

He tossed and turned for a while, rubbed at his sternum when it felt like he couldn’t breathe. He thought about what his mother told him all those years ago when he first got his heart broken—love is an ache, she had called it—and he knew then that he had made a mistake. He thought he could ignore it, what the twist of the knife in his gut meant, but he couldn’t.

He was already in knee-deep from the moment he had met you.

The thing about Dennis is he avoids and avoids. The thing about regret is it festers.

One morning, Dennis spots you with a patient from chairs. You’re doing a simple debriding and suturing job, nothing he needs to hover over you for. It’s obvious the patient has an interest in you, though. If his charming, crooked grin and intense eye contact mean anything. But you’re not entertaining him. You’re just doing your job with the bare minimum etiquette typically expected from a doctor. Half smiles and half laughs. Regardless, Dennis can sense the green-eyed monster rearing its head within him. He tells himself that he has no right to be jealous, and it shouldn’t matter to him who you talk to, but the devil on his shoulder overpowers the angel on the other, and in an act of desperation unbecoming of him, he walks over to interrupt you two.

He has no plan. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to say.

But unfortunately, or fortunately, he doesn’t get very far. Donnie steps up to him and asks him about something he can barely register as important as he casts a glance to the side of Donnie’s head to watch you finish up with the patient and return to the waiting room to call in the next one.

Dennis knows how good you are with your hands and with your patients. He had known it in the first few weeks he had known you. He was impressed by you and could see himself learning from you instead of the other way around. The confidence with which you applied what you learned, the humility you showed when you made a mistake, the kindness you showed patients—he appreciated it all.

“Whitaker, are you paying attention, man?” Donnie asks with a snap of his fingers.

Dennis snaps back into focus, shaking his head clear of his thoughts. “Sorry, Donnie. Um, could you repeat that?”

Another morning, a patient grabbed your bicep as you and Dennis and a few others pushed his stretcher and headed into South 15 to stabilize the rib and pelvis fractures he’d gotten in a car accident. He wasn’t trying to harm you, but rather reach for something, someone to hold onto, as he fought for his life to bear the pain. But regardless of his intent, Dennis had never wanted to hurt anyone more in his life than he did the patient in that moment.

It scares Dennis how easily the thought of wrestling him to the floor came to him at the mere sight of him reaching for you. How could he have thought something like that?

This is bad. Badbadbadbadbad, Dennis thinks. Brimstone and hellfire bad. He’s not sure how much longer he can go on like this. He can’t affect the treatment of patients just because… just because he’s an absolute idiot when it comes to you.

His bad day goes from bad to worse when Langdon pulls him aside after the patient is sent up to surgery and tells him to cool off, something he doesn’t ever need to do. Not with Dennis.

“Hey, man. Think you might need to take a break? You seemed… tense in there.”

“I’m fine, it’s nothing, I just—”

Langdon awkwardly pats Dennis’ shoulder. “—whatever hangups you have, you need to leave at the door. Go get a drink of water or something and come back when you’re ready.”

Dennis sighs, nodding. “Okay, I will. Sorry, Dr. Langdon. I just didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

A lie. He’s lying now. But he supposes it’s simpler than telling Langdon the truth.

Langdon scoffs. “Wait until you have kids and then come back to me about getting no sleep.”

During a shift about a month since your hookup, near seven p.m., Dennis catches you heading into the stairwell. He knows that you sometimes join Mel there as a shoulder to lean on, but she’s not on shift tonight. He follows you through the double doors, sensing that something is wrong.

He’s developed somewhat of a sixth sense when it comes to you.

You look up at him as he opens the doors. “Dennis?”

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks tentatively. He’s not sure when the last time was when he spoke to you alone without anyone around. He doesn’t want to overstep.

But you give him no reason to think that he is. You are as you always are with him—“Oh, this?” you laugh breathlessly, pointing at yourself and then wiping a tear. “Just another perk of the job. I’m fine, I swear. Thank you for checking up on me, though—casual. Comfortable. Comforting. Even when you’re the one shedding tears.

“Tell me what happened,” he says softly, though he can guess what happened is what always happens.

A sigh escapes your lips. “The burn patient I was working on with Dr. Mohan didn’t make it. It wasn’t anyone’s fault or anything. We just couldn’t… I didn’t expect the waterworks to come. Guess I’m just having a bad day.”

He nods. He saw the poor woman with the third-degree burns being rolled in just a few hours ago. He’s more surprised that she lasted as long as she did. “Her injuries were pretty severe. I’m sorry you lost her. You and Dr. Mohan did the best you could, and I’m sure she was grateful for it.” The door closes, shutting you both off from the noise of the E.D., as he steps forward and takes a seat on the step beside you. “I had a burn patient like that about a year ago. On my first day here, actually. I’ve been helping his wife out on their farm here and there since he passed.”

“Trinity told me about that.” You look up from your unlaced shoe and at him, with a pinch in your brows. “Why are you going out of your way for someone who’s practically a stranger? You don’t owe her anything.”

Dennis opens and closes his mouth, like a fish out of water, unsure of how to respond. He looks down and ties your shoe instead. An Ian knot. It’s tied within a second. His hands return to his jittering knees.

Immediately, with a huff, you apologize, brows furrowing deeper, “Sorry, you must think I’m a horrible person for saying that. Ignore me.”

Dennis shakes his head, meets your eyes again. “I don’t. I just—I like to help people. Even if I have to go out of my way to do it, I will.”

Your lips curl inward as you think of what to say. You place a warm hand over his to stop him from bouncing his knee. It’s as close to holding your hand as he’s gotten since he walked you home that one night.

“You’re a really charitable person, Dennis. It’s not my place to judge what you do in your free time, but I just hope you’re not being taken advantage of.” You let your words settle over him for a beat, then you sniffle, wipe at a remnant tear, and glance down at your watch. “We should get back out there before Robby tears us a new one.”

In that beat of silence, Dennis reflects and realizes that he is likely being taken advantage of by Amy. It is weird that he, the student doctor who told her her husband would be alright, felt such immense guilt for his death and has lived on a farm almost his whole life, is the only person who can help her out. But he’s doing the same to her, isn’t he? Going away on his days off to a familiar place without the familiar faces of his family feels… it feels like home without it being home. A photograph with a filter, a sepia-toned veneer obscuring the smears of bad memories that darken its edges. It’s nice. And working there helps keep his mind off you.

“Yeah. We should,” is all he says in response. But he makes no effort to move.

Before you have the chance to get up, he surges forward and kisses you. A light press of his lips to yours. Soft and sweet. So brief he wonders if you comprehended what he did. He doesn’t know himself: what is he doing?

He creates some distance between you two, scooting toward the edge of the step in horror. Though, he licks his lips—it tastes like honey lip balm and that scent that is so unique to you—and his cock jumps in his briefs.

He is so fucked.

“That was—shit—I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

A smile tugs at your lips. His eyes flicker to them and back up to your eyes.

“Don’t apologize,” you whisper. You reach for him; he doesn’t know what for, to pull him in for another kiss or to pull him up from the step to get back to work, but he grips the railing and stands before you can do either.

“It won’t happen again,” he says, looking down at you. “I’ve got to—” he points a thumb to the door. “Talk to Kiara before shift is over or first thing with Dylan tomorrow morning, okay? They can help you to process the case if you need.”

“Dennis, wait—” but he’s already walked through the doors and back into the throes of the Pitt.

He fucked up. Again.

Why couldn’t he just let himself have that moment with you? Why is he such a damn coward?

He did do one thing right, though. He comforted you. Or at least tried to. And he tied your shoe. It’s a small consolation, but he can get through the last half hour of the shift knowing you won’t trip on your feet.

Summer has long gone, and fall has since made her return. Just a few months ago, Dennis got his doctor’s badge and his first paycheck. He’s able to spend his earnings without worrying about how many ramen packets he has left or can stomach for the rest of the week, and it is some form of bliss.

The Pittlings, and you and Joy and… Ogilvie, for some reason, decide on drinks at a newly opened bar after shift. Dennis arrives there a bit late along with Trin, whom he stayed back with as she caught up on charts. The first thing he notices when he walks through the door is you hanging off someone’s arm. He’s not sure if he’s someone employed at PTMC or if he’s a stranger. He’s not sure which is worse.

After ordering himself a beer, he sits at one end of the big rounded booth where Mel, Joy, Ogilvie, and Victoria are already seated, right next to Trin and across the table from you and… him.

He joins in on conversation.

Dr. Robby and Dr. Al-Hashimi got into an argument today. It’s a lot better between them now, but they still have their moments.

When are they going to fuck already?

Oh, my God, Joy!

What?

He laughs. He smiles. He avoids eye contact with you and knows it’s stupid because you don’t pay attention to him in the slightest. The man beside you introduces himself to Dennis and Trin as Trevor, and Dennis shakes his hand. You make the briefest eye contact with him after telling the group how you two met—Trevor’s just some guy that lives in your building that you bonded with while doing laundry and invited on a whim—and he ducks his eyes. Dennis drinks. More than he should. His uncle’s words ring in his head: alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy—which he is pretty sure is a quote from Frank Sinatra, but after a few more rounds he is too drunk now to remember—and despite hating alcohol, he continues to drink.

His ugliness rises to the top like the creamy foam floating in his beer tonight, making him seethe and stew and click his jaw as he hears you laugh and giggle with Trevor as you two have a side conversation. But in truth, it has been lying just beneath his skin, ready to show itself in moments like these. As it has in the months since he slept with you. And it’s ridiculous because Dennis knows he has no reason to be upset. He has fucked up with you more times than he can count; this is all his own fault.

He’s been living a lot in the gray as of late. Somewhere between what his mother would consider there’s right and there’s wrong, Dennis. Desperate for you and yet avoidant of you. In love with you but in hate with himself. It’s not an easy cross to bear when his mother taught him about binaries. Either heaven or hell, reward or punishment, and there’s no in-between, and you want to go to heaven, and so you have to be good.

The evening grows late, and he reaches a boiling point. Fever pitch. Dennis watches you walk away as Trevor excuses you two and takes you to a separate, smaller booth in the corner of the bar and from there proceeds to watch him suck on your neck. Ogilvie makes some smart remark to Dennis about being distracted tonight, like you were today when you mixed up a subdural hematoma with an epidural on a CT scan—a common mistake and one you coughed up to with grace and learned from and corrected—and Dennis thinks he can feel a vein jutting from his forehead. He will punch him.

But he’ll save that for another time, because he has made a decision, and he will make it count because he knows they’re a rarity for him. With the alcohol, his restraint is lowered, and so when the time is right, he saunters from the booth and follows you down the dim, narrow hallway leading to the restrooms.

He calls your name, and he finally says it: “I know I fucked up.”

You turn around upon hearing his voice, your hand back down at your side instead of wrapped around the restroom doorknob. Your eyes widen as you watch him step closer into your personal bubble. “What? Dennis, what are you—”

“—I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have left that night. I know—or at least I think I know—that you offered me to stay because you wanted me there. Not just because we had sex but because... and when—when I got home, I immediately regretted leaving. And when I kissed you in the stairwell… I shouldn’t have run then, either. If it’s not obvious already… I like you. A lot. I’m just—it’s hard for me to get close, but I got close. And… well, I do want that. With you.”

You blink at him. Once. Twice. Three times. A flutter of your pretty, mascaraed lashes, and he blushes. As if he weren’t red-in-the-face humiliated from his rant and alcohol-flushed enough already.

“Of course I wanted you to stay,” you finally say like it’s obvious. He supposes it is.

“I’m an idiot, and I’m sorry. And you don’t have to return my feelings, but I just thought you should know.”

Dennis isn’t sure what he’ll do with himself if you don’t happen to feel the same way as he does, but he could at least try to move on now that everything is out in the open.

But he hopes he won’t have to. He’s tired of it.

“Dennis, all this time…” you sigh. “I thought you weren’t ready or maybe unwilling to explore… us further. So I didn’t push. But I never stopped liking you. I have since the moment I met you.”

He has to take a deep breath in around the hand you’re squeezing his heart with. Your confession unravels him, leaving him an unspooled mess on the sticky bar floor. “And how about your… friend?” he asks, voice pitched a little high. He’s deflecting, sure, but he also has to know.

“He’s no one.”

A quiet “oh” is all he can voice. Relief blooms in his chest.

You roll your eyes but grin, stepping closer to him so that you’re chest to chest. You hold his face in both of your hands, the scent of your perfume pooling heat in his gut and scrambling his brain, and kiss him.

And the world shrinks again. The bar is gone. Your colleagues are gone. The guy you’re with is gone. It’s just you two.

“Let’s go back to mine,” he offers once you two part. You’re taken aback by his initiative. Honestly, he is too. But he doesn’t have it in him to care about taking things slow right now. “Trin won’t be there. She’s going back to Garcia’s after.”

You nod. He takes your hand. He doesn’t ask about the man you’re leaving behind, and you don’t offer an excuse.

He doesn’t notice Trin watching the both of you leave in a rush.

This lovemaking isn’t so much lovemaking as it is, well, a nasty fuck.

Dennis ate you out until you cried, kneeling by the foot of his bed with your legs thrown over his shoulders. Finger-fucked you. One finger to start, slowly working up to three. You were so wet with slick that it was so easy to slide inside of you. The scent of you remains on his tongue, lingers on the tip of his nose, intoxicating and maddening and overwhelming all at once, and he loves it.

He hasn’t had such passionate sex before. But it figures, considering he’s never felt this way about anyone before you.

He takes you from behind, watching the flesh of your ass jiggle with every thrust of his hips. You’re moaning into the sheets as he feeds you his cock, and he’s grunting as you clench down on him. This isn’t gentlemanly of him. He’s digging himself inside of you, staking a claim to the empty space in your heart and cunt. He will be the only one to ever do this, have you, as long as he has a say in it. As long as he doesn’t fuck up like he’s prone to do.

All the ugliness he has felt sitting inside of him, building and building over the past few months, dissipates, and he feels like himself again. He should’ve just been honest with himself and you sooner.

He’s always been a glutton for pain, though. You get beaten down so many times, you start to look forward to the next time it happens just so you can get it over with.

He knows he has a lot to unlearn. The heavy burden of expectation and the fear of being human and fucking up like humans do. The fear of closeness.

He tries not to worry himself about that right now, though. You don’t seem the type to be discouraged about his ineptitude or his clumsy way of going about life, and he’s grateful for it.

As much as he wants to, it doesn’t seem appropriate now to pour his heart out to you. It’s too soon. But he can wait. The important thing, he thinks, is knowing it for himself, how he feels about you. Choosing it for himself.

When you two are done, sprawled out on his bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms and glowing from the sex and sweat and sin, he asks to take both of your pictures on his digital camera.

“You’re into photography?” you ask.

“I dabble.” He shrugs. “I got into it during undergrad.”

“What, no cameras growing up on the farm?” you ask, a smirk playing on your lips.

He chuckles. “We had a camera. Just never used it.” He wishes that weren’t the case. “You tend to see a lot of the same day after day.” It would have been nice to see his father in the roll of film sitting in that old camera. He supposes it would make for a good reason to visit home, to check if maybe there are some photos of him around the house he could take back to Pittsburgh with him, but he dismisses the idea. He’d just be looking for a ghost.

You hum. “Let’s take one then.”

Dennis untangles himself from you and hops off the bed, grabbing his digital camera, an expensive, vintage one, one of his first gifts to himself after getting his first paycheck. He rejoins you on the bed and pulls you into his chest. Cheek to sticky cheek. Tacky with sweat. Two sets of toothy smiles. A click and a bright flash.

He turns the camera around, and you both take a look at the photo.

Picture perfect.

The next day, you two hover at central after rounds to get a quick word in with each other before the day pulls you apart.

“Aren’t you glad we’re sneaking around now?” you tease.

“No, not really,” he says truthfully. For both of your sakes, you thought it might be best to wait until you were both completely secure in your relationship before going to H.R. and telling the others, but Dennis is certain he’s not going anywhere. Still, it’s early. You both have time. “But I’m really glad we’re together.”

“Me too.”

Trin suddenly calls both of your names, and you and Dennis look up in her direction. “Hey, lovebirds, got a case I want you to work with me on.”

You and Dennis share a look.

Trin approaches the counter and slaps him on the back, then wraps an arm around his shoulder, pulling him along. “C’mon. Follow me,” she says back to you with a gesturing hand motion. As she leads you both to… somewhere, she asks him, “so, you either weren’t a virgin as you claimed not to be or you just happened to know what you were doing the first time, huh?”

Dennis’ brows furrow. “What are you talking—”

“I came home last night because I saw you two leaving the bar together. I was curious. She’s a bit of a screamer, isn’t she?” she asks, looking back at you.

You flash her an innocent smile, and Dennis blushes, stammering something incoherent. Trin cackles.

Hi, Ma.

Baby, it’s been too long since you last called. How are you?

I’m good. Sorry it’s been a while. How are things with you?

Good, good. Jacob… Well, his wife kicked him out of the house. But he’s home now, and it’s been nice to have someone around.

Oh… that’s—that’s too bad.

Well, anyway. I’m assuming you called for a reason?

Uh, yeah. I just wanted to tell you that I met someone. I think you’d like her.

You did?

I did.

Wow. That’s amazing. I’m so proud of you, baby. I never thought this day would come. You’ll have to bring her home sometime.

Thanks, Ma. And I’m sorry for cutting it short, but, uh, I got to go. I just wanted to say hi and let you know. It was nice to hear your voice.

Okay, then. I’ll let Jacob know you called. You sound good, baby. Happy.

I think I am.

Okay, I’ll let you go now. Be good, Dennis. I love you.

Always. I love you too.

He hangs up the phone. It’ll be a while until he calls home again. Family’s family, but there’s always a little bit of pain there. The distance is a good thing, he thinks. He has some healing to do on his own.

He hasn’t even spoken to his brothers since…

He won’t dwell on it, though. He has tomorrow and beyond to look forward to with you.

[applepuppybear]

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