Description- What was supposed to be a helpful task around Jack's apartment turns into a night of horror when you find a box of letters he'd written, each written as if he means it to be a goodbye
If you're my roommate, stop reading here
CW- Jack's suicidal ideation, not anything worse than in the show, grief over his wife, mentions of his leg amputation, fear over possibly losing a loved one, mentions of suicide notes (obvi), lots and lots of comfort and emotional reassurance
AN- i don't know how i feel about this one. maybe it's the three hours of sleep, maybe it's being a little sick, maybe it's actually bad. idk
You hadn’t been snooping on purpose when you found the box. You had only been looking for the extra box of bristles that went to Jack’s electric toothbrush, a gift from Robby the Christmas before. Jack had refused to use it for the longest time, saying stubbornly he liked his simple “manual” toothbrush just fine and didn’t need something electric, but you’d caught him eyeing the box inquisitively one too many times when he thought you weren’t looking. When he came home one day to the toothbrush unwrapped and plugged in on the narrow counter the small bathroom allowed, he’d begrudgingly tried it. His trusty old manual was in the trash by the end of the week, which you were sweet enough not to mention noticing.
Jack was at work when you’d started poking around in closets to find the spares he swore he’d picked up a few months before. It was only right to help find them, you reasoned to yourself, seeing as how so many of Jack’s things had gotten moved because of the slow migration of your own possessions to his apartment. He now had two cups with toothbrushes resting by the bathroom sink, his mouthwash relegated to living in the built-in medicine cabinet above the sink instead to make space. Your hair ties had their own designated spots around the apartment, most of them smartly clipped to a carabiner hanging from the mounted ring that held Jack’s sensible black handtowels. He made a point of keeping one within arms reach of all major locations you frequented- a few in the kitchen junk drawer, one in the center console of his truck, one even worming its way into the smallest pocket of his go bag- and Jack’s bed, your bed, as you’d come to think of it over the last few months, was certainly a major location, with a small collection of hair bands tucked into the top drawer of the nightstand on your side.
You hadn’t had the conversation yet, and you still had your own apartment less than a dozen miles away, but it had been easy to fill the space in Jack’s life. He had made it easy, in his own quiet way. One morning he slid a key across the table to you, smirking slightly when you froze, teeth still digging into your piece of toast you’d just taken a bite out of. Soon after, he’d started collecting things for you. Nothing elaborate, just practical items you liked to have on hand. Things that you never had to ask for, appearing like magic and fitting specifications he never even had to ask about. A bottle of your shampoo appeared in his shower, sitting next to his own like it had always been there. Your favorite flavor of yogurt was always on hand in his fridge. He even had a few sets of clothing for you, nothing fancy, but enough to save you running back and forth to your apartment when coming over for a movie night date turned into staying at his for the better part of a week.
You weren’t a fool. You knew better than to go rooting around through Jack’s personal belongings, or assume you had an open pass to snoop just because he trusted you. You knew which of his boxes stayed sealed and tucked away for his own good, containing memories from his life he still preferred not to talk about. His papers from his military service, dog tags tucked into a small mahogany box he had shown you once, laying atop pictures of some of the men he’d served with, a young Jack standing shoulder to shoulder with them, with hair that was still copper and a smile that didn’t hold as much weight as it did now. Mementos from his late wife he couldn’t bear to part with. Some memories of her were kept throughout the apartment, even if she’d never lived there. Her photo lived in a magnet on the fridge. Her favorite necklace hung over a corner of Jack’s dresser mirror, the family heirloom that she never had the opportunity to pass down to children of her own catching the light of the early morning where it crept through the crack between Jack’s blackout curtains and reflecting dappled rays of light onto the ceiling.
She was a constant in the small apartment, but not an unwelcome one. You had learned to live with her presence early into the relationship, the small reminders of what once had been scattered across Jack’s life in the present, his own way of making space for something new without letting go of what he had cherished so much in the past.
His own reservations had played a big part in why it took so long to go on your first date. He was adamant that he didn’t want to enter into a relationship halfheartedly, not wanting to subject you to being with a man still living with one foot in the past, no matter how often you caught him staring at you from across the room, or drifting into your space to help you with things you were more than capable of handling on your own. He would often withdraw at the beginning, avoiding you and refusing to speak to you more than a few words when he was struggling with his own guilt. Guilt for moving on as much as guilt for not doing it sooner. When his resolve broke, or you’d show up at his door, calm but stubborn enough to refuse to leave until he had a real conversation with you, he would crumble, emotions spilling over in a way that he resented himself for. He would let it all out at once, how much he missed his wife, how he felt guilty missing her when he was seeing you, how you deserved better than him, someone who wasn’t broken and flighty and everything he never wanted for you. You would let him talk, only taking his hand when his shoulders started to deflate, the whirlwind in him finally calming into the crushing silence that he hated the most of all. He would let you hold him, and tucked his face into your neck while you soothed him, reminding him that there was no one way to heal after losing someone so important to him.
You knew better than to hold it all against him. You knew he was struggling with his need to protect you, even if you didn’t need it, and that his attempts to distance himself was just another way of trying to push you away before he had a chance to hurt you. His attempts to keep you at arms reach were for his own benefit as well as yours, which he admitted shortly before your first date. He didn’t want to crack open his heart again, just for you to break it and leave him alone again. His sudden bouts of oversharing were another form of defense he’d developed, another tactic to overwhelm you and force you away, like waving a torch in your face so you wouldn’t notice the misshapen monster who wielded it, convinced he was doing you a favor all the while.
But despite all his apprehensions, you stayed. Through it all, you stayed, searching him out when he withdrew to comfort him, and listening to him with a calm embrace when the pressure of it all cracked him open and it all came pouring out. You’d held him as he cried, reduced to a shaking mess as he talked about his late wife. You’d all but tackled him into a hug when he’d bitterly talked about losing his leg, how there were some things that he simply couldn’t do now, that his body wouldn’t allow it, and you didn’t deserve to be hindered the way he was. He had been surprised then, catching you as you’d flung your arms around him, holding him firmly as you kissed all over his face and told him as sternly as you could that you didn’t need to do anything that he couldn’t do alongside you. That there wasn’t, and could never be, a good enough reason to not be together. That he couldn’t scare you off, even on nights when he woke up, sweating and scared, not sure where he was, unaware of the time that had passed, and reached for a wife that would never be there, feeling crushed all over again as realization hit him and shame flooded through his body. You’d sit with him as it hit him, just as painful every time, and offer him a hand when he was ready, letting him curl up next to you, his wet face pressed to your chest and you trailed your fingers through his hair, gently shushing his frantic apologies and assuring him you weren’t upset, that you understood and loved him.
After over a year of dating, Jack was doing much better. He still had his bad days, but you learned long ago to take them with the good, and more importantly, he’d learned to let you. He let you sit with him when the memories became too much, and let you know when things were bothering him, threatening to spill over in a way he never wanted you to see. He sought therapy out on his own, not only for the trauma of losing his wife, but for everything else that had slowly chipped away at him over the years. He put in the work, taking his therapist’s advice as seriously as he could and only occasionally finding loopholes to fit his own preferences. He was happy, more grounded than he’d been for a long time.
The boxes stacked in the closets didn’t alarm you. If anything, most were a testament to how resilient your lover was, each box showing a physical representation of something else he’d moved past or grown around in his life.
You frowned when you saw the faded green box tucked on the top shelf. You stood on your tiptoes to reach it, pulling it down and taking in its odd appearance. It wasn’t simplistic in the way most of Jack’s things were. It was a bit bigger than a shoebox, with metal buckles and leather straps, the threading starting to split along the stitches from old age.
You’d never seen it before, and cracked it open, curiosity getting the best of you. Did Jack start collecting antiques and manage to hide it from you somehow? You would have remembered seeing something so anachronistic to everything else he owned, all simple greys and navies and black to hide stains.
Nowhere in your mind had you considered the box could contain letters. And yet there they were, dozens of them, handwritten and tucked away, most already sealed in envelopes bearing a recipient’s name, lacking only addresses and postage. Some peaked out from deeper in the box, neatly folded notebook paper lacking envelopes, their recipients’ names written on them in Jack’s neat penmanship.
This was not for your eyes, you knew. No matter why Jack had an ancient box of letters, it wasn’t your place to read them without his permission. You were moving to close the lid of the case, already had it swinging back up, careful not to put any added weight to the pale leather straps that held the whole thing together, when you froze. You frowned down at the box, one hand picking up the piece of paper as if it would explain why it bore your name if you blinked at it long enough.
You weighed the options in your mind. You really shouldn’t read something without Jack’s permission, especially something kept so out of the way. It’s not like he’d set it on the counter for you to find. On the other hand though…it did have your name on it. And the curiosity was eating you alive.
You let your fingers linger on the ink where Jack had written your name before slowly unfolding the piece of paper. If it was nothing, you could just pretend you hadn’t seen it. If it was some weird surprise, you could do the same.
Your eyes skimmed the lines Jack had written, following the clean lines of his pen against the paper. By the third line, your eyes were widening, a bad feeling forming in your stomach to form a small knot that only grew as you continued. When you’d finished reading, you stared down at the piece of notebook paper. You flipped it over dumbly, as if expecting it to say sike! on the backside. Finding nothing of the sort, you flipped it back over, reading it a second time, and then a third.
You squeezed your eyes shut, your palms covering them and pressing lightly with the heels as you forced yourself ot draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly, the racing of your blood in your eardrums making you feel suddenly dizzy. You could see the words even with you eyes closed, the knot in your stomach clenching even tighter and threatening to squeeze your heart too.
I can’t keep doing this to you.
You deserve better that this. Than me. You’d be better without me.
If I wasn’t such a coward I could spare you this.
And worst of all
You may think you want a life with me now. But I can never give you what you need. I’m broken, my love, and not even you can fix me. No one can. I’m sorry.
You let out a pained groan as your hands slid down your cheeks, the horrible letter still clutched in one hand. Your eyes fell to the box, still open on the carpeted floor where you’d set it, a growing horror pooling in your stomach. There were so many of them. Were they all like this? Was each letter a reason to leave, a goodbye he’d been steeling his nerve for? It was so Jack, to be prepared even for the worst situation. It was too him, too sweet and considerate for such an awful discovery. You blinked away the tears that threatened to blind you, wiping at your eyes frustratedly as you dragged the box closer, digging through the letters to count them and find the oldest. There were too many, easily enough to have one for each member of the night shift at the PTMC and his comrades from the SWAT team, maybe even enough for those that remained of the men he’d served with.
You reached for your phone, realizing only as you stared at the goofy picture of him you’d saved as his profile picture, his reading glasses slid down on his nose while he looked up at you, a lovestruck smile on his face, that he was only halfway through his shift. You couldn’t just call him and expect him to answer, not when lives were on the line. What would you even say? Sorry babe, I found your box of suicide notes and I wanted to call and just say hey. You shook your head sharply, allowing yourself one more look at his picture before locking your phone and shoving it back in your pocket. Even if you were able to get ahold of him and talk to him, he’d just be on edge the rest of his shift. You couldn’t do that to him, not when so many people depended on him, patients and medical staff alike. If he was off his game and anything happened, he would just blame himself, even if it was you calling that had put him in such a way.
You would just have to kill time until he got home. And try not to throw up thinking about all the dark thoughts that had rattled around in his head, doing your best to bury your fears about how he’d hidden them from you.
You barely dozed that night, waiting to hear the turn of Jack’s key in the lock. How could you do any more, knowing what you knew now? You couldn't stop wondering how long had there been a box of Jack’s darkest thoughts just sitting in the closet down the hall. How could you not know, how could you not feel the almost tangible coldness that seemed to seep from the box and dig its icy talons into your heart until you felt it might stop beating altogether?
You hadn’t tried to truly sleep, not like you would most nights. You had only hoped to snooze for an hour or two so you would be in a better position to talk to Jack when he got home, and even that was a challenge. But you knew that the last thing he needed after a long shift was for you to be blubbering incoherently and have to comfort you, and so you tried anyway, grasping at whatever slivers of sleep your mind was willing to allow you.
You were awake when Jack came home at 8am. You’d only dozed for thirty minutes at a time, and your eyes burned from forgetting to blink, still staring at the box like it might lunge for Jack the second you looked away. You had brought it into the bedroom, looking through the letters to see what names you’d recognize. There was Robby, of course, followed by one for Dana and one for Shen. There were several addressed to his late wife. His normally steady hand had a slight tremor as he’d written her name on the folded slips of paper, the ink pooling in small splotches as he’d paused. You hadn’t read any but the one addressed to you, but you knew enough to know that your concern wasn’t unfounded.
You heard Jack kick off his boots by the front door, his soft groan as he set down his heavy backpack and the soft scuffle of a cabinet and water running as he got a glass of water. You sat up in bed, the soft warm light from the lamp on the nightstand casting long shadows over the letters still laid around you on the navy comforter. You’d tried to put them away, but every time you had tried and laid your head back down to sleep, you’d be seized by a sudden wave of fresh panic. What if you had missed something? What if things were more dire than you thought and Jack was in danger? You’d briefly considered showing up at the PTMC to talk to him in person around 4am, but had to rule it out despite your desperation to see him and know, from your own eyes and your own hands running over him, that he was safe. It wouldn’t do him any good to barge in and disrupt the important work happening,you reminded yourself, and you couldn’t live with yourself if you got someone else hurt.
This had to be handled delicately. You knew that much, but no more.
When Jack joined you in the bedroom, his prosthesis removed for the night and crutches tucked under his arms, he looked concerned to see you still awake. His expression shifted when his eyes drifted over the rest of the scene laid out on his bed. The pale green box, lid opened and hanging off the leather strap. The letters laid across the bedsheet like a crime scene layout. The unfolded paper in your hand, crinkled on the sides from your tight grip. And worst of all, the salty trails down your face from tears that had fallen and since dried.
Jack had fucked up.
“Sweetheart.” He said it gently, taking a step closer but not yet sitting down. “You…you’re not supposed to see this.”
You felt your eyes begin to prickle again.
“What is this, Jack?” Your voice trembled, even as you whispered. “Is this…Were you saying goodbye?”
Jack sighed deeply, his head dropping until his chin rested on his chest, eyes pressed shut tightly.
“No,” he said, sounding almost defeated. His head tilted to the side, his best approximation of a shrug with his crutches still under his arms. “Or…yes, technically,” he admitted, voice painfully careful, like you might splinter and break right in front of him. “But not to be used.” He added it quickly, eyes shooting open and finding your own when you let out a sharp breath, as if that made things any better, or made finding a box of his goodbye letters any less terrifying.
Your lip trembled as you frowned, finding it hard to believe anything he had to say when this had been hiding just down the hall.
Jack settled onto the side of the bed with a small grunt, letting his crutches rest against the wall before slowly turning halfway to face you.
“It’s something my therapist suggested,” he explained, low and gently, like he might spook you if he was too loud. “It’s like journaling.”
You scoffed out a weak laugh. “This is not like journaling,” you said, fiercer than you’d intended as you held up the letter with your name on it. The emotions bubbled up before you could stop them, anger and fear and embarrassment all mixing into the perfect poison to make you cry and speak before you could think. “This is a goodbye letter, Jack. A suicide note, with my name on it!”
“No, it-it’s not-” he cut himself off, hands twitching on his lap and mouth opening and closing, looking frustrated that he couldn’t find the words he needed. “That’s not what they are,” he insisted after taking a deep breath. “They’re just writing. You’re not supposed to read them. I’m not even supposed to read them.” He sighed deeply, hand running through his hair absentmindedly, scratching and tugging at the greying curls. “That’s the whole point. You put the thoughts on paper, you get them out of your head, and then you put them away. You don’t look at them again. It’s like they’re gone.”
“But they’re not gone!” you all but wail, terror still seizing your heart, squeezing it until it threatened to burst. “You had these thoughts, Jack! You had some of them pretty damn recently from the looks of it, and you didn’t say anything. You did this, wrote these like you might actually need them, instead of talking to me.” You sniffled, wiping at your eyes with the back of your hand in frustration. “I don’t care what you do in therapy. If this helps you, then fine. But you didn’t talk to me. I didn’t know you were struggling with this, and how can I help if I don’t know?”
Jack shook his head, that quiet, levelheaded look in his eye that he got when he was elbow deep in a body, doing whatever he had to to stay focused. The kind of distance that was needed when lives were on the line.
“You don’t have to help me,” he said, and the lack of warmth in his voice made you almost choke on a sob. He never sounded like that, not with you. He left his caution at the door, shedding the weight of his job as well as he could, wanting to just enjoy whatever quiet moments he could steal with you. But not tonight. “You…Just, worry about yourself. I’ll be fine.”
You shook your head fiercely. You threw the letters to the side, not caring if they wound up on the floor or tucked under the bed. You would clean up later. You pushed yourself closer to Jack, taking one of his hands in your own and squeezing it tight.
“No.” There was no room for argument in your tone, your mind long since made up. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. And you certainly don’t get to shut me out right now, not when I’ve spent the whole night scared I was going to lose you.” You sniffled again as his jaw worked, sitting unusually stiff on his own bed. “I love you, and that means I’m here, in whatever capacity you need. I wouldn’t leave you alone with this if it was the flu, or food poisoning, or you lost another limb, and there’s no way I’m leaving you to face it alone now.”
Your voice softened, brow furrowed deeply as you looked at him, silently cursing yourself for not being more prepared. You knew full well the types of things he’d seen in his life, the things he’d lived through. Why hadn’t you sought help sooner? You could have prevented this, or at least been more aware of his silent struggle.
“I don’t want to pry into things you don’t want to share,” you said, gentler now. “I know you’re not there yet, and you deserve your privacy to work through things on your own. But this isn’t working through it, baby. This is scaring me. And you don’t have to hide stuff like this from me, ever. I need you to know that.”
“I don’t want you to worry about me.” His voice came out small, almost timid, like he would flinch away if you looked at him too closely and saw something you didn’t like.
You laughed, wet and tired and emotional. “Well, tough luck,” you retorted. “I already worry about you, you doofus. I worry about how much sleep you get, or don’t get, I should say. I worry about you whenever you’re with SWAT, or if a patient will just snap and attack you, or you being in a car accident. Hell, I worry that Shen will make a bad joke at the wrong time and you’ll choke on your water. I worry about you all the time, Jack, the same way you worry about me. This is no different from that.”
“It is different.” His frustrations were mounting, his carefully constructed boundaries splintering at the edges. “This isn’t some hypothetical. It isn’t some freak accident like a car accident, it’s issues that rewired my brain, that doctors still don’t understand, that I sure as hell don’t understand!” His voice dropped, words muttered out barely above a whisper. “I can’t drag you through this with me. You deserve better than that.”
“That’s not for you to say,” you counter, doing your best to keep your voice level. “You don’t get to choose what I do or how I feel about you. And what I choose is to be with you, even when things are hard.” You cupped his cheek, your thumb drawing gently across the silvery stubble of his jaw. “You don’t drag me through anything, my love. You make me better in every way, and it’s a privilege to stand by you.”
He didn’t meet your eyes, staring down instead at the comforter peaking out between his splayed legs.
You decided to take a different approach.
“If I were in a car accident and lost my legs, would you leave me?”
Jack glanced up, staring at you for a moment, expression blank before a ghost of a smile flickered over his face, gone as quickly as it came.
“That would feel hypocritical.”
You rolled your eyes.
“Answer the question, smartass.”
He shifted slightly, leaning back against the headboard with his head tipped back slightly, looking down the bridge of his nose at you cautiously.
“No.”
“Even if I had to do all that physical therapy and adjust to a new life?”9+
He shook his head, his answer coming without hesitation. “Never.”
You nodded, urging him on, to think of everything it would entail. “And if I had nightmares? If I had panic attacks and never wanted to be in a car again? If I felt horrible and didn’t know how to cope?”
Jack paused. He could tell where this was going. And yet he answered anyway.
“Then we’d figure it out.”
“And you wouldn’t leave? You wouldn’t resent me for it? Even though you didn’t have to do any of that, even though you could very easily find someone else?”
He seemed almost offended by that, scowling as his brow furrowed.
“There’s no one else I want,” he said after a moment.
You nodded once more, giving him a soft smile.
“Do you think this is a one way street, Jack? Do you think you’re the only one who feels that? You were in a car accident, metaphorically speaking, and you lost your legs, somewhat less metaphorically speaking-” he barked out a short dry laugh, but you continued “-and despite it all, I love you. Not even in spite of,” you corrected. “It’s just part of the package, part of you. So if you need help with any of it, or even just want me to hold your hand and not talk and just sit by you, I’m here. For all of it, all of you. And I’m not going anywhere.”
You kicked the lid shut on the faded green box before scootching even closer to Jack, pressing your head to his chest to hear his heart beat while you hugged him. His arms wrapped around you instantly, feeling like a shield to your anxieties while holding you like his own lifeline.
“I know,” he murmured into your hairline, his warm breath tickling your scalp as you pressed a kiss to his chest, clinging to the scent of antiseptic and detergent and him. “Neither am I. I promise.”
You sat like that for the better part of thirty minutes, just resting against each other, finding solace in being pressed together, your breaths synching up and hearts matching rhythm as if you were one. It was Jack who next spoke.
“Sometimes it gets to me,” he confessed quietly, his thumb trailing over the worn fabric of your shirt at your shoulder. His voice was rough at the edges, all of the exhaustion of his shift weighing him down at once. “Things at work, the people I couldn’t save.” He let out a slow breath, your head sinking down with his chest as the air left it. “Things from before too. Everything overseas, my leg. Coming home. All of it. It’s still in me, even if I don’t want it to be.” His grimace tightened into something more painful. “And losing her.” He cleared his throat, drying to dislodge the lump that caught his words and made them waver, refusing to meet your gaze when you lifted your head, propping your chin on his chest to look up at him. “How am I supposed to talk to you about these things?” His brows were scrunched together, a frown marring his handsome face as he blinked back tears. “I don’t want you thinking about the things I’ve seen. I don’t want you thinking I want her more than I want you, or put you through all this.” He looked away, jaw working once before he continued. “I don’t want you thinking about that stuff when you look at me.”
You frowned. “Jack, I don’t think of that stuff when I see you. I think about you, the person I love more than anything. And you have no reason to feel bad about any of this, honey.”
He scowled down at his lap, his fingers playing with each other. “Even when you see those?” he asked dryly, a bitter curl to his lip when he jutted his head towards where his crutches rested against the wall. You pushed yourself up when he looked at you, meeting your eyes with a determined set to his jaw, like he was already braced for rejection, preparing himself for the blow. “Even then, you don’t think of those things? You don’t think about me stepping on a bomb, having people die around me, people I was supposed to save?” His composure cracked with his voice, his lips pursing as he tried to force the tremble to leave his words.
“You want to know what I see when I look at you?” You were grateful your voice came out steady, able to meet his challenging, teary-eyed stare. “I see Jack Abbot, my best friend. I see someone who’s so kind and so giving it’s sometimes to his own detriment. I see someone who tells horrible jokes, and is never too proud to admit when he’s wrong, or to try something new, especially if he thinks it’ll make someone else happy. I see my strong partner, who takes on so much because he cares so much for other people, and who will do anything, even risk his medical license or reputation to save a life. I see someone who makes my life better in a hundred ways, even if our life looks a little different than what I thought it would be when I was younger.” Jack’s eyes moved disbelievingly to the side, so you caught his cheek in your palm, gently guiding him to face you again, to see for himself how serious you were.
“I see a beautiful person who I’m hopelessly in love with,” you continued without missing a beat, “who I don’t want to imagine my life without. Someone who I’m terrified of losing, not because I can’t live without him, but because I want him in my life so bad that I miss him when he’s right in front of me. That’s who I see.” You shrugged, giving him an easy smile, despite the tears that prickled in your eyes and clung to your lash line, matching his.
“If he happens to have one leg, or trouble sleeping or sitting still, or still hurts from everything he’s lived through and the people he’s lost, and needs to be reminded sometimes that it’s okay to ask for some of the same support he so generously offers literally everyone else on the planet, then so be it. I’ll offer it. I’ll do it today, and tomorrow, and as long as I need to, and then some more, just because I feel like it, and because I don’t want that wonderful, amazing, courageous person to suffer in silence just because he’s strong and stubborn. Because it’s not a burden to look after him, and I would never resent him for asking. In fact, I would be thrilled! I would be so honored to be trusted that way, and I am honored to be trusted the way I am, and I’d squeeze the air out of him in a hug and kiss him all over to let him know how much I love him, no matter what he ever asks of me, because he’s worth it all, and then some.” You let your hand drift down his neck as your speech petered out to an end, your thumb gently drifting over the skin of his collar bone, exposed by his tugged down scrub top and undershirt. “That is who I see, Jack.”
“Those letters,” he said after a moment, voice coming out low and rough, dragging out of his throat like it was made only for muted sobs and weak whimpers now. “They weren’t supposed to be sent. I promise, I wasn’t going to send them. I wouldn’t do that to you.” He leaned towards you, and you welcomed him, helping to guide him as you turned until he was laying on you, his arms circling your waist as he rested his face on your chest.
You raked your fingers through his hair, gently scratching down his scalp in soothing patterns. You want to say I know. I know you’d never do that, but you couldn’t. You wouldn’t lie to Jack, just as he would never lie to you.
“I know you’d never hurt me on purpose,” you murmured.
“I wouldn’t. I swear.”
“Do they really help? To get the feelings out?”
Jack nodded, his stubble dragging over the fabric of your shirt with a faint scratching sound.
“It’s better. Cathartic. Gives me someplace to put it.”
Your hand moved down from his hair to gently squeeze his shoulder, massaging the tense muscles.
“I’m glad it helps.”
“Some of them, they’re old. Years even. I had some before I even met you.”
Your hand stilled in his hair for a heartbeat before resuming its motion. You peered down at him, brow furrowing in concern, watching his reaction closely.
“You said your therapist suggested it.” You kept your voice light, not wanting to sound accusational.
Jack swallowed, frowning but giving you a small nod.
“Yeah. But I had a few before I started therapy. Less therapeutic ones.”
“Oh.”
He smiled sadly. “Yeah. It was a dark time. It started after she died. The box used to be my father-in-law’s.” His expression tightened for a moment before he let out a strained sigh. “He passed a few months before we found out she was sick. It was stressful, for us both.” He shifted slightly, rolling on his back more to rest his head on your lap and look up at you, something warming in his face.
“Things haven’t been that bad for a long time.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, the corners of his eyes creasing with sincerity. “Sometime over the last couple months I stopped wanting to write. Wonder why that would be.”
Your heart warmed, more relieved than anything. You feigned an innocent shrug.
“New coffee brand at work?”
Jack laughed at that, the sound music to your ears after all the fear that had coursed through your veins. You’d do anything you could to keep hearing that beautiful sound the rest of your life.
“Maybe. Or maybe I have something to look forward to every day. Especially now that I get to come home to it more days than not.”
You flushed, ducking your head and pressing your forehead against his shoulder to hide from him.
“Shut up.” The words were weak, earning another chuckle from Jack, his hand coming up to pet at your head idly where it rested above him, turning awkwardly to press a sweet kiss to the crown of your head.
He hummed. “You like it.”
You groaned softly. “I do,” you admitted. You raised your head, your heart skipping at the lovestruck grin he gave you. You guided his face with your hand, leaning down to give him a firm kiss.
“I love it,” you said, turning serious once more. “And I love you. If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here, Jack. We can always talk, about anything.”
He hummed quietly, eyes studying your face in a way you were used to but still had you feeling flustered. “I know, sweetheart. Thank you.”
You leaned closer again, pressing a lingering kiss to his greying curls. He repeated the action with your hand, pulling it to his lips to kiss your palm before lacing his fingers with your own.
Jack would never be much of a talker. You’d known that from the start. Words were cheap to him, something that could be said one day and unsaid the next, more for show than anything else. He preferred to show his love in more subtle ways, physical displays of his affection and devotion, his words used only as a companion to feelings that were already obvious. So when you awoke the next morning to see the faded green box sitting atop his dresser, a new note written on notebook paper and neatly folded placed squarely on top, you knew it was important. You read it as you listened to the faint sounds of Jack in the kitchen, his crutches clicking softly as he moved about preparing breakfast, the faint smell of cooking food drifting down the hallway. Your eyes welled up with tears as you read the letter he’d written for you, all words of love and tenderness he’d neatly written in calligraphy that still impressed you. You wiped at your eyes, unable to help the happy laugh that left you at his finishing line. You neatly folded the letter again, setting it down with care before walking out of the bedroom to join Jack and give him a good morning kiss, his words still ringing in your head.
I don’t know what the opposite of a goodbye letter is, but this is my attempt at one. So you know you’re stuck with me for a long time, because I’m not going anywhere. We can take this to get it notarized if you want. I love you more than words can say. Even if I don’t think I deserve you now, I’ll never stop being thankful to have you in my life and working to be the man you deserve.
Yours (though I still can’t believe it), Jack Abbot
Signed with a small heart scrawled next to his name, uneven and perfect at the same time.
Summary: An unexpected pregnancy test forces Bucky and you to confront your deepest fears. Amid silences, doubts, and fears that neither of you can fully articulate, you’ll both discover that starting a family may be the hardest—and most important—battle of your lives.
Tags: Post-TFATWS, Established relationship, accidental pregnancy, miscommunication, angst, hurt/comfort, fear, trauma, mentions of HYDRA, mentions of abortion, mentions of reader with irregular periods, mentions of Sam, mentions of Bucky working with Sam, Bucky emotionally constipated, Bucky afraid of fatherhood, Bucky crying, reader crying, no y/n, happy ending. My native language isn't English (I apologize if there are any mistakes).
Masterlist.
Notes: Hi! I should really be working on the drafts I have, but this idea just popped into my head and helped me get past a little writer’s block.
You’d been trying to pay attention to Bucky for almost half an hour.
With his usual calm demeanor, he was telling you how that day’s mission with Sam had gone. He talked about a chase that ended sooner than expected, his partner’s constant jokes, and a plan that had gone surprisingly well. You nodded from time to time, even smiled out of sheer habit, but in reality you hadn’t heard half of what he was saying. Your mind was trapped in a single thought that repeated itself over and over, impossible to ignore.
The positive pregnancy test.
The little plastic strip was still tucked away in your sock drawer, as if its mere existence had upset the balance of your entire life. You felt it took up a lot of space, even though it barely took up any at all. Ever since you’d seen it that morning, emotions had swirled inside you in a way that was impossible to sort out: fear, uncertainty, nerves, surprise, and a strange sense of hope that you still didn’t dare to accept.
You had no idea what to do.
During your early dates, the two of you had talked about starting a family. It had been a calm conversation, without arguments or promises. Bucky had admitted that he hadn’t imagined himself as a father and wasn’t even sure he could ever be one; after everything he’d been through, the idea of bringing a child into the world seemed too overwhelming to him. You, for your part, didn’t feel it was the right time either.
And yet, there you were.
Facing a situation neither of you had planned for.
The silence between you began to stretch because you had stopped responding several seconds ago. Bucky finished speaking and waited for a reaction that never came. That was when his senses picked up on what your words weren’t expressing.
Your heart was beating too fast.
The rapid, irregular, and persistent rhythm made him turn his full attention to you. He noticed the slight furrow of your brow, the tension in your jaw, and the way your fingers nervously fiddled with the rim of the cup resting on the table.
His expression changed instantly.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Are you okay?” he asked in a soft voice, full of concern, as he leaned slightly toward you.
His hand sought yours on the table and gently wrapped around it, giving it a light squeeze, as if to remind you he was there.
That simple gesture finally broke down the barrier you’d been maintaining throughout the conversation.
The words slipped from your lips before you could finish turning them over in your head.
“I think I’m pregnant.”
Time seemed to stand still.
A complete silence settled between you, heavy and almost tangible. Bucky’s eyes widened slowly until they were wide with surprise, as the air left his lungs in a held breath. His fingers trembled slightly around yours, unable to hide the impact of the confession.
You lowered your gaze and let out an unsteady sigh, trying to control the lump that had formed in your throat and the anxiety coursing through every corner of your body.
“I took a pregnancy test because my period was later than usual…” you murmured in a low, tense voice, feeling as though every word required an enormous effort. “I thought it would be a false alarm, but… it came back positive.”
As you finished your sentence, silence once again enveloped the room with an almost suffocating intensity. The world seemed to have come to a sudden halt. Only the sound of their breathing broke the stillness, along with the rapid beating of your heart, which Bucky could still hear with absolute clarity. Each beat revealed the fear you were trying to hide behind a serene expression. They both remained motionless, realizing that a few words had been enough to completely change the course of their lives.
“When…?” he whispered, almost to himself, his gaze lost somewhere on the table.
The question didn’t seem directed at you, but at his own memories.
He looked down as he mentally reviewed every moment of the past few months, trying to find an explanation. Then he remembered. His expression slowly changed until it twisted into a small grimace filled with recognition and regret.
That night.
The only time they had both completely cast caution aside, convinced that nothing would happen, letting themselves be carried away by desire, closeness, and the heat of the moment.
In her memory, that slip had seemed insignificant. Now she realized that just once had been enough.
Her fingers tensed slightly before slipping from yours.
You parted your lips shyly, ready to say something—anything—to break the silence or calm the growing anxiety that was beginning to settle in your chest. You wanted to explain that you didn’t expect an immediate answer, that you didn’t know how to feel either, that the two of you could work it out together.
But Bucky stood up before you could utter a single word.
The movement was so sudden that the chair slid a few inches backward, making a sharp clatter against the floor.
He ran a hand over his face, breathing heavily as he avoided looking directly at you.
“I need some air…” he said in a low voice, though the weight of those four words fell on you like a slab of stone.
There was no anger in his tone, nor rejection, but there was no calm either. Just a confusion so deep that he seemed unable to stay another second within those four walls.
You watched him walk with hurried steps toward the apartment entrance. He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack almost out of habit, without bothering to put it on properly, and opened the door.
For a moment, you thought he would stop, that he would turn his head to say something else or to reassure you.
It didn’t happen.
The door closed behind him with a sharp click that echoed throughout the room.
You stood motionless, staring at the spot where he had disappeared, as silence once again took hold of the apartment. The pressure in your chest increased immediately, and fear began to make its way through all the thoughts you’d been trying to hold back.
☆
The faint blue glow from the TV was the only light in the room you shared with Bucky. Images flashed one after another across the screen, accompanied by the distant voices of a show you’d been trying to follow for over an hour without success.
You were sitting on the bed, your back against the headboard and your legs drawn up to your chest, wrapping both arms around them as if that small gesture could hold you together while you felt everything else beginning to fall apart.
Your eyes remained fixed on the television, but they didn’t really see what was happening on it.
Your mind kept returning to the same place over and over.
The positive test.
Bucky’s expression when you told him.
The way he’d let go of your hand.
And, above all, the door closing behind him.
It had been almost five hours since he left the apartment.
Five hours without a call.
Five hours without a reply to any of the messages you’d sent him with trembling hands—messages that had gone from a simple “Are you okay?” to a worried “Just tell me where you are.”
The phone lay beside you on the sheets, completely silent.
You were worried about him.
You knew that the idea of becoming a father had never held an important place in his life. After everything he’d been through, the decades that had been stolen from him, and the burden he still carried for acts he hadn’t even committed while in his right mind, starting a family seemed like a dream reserved for other people.
He had never told you he didn’t want children, but he hadn’t said he wanted them either.
And now the decision had gone from being a distant possibility to an unexpected reality.
Yet, as you thought about him, it was also impossible not to think about yourself.
About what that new life growing inside your body meant.
About how it would change your future.
About whether you would be able to handle it.
About whether you would be alone.
A lump formed in your throat as you tried to hold back the tears that threatened to return.
The only sound that managed to snap you out of your thoughts was the unmistakable turn of a key in the front door lock.
Your breath caught in your throat.
Then came the creak of the door as it opened, followed by the soft thud as it closed again.
And finally, the heavy echo of boots echoing through the apartment.
You lay motionless on the bed, your gaze fixed on the bedroom door, listening as those footsteps moved slowly down the hallway. Each one seemed to last an eternity.
The doorknob turned and the door opened slowly.
Bucky stood in the doorway for a few seconds before entering. For the first time since you’d broken the news to him, his eyes met yours.
Silence settled between you once more.
You couldn’t help but notice the state he’d returned in.
His hair was more disheveled than usual, as if he’d run his hand through it countless times. The shadows under his eyes seemed to have deepened, betraying that he hadn’t found peace during those hours either. His jacket was still on, slightly wrinkled, and his shoulders remained tense.
But what caught your attention most was the expression on his face. There was fear and guilt.
His eyes scanned the room until they settled on the only source of light: the television.
He was silent for a few seconds before speaking, in that deep, restrained voice that barely let his true feelings show.
“You’re going to ruin your eyes like that…”
It wasn’t a rebuke; it was the only everyday thing he could think to say.
He walked over to the light switch and turned on the room’s light.
The warm glow instantly filled every corner.
You winced slightly at the sudden change in lighting and turned your face away a little, too late to hide what was obvious.
Your eyes were swollen and red. Dry tear stains remained on your cheeks.
Bucky stood still, his jaw tightening slightly. He looked down for a moment before looking back at you, as if he’d been struck by a silent blow.
He didn’t say “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t someone who found words easily, but the way he took a deep breath and stood motionless was enough to make it clear that he regretted leaving you alone for those hours.
With slow, measured movements, he took off his jacket, draped it over a nearby chair, and walked over to the bed.
The mattress sank slightly as he sat down beside you, leaving just a few inches between you and turning his back to you.
He didn’t try to touch you, but he didn’t move away either. He simply stayed there, his forearms resting on his legs and his hands clasped, staring at the floor as he searched, unsuccessfully, for the right way to sort through everything going through his head.
Silence settled in again, heavy and uncomfortable. Filled with questions neither of you dared to ask.
Several seconds passed before Bucky slowly exhaled.
“I walked down to the pier…” he murmured without looking up. “Then I kept walking. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere… I just needed my head to stop making noise.”
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and fell silent again.
“I didn’t answer because… I didn’t know what to say.”
The words came out clumsily, forced, as if each one took an enormous effort.
“And because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”
You felt a twinge in your heart and could barely manage a shaky exhale as you watched his back.
“I was never good at this.”
He didn’t specify what he meant, and you weren’t sure what he was referring to either. Maybe he meant talking, feeling, imagining a future, or becoming a father. It was probably all of those things at once.
The distance between you was still just a few centimeters, but the real obstacle wasn’t physical.
Your nails dug lightly into your legs before you began crawling toward him to gently take his chin and make him look at you.
He let you do it, and his eyes finally met yours. That blue you loved so much looked different; there was no anger or rejection, only a deep, silent fear mixed with an uncertainty that seemed to have robbed him of his breath.
For a moment, it seemed to you that you were looking at the soldier who had survived a war, not the man who always found a way to protect you.
You traced the rough line of his beard with your thumb.
“What do you want to do?” you asked in a barely audible whisper.
The question hung between you.
Bucky closed his eyes for a second, and his face twisted into an expression that was hard to read—a bitter mix of guilt, vulnerability, and resignation.
He was fully aware that this decision belonged solely to your body and your life. He also knew that he would never try to push you toward a choice that would benefit him over you. Even if he felt terrified, even if the idea of being a father overwhelmed him.
"I'll support you... whatever you decide." His voice was deep and low, almost hoarse.
It was the only certainty he had amid the chaos.
He paused for a moment longer before adding, almost as if he were struggling to get the words out.
"I don't know if I'll do this right... But I won't let you carry this burden alone."
☆
The next day, the uncertainty was still there.
After a nearly sleepless night, you began to convince yourself that maybe that home test had simply been wrong. After all, even pharmacy tests could yield false positives.
It was a possibility, so you clung to it with all your might.
After discussing it briefly over breakfast—if you could even call a cup of coffee you barely touched and the untouched toast on the plate breakfast—you decided to go to the hospital.
An ultrasound could provide answers almost immediately, and you wouldn’t have to endure the endless wait for a blood test.
When they called your name in the waiting room, your stomach turned instantly.
You stood up, your legs trembling, and without even thinking, you reached for Bucky’s hand and gripped it tightly.
He remained seated for another second, motionless, his back stiff and his gaze fixed on the floor. He seemed unable to force himself to walk through that door, not because he wanted to leave, but because he feared what he might find on the other side.
He stood up and walked behind you after you gently took his hand.
The office smelled just like the rest of the hospital: a clean, pungent mix of disinfectant and antiseptic products. However, the atmosphere was different.
The lights were warmer, and the walls were covered with informational posters about conception, birth control methods, fetal development, and drawings showing the approximate size of a baby week by week.
Your eyes lingered for a moment on each one.
Week 4—Poppy seed.
Week 6—Lentil.
Week 7—Chickpea.
Week 8—Cherry.
Week 9—Olive.
And the weeks and illustrations went on.
The illustrations seemed absurdly small for the enormous change they represented.
You swallowed hard as you clung to Bucky’s hand.
Your fingers were cold, and so were his. The slight tremor in his fingers betrayed that he was just as nervous as you were.
He stood beside you with his shoulders slightly hunched, staring at the floor as if he found it impossible to look up at any of those images. His jaw remained tense.
When the specialist told you to lie down on the examination table, you obeyed with slow movements. You lifted the fabric of your clothes just enough to expose your abdomen.
Moments later, the contact of the cold gel on your skin drew a small, involuntary grimace from you. A shiver ran through your entire body.
Without realizing it, you squeezed Bucky’s hand tighter, and he reacted almost reflexively, interlacing his fingers with yours and holding them firmly.
The careful squeeze of his hand was enough to make you understand that, even though he was still emotionally lost and the words remained stuck in some corner of his chest, he had decided to stay with you until he knew the answer.
The room was enveloped in an expectant silence.
The doctor moved the transducer calmly over your abdomen while watching the screen in front of her intently.
To you, that mass of shadows made no sense at all.
To her, every little change seemed to say a lot.
You felt your breathing start to quicken, and Bucky noticed it instantly.
Without taking his eyes off the monitor, his thumb began to slide slowly across the back of your hand—an almost automatic movement that he probably wasn’t even aware he was making.
It was strange and overwhelming for him.
A man who had survived wars, experiments, and decades of violence was completely defenseless in front of an ultrasound screen.
The doctor remained silent for a few more seconds, and your imagination began to fill in the blanks.
Maybe the test had failed after all.
Maybe your period was just coming soon.
Maybe...
“There it is.”
Her voice interrupted the whirlwind of thoughts.
She pointed to a tiny dot on the screen.
“It’s still very early, but we can see the gestational sac.”
You felt the air leave your lungs.
It wasn’t a mistake.
It wasn’t a false positive.
It was real.
Your eyes remained fixed on that tiny image, trying to understand how something so small could change two people’s lives so completely.
Bucky’s hand tightened around yours.
He didn’t say anything and didn’t even blink; he seemed to be holding his breath.
His gaze remained fixed on the monitor, as if trying to memorize every shadow despite not fully understanding them.
The doctor continued explaining a few things about the estimated gestational age, prenatal vitamins, and the tests that would be advisable to perform over the next few weeks.
Her voice reached you like a distant murmur. Neither of you seemed to be processing much; you just nodded.
At one point, the specialist smiled kindly, already accustomed to all kinds of reactions to this news.
“Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”
You turned your head toward Bucky, who remained completely still.
His eyes stayed fixed on the screen, but for the first time since they’d entered the office, he seemed to lose control of his expression.
He looked completely vulnerable.
And, almost imperceptibly, he shook his head before closing his eyes for a moment.
It wasn’t a “no.” It was someone trying to muster enough courage for something he couldn’t bring himself to say because of the weight of the moment and his fear.
“We… We need to talk about this first,” you murmured, your voice strained by the wave of emotions.
The doctor nodded understandingly, printed out some images, and began wiping the gel from your abdomen before walking over to Bucky’s side, where her desk was.
“It seems to be developing as expected for the sixth week,” she explained calmly. “We’ll schedule another checkup in a few weeks and proceed according to your decision.”
You nodded automatically and slowly sat up on the stretcher.
Bucky remained seated where he was, staring at one of the photographs the doctor had just placed on the desk. He seemed unable to take his eyes off that small gray smudge.
Finally, he stood up and slowly let go of your hand to pick up the image between his fingers with an almost absurd delicacy, as if he were afraid of breaking it. He looked at it for a long moment before carefully putting it away in the folder the doctor had given them along with all sorts of recommendations and informational brochures.
He didn't say a word.
He didn't ask any questions.
He just stayed by your side, supporting you when it seemed like the strength in your legs was about to give out.
☆
The days that followed weren't easy.
Both of you tried to cling to a routine that no longer felt entirely your own, as if pretending nothing had changed might delay the moment of facing reality.
You made a conscious effort to carry on with your usual life. You went to work, tidied the apartment, read, replied to messages, and tried to fill every minute with some activity that would keep your mind occupied. There were moments when you even succeeded. For a couple of hours, you forgot the constant fear that had settled in your chest, the uncertainty about the future, and the enormous decision that was still waiting for you.
But those moments of calm never lasted long; something always came along to bring you back to reality, and anxiety would wash over you like a wave.
Things didn’t seem any easier for Bucky either.
He kept taking on missions with Sam, though not as often as before. He started turning down smaller jobs and heading back to the apartment as soon as operations were over.
He didn’t say why—and probably never would—but it was clear he wanted to be close to you, even if he still didn’t know how to be there for you.
Many times he would sit on the couch while you read in silence. Other times you simply shared the same space without exchanging more than a few words, finding a strange sense of calm in each other’s mere presence.
It was his way of saying he was still there.
There were days when the tension seemed to grant you a respite, and you looked like yourselves again.
You’d curl up on the couch under a blanket to watch a movie neither of you paid much attention to, sharing a bowl of popcorn while Bucky complained about the main character and you ended up laughing at his comments.
Other afternoons, you’d cook together. He would chop vegetables with precision while you tried to steal a piece of carrot from him before it made it into the pan, causing him to shake his head and hide a barely perceptible smile before kissing your forehead.
They even resumed their habit of going for walks around the city. They wandered through familiar streets, small cafes, and parks where time seemed to move more slowly.
For a few hours, they managed to forget... Or at least pretend they did.
But the subject of the baby always found a way to come back.
It would surface when you caught yourself imagining how his life would change if you decided to continue with the pregnancy. When you wondered if Bucky could ever feel happy with that possibility. If the two of you could truly become a family.
It also came up during those walks when you passed a pregnant woman absentmindedly stroking her belly, a father pushing a stroller while a baby slept peacefully inside, or a little hand clutching its mother’s tightly as they crossed the street.
Then your steps would slow, your gaze would linger a few seconds longer, and the weight would settle back onto your shoulders.
Bucky never made any comments or asked what you were thinking, but he always noticed the change. He saw how your smile faded little by little, how your fingers unconsciously sought to rest on your abdomen, and how the sparkle in your eyes dimmed.
He could only walk beside you, keeping silent as he felt that familiar tightness settle in his chest.
The words remained trapped inside him.
He had learned to survive without uttering a single word for far too many years, and now, when he needed them most, they wouldn’t come out either.
The nights were the worst.
There were times when the weight of the decision would end up crushing you.
You’d wait until you were sure Bucky was breathing deeply before carefully slipping out of bed, leaving behind the warmth of the sheets and the arms that, even in his sleep, seemed to reach out for you.
Silently, you walked with the folder in your hands to the dining room and opened it once more to reread every brochure and recommendation with obsessive attention.
You read about prenatal vitamins, nutrition, hormonal changes, and medical checkups. Then you turned to the pages that talked about abortion clinics and the procedure.
You set them aside and always ended up doing the same thing: you held the ultrasound photo between your fingers.
The corners were slightly bent, and the paper had lost some of its stiffness from all the times you’d held it in the early hours of the morning.
You slipped out of bed again and again to look at that blurry image where you could barely make out a tiny white dot.
That was all.
A tiny speck.
And yet, it already occupied every corner of your mind.
What you didn’t know was that those worn corners weren’t just your fault.
Many nights, when he woke up and found your spot empty, Bucky would wait a few minutes before getting up and finding you sitting at the table.
He didn’t interrupt.
He simply returned silently to the bedroom, and when you finally fell back asleep, he was the one who left.
He stood in front of the open folder for minutes, sometimes for over an hour, staring at the same photograph without moving, feeling a fear and vulnerability that were completely foreign to him.
A silent terror that no mission, no battlefield, and no enemy had ever managed to awaken in him.
He never told you that he also looked at that ultrasound.
He never confessed that he already had it etched in his memory.
You sighed softly as you held it between your fingers. With the tip of your index finger, you slowly traced the tiny, barely visible figure on the paper.
According to one of the posters in the doctor’s office, when you found out, it was the size of a lentil. Now it was close to the size of a cherry.
It was a tiny difference, and yet, to you, it meant that time was still moving forward.
For days you’d tried to imagine every possible scenario and had made mental lists, thinking about work, money, the future, fear, Bucky, and yourself.
You’d tried to make a decision based solely on reason, but, for the first time since it all began, you stopped trying to convince yourself of an answer and simply listened to the silence.
Slowly, you brought your hand to your belly, which was still flat. Yet you felt a twinge in your chest at the thought of it being empty by your own choice.
You closed your eyes as you realized that the fear was still there, but it was no longer fear that was guiding your thoughts.
It was something else.
A small, fragile, and hard-to-explain feeling that had been growing almost without your noticing over those days.
It was hope.
Your lips trembled before forming a tiny, almost imperceptible smile, and tears slowly rolled down your cheeks.
They weren’t tears of anguish.
Not entirely.
They were the silent relief of someone who, after weeks of doubt, had finally found an answer.
“I want to get to know you…” you whispered, your voice breaking.
The decision was made.
The fear hadn’t disappeared; it had simply stopped being greater than love.
☆
When the first rays of sunlight began to filter through the bedroom curtains, drawing golden lines across the rumpled sheets, you slowly opened your eyes.
The first thing you saw was Bucky, who was already awake.
He lay on his side, his metal arm resting on the mattress and his elbow bent to support his head in the palm of his hand. He’d been watching you in silence for who knows how long, with that almost hypnotic calm and intensity so characteristic of him, as if while you slept he were trying to read all the thoughts you were never able to put into words.
You blinked a couple of times before letting out a sleepy sigh.
The sound snapped him out of his own thoughts, and his lips curved into a faint, discreet smile—so small that anyone could have easily missed it.
“Good morning, sweetheart…” he murmured in his deep, hoarse voice.
He leaned slowly toward you. First he placed a soft kiss on your cheek, then another at the corner of your lips, and finally a slow, gentle kiss on your mouth.
“Good morning, Buck…” you replied, your voice barely audible against his lips.
For a few moments, everything seemed to return to normal.
It was the same tranquility as any Sunday morning. Those mornings when neither of you was in a hurry to get up and you could spend an hour or even two under the sheets, embracing without saying much, stroking each other’s hair, sharing absent-minded kisses, or simply enjoying each other’s warmth while the world kept moving on outside the windows.
A sanctuary that had always belonged only to the two of you.
But something in your expression made him slowly step back to get a full view of your face. His blue eyes scanned every inch of your face, searching for that look he knew so well.
It was the look you had when you’d already made a decision and were gathering the courage to say it.
The faint trace of his smile vanished.
The silence in the bedroom was broken only by the distant traffic beginning to fill the streets and the soft rustle of the sheets as you slowly sat up. Bucky did the same.
“I know what I want to do…” Your voice came out almost as a whisper.
Bucky barely looked up, and there was something in his expression that broke your heart. He looked like a wounded animal trying to stay still so no one would notice how much pain he was in.
Your fingers sought his, and you wanted to intertwine them as you had so many times before, but he remained still, his hand unmoving.
You took a deep breath and spoke.
“I want to continue with the pregnancy.”
Your words came out soft, firm, and without hesitation, and yet they seemed to strike the air with impossible force.
Bucky remained completely still.
He didn’t respond.
He didn’t pull his hand away.
His expression didn’t change.
He simply sat there in front of you, watching you as if he needed several seconds to grasp the meaning of those five words.
Then he slowly lowered his head, and his lips parted slightly as if to say something, but nothing came out. He tried again, and only a muffled sound escaped.
His throat moved with difficulty as he swallowed, and his chest began to rise with deeper breaths than usual.
Fear had suddenly taken hold of his entire body.
It wasn’t fear of the baby or of the decision you’d made. Because during those days, as he walked with you through the city or lay awake staring at the ultrasound in the middle of the night, he’d discovered a truth he’d never wanted to admit.
He wanted to be a father with you and no one else.
He wanted that pregnancy to continue.
He wanted it more than he ever thought possible.
He wanted to meet that little life.
He wanted to hear that tiny heartbeat at the next appointment.
He wanted to be with you as your belly grew little by little.
He wanted to hold your hand during every checkup and for the rest of his life.
He wanted to try to be better for you and for that little boy or girl.
He had even caught himself imagining a messy room with toys on the floor, little footsteps running through the apartment, and a tiny voice calling them “Mom and Dad” while they both laughed as they prepared dinner.
He had allowed himself to imagine a home.
And that was precisely why the fear was unbearable. He had never longed for anything so intensely since regaining his freedom, and he had never felt such terror at the thought of not being up to the task.
The questions began to crowd his mind, giving him no respite.
What if he didn’t know how to be a father?
What if he wasn’t truly free and one day lost control?
What if his past caught up with them?
What if she deserved a simple life, far from someone like him?
What if her children deserved a different father?
He looked down at his own hands—the flesh-and-blood one and the vibranium one—and studied them as if seeing them for the first time.
He remembered the wars, the orders, the HYDRA labs, the lives he had taken, and the names he could never forget.
When his gaze settled on the gleam of the dark, golden metal, all he could think of was the gray metal with the red star. An unbearable shame squeezed his chest.
How could he imagine holding a newborn with hands that had been used to kill for so long?
How could someone who still woke up some nights convinced he was still a weapon promise protection?
The weight of each of his thoughts kept him frozen and unable to speak—that was why he was silent. It wasn’t because he rejected your decision, but because he accepted it so deeply that fear had left him speechless.
He only returned to reality when he felt your trembling hands encircling his face with infinite tenderness. As he looked up, seeing the tears streaming uncontrollably down your cheeks, something inside him snapped, and an unbearable pressure squeezed his chest.
His silence had lasted so long that you began to interpret that absence of words in the worst possible way. You thought he didn’t agree with your decision, that he could never accept that future... That, sooner or later, you would both end up going your separate ways.
That possibility, reflected in the pain in your eyes, was infinitely more terrifying to Bucky than any of the ghosts he carried with him.
For a moment, all the ghosts of his past fell silent.
Now there was only you, crying in front of him, thinking you were going to lose him.
His breath caught.
He raised a hand with obvious hesitation, as if even that gesture cost him an enormous effort, and ended up covering one of yours that you were holding against his cheek.
His fingers held you with desperate strength, as if he feared you were going to pull it away.
He slowly shook his head.
He tried to speak, but his throat kept closing up long before he could utter a single word.
The inability to speak made him feel more helpless than any enemy he had ever faced.
“No…” he finally managed to say, his voice breaking.
He swallowed with difficulty and looked down for just a second before meeting your gaze again.
“Don’t think that.”
His thumb began to absentmindedly stroke the back of your hand. It was a clumsy, instinctive movement, the same one he made every time he tried to calm you down without finding the right words.
“I don’t want… you to leave.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “I want the same thing you do…”
That confession was so quiet it was almost lost amid the noise from outside.
“I’m scared. Really scared.”
He said it plainly, without trying to hide it; it was a brutal honesty that he was finally letting out into the open.
Bucky looked so fragile and vulnerable, until he finally broke down.
His eyes had filled with tears without warning, and a sob welled up from deep within his chest.
His hands wrapped tightly around your waist—but without choking you—as he did his best not to cry like a little child on your shoulder.
You didn’t hesitate for a second to cling to his body as you let yourself cry after all the fear and anxiety that was beginning to dissipate. You could finally feel relief knowing you wouldn’t be alone.
Bucky let out a brief, bitter laugh, filled with disbelief in himself, and shook his head.
“I’ve been imagining it for days,” he confessed, almost ashamed, his voice breaking slightly. “I see you walking around the apartment with the baby in your arms.”
For the first time, a tiny smile appeared on your face through your tears as you heard him.
Bucky looked up fully. His eyes were glistening with small, unshed tears, and there was an obvious, immense fear, but there was also a certainty he was finally ready to voice.
“I want to meet our little one.”
The words hung between you.
Bucky seemed surprised to have said it out loud and without trembling, as if a weight had just been lifted from his shoulders.
“I want to hear his heartbeat at the next appointment.” His lips trembled as a smile full of emotion appeared on his face. “I want to watch him grow…”
His gaze slowly drifted down to your still-flat abdomen, and with reverent slowness, he brought his vibranium hand to rest upon it. The tremor running through his fingers was entirely human.
“And I want to be there when the baby is born.” His voice broke again. “I want to hold him.”
He fell silent for a few seconds to compose himself.
“I still think you deserve better than me.” He admitted in a whisper.
You shook your head quickly. You searched desperately for his gaze as one of your hands reached out to touch his face again, but his metallic fingers gently caught your hand and pressed a kiss against the back of it.
“I’ll probably think that for a while,” he whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek. “But I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you both deserve.”
You threw yourself at him without thinking, and Bucky barely had time to react before wrapping both arms around you with absolute firmness. You buried your face in his shoulder while he buried his in your hair.
They stayed like that for several long minutes.
Without speaking.
Without moving.
The future remained uncertain, but for the first time since that positive test forgotten in your drawer, the two of you stopped facing it alone.
They would face it together.
And for someone like Bucky, who clung to the idea of not making grand promises and was used to showing love through presence rather than words, standing there, holding you as if he wanted to protect you from the whole world, was the most sincere way of saying that he had chosen to stay with you.
synopsis hi fell in love with your portrayal of dr. robby is it okay for me to request for dr. robby’s attending! wife and the early signs of pregnancy before she decided to take a test? (like falling asleep while doing charts or over a casual conversation hehe) request!
authornote this was a request that I loved writing so much but nobody needs to know the work that went into publishing it, that stays between me and @expreissionism who requested, thanks so much again!
My Pitt masterlist. Other Robby fic!
Robby left exam room four and- like always- he found you first.
He smiled. The kind that took over his whole face, that crinkled his eyes and caused his cheeks to hurt. The sort people didn't see often in the deep hells of the Pitt unless he was looking at you. Or talking about you. Or thinking about you. Basically, if he smiled like that it was you.
But his smile faded quick when he took note of you.
“Hey?”
You jerked up, looking at him.
Robby leant over the counter, sliding on his glasses and looked closer.
He was too close to you to be studying you like a patient, but just close enough for his wife.
“You eat anything today?” he asked.
You squinted at him. “We literally got breakfast this morning.”
“Okay, okay.”
There were darkening circles under your eyes and your lips were chapped which was his first sign something was wrong: you treated moisturising your lips like some do religion. Other than that your body was slumped over a computer. You were far more active than this.
“You sleep okay last night?” he asked.
You smirked. “Well no, not really, someone kept me up.”
Robby smirked right back, leaning back just enough to give you space. “Are you complaining?”
“No.”
Flashbacks of last night came to mind in searing heat. The sweat of your bodies, the grip he held on your hand as he fucked you into the mattress like he did most nights.
They said your libido goes down the older you get but Robby was going through another one. His box of blue pills sat abandoned in his bedside draw- thank god.
Robby nodded once. “Good.”
“But that saying,” you continued, swivelling in your chair to face him. Still, he didn't move. He could smell the shampoo you'd bathed yourself in this morning and his mouth salivated like a dog with his favourite treat. “Four rounds?”
Robby took a quick sweep of the area, making sure nobody was missing him and his wife as they flirted shamelessly. “You asked for it.”
You frowned. “Did I?”
“Hey!” called Dana. “Mr and Mrs Adams, we could use your help here!”
You playfully rolled your eyes and Robby backed away slowly, hands up in surrender. He watched Dana turn to at least give them a second to finish up their flirting before digging into his pocket.
“Here- for your lips.”
A small, practically un-used tube of chap-stick fell from the palm of his hand to yours. He carried it for you, always. If you'd asked you'd know he carried an extra pack of nuts and hand cream too.
He'd been doing so secretly since your first dates years ago.
Of course the supplies were different but the sentiment the same.
You blushed, a bright smile coming to your face. “You are so adorable.”
Robby shook off the word like it was splash of cold water. “Yeah, don't let onto anyone, okay? Got a cold exterior to keep up.”
“Oh- of course.”
He could have stood there and watched you all day but he already felt Dana's gaze, un-wavering. He squeezed your shoulders and pressed a kiss on your forehead before slipping away with a quiet promise to himself that he'd get his hands on you later.
“You don't look so well, you know,” said Dana once the coast was clear of Robby.
“Don't you start,” you said. “I've had enough of this the last couple days from Robby.”
“Oh yeah, you got something?” Dana's hand was gentle on your back. If you weren't careful she'd push you onto a bed, have you in a gown with a chart written up herself. She'd mother you; smother you in her care even if she wasn't a doctor. Even if you were the attending around the place.
You shook your head and flashed her a un-convincing smile.
You were sure it was a bug, or burn out.
You'd caught burn out like some do colds or flus. As the second attending it was your job- with Robby's- to make sure everyone was taught, that patients were satisfied (you found you were doing that part for your husband as well) and you were saving as many lives as you could.
The careful art of delegation and avoidance was lost on you. You threw yourself into traumas like you were still a med student with something to prove.
“Okay, if you say so,” said Dana with a purse of her lips.
“I do say so.”
“If you need anything.”
“Am I married to you or Robinavitch?” you teased, tugging on gloves and readying yourself for a room of hustle.
Dana chuckled, backing away slowly to her station. “You should be so lucky, Robinavitch.”
Using the weight of your back you pushed into trauma two.
“Okay, kids- what have we got?”
“Fetal heart rate one-two-eight.”
Whitaker was at your side in an instant, handing you the chart. “Woman in her late twenties, came in complaining of cramping and migraines, twenty-nine weeks along.”
“BP is one-seventy, over one-nineteen.”
The woman was on her side, a whole score of nurses and doctors around her. It was always double the team for pregnant ladies. When there were two patients to care for in a package of one.
“Six grams of magnesium going in.”
You floated around the room, Whitaker following you like some guard dog. You took in everything going on, reading stats and taking in numbers everyone gave to you. “Okay, ma'am, I'm Doctor Robinavitch, everyone calls me Robin. It seems you have a medical condition called preeclamsia.”
The woman's eyes were teary and dark as they looked up to you in fear. “Wh-what?”
“Preeclampsia. Now that we know what it is we can help you.”
“But it was- it was just a headache,” she cried, hand cradling her stomach on instinct. “Is my baby going to be okay?”
“We are doing everything to make sure you and the baby do just fine,” you assured her, speaking a language you'd become fluent in. Diagnosis and comfort. Sometimes, when the job got tough, you wondered if you even really believed the words you were saying. They just floated from your tongue typically.
“The thing is with your condition we have to take you up to OB and deliver this baby,” you told her.
“OB's been paged,” Santos informed you.
“But it's too early,” the woman sobbed, clutching at her rounded stomach like she could keep the baby there.
“I know but the baby's pulse is strong which is good,” you told her. “And if we want to keep the ball rolling in the right direction we have to got to get to it now, okay?”
“Doctor Robin,” said Whitaker. “Labs are back in.”
“Read them to me.” You were still holding the lady's hand over her stomach, trying to comfort her.
“Don't hold out on us Huckleberry, what's going on?” asked Santos.
“They're high- real high-”
“Which can mean?” you ask out to the room, remembering the hundreds of times Gloria reminded you off your status as a 'teaching hospital,'.
“HELLP syndrome,” said Denis.
“Point to you.”
Under your hand the patient began to tremble. A quick glance at the monitor showed her blood pressure rising. Panic, most likely, something else it could have been entirely.
“Hey, boy or a girl?” you asked, watching her eyes flicker. “Do you know what you're having?”
She blinked slow. “Boy.”
“Any name ideas?”
Her mouth had opened to say something but instead of a name vomit spewed, rolling down the gurney and splashing your scrubs- the one time you didn't put on a gown.
“Oh shit- she's seizing!”
Everyone and you reacted quickly in holding her, trying to calm her shakes.
It had never happened before, you'd never had so many senses tuning it an once but the smell of her breakfast wafted up to your nose. An un-familiar roll in your stomach curdled and you pursed your lips shut, turning away and burying your nose into the still fresh part of your scrubs.
“Fifteen litres on by mask!” Whitaker yelled. “Intubation?”
He was looking to you.
You shook your head, unable to speak with half your focus going on calming the insides of your stomach.
“With all the seizing we can't get a read on the baby's status,” said Santos.
Fuck- you'd have to say something. You couldn't leave a fresh doctor and student into clampsia blind. “Ultrasound,” you breathed out, still unable to face where the sick started to soak into your scrubs. “Check on baby!”
If Santos and Whitaker thought it was strange they said nothing, following you orders and relaying what they found.
“Doctor Robin- do we intubate?”
Another set of hands came up to help steady her and you could back away.
Even your shoes hadn't been spared the mercy of the vomit.
“Not yet, push keppra, four grams.”
Grabbing clothes cutters you quickly sliced at your scrub top, thankful you were wearing something long sleeved and covering more of you then a simple vest.
With the top in shreds you could finally breath but your stomach didn't get the memo.
“Pulse Ox eighty-eight!”
Groaning, you pulled the tray out for intubation, handing it to Santos.
She glanced at you. “Hey, you look a bit-”
“- don't say sick or I'll throw up on you,” you warned, following her around like she was your new human shield. You wondered if she'd be flattered or pissed if you admitted she was. “Push probofal.”
“Pushing.”
Eventually the seizing stopped with everything you pushed to get her stable and you moved quick. It was like putting everything else on aeroplane mode, shutting off your own systems to get hers stable.
“Intubate, get an EEG to check her brain levels. She's paralysed now but her brain could still be seizing.”
You slipped in sick, grabbing yourself on the nearest doctor and thanking them. You stayed for the intubation only then knew you couldn't hack it anymore.
You fled the room, bumping into Samira on your way out.
Dana jolted up. “Hey, what're you-”
“-get Robby in trauma one.”
You found the nearest bathroom, locked it and threw up everything. You hugged the toilet like it was your anchor, your body curling into the movements. Time escaped you, it could have been minutes it could have been hours but finally you fell back and flushed, wiping away everything.
You were young, you weren't as old as your husband. You'd had less experience in traumas all together, however you were a good doctor, capable enough to be a fellow attending.
Several substances had been chucked over you in your time. Blood, vomit, piss- some you didn't even know the name off.
Why had today been any different?
Clearing yourself up: re-tying your hair, washing out your mouth and applying Chapstick, cleaning your shoes and wiping tears from under your eyes, you blamed it on the bagels you'd had that morning.
It was the only logical explanation.
Leaving the bathroom you felt momentary guilt and fleeing but spotted Robby already taking your place in the trauma.
“Hey, hun,” Dana was at your side quick, gentle and peering at you closely. “What was that about? You doin alright?”
“Yeah,” you hummed.
“You throw up? You sick?”
“No, I-” you thought of every other time you'd lied to Dana and how it never went well. “Yes but it's probably just food poisoning. Don't tell Robby.”
If Robby knew you were sick- after already having been worried this morning- you'd be driven home in twenty minutes flat.
“Robby always finds out,” said Dana.
You ignored her and pushed open the door to the lounge. She didn't follow and you were left with spare seconds to yourself.
Your hands shook slightly as you fetched a glass to fill with water. To cool yourself down you ran your hands under, splashing the back of your neck with some. You gargled water and spit it back, ready to drain the glass and wet your sudden parched mouth when Langdon appeared in the door.
“Hey, I've got a head lac I need you to take a look at.”
Because you were an attending. Because of the kind of person you are you put down the glass and followed him.
“She just ran out?”
There was the all too familiar buzz of the sanitiser dispenser as Robby helped himself to a generous blob before rubbing it into his hands. A beat behind, Denis did the same, following in his footsteps- literally.
“Er-yeah,” he said, working fast to absorb every bit of hand sanitiser. “She ordered the EEG and bolted.”
Robby nodded, taking it all in clinically. “You said she looked pale?”
“Yeah but, she had just been thrown up on.”
Being thrown up on wasn't a pleasant experience but he hadn't known you to run from bodily fluids.
“Where is she now?” Robby asked, as if Denis was the soul person to look out for you. Well, Robby trusted Denis, a gift he didn't bestow on many so he did expect Denis to keep an eye on you at all times.
“She went to the bathroom but I don't know now.”
Robby checked the bathrooms, finding you void of those spaces. He checked the lounge where nothing but a deserted glass of water sat.
He was almost panicking when he saw the back of you and Frank in a room.
He paused.
You were sat next to a young girl, holding her hand. Although he couldn't hear you he imagined the softness of your voice as it always became when dealing with a pedes case. You'd always joked that if the ED wasn't so in need of two attendings at a time you'd have left his ass for pedes upstairs at once.
Robby didn't think so. For one, you'd miss his face, for the second thing- you liked bouncing from one emergency to another, switching off and relying only on your skills.
You hadn't been bouncing around as quick as usual the last couple days. He realised it only in that moment.
Frank was standing with his arms folded over his chest, pitching in every now and then and also getting the girl to smile.
He didn't want to go in, break the concentration and trust you'd formed with the small child. He'd find you later.
Whatever was going on, the two of you clearly had it handled.
Your dreams came to you in fades.
There was first an annoyingly weird dream about a animal circus finding it's home in the Pitt. They said work followed you home, but it even followed you into dreams which seemed just un-fair. Then there was a stork on an elephants back. How would an elephant even get in to the place?
They turned to some much more enjoyable memories that had your body warming un-consciously.
Robby's weight pressed down into yours on the couch in your living room. You'd begged him to put everything on you, to not hold himself up and with-hold his moans.
And because you'd asked, he did.
Robby wasn't a light guy and you liked him like that. The weight of him crushing you, his spit swapped with yours, sweat of his body being shared and the fingerprints you could feel at your hips.
“Oh fuck sweetheart, oh fuck!” he'd groaned out loud.
You felt parts of him deep in you you didn't know you could feel and still you wanted more. Your locked your ankles around his backside, keeping him into you in short and sweet thrusts.
“Oh, you like that? Jesus Christ,” he grunted into your neck, unable to hold himself up even if he wanted to. “So greedy. Fuckin' so greedy!”
“Please, Robby, please!”
Steady hands were sudden at your shoulders and a body pressed up to yours, decidedly unlike how one did in the dream.
“Go home,” said Robby.
You picked yourself up from where you'd dozed off, your head in your arms folded over on the counter. In front of you, the computer was blank. “Hm?”
Robby's eyes bored into yours. “Go home, you're sick.”
“It's only twelve. I'm not sick- I'm fine,” you said, waving off his hand as it came up to test your temperature in the very medical practise of hand on forehead.
Robby shook his head. “You were dozing this morning, you're asleep now, you threw up-”
“Dana, I told her not to say anything!” You cursed under your breath.
“Not Dana, Whitaker,” said Robby, looking at you with brows draw in, somewhere between anger (or as angry as he could get at you) and concern. “Did you tell Dana not to tell me?”
“Because you worry.” You used your secret trick of overwhelming affection to try to starve off Robby. Your hands were clammy as they held his cheeks, fingertips grazing over his beard just how he liked. He was kneeling at your side, melting into your touch. “I'm fine.”
For extra measures you pressed a kiss to his forehead and walked away.
There was a split second of head spinning blur. The sort that had you reaching out to balance yourself. It lasted maybe two seconds but enough to worry you.
If you hadn't taken such care in tending to Robby's own distraction he'd have clocked it and dragged you home himself.
You maybe weren't so fine. It wasn't every day you felt as tired as you did now, and however good the night before had been Robby had given you more. Plenty. You'd surpassed twenty-fours working in the ED with no sleep so nothing could phase you.
But being phased you were.
The lack of sleep.... the throwing up... maybe you were coming down with something.
You'd thrown up last week too, so it couldn't be food poisoning like you were trying to convince yourself it was.
Robby hurried after you, the jingle of his keys and ID card and such jangling. “I'm keeping my eyes on you.”
“Sexy.”
In trauma one the two of you worked together with a score of doctors and nurses. Mrs Albany- the pregnant lady with clampsia- demanded attention. Perhaps it was a waste of two attendings working on the same patient.
The emergency c-section you had to perform made the one patient two and as Robby worked to keep the mother alive you worked on the child, stimulating the baby boy till he breathed, wiping off the fluids and bloods and sighing when he cried out.
Under the gown and mask you could see Robby's own dimples at you as you both saved lives.
But the tang of iron from the uterus and child filled your nostrils and upset you close enough to tears. You were glad Esme had cleaned up the sick from early and equally as glad you had the chance to throw up your breakfast so you couldn't do it again.
“Holy shit!” Santos celebrated, yanking off her gown and gloves next to you as you did the same, “That was crazy!”
The baby was pushed by you, heading up to the NICU, the mother following, a pulse low but steady, heading up to the OR.
You ducked away from Robby as he followed the pair out. You took Santos with you, a pushing hand on her back. “Yeah, it was- listen I've got a patient that needs blood results quick, you think if I get it you can rush it up to labs, on an ASAP basis.”
Santos frowned. You knew what she was thinking before she even had to say it. It was a boring job, her skills were better off etc.
“Please?” you asked.
It took a roll of her eyes but she agreed to.
Five minutes later you had a vial of your own blood handed to her.
An hour later Santos found you, Ipad in hand.
“Hey, got the results for your patient,” she said. “Where are they? What room? I couldn't see them on the board?”
Dana would have had something to say about taking your own blood and getting it to labs without telling anyone. Robby too. As attending you should have been chastising yourself but there was no time for that. No need, either.
Doctors made the worst sort of patients, especially when they felt they didn't need to be one.
“Er, she left, discharged herself,” you lied quickly, trying to get a gage on the results that were cradled in your arm.
“Bummer. I wanted to give her good news. Or bad.”
“What?”
“She's pregnant.”
You stopped in you tracks.
It took Trinity at least four more paces before she realised you had.
The blood works showed just that. High HCG levels, you red blood cell count was high. Along with the nausea, vomiting, dizzy spells it made sense.
You were pregnant.
Inside the stomach that had been churning all day sat a life fully depending on you to take care of it. Suddenly none of your med school training mattered. Nothing you'd ever down before mattered. Looking after patients was one thing. You didn't have to go home with them, check they drank enough or ate enough, didn't have to check in with their boss they were taking it easy.
You struggled to look after yourself.
Throw a baby in the mix and you were doomed.
Chuck in Robby and you were-
Robby.
Jesus Fuck. You'd never spoken about kids. You'd only been married a year and were still in what some considered the 'honeymoon' phase.
“Everything okay?” asked Santos. “Did I miss something in the results?”
You cleared your throat. “No. No, that all... looks good. I'm just gonna take a small break. Quick one. Thanks.”
“Hey, Robby!” Denis called as he walked out from the ambulance bay. “Congratulations!”
“Thanks, Whitaker.”
It took Robby seconds to pause and think. What was he being congratulated for? The fact he went outside for some air? It wasn't impressive. Was it the quick life saving procedures they'd made on mother and son that sent them both upstairs alive? That was over an hour ago and Denis had been in the room.
Robby back tracked to Whitaker. “What am I being congratulated on, exactly?” he asked.
Whitaker looked at him like he was crazy. “The good news.”
Good news? The last good news he had was marrying you a year ago, and Whitaker had been at the damn wedding crying more than his own grandmother.
Robby shook his head.
“The good news, you'll be a great dad.”
Robby chocked on his breath, leaning on the counter. “Wh-what?” he chuckled in a breath.
“You're pregnant? I mean, not you, obviously, I-I know how it works. But you're having a baby, that's-that's what they say and I just wanted to say well done. Or not well done! No, that came out wrong, jus-”
Robby had let him stumble on his words as he tried to figure out what he was saying. The baby? What baby? “Denis, what are you talking about?”
He looked around quickly for you but couldn't see you.
“Oh my god, you didn't know, you didn't know did you?” Whitaker's face paled, his entire body sinking. “Santos told me, she told me not to tell anyone but I-I figured I could tell you! I guessed- oh god, did I just tell you your wife is pregnant?”
His wife...
Pregnant...
And Robby was finding out from Huckleberry!
Robby took a step around the counter and Denis stumbled back into his chair. “Are you telling me she's...”
Whitaker nodded when the words failed him.
Robby thought back to the sickness you thought he'd missed last week, the way you fell asleep at the computer earlier and the general exhaustion. He tried to think back to what night could have been 'the one' but somewhere along the line you'd both stopped being careful. Condoms were abandoned in draws and your pack of contraceptive pills were still full.
“Doctor- Doctor Robby? Do you need to sit down?” Denis asked.
Robby waved him off and gave himself one minute to compose himself. He knew panic, it was an old friend he'd lost contact with over the years, yet it returned to him then.
“Where is she now?” he asked.
“Oh, I don't- I don't-”
“Huckleberry!” he tried not to expose his fondness of the nickname Santos had given him but it slipped out in the most desperate of times.
Denis gulped, knowing this. “Exam room three.”
Robby nodded and made a be-line, Casey was asking him a question as he passed but he held up a hand, ignoring her.
Santos stepped out the room, closing the door and stopping when Robby almost collided with her. “You can't go in there.”
Robby inhaled a deep breath. It was one thing having Whitaker be the one to tell him you were pregnant. It was another to have Santos blocking him from seeing you. “Doctor Santos if you don't let me through you will miss every trauma that comes through those doors.”
Luckily, he knew how to work Santos.
Her arms budged over her chest. “For how long?”
Whatever you had promised her to keep him out must have been just as grand a prize. “Till I see fit now let me in.”
It was like a western stand off for longer than Robby would have liked. Every second he spent out of your room was longer you were spending alone.
Eventually, Trinity sighed and gave up. “Okay, fine, whatever, but she promised me first dibs at a REBOA for doing this. I expect that to still stand.”
Robby pushed through the room and snapped back the curtains finding you at the edge of a bed, the wand of an ultrasound hidden under your top and the grey scale picture of a baby on the monitor.
To your credit you didn't flinch or move as he stood there.
“Lets be real this is not the worst thing you've caught me doing.”
In five minutes Robby had wiped down your stomach of the gel, had helped pull your top down and sat with you on the edge of the patient bed, the curtain back to being pulled over and hiding the two of you from traumas and agitated patients and doctors alike.
“How long have you known?” asked Robby.
There was no anger, no mean undertones. It was frightening rather blank, the way he spoke. You'd always prided yourself on knowing how to tell when he was in a good mood or bad from the smallest of tics he had.
He'd trained them out of himself apparently.
Yet- he'd given you his hand and you'd pulled it into your lap, holding it and trailing your own fingers over his.
“The time's now-” you peeked over him at the clock over the door. “- about an hour and thirteen minutes.”
He shook his head, scoffing out a smile that pronounced his wrinkles. “Why didn't you come to me?”
You sighed, shrugging your shoulders. “I thought I was just sick, you know? So I thought I'd get some bloods and see.”
“Did you do the bloods yourself?”
You looked at him and that was telling enough. With the hand that wasn't with yours he rubbed at his temple in aggravation. So far there'd been little to no talk about the baby growing in your stomach but more concern about how you'd gone to finding out.
“You should've got me,” he said.
“Well if I thought I was pregnant I probably would have.” You tried to joke but it fell flat.
“Probably?” he repeated quietly.
Silence went by with only the ticking of the clock as company.
You held onto his hand, readying yourself for the question yet to be asked. “Are you mad at me?”
Robby shook his head but didn't look at you.
“Annnnd are you mad at...” you couldn't say baby yet. Didn't know if giving the clump of cells in your stomach a name would scare him off.
With the hand in your lap his fingers entwined with yours and clutched tight.
“I know we never talked about kids and this wasn't planned in the slightest,” you said even if you knew Robby had stopped pulling out months ago, favouring the way you felt when your walls swallowed him up. “You can be angry.”
“You keep asking if I'm angry, do you want me to be?” he asked, finally a touch of emotion in his voice as it rose an octave. “Are you mad?”
That was the question. It wasn't planned, but it wasn't unwanted. You couldn't say that seeing the way mothers caressed their stomachs when they came in with spotting or concerns didn't have you thinking of your own child one day. That talking to that little girl with the head lac earlier with Frank didn't cause a pang of longing in your heart.
You'd never tried to pretend you didn't want everything with Robby. Even if you've never discussed what everything was to each other.
“When I was in med school I thought I'd have it all worked out long before now,” said Robby. “Marriage and kids. Maybe on my second marriage by now.”
You dug your elbow into his ribs, rewarded with a quick, breathless laugh.
His eyes creased as his face scrunched up. “Didn't work out. Guess I... gave up thinking it could.”
“Then you met me, right?”
Robby looked at you. His eyes were like glass as he looked you over, his lips titled, cheeks red under his beard. He looked- if you didn't mind saying so- like a man mesmerised. He nodded.
“I thought you didn't want kids,” you said.
“Do you?” he asked, eyes boring into yours.
“Do you?” you threw back to him.
He squeezed your hand and gave you a look.
“I think I do,” you admitted, quietly, as if you could take it back if it displeased him. “I don't know if I'll be good at it. I hardly have time to look after myself, let alone a baby. And I don't want to be one of those people that gives up work for kids cause I love my job but... I think I could love a kid, too.”
Robby nodded along with what you were saying, a smile brightening everything you thought looked dark in him.
“Do you want kids?” you asked.
“Oh, kids?” he teased. “You're so sure its twins already?”
You rolled your eyes as he nudged his shoulder with yours, rocking the both of your bodies.
“I want everything with you, I said so much in my vows, didn't I? You thought I was lying, Doctor Robin?”
You couldn't help but smile at the nickname he gave you and was proud to call you. After all, calling out for two Robinavitch's in an emergency proved difficult quickly. “I don't believe your vows included, I want to fuck you so hard and deep you get pregnant within the first year of marriage.' ”
“Dirty mouth, cussing like that,” said Robby, his eyes drifting down your lips as he bit down on his own. “Have to sort that out before the baby gets here.”
“Lucky we have eight months to train it out of me.”
Robby's nose had just brushed yours before he was pulling back, studying you again. His gaze drifted to your stomach, wondering if the manifestation of your nights had started to show. “You're a month along, already?”
You clocked your head side to side. “Give or take a week or two.”
“Eight months it is.”
Robby kissed you, licking into your mouth and breathing you in with deep breaths. His large hands held your cheeks and kept you in, all but drowning you in lips and touch and love. He tilted his head aside, kissing you deeper.
At once the doors banged open and arguing voices drifted in.
Robby pulled back with his head lowered in disappointment while you licked the taste of him off your lips. “I swear to god, these kids-” he grumbled as Denis and Trinity stumbled in.
“Seems like you got the dad thing down already,” you said, hand rubbing up and down in his back.
The intruders had a hoard of things in arms. Denis was carrying a large bear in hand that almost drowned him as he struggled to hold him. The bear was holding a blue heart sewen into its paws while Trinity was struggling in pulling the pink balloons in.
It seemed they'd already made bets on what baby they wanted you to have.
“We er, wanted to get you these,” said Denis. “Sorry for ruining the surprise.”
“I'm not sorry, I didn't do anything,” said Santos with a scoff.
“You told me,” pointed out Whitaker.
“Yeah and I told you not to tell anyone, fuckleberry then you tell the dad!”
“I thought he knew!”
“I told you in confidence!”
“You were laughing while you were telling me! That wasn't every confident!”
“Oh my god, it's a figure of speech!”
You laughed at the two of them, hiding your face in Robby's scrubs as he leant his head back toward you.
“You think they'd notice if we started trying for baby number two now?”
blurb - Separated by miles, years, and the undead, you and your husband have been ghosts in each other’s lives for two decades. The thought of Joel being alive hurt just as much as thinking he was dead. But when a stand-off forces you face-to-face with a familiar man—older, harder, and still devastatingly him—all the pain resurfaces.
warnings - nsfw, mdni 18+, attempted murder, violence, yearning, loss of a child, parent!Reader, grief, fear of intimacy, slight suicidal wishes, female masturbation, mutual masturbation, 69, cuddle fucking, creampie (don't try this at home), emotional sex, scent kink???
author's note: I did listen to "Back to Me" by the Marias the entire time I wrote this...
One shot requested by: anyomous
wc: 18.3 k
Mwah!
“Joel…”
Mwah!
You giggled this time, voice caught somewhere between exasperation and a smile. “Joel.”
Mwah! Mwah!
“Oh my God! You’re gonna ruin my hair!”
He didn’t stop. He kissed you once more—loudly, obnoxiously—right on the top of your head, arms wrapped around you so tight you could barely reach for your keys.
“You ain’t leavin’ yet,” he said against your hair.
You tried to twist out of his hold, but he just shifted with you, his body like a weighted blanket. “Joel—”
“My birthday is tonight,” he murmured, cheek pressed to the side of your head. “Keyword: Tonight.”
“You’re not six.”
“Don’t need to be,” he muttered, “To wanna spend it with my wife.”
Somewhere down the hall, Sarah’s laughter drifted from her room, soft and muffled. You exhaled, melting into his chest despite yourself. He smelled like sawdust and soap, and you hated how safe it made you feel, because you did need to go.
“Joel,” you whispered again, gentler this time. “It’s an ER shift. You know I can’t just—”
“I know, I know.”
He finally leaned back enough to look at you. His face was that ache that always peeked out when you had to leave for your night shifts.
“I packed you dinner,” he said finally, nodding toward the counter.
Your gaze followed. A brown paper bag sat neatly by your keys, the folded top pressed flat with ridiculous precision. You could see his handwriting scrawled across it: Eat every bite.
You looked back at him, and his expression was stubbornly casual, like you hadn’t watched him make sure your thermos didn’t leak and your sandwich didn’t get squished while you changed into your scrubs.
“You didn’t have to—”
“Yeah, I did,” he cut in, quiet but sure. “You forget to eat when it gets busy.”
“I do not forget.”
“Mm,” he said, unconvinced. “That’s why last week you came home and inhaled pizza like you ain’t seen food in a week.”
You shoved at his chest, and he caught your wrist with a smirk, pressing one more kiss to your knuckles.
And that’s when the sound of socked feet sliding down the hallway interrupted you.
“Ew,” Sarah groaned, appearing in the doorway, half-eaten apple in hand. “Not this again.”
Joel didn’t even look her way. “What’s this ‘gain?”
“You being a total sap,” she said, hopping up on one of the stools. “She’s just going to work.”
Joel’s head turned slowly to his kid. “You don’t get it.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re dramatic.”
You covered your mouth to hide a smile, pretending to check your bag again.
Joel lifted a brow at her. “You done?”
“Not even close,” she said sweetly. “Stop hogging her.”
He glanced back to you, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. “Why’d wanna talk to her so bad, huh?”
“Maybe I wanna talk to someone other than you for the next twelve hours.”
Joel let out a low noise, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, and grabbed his mug. “Uh-huh. I’ll remember that next time you need a ride to the mall.”
You and Sarah watched him disappear around the corner. There was a beat of silence, and then the sound of him shutting the bedroom door echoed faintly.
“Did it get fixed?”
Her grin was instant, mischievous, like she’d been waiting for that cue all night.
“You bet it did.”
She glanced over her shoulder once more, then ducked into her backpack and pulled out a small box. When she cracked it open, the soft ticking filled the quiet kitchen.
Joel’s watch. Working.
You hadn’t seen it tick since—well, since ever. Not once in all the years you’d known him. She smiled so wide it almost broke your heart. “He deserves it,” she said softly.
You wrapped your arms around her before she could hide her blush. “You did good, baby.”
Her hair smelled faintly of coconut shampoo and laundry detergent. You pressed a kiss into her curls, and she squeezed you tight.
“When I’m back in the morning,” you murmured against her hair, “Your dad gets me, then it’s all you and me, okay?”
She pulled back, grinning. “Deal. I need a dress. Homecomings, like, next week and everyone already has theirs.”
You smoothed her hair from her face. “Then we’ll find you the perfect one. Promise.”
Her eyes sparkled. “It’s gonna be the best.”
You smiled, meaning it. “It will.”
For a moment, it was just the two of you, the low hum of the fridge filling the silence, the clock ticking in time with the watch.
Then you glanced up—and froze.
“Shoot,” you muttered. “I’m late.”
You moved fast—badge, phone, keys—but she was still standing there, smiling at you.
“I love you, Sarah!” you called as you backed toward the door.
“Love you too!”
The night air was cooler than you expected, the kind of fall chill that hinted at rain but hadn’t quite decided to commit. The street was quiet, just the whisper of trees and the hum of a streetlight flickering at the corner.
The porch light cast a pale gold over the hood of your car, and you were halfway to opening the door when you heard it.
“Hey!”
You turned.
Joel was coming down the porch steps, hair mussed.
“What—?”
Before you could finish, he reached you. His hands found your face, warm and calloused, and his mouth was on yours before another word could form.
Steady. Familiar.
You smiled against his lips, your fingers curling in his shirt. “Happy birthday,” you murmured.
His eyes softened, lines crinkling at the corners. “Thank you, baby.”
He kissed you again—slower this time—and then rested his forehead against yours.
“You sure you can’t call in sick?” he whispered, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Y‘know I can’t.”
“Doesn’t hurt to try.”
For a few seconds, neither of you moved. You brushed your thumb along Joel’s jaw, tracing the familiar edge of stubble.
“Tomorrow morning,” you promised quietly. “I’m all yours.”
He nodded once, like he was filing it away. “All mine,” he repeated, voice low, half-rasp, half-prayer.
You stepped back, his hand still holding yours until the distance forced it to fall away.
“Go on,” he said, smiling now. “‘Fore I think of another excuse to keep you.”
You opened the car door, sliding in. The engine coughed to life, headlights washing the driveway in white.
Joel leaned down to your window as it rolled open, bracing one hand on the roof. “Text me when you get there.”
“I always do.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Still.”
You looked up at him for a moment—just a man standing under the porch light, watching the woman he loves drive away to work.
Then you smiled one last time, lifted your fingers in a small wave, and pulled out of the driveway.
The taillights disappeared down the street.
And behind you, Joel stood there for a long while, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes on the road that led toward the hospital, until the light finally went out.
That was the last quiet night.
┈┈・┈┈
The gas station sits at the edge of the highway like a fossil—half-buried in snowdrift, windows caked in frost, the faded sign creaking against the wind.
You pull your scarf higher over your nose and push through the door. The bell above it gives a tired little jingle, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the emptiness inside.
The place smells of dust and fuel. Rows of cracked candy wrappers and long-dead flies line the counter. A can of peaches sits upright on a shelf like it’s been waiting for you all these years.
You pause, listening. Wind sighs through a shattered window. Nothing else.
Good.
Your boots crunch on the tile as you move down the aisle. You check under the counter—some old batteries, half a lighter, a few shotgun shells. You pocket the shells, roll the lighter between your fingers, flick it. Spark. No flame. You toss it back.
You find the storage room behind a warped door, push it open with your shoulder. The metal hinges wail.
Inside: shelves toppled over, a spill of canned goods frozen to the concrete. A single cot in the corner—torn, mold creeping up the side. But it’s shelter.
You run a hand through your hair, exhale through your scarf.
You start sorting through the wreckage. Your bag was already heavy, but there’s always room for something that might keep you alive another week. A can of beans, a box of ammo if you’re lucky, maybe even a flask with something that burns on the way down.
Outside, the wind changes pitch—sharper now, colder. Snow was coming quick.
You glance through the window. Clouds roll over the mountains, dark and low, swallowing the last streaks of light.
Wyoming. You’d always wanted to see it. The peaks in the distance look soft under the gray sky, like something out of a dream you half-remember. You lean against the window frame, watch the world blur behind the snow.
The beans taste like dust. You chew anyway, slow and mechanical. You swallow, stare at the dented can in your hand, and wonder—not for the first time—why food never tastes like anything anymore.
The silence stretches long and thin.
Outside, the wind howls low through the busted doorframe, slipping under your coat. The storm’s closer. You pull your scarf tighter and sit cross-legged on the moldy cot.
The flickering fluorescent light above you buzzes. Once. Twice. Then dies completely. You sit in the dark for a long moment.
You fish out a flashlight from your pack and click it on. The beam slices through the dark in a narrow cone. Dust motes float like ghosts.
You set the can aside, grab your knife, and start sharpening it against a stone. The rhythmic scrape fills the space. Shk. Shk. Shk.
You stop only when you catch your reflection in the blade. Eyes sunken. Hair streaked with gray. Skin roughened by twenty-four winters too many.
You huff a breath through your nose, letting the knife fall beside you and lean your head back against the wall.
For a moment—just a flicker—you see it again.
The hospital. The gurneys. The screaming.
You still smelled antiseptic and blood, heard the alarms, and felt the heat of panic flooding every hallway.
Your hands had been shaking so badly back then that you couldn’t even hold the scalpel right. And when they shoved the rifle at you—you’d dropped it. You remember that clearly. You’d dropped it, and the nurse beside you had died two minutes later.
You open your eyes fast, drag in air until your ribs ache. You stare at your hands. Calloused. Scarred.
The storm outside is getting heavier now, snow slamming against the roof in thick, rhythmic waves.
You sit for a while, just breathing.
Then you reach pass your collar. Metal is cold against your fingers, smooth from years of handling. You pull out the necklace—its chain tangled from travel, the ring catching faint light from the window.
Your wedding ring.
It still fits around your finger, though you haven’t worn it in years. The gold has dulled, edges rough from weather and time. You turn it between your fingers, feeling the tiny engraving on the inside—J.M. The letters are faint now, nearly worn away.
Since rings were a ripping hazard through gloves, you always ended up leaving your ring in Joel’s hands. Meaning you left it when you escaped.
Years later, you went for it. Maybe to see if someone took it, or if it was possible that time had stopped in that house, just waiting for you to come home.
Half the roof gone, windows shattered. You’d stepped over the debris, heart thudding in your chest, and found the ring sitting in your dresser. Dust-coated. Waiting.
The rest of the house had been silent, save for the groan of wood and wind slipping through the cracks. There’d been blood by the entryway—dark, old. But no bodies. The truck was gone.
That had meant something. You’d clung to that, smiling through the tears back then.
“They made it out,” you’d whispered into your old bedroom. “He got her out. He always does.”
Now, years later, you still hold the ring like it’s proof that somewhere, somehow, they’re still alive.
That Sarah’s grown—thirty-eight now, if you’ve done the math right—maybe with her father’s strength, that same stubborn tilt of her chin.
You smile, just a little. And for that small, fragile moment between exhaustion and faith, you let yourself believe it.
That if you keep walking, keep breathing, fate might finally let your paths cross again.
The wind howls against the window. And then—a noise. Not the wind. Not the shifting of snow. You freeze.
It’s faint, beneath the storm. A crunch of a can, the muted thud of boots.
You snap out of it fast, tucking your necklace back underneath your layers, and you grab your rifle. You move silently, muscle memory taking over. The scarf wanted up, covering your mouth. You sling the rifle over your shoulder, knife in your other hand.
Another sound. Closer this time.
You forced your breathing to be small. Listened. The sound is human—not the ragged rasp of infected but even, purposeful steps. You creep to the door, ease it open a crack. Cold air hits you.
You don’t take chances. You move through the gas station like a ghost.
Shelves cast long black teeth. You navigate by sound: the snap of a plastic wrapper, a muted clink of metal. You pass an aisle and there—under a hanging sign that reads ‘SNACKS’ in flaking red paint—is a person.
She’s young-ish, brown hair dusted with snow. Pale. Focused on canned goods. You watch her for a beat, then you’re beside her; blade at her throat, gloved hand clamping her jaw before she can scream air into the room.
“Don’t make noise,” you whisper, teeth pressed to the syllables. Cold breath fogs between you.
She makes a sound—a sharp intake—but you clamp harder until it’s a single pulse under your fingers. Her green eyes are wide and furious.
You press the tip of the knife, close enough the metal kisses her skin. She doesn’t flinch. “Who are you with?”
Her eyes flick left, then right, then back up to your face. She groans something obscene. You tilt your head.
“Nod if you’re alone.”
Slow, stiff nod. Her gaze keeps sliding. You don’t believe her.
“Walk.”
She huffs and starts shuffling. You edge behind her, blade at the hollow of her throat in case she bolts.
Outside, horses stand tethered to a dented pickup. Two adult-size steeds, their breaths steaming into the night. Packs sewn onto their flanks look new—canvas stitched and mended, not the scavenged mess you usually see.
“Community,” you mutter.
The girl mumbles behind your glove—garbled words, half-swallowed by the wool. You pause, glancing down at her. Her eyes flicker with something sharper than fear. You can’t tell if it’s anger or a plan.
You loosen your hand just enough for her to speak. “You’re making a mistake,” she says, voice low, shaky but not scared. Not really. There’s defiance there. “You don’t wanna do this.”
“That right?”
“Yeah,” she breathes, chin tilting toward the dark. “Because—”
She stops. Eyes dart past you. Just a flicker. Barely a second. But it’s enough. Your instincts snap tight.
You spin, knife still at her throat, snow exploding under your boots. The world narrows to metal and breath and the small, frantic drum in your ribs. A man stands a few yards off. Broad shoulders, an old bandana pulled up over his mouth, thick winter jacket bulking up his frame more that it is; only his eyes are free.
They’re cold. Wild. Protective.
He’s holding a blade too. The wind howls between you.
“I’ll slit her throat before you take a step.” you snarl.
He doesn’t blink.
You circle, keeping the girl as a shield. He mirrors you both of you counting the breaths, looking for the twitch that means fight. Wind keens between the pillars, the horses stamp and throw up more steam.
“Back off, I swear I’ll—”
“I’ll kill you ‘fore you can.” he interrupts, stepping closer. There’s a cadence to the sentence that slips under your skin, some pattern you know but can’t name. Texan accent. Worn by the years, but Texas nonetheless.
Your hands tighten around the girl. Then she jerks—twists. You shove her back against your chest and press the knife harder; she hisses.
“Stop movin’, Ellie!” The man yells.
“Goddammit!”
She spits, and the world completely inverts—just by one word in her next sentence detonating in your chest.
“Kill her already, Joel!”
Joel.
The name stops you cold.
Joel.
It hits like a gunshot under your ribs. Your grip falters—barely, but enough.
Joel.
“...What did you just say?” you whisper.
The girl feels it, the hesitation. She wrenches free. In the same motion, she grabs your scarf and yanks it down. Cold air hits your face.
Then—pain. A hot, sharp slide near your ribs. You stumble back with a strangled noise, clutching your side.
For a second, you don’t feel it. Not really. Your body’s in survival mode, your mind already screaming move, move, move.
Two against one. You’ve been in worse. You’ve survived worse. But still—your pulse hammers so loud it drowns out the rest of the world.
The wind whooshes past your ear. White noise. You can barely hear anything else.
Except the softest call you’ve heard in years. Your name. Spoken like a memory dragged out of the grave.
You haven’t heard it in years. You’d forgotten the shape of it, the way it used to sound. You’d forgotten what it felt like to belong to it.
You look up.
The man’s eyes are on you—wide, unsteady. His chest rises and falls like he’s staring at a ghost. His knife is forgotten, dropped to the snow. You stumble back a step, confused, dizzy. He mirrors it, stepping forward, matching your retreat. One for one.
“Stay back,” you rasp, though your voice cracks halfway through.
He doesn’t. The girl says his name again, a sharp exhale of confusion. “Joel! What are you—?”
No.
No, no, no.
The world tilts. The light from the moon flickers across his face, and in that fractured second, you know. He rips the bandana from his face—
It’s him. Your life. Your love. Your other half. Your soul. Your husband.
Your Joel Miller.
Lines carved deep into his face, gray hair decorated his beautiful brown. His face is more wrinkled than before, his body more wider. But those eyes—same as the day you lost saw him.
Your breath catches in your throat. “Joel…”
The word breaks, splintering halfway out. It sounds nothing like how you used to say it. He takes another step. His voice shakes.
“Darlin’...”
You want to run. To reach for him. To scream in fear. To laugh. You can’t do any of it. You just stand there, the world narrowing until it’s just the two of you and the ghost of everything you lost.
Your knees go weak. You can feel pain now—the slow, spreading warmth of something sticky seeping through your coat. You press your hand harder to your side, but it doesn’t stop the tremor.
Joel takes another step.
“Don’t…” you manage, breathless. “Don’t—come any closer.”
You stumble back again, your boots slipping in the snow. The light-headedness hits harder now. The sky spins. You reach out, steadying yourself against the cold metal of the building behind you.
The girl’s hand tightens around her knife. Her voice is shaking now, too. “What are you waiting for?! She’s…she’s—why are you hesitating—”
You sway, vision blurring. Ellie takes another step, as if she’s going to finish the job for Joel, and that’s when you see it—the blade in her hand. Red. Glinting as it drips. Your blood.
“Christ…” you whisper.
You can barely keep your eyes open now. The snow feels softer under your boots than it should. You blink, slow and heavy, your breath coming out in short, white bursts.
Then, you fall.
Joel moves fast. A shadow through the storm. The next thing you feel is his arms wrapping around you, pulling you in. The warmth of him hits like a blow, his chest against yours, his breath shaking against your temple.
You forgot this.
The sound of him breathing, the rough rasp in his throat. The weight of his hand and how they shake when they press against your side, trying to stop the bleeding. His voice breaks through the wind, hoarse, terrified—words you can’t quite catch, just the vibration of them.
Your fingers find his coat, clutching it. It feels real. Too real. You lift your head—barely—and see his face. That face.
The man from your dreams, the one you used to stare at when you couldn’t sleep. The one you buried with your past. The one you thought you’d never touch again.
You try to speak, but it comes out as a shiver.
He presses his hand harder, cursing under his breath. His mouth opens over and over, forming words but you can’t really hear him. The wind eats at his words. You can only see his eyes frantic.
You forgot how soft his eyes could be when he was afraid. Your vision blurs around the edges. His face flickers in and out, the snow dimming into a wash of gray and white.
He yells something over his shoulder—maybe to the girl, maybe to no one. You can’t tell. The world’s shrinking too fast.
Then—his voice, raw, breaking:
“Not ’gain. Not ’gain.”
You blink slowly, trying to focus on his mouth, the way his voice trembles like he’s said this before.
Again?
The thought cuts through the haze for a second. Did he mean you? Did he dream of you, too? See your face in strangers? Hear your voice in the dark like you did his?
The thought makes you smile. You look up at him—just once more—and the sight fills you whole.
Then the light fades. You go limp in his arms.
He calls your name again, but you don’t hear it. The world folds inward—black and quiet.
┈┈・┈┈
The church wasn’t much.
A narrow, sunlit room with peeling paint and crooked pews. The air smelled faintly of wood polish. There was no music—just the soft hum of cicadas outside and the creak of the floorboards under your heels.
It was perfect.
Your mother sat front row, tissues clutched in both hands, whispering something to your father that made him chuckle under his breath. Tommy was beside them, sleeves rolled up, tie loose, trying and failing to keep a squirming little girl in her seat.
“C’mon now, darlin’,” he muttered as Sarah kicked her legs and reached toward the front of the hall. “Your daddy’s a little busy right now, alright? You’ll see him in a minute.”
Sarah let out a squeal that echoed through the church, a bright little sound that made Joel’s shoulders stiffen and then sag.
You laughed under your breath, watching him. His hands were clasped nervously in front of him, the tie around his neck slightly crooked. His hair was damp from sweat, combed back but already falling out of place. There was a flush high on his cheeks.
“I swear I listened when you told me to feed her. She jus’—” He sighed, the corners of his mouth twitching. “She don’t like sittin’ still. Guess that’s my fault.”
“She just wants her daddy,” you said softly.
Joel’s eyes flicked to you, warm and nervous all at once. “Well, can’t say I blame her for that.”
“You always this confident at the altar?”
He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Confidence or stupidity—hard to tell.”
There was a pause. Sarah let out another squeal and Tommy groaned, muttering something about ‘should’ve brought snacks.’ Joel grinned, shaking his head, then looked back at you with that same teasing glint.
“Still time to back out, y’know,” he said. “Ain’t too late to change your mind.”
You gasped, hand flying to your chest. “Excuse me?”
“I mean—not like that, darlin’. Jus’... y‘know I’m not exactly prime real estate.”
“Joel Miller…” you said, voice full of mock outrage.
“What?” he said, laughing now. “I’m jus’ bein’ honest!”
You took a step closer, your dress brushing the floor. The minister cleared his throat softly, but neither of you looked away. You reached up, caught his tie in your hand, and tugged him just enough that his eyes widened a little.
“Never,” you whispered.
He blinked, his breath catching. And then you kissed him.
The world went still for a moment. It was just the two of you—your hand fisted in his tie, his palm finding your waist, the rough scrape of his stubble brushing your cheek. He kissed you back, slow at first, then deeper when you smiled against his mouth.
Behind you, your mother and dad sniffled audibly. Tommy muttered something, but there was laughter in his voice.
When you finally pulled away, his forehead rested against yours.
And when Joel finally whispered, “For as long as I got breath…”, you knew—this was how it was always meant to be.
┈┈・┈┈
You wake to the sound of wind and the slow, steady rhythm of breathing that isn’t your own.
Your lashes flutter open. Wooden beams. No patched roof. The air smells faintly of pine and smoke, warm from… a heater? For a moment, you think you’re dreaming. Then a deep ache blooms along your side.
You jolt upright—too fast. The pain punches through you. A strangled noise escapes your throat as you clutch your ribs. Bandages. Tight, clean, freshly changed.
That’s when you hear it again.
You whip your head toward the sound—instinct first, reason later—and shove back against the headboard, teeth bared, ready to fight through the pain if you have to.
“Hey—hey, easy, easy.”
That voice.
Joel’s sitting in the chair beside the bed, elbows on his knees, that same rugged face you’ve seen a hundred times in dreams, weathered now by years and loss. The gray in his beard catches the light. His flannel’s frayed at the cuffs. Sleep wears on his face. He must’ve just woken up.
It’s all impossible. It has to be.
“Joel?”
His mouth parts just slightly, like he’s afraid to breathe wrong. “Yeah, darlin’. It’s me.”
You shake your head, trying to make sense of it, but the world feels warped. His eyes are the same—warm brown, flecked with gold—and that hurts worse than anything else. Because they look real.
For a long, unbearable moment, neither of you move. The room hums around you—wind through the cracked window, the faint thud of boots outside—but all you can hear is your heartbeat and the sound of Joel’s shaky breath.
You shift again, the pain in your side flaring white-hot. A groan slips out before you can stop it. Joel’s expression crumples.
“Stop movin’,” he mutters, half rising, hands twitching uselessly like he wants to reach for you but doesn’t dare. “You’ll rip the stitches.”
You swing your legs over the bed, ignoring the protest in your ribs. He flinches like it physically hurts him to see you do it. He stands with you, crossing around the bed to get in front of you.
His jaw works, like he’s trying to find something to say.
But all that comes out is your name.
It roots you to the floor.
You blink hard, throat burning, and when you look up again, his eyes are wet. He tries to blink it away, to look like the same man who used to fix things, who used to steady you.
He says it again. Softer this time.
Your breath stumbles. There’s a tremor in his hand when he finally reaches out.
When his fingers brush your cheek, you flinch— from a strange mix of fear and disbelief. His hand’s rough, warm. He drags his thumb slow across your skin, tracing your jaw, your cheekbone, your nose.
Like a blind man who had just earned his sight back.
For a second, there’s nothing but the sound of both of you breathing—fast, uneven, disbelieving.
And then—
You take a step back. Another. Another.
Distance.
You hit the metal tray behind you, the clatter piercing through the air, and Joel’s brow furrows. “It’s alright,” he says, voice low, coaxing, like you’re some frightened animal.
You shake your head, breath catching. “No—no, it’s not.”
“Darlin’, it’s me—”
“Don’t.” The word rips out of you, sharp and trembling. “Don’t call me that.”
His mouth parts, but nothing comes out. His hand drops uselessly to his side.
You can’t breathe. The air feels too thick, the walls too close. Your body won’t stay still—your fingers twitch, your shoulders jerk. You can hear your pulse in your ears.
He was here. You wanted this. You wished for it, but now that it was here… it was all too much, him standing here, alive.
“I knew you died,” you whisper, voice cracking. “I knew and I still believed—"
“I didn’t,” he interrupts, desperate. “I didn’t die, darlin’. I—”
“Stop!” You press your hands to your temples, nails digging in. “Stop calling me that!”
“You’re shakin’. Lemme me—”
“No!” You stumble back, hand slamming into the cabinet. “You can’t—no—you can’t just—”
Your chest caves. Breath stutters. You can’t fill your lungs, can’t find air. The room tilts, the fluorescent light overhead flickering like a heartbeat gone wrong.
He’s reaching again, trying to catch your shoulders, but the touch only makes it worse. You jerk away, a strangled sound tearing out of you.
And then—
Bang.
The door slams open.
“Joel!” Tommy’s voice, rougher now, deeper, but still that same drawl that once filled your old house with laughter.
You stare at him. He’s got a mustache now. Older, broader. Wrinkles that line the corners of his eyes.
You make a small, broken sound in your throat. It’s too much—the sound of his voice, the sight of Joel, your world cracking open and mending together all at once.
Tommy’s eyes soften when he sees you, but his tone is firm. “Step outside, brother.”
“Hell no,” Joel snaps, stepping in front of you. “My wife’s panickin’, Tommy—”
You twitch at that word—wife—and your breath catches, shuddering.
Tommy lifts a hand. “Out. Now.”
“Tommy—”
“Joel.” His tone hardens. “Get out.”
The two stare each other down, that familiar stubborn silence passing between them. Joel’s chest heaves. His jaw flexes.
Then his eyes flick to you. Just once. And that look—raw, gutted—undoes something in your chest. He goes. But not without a fight in his stance, not without looking like every step toward the door costs him blood.
Tommy stays behind long enough to look at you. His smile’s thin, a shade of what it used to be. “Why don’t you sit down, huh? Maria’s comin’ over real soon. She’ll take care of you.”
You don’t even nod, just stare like those abandoned mannequins in the windows of clothing stores. He hesitates, looks like he wants to say something else, but doesn’t.
Then he leaves. The door shuts behind them with a soft click.
You stand there for a long time, trembling, until the sound of your breathing evens out. The air still smells like alcohol and metal. You press your back to the wall, sliding down until you’re sitting on the cold wooden floorboards.
You don’t cry. You just listen.
Through the crack of the door, their voices filter in—muted, low, but heated.
“You’re overwhelmin’ her, Joel. Can’t you see that?”
Joel’s voice, rough and unsteady, comes right after. “She knows me, Tommy. She—she looked at me. You saw it too. She knows me.”
“Yeah,” Tommy says, dry. “Don’t mean she can handle you right now.”
“I ain’t some stranger, dammit! I’m her husband. That’s my wife. You understand? My wife. I thought she was gone. I thought—”
“You thought a lotta things, but that don’t change what’s in front of you. I get it.”
A pause. You imagine Joel’s face—the way he presses his lips together when he’s holding back something too big to say.
Then his voice again, lower. “You didn’t see her eyes, Tommy. I did. She remembered me. She didn’t forget.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“She belongs with me. She should live with me—get used to things ‘gain, get used to me.”
“The hell she should,” Tommy snaps. “That’s the worst idea I’ve heard come outta your mouth, and that’s sayin’ somethin’.”
“Why? Why the hell not? Y’think I can jus’—what—leave her sittin’ in some damn corner, pretendin’ like she didn’t spend almost half her life with me?”
Tommy doesn’t answer right away. The silence stretches, filled with the sound of boots shifting on wood, wind against the windows.
When he does speak, his voice is steady. “’Cause she’s scared of you, Joel.”
The words land heavy. You can feel the air change on the other side of the door.
“She flinched when you touched her.”
Joel says nothing.
“She damn near stopped breathin’ when you got closer,” Tommy goes on, quieter now. “And not ‘cause she don’t care. It’s ‘cause she’s been out there, alone. Y’know what that does to a person.”
Joel finally mutters something, too low to catch.
Tommy sighs. “Y’think she had folks lookin’ after her all this time? Hell, for all we know, she’s been walkin’ ‘lone for years. One, two, five, ten—Christ, maybe since the whole damn thing started.”
A pause. Then Tommy again, voice soft but heavy.
“She ain’t the same person you lost. And neither are you.”
The words twist deep, where you don’t want them to reach.
Eventually, you hear the floor creak again—Tommy’s boots moving away, Joel’s slower behind him. The sound fades down the hallway, swallowed by the hum of your own thoughts.
You tilt your head back against the wall and stare at the ceiling light until your eyes blur.
He’s alive.
He’s here.
And you don’t know whether to thank God or curse Him.
┈┈・┈┈
To say you’re skittish is an understatement.
Tommy and Maria’s house feels too clean. Too normal. Every sound—every creak, every low murmur from the kitchen—puts your nerves on edge. You keep expecting someone to barge in and tell you to pack your things, that you don’t belong here.
The curtains remain half-shut, and you sleep on top of the blanket instead of under it, because the bed is too soft. The first night, you woke up gasping, the fabric bunched around your throat, the scent of cleanliness sharp enough to make your eyes sting.
Now you avoid it altogether. You sit on the edge, knees drawn up, staring at the wooden nightstand. You run your fingers over the lamp switch. The clock. The drawer handle.
Twenty years ago, these things were nothing. Background. White noise. Now they feel like relics from a life that belonged to someone else.
Beds. Nightstands. Floors that don’t creak from rot.
Hot water. Toothpaste. A door that locks from the inside.
You leave the room only the bathroom, since they bring you your food. Once, Maria knocked to tell you that there had been snow on the Christmas tree they just set up, and it was gorgeous with the lights, and you almost said yes to following her out there.
Almost.
But the second your hand touched the doorknob, something inside you froze. You mumbled an apology and stayed put.
They never complained. Not once.
Maria—she tries. She smiles at you when she offers you fresh bread, tea, small comforts. She has that kind of strength like she’s seen her share of ruin and decided not to let it show. You can see why Tommy married her.
He checks your wound every couple of days, his hands steady, his voice low. “Healin’ good,” he says. “Maria’s been keepin’ the bandages clean. You’re lucky she’s the one runnin’ the place.”
You nod. You never know what to say back.
He talks a lot, though. Tries to fill the silence with something easy. “Jackson’s different,” he tells you. “We got systems. Rules that keep folks fed, safe. We all pitch in.”
You hum under your breath, skeptical. “Sounds like a QZ,” you croak out before you can stop yourself.
Tommy chuckles, but his eyes narrow just slightly, like he knows what you mean. “Ain’t no QZ. No FEDRA. No soldiers. Nobody hoardin’ food. We look out for each other here.”
You study him a long time, trying to decide if you believe it. He must see the hesitation in your face, because he adds, quietly,
“I wouldn’t have stayed if it wasn’t what I said.”
He means it. You can tell.
Days pass. A week and a half. You fall into a rhythm, if you can call it that. You wake up, sit on the edge of the bed, watch the light crawl across the floorboards. You listen to the faint laughter that sometimes drifts from the street outside. You eat when someone leaves a plate at your door. You wait until night to move around.
Then one morning, Maria breaks it by knocking softly.
You’re sitting on the bed, fingers picking at the loose threads of the sheets, half-lost in thought.
When she opens the door, her face is lit by that calm, unshakable smile. “Got someone who wants to see you,” she says.
Your stomach tightens. Your hands flex, unflex. “Who?”
Her smile widens, but her eyes study you carefully, gauging every twitch of your face. “A visitor.”
You nod, pushing yourself up. The floor feels uneven under your bare feet. Your heart thuds in your throat. “Alright.”
She waits in the doorway until you follow her. The house smells faintly of coffee and wood polish. You pass the family photos hanging on the wall—Tommy with Maria, and beside them, a small boy with his father’s grin. You pause for half a second, staring.
A son. You hadn’t known.
Your pulse stutters.
Maria’s voice pulls you back. “You doin’ okay?”
“Yeah,” you lie.
Every step down the hallway feels heavier than the last. The closer you get to the living room, the louder your thoughts get. What if it’s Joel? What if he came here, decided he’d had enough of waiting? You can almost hear his voice already—low, stubborn, that Texas gravel tone saying your name.
No. You can’t do that. Not yet.
Maria stops at the doorway, her hand on the frame. She glances back at you, softens her voice. “Don’t worry. She’s kind. Sometimes.”
She.
The breath you were holding spills out, shaky and uneven.
Then you see her.
Sitting on the couch, her elbows on her knees, head down, fiddling with something in her hands—a knife, no, a pocket tool. Her hair’s brown and tamed now, no longer wild from the wind. The anger that once burned in those green eyes is gone.
It takes you a second to place her. That girl from the gas station.
Maria’s voice is light. “Ellie. I brought her.”
Right. Ellie.
She looks up then, blinking at you, and for a moment you both just stare.
Her mouth opens first. “Uh… hey.”
You nod once, your throat too tight for words.
She clears her throat, awkwardly rubbing her palms on her jeans. “You, uh… you probably don’t remember me. I mean, I guess you might. Back at the station, you were kinda…” She makes a vague gesture with her hands, grimacing. “Y’know. Your knife to my throat, my knife in your side, whole thing.”
“I remember.”
“Oh.” She blinks too, like she wasn’t expecting that. “Cool.”
Maria hides a smile, stepping back toward the kitchen. “I’ll let y’all talk.”
You and Ellie both look after her as she leaves, then at each other again.
The silence is prickly. Ellie shifts in her seat, taps her knee a few times, then blows out a slow breath. “I wanna… apologize.”
She says that last word like it’s a grater dragged across her throat.
You raise an eyebrow.
“For—uh—stickin’ you like a pig.”
Your frown comes without effort. “You stabbed me.”
“Yeah. Guess that’s another word for it. My bad.”
You just stare at her.
She scratches at her eyebrow, mutters, “You were sneakin’ around, and I was freaking the hell out, and I just—look, I didn’t know who you were, okay?”
There’s a beat of silence. Then, maybe because her discomfort is so naked, maybe because she’s just a kid trying too hard to sound grown, you huff out something that almost sounds like a laugh.
“I’ll live,” you say quietly.
She sighs, quick and relieved. “Yeah, looks like it.”
Ellie seems to notice the change in your posture, how you loosen slightly, and leans back a little, studying you in that curious, unfiltered way teenagers do.
“So,” she says, drawing out the word. “You were… married to Joel?”
You stiffen. That one hits bone.
“Okay, too soon.”
You shake your head. “No, it’s—” You pause, gathering your voice back into something flat, neutral. “Yes. We were married.”
“Wow.” She whistles softly. “I mean, huh. You and Joel. That’s—” She stops, shakes her head, smirking. “Never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothin’. Just. Hard to imagine him married. He kinda strikes me as the lone-wolf-and-whiskey type, y’know?”
“He wasn’t always.”
“Yeah?”
“He liked to dance.”
That makes her laugh—loud, surprised. “Bullshit.”
“He did. Badly.”
She snorts. “Okay, now I gotta see that someday.”
You don’t answer. You just look down at your hands, tracing the small scar near your knuckle. A moment passes. Then she shifts again, like she’s working up the nerve to keep going.
“So… you guys got, uh…” She squints. “What’s the word—divorced? Before the outbreak? You said ‘were married’.”
The question hits you like cold water.
“No,” you say softly. “No, we didn’t.”
“Oh.” She looks at you for a second too long, then nods slowly. “Just been a long time, huh?”
You exhale through your nose. “Yeah. Long time.”
Ellie is easy in a way you’ve forgotten how to be. She swears under her breath, uses her hands when she talks, doesn’t know how to sit still. She reminds you of… you, before the world before it burned down.
You find yourself leaning forward, asking her small things. How long she’s been with Joel. Where she came from. Whether she likes Jackson.
She answers, haltingly at first, then quicker, sharper. You learn she’s got a sense of humor that you enjoy. You understand it.
And then—
Ellie hesitates. Her gaze flicks toward the window, then back to you. “You… you must’ve known Sarah, then.”
The name slices through you like wire.
Sarah.
You blink, too slow, too hard.
“Sarah,” you echo, the syllables thick on your tongue. “Of course I do.” You can’t stop the small laugh that breaks out of you—shaky, a little too high. “God, how did I not ask? I didn’t even—she’s grown now, right? Almost forty. Jesus. Does she—does she still paint? Or play soccer? She always had that little pink ball she’d kick around the kitchen—drove Joel crazy, used to leave scuff marks all over the floor—”
You stop. Because Ellie isn’t smiling.
She’s staring at you.
And her whole face has gone still.
“Oh.”
Just that.
And you know.
Instantly.
Your mouth opens, but no words come. The world seems to narrow, sound folding in on itself. You can’t feel your hands. You can’t feel anything.
“No,” you whisper, but it’s barely a sound. “No. Not Sarah.”
Ellie doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Just watches you, stricken.
You shake your head, your body already rejecting it, like maybe if you move fast enough, you can outpace the truth. “No, she—she’s just a kid. She is—she—”
You don’t finish. The words choke, collapse.
Something inside you caves in slow motion. The air leaves the room, the floor vanishes. You sink to your knees before you even realize you’ve moved.
You see Sarah’s hair, the way it stuck to her forehead when she ran. Her laugh. The way she used to look at Joel. The way she looked at you. The smell of pancakes on Sunday mornings. Her tiny hand tugging at yours when she wanted to show you something she’d drawn.
Gone. Forever fourteen.
Gone twenty years ago, while you were out there convincing yourself it wasn’t true.
You cover your mouth with both hands. The sound that breaks out of you isn’t human—it’s raw, keening, dragged from the deepest part of you that never healed.
Ellie’s eyes are wide. She moves before she thinks, kneeling beside you, uncertain, awkward. “Hey, hey, I’m—shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
You stumble backward, your legs barely obeying you. The room is too bright, too close. Ellie’s voice is muffled, like it’s coming from underwater. You don’t even hear what she’s saying anymore. You can only hear Sarah. Sarah laughing. Sarah crying. Sarah’s voice calling for you in the dark.
Your throat closes. You can’t breathe. You can’t see.
“She’s gone,” you whisper to no one. “She’s gone. Sarah’s gone.”
Maria appears in front of you, gentle hands hovering but not touching. “Hey—hey, slow down. It’s okay. You’re safe, you hear me?”
You shake your head. “No. No, I—she—” You choke, your chest collapsing under invisible weight. “She’s just a kid. She—she calls me—she calls me mama—”
Maria’s eyes soften, and that’s worse. You can’t bear it. Her pity feels like fire.
You hear Tommy’s boots pounding against the floor, his voice low but urgent. “What happened?”
Ellie’s voice, trembling. “I—I told her about Sarah.”
Maria glances over her shoulder, and Tommy growls. “Christ almighty.” He doesn’t look at you for long—maybe he can’t.
You hear Tommy leave with a string of curses, his boots thumping until he disappeared into the snow.
You press your palms over your face, rocking slightly. The room feels like it’s tilting. Every breath comes in sharp bursts, tearing your lungs.
“She’s gone,” you whisper, voice trembling. “She’s gone, and I didn’t—”
Your breath shudders out of you, and you clutch at the wall like it might hold you up.
Maria glances toward Ellie, and something passes silently between them—understanding, guilt, something like fear. Tommy curses quietly under his breath. “I’ll get him,” he says, and he’s gone before Maria can stop him.
Your voice breaks. You press your hands over your face, curling inward. “I wasn’t there,” you whisper. “I wasn’t there.”
Maria’s hand hovers near your shoulder, then pulls back. She looks helpless.
A sound—heavy boots, the door opening. You don’t have to look up. You know that sound. You could find it in a storm.
Joel’s frozen in the doorway, chest heaving. His eyes land on you. You see the recognition hit him like a hammer.
“Darlin’,” he breathes, his voice hoarse, wrecked.
You shake your head, stepping back.
He doesn’t listen. He never did. In three long strides he’s kneeling in front of you, hands hovering before settling on your shoulders. His touch is rough, too warm.
“Don’t—don’t touch me—” You push at him weakly. “She’s gone, Joel. She’s gone.”
He pulls you into his chest anyway, his arms tight around you as you struggle. “I know,” he says, his voice low, shaking. “I know, baby, I know.”
You pound your fists against him, but the strength’s gone from your body. “You don’t—”
“I do,” he cuts in, desperate. “I do.”
You stop fighting. His arms hold steady, the kind of hold that used to calm you down. You can feel the tremor in his hands, the way he keeps his face buried in your hair.
“She’s gone,” you whisper, smaller now. “Our girl. She—”
He doesn’t let you finish. He shifts, lifting you the best he can, one arm under your knees, the other at your back. You cling to his shirt on instinct, your body shaking as he carries you down the hallway. You can barely see through the blur of tears.
Joel shoulders the door to your room open and nudges it shut behind him with his boot.
He sets you down gently on the bed, but you push yourself away the moment your feet touch the floor. You back up, hands shaking, your breath sharp and uneven. “Don’t—don’t do that,” you rasp.
He goes quiet. The silence stretches. You can hear the whoosh of snow starting against the window.
When he finally speaks, his voice is low. “You wanna know what happened?”
You don’t answer, but he tells you anyway.
He talks like a man digging up a grave. His words come in fragments—him and Sarah on the couch, the sirens, the Alders, Tommy’s truck, the soldiers, the gun. His voice falters only once, when he says her name.
“\We were tryin’ to get out. Got stopped by a soldier. They told him—told him to take us down. I was holdin’ her when he fired.” He swallows hard, eyes shining wet. “She was scared. Cryin’. I told her I had her. That I wasn’t gonna let go.”
You stare at him, unmoving. Every breath feels like swallowing glass. “You held her,” you say, the words barely forming. “You—”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he murmurs. “I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t—” His voice breaks, and he turns his head, like looking at you hurts.
You sit on the edge of the bed, shaking. The words echo in your skull, each one heavier than the last. The room feels too small, the air too thick.
You look at him. His hands hang useless at his sides, his face drawn, hollow. You think of all the years he carried that weight alone. How you carried your own.
You reach out.
He hesitates, then closes the distance, kneeling in front of you again. You rest your head against his chest, the fabric of his shirt damp from your tears. His arms come around you, slow and sure.
You cry until you can’t anymore—quietly, your hands fisted in his shirt. He doesn’t tell you to stop. He doesn’t move to fix it.
Now it’s just the two of you again. Broken. Breathing. Holding on because there’s nothing else left to do.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
Joel didn’t give Tommy a choice to get you to move in with him.
He showed up the next day, the expression on his face enough to silence any argument before it began. Tommy stood there on the porch trying to say something that wouldn’t get his head bitten off. But when he looked at you—eyes blank, body barely holding itself upright—he just sighed, nodded once, and stepped aside.
The guest bedroom smelled faintly of cedar and dust, and cleaner than it should’ve been—like he’d gone through it himself and made it ready before he even brought you here. You didn’t thank him. You just sat down on the bed and stared at the wall until it blurred.
The first night, you cried so hard you made yourself sick. Joel stayed outside the door the whole time, boots heavy on the wood floor. He didn’t come in.
By the third night, he’d moved a chair into your room and sat there while you slept—if you could call it that.
Every memory twisted just enough to hurt. You’d wake up gasping, and Joel would already be there, and sometimes just murmur, “You’re alright,” though neither of you believed it.
By the end of the first week, he’d stopped pretending to sleep in his own bed. He just curled up at the foot of yours with a blanket and pillow, a quiet shadow. When you woke up sobbing, he was there. When you refused to eat, he was there, pressing a spoon into your mouth, his jaw tight with that quiet patience that looked more like punishment than care.
Never turned away when you cried from shame. Wiped your face clean. Tucked you in. Never said a word about it.
Tonight is like every one of those nights.
It starts before the sun sets. The light through the blinds looks too much like the color of fire, like the burning hospital, and something in your chest just snaps. You curl into yourself, hands gripping the blanket, and Joel’s there in a second, just coming off his patrol.
“Hey,” he says softly, like you might shatter if he breathes too hard. “Hey, now. Look at me.”
You don’t. You can’t. You’re somewhere else entirely.
He sits on the edge of the bed, careful, slow. “You’re safe,” he tries again. “You’re right here, darlin’.”
That word—it tears something open in you. You turn your face into the pillow and sob so violently your ribs ache. Joel just sits there. Then he moves closer, kneeling beside the bed, his hands braced on the mattress.
“It’s okay,” he whispers.
But it isn’t. It isn’t okay.
Your voice comes out hoarse, like you haven’t spoken in years. “She was scared.”
Joel freezes.
“She was—she was scared, and I wasn’t there.”
He swallows hard, the sound loud in the quiet room.
“I just know it.”
His jaw flexes, and his breath stutters. For a moment, he looks like he’s going to argue—but then he just lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, only it’s broken right down the middle.
Joel drags both hands down his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until his knuckles go white. “I was supposed to protect her,” he chokes out. “That was my job. My one Goddamn job, and I failed.”
Your breath catches. You reach out before you can stop yourself, fingers brushing his arm.
He doesn’t flinch away.
“She was—she was so little,” you whisper.
He nods, eyes closed. His chest rises and falls too fast. “She was,” he breathes.
Neither of you speak for a while. You can hear the crickets outside. The faint, uneven hitch of his breathing.
When you finally speak, it’s a wish you didn’t plan to say.
“I wish Ellie’s knife killed me.”
Joel’s head snaps up.
“What?”
You meet his eyes—really meet them this time, even through the blur of tears. “That knife,” you say, voice breaking. “When she stabbed me—I didn’t think it then. But now…” Your throat locks. “It should’ve killed me. I can’t… can’t live in a world that took Sarah.”
He stares at you like you just reached into his chest and pulled out something he’d buried. His eyes glisten. His mouth opens, then closes again.
“Don’t say that,” he rasps.
“Joel—”
“Don’t,” he snaps, sharper now, voice cracking under the weight. “Don’t you ever say that. You hear me?”
You flinch. His hand shoots out before he can stop himself, gripping your wrist.
“I can’t lose you too,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “I can’t—I ain’t strong ‘nough for that.”
“You already lost me.”
“No. No, you’re still here. You’re breathin’. You’re here.”
Something inside you caves in. You don’t know which one of you moves first, but suddenly he’s holding you, arms around you tight enough to hurt, his face pressed to your shoulder. His whole body trembles.
You cling back. For the first time since you moved in, you hold him just as tightly.
He leans in until your foreheads touch again, his thumb brushing over the tear tracks on your cheek. There’s no logic in the way he looks at you—just devastation and recognition, like you’re both staring into the same pit and realizing you’ve been standing beside each other the whole time.
He stays that way until the trembling stops, until your breathing evens out, until the room softens around the edges. Then, quietly, he moves to the foot of the bed, to settle in like always.
But this time, when you reach out, your fingers find his sleeve.
He looks up, startled at first, like he’s not sure he felt what he did. Your hand stays there, curled into the fabric, your knuckles white.
“Don’t,” you whisper.
He blinks. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t go.”
The words come out small, almost childlike, and you hate how fragile they sound—but they’re true. Every piece of you feels hollow when he’s not near.
Joel’s throat works. He studies you like he’s trying to find the right answer in your face. “You sure?” he murmurs.
You nod, but it’s shaky. He still doesn’t move.
“I mean it,” he says again, voice rough. “You—don’t gotta say things you don’t—”
“I said don’t go.”
That’s all it takes. The bed dips when he sits beside you. You move without thinking—your hand on his shirt, then his chest, then his arm, like you’re checking to make sure he’s real.
He doesn’t stop you. You pull him closer.
He hesitates, every muscle in him tight, like he’s fighting instinct. His hand hovers in the air for a moment before it lands gently at your waist.
You tug him down until he’s lying beside you.
You can hear his heartbeat, feel the heat of him under your fingers. The two of you are stiff at first—two unfamiliar bodies trying to remember something that used to be second nature.
You don’t know what you’re doing. Neither does he.
He exhales against your temple, like he’s afraid the air itself might hurt you. You breathe him in, and it feels like something old and safe and terrifying all at once.
His hand finds yours under the blanket. His thumb moves, back and forth, the smallest stroke. You don’t realize you’re crying once more until he brushes one away with his knuckle.
He whispers something you can’t quite catch. Maybe it’s your name. Maybe it’s hers. You don’t ask. You just trace the rough line of his throat, the scars on his hand, the dip of his collarbone. He does the same, learning you by touch—your shoulder, your hair, the hollow at the base of your throat.
It’s clumsy, reverent, too gentle for how much it hurts.
You both crack there—slow, like spreading a fracture through glass. Thumb brushing along the edge of his jaw, his nose skimming your cheek, your jaw. He tucks you in against his chest. You listen to his heart until it steadies.
And this new ritual continues.
Time folds in on itself—weeks slide past like snowmelt, impossible to hold. You stop counting by days or calendars; you measure life instead by the smallest things.
The sound of boots at the door. The shape of his hand around a hammer, around a map, around the edge of your world.
By late November, you’ve grown familiar to the smell of coffee, sharp and earthy. He always makes two cups, one waiting for you by the sink. You don’t always drink it. Some days you only stand there, palms around the mug, letting the heat soak into your fingers until it cools.
He pretends not to watch. Sits at the table with a stack of repair notes or a half-folded map, eyes flicking up just long enough to catch you breathing. Sometimes you think he’s waiting to see if you’ll join him. You rarely do.
Instead, you spend time washing dishes. Folding blankets. You cook, sometimes—only simple things. Never what Sarah loved. Not the pancakes she’d drown in syrup, not the chicken stew she’d claim was “better than school lunch.” You can’t.
The world outside turns whiter, the light shorter each day. Ellie drifts in and out of the house, mostly keeping to the garage. You learn she’s been staying there. She has her own rhythm—friends, her girlfriend. It’s soft, watching her have something sweet.
Some days, Joel tries to coax you outside. Mentions the farmers’ meetings, the community dinners, the patrol schedules. You always shake your head.
“Maybe next week,” you say
He nods like he already knew. But he keeps asking.
And he keeps bringing things home. A pressed flower. A basket of foods you loved. A novel he found in the old library, the corners worn soft. He never makes a show of it. Just leaves them on the counter.
Sometimes you thank him.
Sometimes you just stare at the gift, fingertips brushing its edge, shock and disbelief running through your system.
Then one morning, the sky pale with early snowlight, you wake up to the house quiet. You move through the rooms on autopilot—bare feet against cold floors, the air sharp in your lungs.
You’re about to shower, something you’ve started looking forward to. You love the feeling of water washing away the ache, if only for a little while.
But when you open the drawer for clothes—nothing. Every shirt, every pair of jeans you’ve gathered from Maria and Tommy over the past few weeks is gone, tangled in the bottom of the basket. Unwashed.
You curse softly under your breath.
Passing through the kitchen, you spot a folded note on the counter. Joel’s handwriting—blocky, uneven.
Went to help at the barn.
Didn’t get to the laundry yet. My bad.
You can borrow whatever of mine you need.
—J.M.
You stare at it for a long time, thumb brushing over the edge of the paper. The thought of him doing your laundry hits you sideways. You can picture it too easily: at the sink, sleeves rolled up, that furrow between his brows.
Your face warms. You forgot he’s been the one washing your clothes. Your shirts. Your jacket. Your jeans.
Your bras.
Your panties.
God, you were married to the man for almost 15 years, yet now you were getting bashful and flushed over the fact that he was touching your underwear. You cursed your mind.
The note ends with a postscript, scribbled small:
Stay warm. Water heater’s touchy again—let it run first.
You let out a quiet, reluctant smile.
You take a shower. The water sputters and steams, hot enough to sting. You stand under it longer than you should, until the mirror fogs and your skin glows.
When you step out, the air bites against your damp hair. You wrap yourself in a towel and pad barefoot to his bedroom. The floorboards creak like they recognize you. The dresser drawers are stiff; they don’t like being opened. You rummage through the top one, the smell hitting you before your fingers even find it—cedar and faint tobacco.
Soft flannel. His.
You pause, thumb running over the collar, the worn edges. You haven’t worn Joel’s clothes in years—a whole lifetime has happened since. But the muscle memory is still there; you remember exactly how the fabric has been mended to shape.
You hesitate anyway.
“Jesus,” you whisper to no one. “You’re ridiculous.”
You slip it on.
The sleeves hang long, brushing your wrists, the fabric rough. It still smells like him, even washed. You close your eyes and breathe, until it almost hurts.
And suddenly you’re back there. In that other life.
The early mornings. The arguments about stupid shit. The way he’d leave his boots by the door and say, “I’ll get ‘em later,” and you’d roll your eyes and pick them up yourself. The nights when he’d come home late, exhausted and half-awake, and still manage to find you in the dark.
You don’t mean to move, but you do—backward, step by step, until your knees hit the edge of the bed. His bed. You fall onto it, the mattress giving beneath you. You press your face deeper into his pillow, chasing that comfort.
“Goddamn you,” you whisper into the cotton.
But what you mean is thank you.
It’s like being wrapped in him. And God, you’re terrified of what it means. Not of him—never of him—but of this. Of the way he lingers in everything.
He lingered on everything. Your soul, your life, your heart. Your body on those cold winter nights, him between your in a way only a lover knows how. Your body as you pinched and stroked you to ecstasy like it was his sole purpose.
Your breath hitches, and your fingers twitch against the fabric. You shouldn’t. You won’t. You’re stronger than this—or so you tell yourself. But your resolve frays like threadbare cloth.
Your hand moves before you can stop it, tentative at first, grazing the hem of his flannel. A shiver runs through you, sharp and electric.
No, you think, biting your lip hard enough to sting. Don’t do this.
But his voice echoes in your mind, soft and teasing, unraveling you.
C’mon, darlin’. Let go for me.
You’re lost in him, in this need whispered against your skin.
Your hand drifts lower, fingertips grazing the skin just above your knee. The touch is feather-light, testing.
You part your thighs, with cool air kissing your slick heat; you’re already drenched. When’s the last time you let yourself feel this? Years, maybe. Survival doesn’t leave room for want.
You slide through your folds, parting them, circling the swollen ache that built so quickly, just off his smell.
Please, Joel. Touch me. I’ve been so cold.
One finger slips inside, then another. The stretch is perfect, but not enough. You curl them, searching, and when you find that spot, your breath stumbles out in a broken moan.
You take me so good, baby. Always have.
You nod against the fabric, and then hastily pull the buttons undone down to your navel, and you push one side aside with trembling fingers.
Your breast spills free—flushed, nipple peaked tight. You cup it, thumb flicking with your nail once, twice, then pinching hard enough to make your breath hitch. The sting shoots straight to your cunt. You roll the nipple between finger and thumb, tugging until your back lifts off the mattress.
You move your head to the side, the collar in front of your nose, and you stay inhaling him while you fuck yourself on your fingers, deep, steady strokes that match the pulse in your ears.
The rhythm turns frantic. Wet sounds fill the small space, obscene and perfect. You add a third finger; the burn is exquisite. You imagine his weight pinning you down, hips snapping, voice rough in your ear.
You want me to come in the pussy I put a ring on?
You come with a muffled cry, body shuddering. Your walls clamp down, thighs trembling. Pleasure crashes in sharp, endless waves, your fingers still buried deep, slick coating your hand and the inside of your thighs.
The world narrows to the pulse of your heartbeat, the ragged rhythm of your gasps. Slowly, the waves ebb, leaving you trembling in their wake. Your hand falls away, slick and heavy, resting against your exposed breast. You don’t move to cover yourself.
The room is quiet again, save for the soft creak of the bedframe beneath your weight and the faint chirping of morning birds.
Your chest heaves, each breath a struggle. Staring at the ceiling, your eyes tracing the cracks as your mind catches up to your body. The pleasure lingers, but it’s drowned by the slow creep of something else.
Guilt, maybe.
You close your eyes, willing the thought away, but it lingers like the scent on the pillow, like your next thought:
You might be falling in love with your husband again.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
He was early.
You spotted him through the restaurant window, standing under the awning with one hand tucked into his jacket pocket, the other rubbing along his jaw. He looked… nervous. The sight did something funny to your stomach, seeing this broad, quiet man fidgeting like a teenager on prom night.
When he caught sight of you walking toward him, he straightened so fast it almost made you laugh. His hand dropped from his face, and a faint, almost shy smile tugged at his mouth.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and rough, that easy southern drawl curling around the word. “You look—uh. Nice.”
You smiled. “You too.”
He was wearing his usual—plaid shirt, denim jacket, jeans—but somehow it worked differently tonight. Maybe it was the effort. The way his hair was combed down, neat but still a little messy near the edges, or the fact that his boots looked like he’d actually wiped them off before coming.
The hostess seated you near the window. The two of you sat across from each other, menus up like shields, both pretending to read while you waited for the other to speak first.
“So,” Joel started after a few moments, clearing his throat. “Uh—”
You looked up. “Uh?”
“I should probably jus’—jus’ say this upfront.”
You set your menu down, a small smile forming. “Okay.”
He leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping against the table once before curling into a fist. “I got a kid,” he blurted. “Her name’s Sarah. She’s one. Almost two.”
He paused, eyes flicking between you and the salt shaker.
“She’s… well, she’s my whole damn world. I jus’ don’t wanna waste anyone’s time pretendin’ otherwise.”
He said it like he was bracing for a hit. His shoulders were stiff, jaw tight. You could tell it wasn’t something he said often—probably something he practiced in his head on the way here.
“You love her.”
He let out a breath, softer than a sigh. “Yeah. More’n I thought I could love anythin’, to be honest. It’s jus’ been me and her since—well, since birth.” His lips twitched, almost a smile. “So that’s kinda my life. I work, I come home, I make sure she eats somethin’ other than pancakes, and I pass out by nine. Not real excitin’.”
You grinned. “You sound like a good dad.”
That stopped him. He blinked, mouth opening like he didn’t quite know what to do with the words. “You ain’t—uh—you’re not scared off?”
“By a good dad?” you teased. “No. I think that’s actually kind of attractive.”
His ears went a little pink. He looked down, rubbed the back of his neck. “Well,” he murmured. “That’s a first.”
After that, the tension broke.
You asked him about his work—how long he’d been building houses—and his face lit up when he talked about it. He told you about learning carpentry, working with his brother Tommy. You told him about your job, about the people you worked with, the work politics he’d probably hate.
And then somehow the conversation drifted back to Sarah.
“She’s wild,” Joel said, shaking his head with a fond smile. “Got more attitude than I do. Last week she told Tommy he was ‘too old’ to play hide and seek.”
You laughed, and he grinned wider, encouraged.
“She’s obsessed with dinosaurs right now. Keeps askin’ me if there’s any still walkin’ ‘round Texas. I told her, no, but she says maybe there’s one hidin’ in the Hill Country.”
“She sounds smart.”
“Too damn smart, sometimes.” He took a sip of water, then added in a quieter voice, “Her mama—well. She ain’t ‘round. So I’m jus’ tryin’ to figure it out best I can.”
You didn’t press. You just nodded, the silence that followed soft.
Between courses, you caught him watching you once or twice—quick, flickering glances that he pretended didn’t happen when you met his eyes. He asked if your food was good, made a few jokes about the size of the portions, grumbled when the waiter brought him a fancy small plate that “wouldn’t fill a bird.”
It was nice. Simple.
By the time the check came, you felt lighter. The awkwardness from the start had melted into something easy, something warm. You tried to grab for your wallet, but Joel was faster, already sliding his card onto the tray.
“Joel—”
“Nope.”
“C’mon, at least let me—”
“Darlin’, don’t even try.”
You stared at him, fighting a smile. “Darlin’?”
He froze, caught off guard by his own mouth. “Oh. Uh—slipped out. Sorry.”
You laughed. “Don’t be.”
He looked down at his plate, hiding a grin.
When you stepped outside, the night was cool and damp. Streetlights hummed overhead, and the air smelled like rain waiting to happen. Joel walked beside you, hands shoved in his jacket pockets, close enough that your sleeve brushed his once or twice.
At your front door, he stopped.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I had a lotta fun tonight. Really did.”
“Me too.”
He shifted, eyes darting between you and the porch light. “If you wanna… maybe—I don’t know—keep goin’. Not tonight, I mean—well, maybe tonight, but not like that—jus’… I mean, if you wanna see me ‘gain.”
You tried, you really did, but the laugh bubbled out anyway again. He went red to the ears.
“Sorry,” you said between breaths. “You’re just—”
“Terrible at this?”
“Adorable,” you corrected.
“Ain’t heard that one ‘fore.”
You stepped closer, your voice quieter. “Then I guess you were overdue.”
And before he could come up with another flustered thing to say, you leaned up and kissed him.
It was gentle, brief, testing. His breath hitched, the soft scratch of his stubble grazing your chin. But then he kissed you back, slow and certain.
When you finally pulled apart, both of you were smiling without meaning to.
“You wanna come inside?” you asked, barely above a whisper.
He hesitated, mouth curving into something between a grin and a question. “Sarah’s with Tommy.”
You blinked, and shook your head at your mind. “Right. So you should probably—”
“I’ll jus’ pay him more,” he said quickly, like it was the easiest decision in the world.
That made you laugh. “You sure?”
He looked at you, really looked at you, eyes soft and steady. “Yeah. I’m sure.”
You stepped back, opened the door. He followed you in.
The click of the lock behind you sounded louder than it should have. The rain started to fall outside, soft against the windows.
And that, was the start of it all.
┈┈・ ☣・┈┈
Lights wind around the lampposts, glowing gold through the frost, and you swear the whole town smells faintly of cinnamon and pine.
The crowds gathered around the tree—families, couples, kids running around with half-eaten cookies and sticky fingers. The fire pit crackles, throwing warmth into the cold night. You stand beside Tommy, watching Maria up on the platform giving a short speech about community, about making it through another winter together.
Tommy’s got Benji in his arms. The kid’s nodding off, head tucked under his chin, thumb hanging loose from his mouth. His curls are sticking up in every direction.
You lean a little closer, smile softly. “He’s about two minutes from a faceplant.”
Tommy grins, voice low so he doesn’t wake the boy. “Yeah, he’s a fighter though. Ain’t givin’ in easy.”
Benji stirs, blinking up at you with heavy-lidded eyes. You offer your arms without thinking. “Want me to take him?”
Tommy looks between you and the sleepy kid, then chuckles. “Hey, bud, wanna go over to Aunt, huh?”
Aunt. You’re not even sure he realizes he said it until your throat tightens. You just nod, arms open, and Benji reaches for you without hesitation.
He’s warm and smells like sugar. His little hand curls into your jacket as his head droops against your shoulder. You sway a little, rocking him out of habit you thought you’d forgotten.
Tommy watches, something soft flickering in his expression. “You always were good with kids,” he says.
You smile, brushing a curl from Benji’s forehead. “Guess it’s like riding a bike.”
“Yeah,” Tommy murmurs. “One hell of a bike.”
You don’t respond. Your eyes trace the curve of Benji’s lashes, the faint freckles under his eyes. He’s got that same Miller look—those brown eyes, that furrow even when he’s half-asleep. You’ve seen it in Tommy. In Joel. In Sarah.
Your chest tightens. You look away before Tommy can see the wet shine starting in your eyes.
Maria’s speech winds down, her voice softening into a smile. The crowd claps. Maria steps off the platform, her eyes finding Tommy and Benji immediately.
“There’s my boys,” she says, coming over.
She holds her arms out for Benji. He mumbles something sleepy, reaching one hand back toward you before his head falls against Maria’s shoulder.
“Out cold,” she whispers, smiling.
You nod, hands feeling strangely empty once he’s gone.
The music starts again—a few people strumming guitars, someone singing off-key but earnest. Around you, people start exchanging small, wrapped gifts. You’d almost forgotten you brought yours.
“Hey,” you murmur, reaching into your coat pocket and pulling out the little parcel. “This is for Benji.”
Tommy takes it, grinning as he peels back the paper. Inside is a tiny carved horse, the wood polished smooth, the details careful—each line of the mane precise. You spent weeks finding it, trading with an older man in the workshop who’d carved it by hand.
“Look at this,” Tommy says, awe threading through his voice. “You serious? You got this for him?”
You shrug, a little bashful. “He’s obsessed with the ones you keep in the barn. Figured he needed one he can keep in his pocket.”
Maria smiles, kissing her son’s temple. “He’s gonna love it.”
You hand her two more small bundles—one for each of them. A new leather glove set for Tommy, stitched tight and warm. A scarf for Maria, deep green, softer as anything you’ve felt in years.
Tommy whistles low. “You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.”
They glance at each other. That wordless kind of look. Then Maria reaches behind her coat and pulls out a square, neatly wrapped in cloth.
“This one’s from us.”
“You didn’t—”
“Jus’ open it,” he says, voice low.
The paper rustles softly. You fold it back, careful with the corners. Then your breath catches.
It’s a photo.
A real, glossy photo in a simple wooden frame. The edges yellowed with age but the image clear.
You and Joel—both asleep, tangled up on a sunlit porch. His arm draped across your waist. Your head resting against his chest. Sarah’s in the background, hands on her hips, grinning at the camera like she’s in on a secret. And in the far corner, barely visible in the reflection, a familiar shadow—Tommy, holding the camera.
Your throat closes.
You trace the edge of the frame with your thumb. “Tommy… how—”
“After the outbreak,” he says quietly, staring into the fire instead of at you. “First couple years. Went back to Austin. Most of it was gone, but the photo box was still there. Been keepin’ it safe.”
You don’t realize you’re crying until the tears blur the image in your hands. You blink fast, but it doesn’t stop the ache building in your chest.
“I thought they were all gone,” you whisper.
Tommy shrugs, smiling a little.
You step forward and hug him. Tight. Your arms around his shoulders, the photo pressed between you so you don’t drop it. He hesitates, then holds you back just as firmly.
Maria watches with a soft smile, Benji sleeping peacefully against her.
You pull back eventually, eyes red, voice rough. “Thank you,” you murmur.
Tommy’s face is all soft lines. “Go eat. You look like you’ll fall into the fire otherwise.” He grins and gestures toward the Tipsy Bison like he’s offering you heaven on a platter.
It smells like cinnamon and cheap liquor and something toasted that turns your stomach into guilty wanting. You thread through people, keeping the picture safe against your ribs. The crowd moves slow; laughter spills from somewhere, and someone is playing the guitar off-key and everyone loves it anyway.
A man steps in front of you—too close, his breath warm with old-cologne regret. He’s around your age, maybe a decade younger if you squint, wearing a patched jacket and confidence like it’s a badge.
“You lookin’ lonely,” he says, grin crooked. “Mind if I—”
“I’m not,” you say. Your smile is small and final. You tuck the word away and step to the side to keep the crowd moving. You make it to the bar, and order your drink. It comes quickly.
He doesn’t take the hint, following you. “Come on, lighten up. I’ve got a bottle with your name on it.”
“Not interested,” you say, firmer. The drink in your hand clinks. You can feel the edges of the photo under your palm like a talisman.
He laughs like you’re the joke. “Someone’s touchy. You look like you could use a good time.”
“Or maybe you could use a lesson,” you say. “Either way, back off.”
People nearby glance. A woman in a knitted hat gives you a sympathetic look; a boy laughs and points. The man’s jaw tightens. He takes a step closer until his fingers brush your arm.
“Don’t,” you say. Loud enough now. Heads turn.
He bends, leans in. “I said—”
You lift the cup and pour. The liquor arcs, wet and immediate, over his face. His hair plastered flat, his mouth opens in surprise, then anger.
“Jesus—” he spits, hand flying to his face. His laugh is gone. He wipes at his eyes, fury hot and immediate.
“Don’t touch me,” you snap. “Don’t touch any woman who doesn’t want it. Fuck off asshole.”
He glares at you, anger thick enough to taste.
The he moves.
Your body reacts before your brain: the shove, the pressure of a palm against his chest to put distance between you and the hand that hovered too long. Something clamps down on your neck—hard—and cold fingers braided through your hair. Pain flares hot along your scalp as he pulls. Instinct roars, everything narrowing to the shape of the man’s face.
You twist, ready to break his nose, but you doesn’t get the chance.
A blur of motion—then the man’s body jerks sideways. He hits the ground hard, air leaving him in a grunt.
You stumble away from the sudden relief of pressure on your head. You cradle it, and look over your shoulder with harsh breaths.
Joel’s there.
Not the quiet Joel. Not the ‘coffee in the morning’ Joel. Not the Joel who sleeps in your bed, holding you tight. This is something else. A version of him pulled straight out of the man you met at the gas station—feral and unfiltered. His chest heaves once before he moves again, towering over the man.
“Get your fuckin’ hands off my wife!”
The words tear out of him, raw, louder than the music, louder than the people shouting. And then he’s on him.
Fists. Over and over. Flesh hitting flesh, the sound thick and wet. Someone screams his name.
Joel doesn’t hear. He’s somewhere else: lost to the sound of his own heartbeat, to the cruelty of a world that took too much from him and dared to reach for you.
“Joel!” you shout, pushing through the people trying to pull him off. “Joel, stop!”
He doesn’t.
You grab his shoulder, hard, nails digging into the fabric of his jacket.
That gets him. His fist hangs midair, knuckles split, breath ragged. He turns. His eyes—they’re wild. Like he doesn’t even recognize where he is.
Then he sees you.
The rage drains fast, leaving him pale. His hands fall. He looks down at the man beneath him, half-conscious, face bleeding into the floor. The silence that follows is brutal. Everyone’s staring. No one moves.
Joel’s chest rises and falls, too fast. Then he stands, his hands—bloodied and shaking—on your face.
“Hey. Hey, look at me. You okay?” His voice cracks halfway through, the old, broken edge of it cutting through everything else. His thumbs brush your cheeks, leaving streaks of red. “He hurt you? Tell me if he did.”
You shake your head, swallowing hard. You’re fine. You were fine. You always were.
He growls something at your lack of words, looking around the crowd before tucking you against his side and his hand steady at your back. You can hear the crowd murmuring, whispers darting like fish through water.
Exiting the Tipsy Bison, you spot Tommy’s face through the haze—brows drawn, mouth tight. Maria’s beside him, arms crossed, listening to someone whisper in her ear. Her expression doesn’t change.
You hold your photo tighter. You stare straight ahead, past the people, past the lights.
The fear comes slow.
Maybe Joel did love you once. Maybe he still did. But you can’t stop thinking about what love costs now. What it demands.
He doesn’t speak until you’re well past the town square, the noise fading behind you. The snow crunches under your boots, slow and steady, the kind of silence that feels heavier than shouting.
Then you pull away.
“Stop,” you say.
He does, immediately. Turns to you in the middle of the empty street, breath clouding in the cold. Snow gathers in his beard, catches on his lashes. He looks older like this—softer really, though the blood on his hands hasn’t dried yet.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “If I scared you. I didn’t mean to. I’m—so sorry, darlin’.”
You shake your head, words shaking with your breath. “No. It’s not that. I just—” You press a hand to your chest. “I can’t do this anymore.”
His brow furrows. “Can’t do what?”
“This,” you say. You motion between you, your voice thin. “You. Me. The way you—look at me like I’m still…” You stop, shaking your head. “Like we’re still the same people.”
He steps closer, hand half-raised, hesitant. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“You scare me, Joel.”
The words hang there, suspended. You can see the way they hit him, like a punch he doesn’t block.
He blinks. “What?”
“You scare me,” you repeat, quieter now. “Not because of what you did. But because you think you owe it to me. Like I’m still yours.”
“You are mine.”
You close your eyes. The snow’s starting to fall harder, catching on your lashes. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
He shakes his head, steps forward again, pleading. “I didn’t mean to lose control. I jus’—he touched you, and I saw red. I couldn’t—hell, I ain’t proud of it, but I’d do it ‘gain if it meant—”
“Joel.” You interrupt, firm. “Just stop.”
He freezes mid-sentence, mouth still open like the air left him.
You take a step back. Then another. “You keep saying you’re sorry, but you’re not. You’re still justifying it. You think it’s love, but it’s not. It’s fear. It’s control. You think if you hold on tight enough, you won’t lose me again.”
His chest rises and falls, ragged. “You don’t understand—”
“You were my husband,” you say, your voice shaking now. “You were the best thing I had. And then the world ended, and I lost you. I learned to live without you. To fight. To protect myself. And now—now you’re back, and I don’t know how to breathe with you around, yet at the same time I can’t. You smother me, Joel.”
“I ain’t tryin’ to smother you, I’m tryin’ to keep you alive.”
“I don’t need you to keep me alive,” you fire back. “I already did that for twenty years without you.”
He takes a step closer, voice breaking. “I don’t know how to not care ‘bout you. You understand? I don’t know how to turn that off. I’ve already lost everythin’ once, I can’t—”
“But you aren’t my husband anymore.”
He stops cold.
The snow falls thicker now, lazy flakes settling in his hair, catching in his lashes. His breath comes out uneven, fogging the air between you. He looks at you like he’s trying to recognize a face in a dream—one that keeps slipping away every time he blinks.
“No.”
“Joel—”
“No.” He shakes his head hard, eyes wide, something wild behind them. “Don’t say that. Don’t—don’t do that to me.”
You step forward, voice soft. “Joel, listen to me—”
“You don’t get to just say that like it’s some Goddamn fact. Like it ain’t—” He cuts himself off, running a hand down his face, the motion trembling. “Y’think I can jus’ stop bein’ your husband ‘cause the world went to shit?”
You feel your throat close. “That’s not what I—”
“‘Cause I never stopped.” His voice cracks, raw and broken. “Not for one second. Every day, I—” He presses a fist against his chest, like he’s trying to hold something in. “I woke up, and I thought of you. I went to sleep thinkin’ of you. When I saw—when I saw Ellie—I thought, ‘you’d like her,’ because I still—still thought about what you’d like.”
“Joel…”
He’s breathing hard now, his voice shaking. “Y’think I don’t know what I am? What I’ve done? Y’think I don’t hate myself every time I look in the mirror? But I never—” He stops. His jaw clenches, and then, in a shaky motion, he reaches for the zipper of his coat.
“Don’t—stop—”
But he’s already pulling it open, shoving the heavy fabric aside. His fingers dig under his flannel, and when something comes out, something holding on a thin chain.
The moonlight catches it. A dull glint of gold. A wedding band, pressed against his chest like a second heartbeat.
You go still.
Your throat burns, but no sound comes out.
“I didn’t wear it for twenty-somethin’ years, carried it ‘round in my pocket,” he says hoarsely. His eyes glisten, fixed on yours. “Couldn’t. Didn’t feel right. But when I found you ‘gain, when I—when I saw you—” His hand trembles as he grips the ring. “I started wearin’ it ‘gain.”
You stare at him, lips parting, chest heaving with too many emotions at once.
“I thought of you every day,” he says, voice rough as gravel. “Beat myself bloody over losin’ you and Sarah. Over not savin’ you. And now you stand here and tell me I ain’t your husband.” His voice cracks. “How the hell am I supposed to live with that?”
You want to speak. You want to tell him that this isn’t fair. But when you open your mouth, nothing comes out.
Because your hands are already moving.
You reach up, fingers shaking, fumbling at your collar. The chain catches against your skin as you pull it free, and the air leaves your lungs when you pull our your own glint of gold.
Joel’s breath stutters. He takes a half step forward, like he’s afraid it’ll disappear if he gets too close. His lips part, trembling.
“You… you didn’t have it, when you left. How did you—”
“I couldn’t let it go.”
He makes a sound—half sob, half gasp—and suddenly he’s moving.
The distance between you collapses in a heartbeat. His arms are around you before you can breathe, before you can think, and then you’re both crashing together like you’ve been pulled by the same gravity. His mouth finds yours, desperate, broken, and you respond just as fiercely, clinging to him like he’s the only thing holding you upright.
The picture slips from your hand, falling face-down into the snow. You don’t even notice.
You taste salt—tears, his or yours, you can’t tell. His hands are in your hair, on your back, clutching, trembling. Yours are pressed to his chest, feeling the thrum of his heartbeat under your palms, the metal of the ring chain warm against your fingers.
He pulls back just enough to look at you. His forehead rests against yours, breath mingling in the freezing air.
“Please,” he mutters against your lips, his voice trembling like the rest of him. “Don’t—don’t go.”
“No,” you whisper back, voice rough, almost lost in the wind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He chokes again, pulling the picture from the snow with shaking hands. His eyes go wide and hollow for a second, taking in what it is, before the sound escapes him—low, guttural, broken.
“C’mon,” he says hoarsely, tugging you toward him. “Let’s go… home.”
“Okay.”
He pulls you in close again as he guides you down the snow-lined street toward home. Rancher Street comes into view, quiet and empty, the glow of porch lights soft against the dark.
Inside, the house smells faintly of woodsmoke and something sweet. You see light spilling from the garage; Ellie’s there.
Joel sets the picture frame down gently on the entry table, reverent almost, before his attention snaps back to you. He steps forward, pressing you harshly against him again. A kiss, long and desperate, his hands clutching at your arms, your shoulders, like he’s relearning your weight against his.
You reach to his side, and he lets out a sharp wince against your lips. He curses softly, half-grunt, half-groan. “Joel—” you start, moving to check, but he shakes his head.
“Don’t care. Keep goin’,” he insists.
He leans in again, brushing against your lips, but you step back, firm. “No. Joel, c’mon. Sit.”
He huffs, muttering, but follows your gesture, settling onto the couch where you point. You rush to the kitchen, retrieving the small medical kit you know is there. When you return, he’s already watching you, breathing a little faster, eyes shadowed with something between exhaustion and longing.
“Take it off,” you instruct softly.
He frowns but complies without argument, peeling off the heavy winter coat, then the flannel, then the shirt beneath. Now bare to the waist, he’s different. The chest beneath your hands is broad, scarred, marked by years you don’t need to ask about. Hair dusts his shoulders and chest. His wedding band glints at the center, catching the firelight.
Your fingers move to the red mark forming along his ribs. You hiss softly, careful, cleaning and pressing gently. He leans into you, eyes closed, letting the quiet comfort of your care anchor him.
“You need to be careful. You aren’t young anymore, can’t heal at the same rate. We can only hope that it just stays a bruise and not something really bad.”
He doesn’t answer with words, just tilts his head, the corner of his mouth twitching ever so slightly. Then, without thinking, his hand brushes a strand of hair back from your face.
You feel it deep in your chest. The brush of his fingers lingers longer than necessary, a gentle weight that makes your pulse catch.
You can tell he’s unsure what to say, and for once, it’s the same for you. Just the storm, the couch, the soft clink of mugs.
Joel’s thumb traces along your jaw, quiet, careful. He’s watching you, and it makes your chest ache.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” you finally whisper, voice soft, almost swallowed by the roar of the snow.
You shift closer, letting your forehead rest against his. There’s something in the way he exhales, a tension you’ve both been holding for months, released in the brush of skin to skin.
There’s a beat of silence, and then another. Neither of you moves. The room shrinks until it’s just you, him, and the heat simmering between your bodies.
You finally tilt your head up, catching his eyes.
Both of you know what the other wants. Words aren’t needed in a relationship like yours and Joel’s.
“I… are you sure?” you still check. “It might be too much. And your side might be—”
“Darlin’.”
“Yes?”
He leans up to press a quick kiss to your temple. “Stop talkin’.”
You smile just a fraction. He drags you down to be on the couch with him. Then, slower than you expect compared to before, he lowers his head, lips brushing yours—soft, tentative.
Your body responds instantly. Your hands roam from his back to your chest. He moans softly, lips parting, teeth grazing, tongues brushing, and you taste him like you’d dreamed of for countless nights.
Your hands tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, and he responds in kind, his grip firm on your waist, his body pressing into yours.
The kiss turns into a tug-of-war, pull and counter-pull, lips and hands claiming, taking, giving in equal measure.
In the midst of it, you find yourself on his lap, heart pounding. It’s been years since you’ve experienced anything like this, and your body recalls only fragments.
Your cheeks flush, and you give him a shy, light peck on the lips.
Joel pauses briefly, pulling back just enough to study your face with concern and intensity. “Hey… are you ‘kay?” he asks, his voice low and gentle.
“I’m fine,” you reply, slightly breathless, hands resting on his shoulders. “It’s just… been a while.”
His lips curve into a small, crooked smile. “You’re ain’t alone in that.”
Relief washes over you, comforting you like a warm blanket.
Joel’s hands steady your hips, guiding you as you press against him. Your hips move together, a desperate rhythm. The couch creaks faintly beneath you, but neither of you notices.
Your hands slide up to his neck, fingers threading into the hair at his nape, and he lets out a low, shuddering breath. His eyes darken, watching you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.
“Goddamn,” he breathes, almost to himself, his voice rough with awe. “Look at you.”
You feel the heat rise in your cheeks, but there’s no room for embarrassment. The rhythm slows, and he leans back and before you can process it, he’s easing you off his lap, guiding you to lie back.
He kneels between your legs, his movements unhurried. His fingers find the hem of your jacket and shirt, and he pauses, looking to you for permission. You nod, and he peels the fabric away, exposing your skin to the cool air. His hands move to your jeans next, unbuttoning them. You lift your hips, helping him slide them off, leaving you in just your panties and bra.
Joel sits back on his heels, his eyes raking over you. He huffs out a breath, a low sound that’s half awe, half restraint. His fingers trace a slow path over the fabric covering your slit, and you both shiver at the contact.
“Fuck,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “One thing I forgot was how pretty you looked in these. How fuckin’… soft.”
You whimper, the sound escaping before you can stop it. His eyes flick up to meet yours, and his expression shifts to something almost pleading.
“Touch yourself. Wanna see.”
You hesitate for a moment, but his gaze is patient, urging you on without pressure. Slowly, you slide your fingers down, pulling your panties to the side. You touch yourself, tentative at first, moving through slick, then with more confidence as you feel his eyes on you.
Joel groans, a deep, guttural sound. His hand moves to the front of his jeans, unzipping them but not pulling them down, just enough to let his bulge sit heavy in his boxers. You swallow hard, your eyes flicking to the outline of him, your fingers faltering.
“Keep goin’,” he murmurs, his voice strained. “Need somethin’ pretty to watch. My cock… it don’t work the same no more, but you—” He breaks off, his hand palming himself through the fabric. “You’re doin’ so good.”
His words sink into you, warm and safe, fueling the fire. You circle quicker, your fingers finding a rhythm, and Joel’s breath grows uneven.
He shifts, pulling his boxers down just enough to free himself, his soft cock in his hand as he begins to stroke slowly. The sight makes your breath hitch, and you reach behind to unclasp your bra, letting it fall away. Your skin prickles under his gaze, and a flicker of insecurity creeps in.
“I’m… sorry,” you mumble, eyes dropping. “My body’s not what it used to be.”
Joel’s hand stills, and a low growl rumbles from his chest. “Get that the fuck outta your head,” he says, his voice sharp but not unkind. “I ain’t a catch, darlin’ no more. Look at me—gray hairs, creaky knees. But you? You’re still everythin’.”
You moan softly, emboldened, and slip a finger through your folds, the stretch drawing a shudder through your body. His gaze darkens, his strokes growing firmer as his cock hardens, springing up against his soft belly.
Without warning, Joel leans forward, his hands finding your waist. “C’mere,” he says, and before you can protest, he’s standing and pulling you up with him, and promptly bent down to put you over his shoulder with a grunt.
You gasp, your center of gravity thrown off.
“Joel, don’t show off!” you say, swatting at his back.
He chuckles low, and gives your ass a smack as he climbs the stairs. “Don’t matter if I’m sixty or thirty-six, darlin’. I’m makin’ sure you don’t lift a damn finger.”
The world tilts back to normal as he sets you down on his bed with a huff. He steps back, eyes raking over you, then lies back on the bed, his hand brushing his lips as he looks over at you.
“Sit,” he says, his voice low and commanding.
Your cheeks flush, and you hesitate, glancing down at yourself. “I’m… I’m too heavy,” you murmur, voice barely above a whisper.
“’Gain with this? Sit, darlin’. I ain’t askin’.” His hand reaches for yours, and the certainty in his voice pulls you past your hesitation.
You slip your soaked panties off and move to hover over his face, your thighs framing his head, your own gaze drawn to his hardened cock, now fully erect and resting against his stomach. Joel’s hands grip your hips, and with a low growl, he pulls you down, his tongue finding you with familiar skill that makes you gasp.
The heat of his mouth, the way he works you, makes you wetter than you thought possible.
Your eyes drift to his cock, and you lean forward, your breath catching as you take in the sight of him. Tentatively, you reach out, your fingers brushing against the ridges, and Joel groans against you, “Keep touchin’ me.” he mumbles into you, his voice muffled.
You wrap your hand around him, stroking slowly, matching the rhythm of his tongue. “You’re so good,” you whisper, barely aware of the words spilling out. “Joel, I—”
His hands guide your hips, urging you to move faster, and you comply, grinding harder against his mouth as your hand works him in tandem. Suddenly, a thought crosses your mind, and before you can shy away, you lean forward further, taking him into your mouth, and Joel’s hips buck slightly, a choked groan escaping him.
You hum around him, the vibration drawing another groan from deep in his chest. Pre cum fills your mouth, and you kitten lick at the tip. You can feel Joel’s thighs tense around your head, his groans against your pussy groaning.
The rhythm between you grows frantic, you sucking deep with hollow cheeks, his tongue entering and exiting.
“Joel—” you gasp, pulling back just enough to speak. “I’m close—oh fuck—shit, shit, shit!”
He doesn’t respond with words, but his tongue moves with renewed purpose, pushing you closer to the edge. The tension in your core snaps, and you come undone, a wave of pleasure crashing through you as you cry out, your body trembling against his mouth.
You ride it out, hips moving instinctively, chasing every last pulse of sensation until your breath steadies and you slump forward.
Joel’s hands are gentle now, easing you off him as he shifts beneath you. Before you can catch your breath, he flips you onto your side with a swift, the sudden change making your head spin. You laugh, breathless and a little indignant.
“Joel, you gotta stop manhandling me like that.
He chuckles, his eyes glinting with mischief, his cock pressed flush against your ass. “What, you don’t like it?” he teases, leaning over shoulder, his hand braced on your side. “Thought you’d be used to me by now.”
For a moment, neither of you speaks. Joel’s gaze locks on yours, and he moves closer, notching himself against your sopping core. This feels different—different to all the touching and kissing and sweet gestures. Like the years apart have carved out a space that only this moment can fill. .
You turn your head, looking over your shoulder, and the sight of him—his weathered face, the gray in his stubble, the liver spots on his face, the unguarded emotion in his eyes—hits you like nothing before. Tears prick at your eyes, unbidden, and your voice trembles as you speak.
“I’ve missed you.”
He groans like you stabbed him.
“...I love you.”
He lets out a sound that’s half pleasure, half pain, and pushes into you slowly, filling you with a tenderness. “I love you too,” he says, his voice rough with emotion, cracking slightly on the words. “Always have. Always fuckin’ will.”
Your lips meet over your shoulder, the kiss sloppy and desperate, but neither of you cares. It’s love, pouring into every messy press of lips, every shared breath.
His hands find yours, fingers lacing together, grounding you as he moves, slow and deep, each thrust a reclamation of what you’ve both lost.
His forehead rests against your shoulder, and you feel the tremor in his grip. “Missed you so damn much,” he murmurs, like a secret meant just for you. “Thought I’d never get this ‘gain.”
“Me too,” you whisper, your voice thick with tears. “I didn’t think… I didn’t know if we’d ever—”
“Don’t think all that,” he cuts in softly, his lips brushing your shoulder. “We’re here now. That’s what matters.”
You nod, and let the moment carry you. His movements grow steadier, more purposeful, and you match him, like when things were simpler, when it was just you and him against the world.
His hand slides up your side, resting over your heart, and you feel its frantic beat under his palm, mirroring his own. Eventually, his hand holds your ring, holding so tight your worried it might snap off, but all you can focus on is the pleasure and the cold sting of his own ring against your back.
You feel the tension coiling in your core, and Joel’s movements falter slightly, his own release building. “Your close…” he simply notes, his lips brushing your ear.
“Yes…” you breathe, your voice trembling. “You?”
“Fuck, yeah,” he mutters, a faint chuckle in his voice, but it’s laced with something else. “Together, alright? Stay with me.”
His hand moves to your cheek, turning your face so he can look at you, and the vulnerability in his eyes undoes you. You move together, faster now, chasing the edge together.
You cry out, your body trembling as the pleasure overtakes you, and Joel groans, deep and guttural, his grip tightening as he spills into you, his forehead pressed to your shoulder. His cum fills you warm and sticky.
Your bodies shudder together. You’re both gasping, clinging to each other, the intensity leaving you both raw and exposed.
For a moment, neither of you speaks, staying tangled together, his arms wrapped around you, your fingers still laced with his. The silence is comforting, a space where words aren’t needed.
Joel shifts slightly, his breath still uneven, and reaches for his handkerchief on the nightstand. “C’mere,” he murmurs, his voice soft but steady. He gently wipes the sweat from your skin, his hands careful and deliberate. You lean into his touch, your body relaxing under his care.
“You okay?” he asks, his eyes searching yours, concern etched into the lines of his face.
“More than okay,” you whisper. “You?”
“I’m good.” His thumb lingers on your cheek, and for a moment, the world feels soft, safe, just the two of you.
His eyes search yours, and then, something sparks behind them.
He sits up with a sudden burst of energy, slipping out of you gently. “Sit with me.” He gestures to the edge of the bed, his voice gentle but insistent. Your dazed, but you still follow him, pulling the covers with you. You wrap yourself and Joel underneath the sheet, pressed flush against each other.
No words are traded, no noise, nothing but feelings.
Joel’s hand moves to the chain around his neck. He tugs it, snapping it free. He holds your gaze, then reaches for your neck. You swallow hard, your heart pounding, but you nod, giving him permission. He tugs, and the chain breaks with a quiet snap, falling away.
He unspools the rings from their respective chains, tossing the broken metal over his shoulder without a second glance. He stares at them, his eyes glistening, and you feel your own throat tighten.
“What are you doing.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Are you going to make me guess?”
Mwah!
“Joel…”
Mwah!
You giggled this time, voice caught somewhere between exasperation and a smile. “Joel.”
Mwah! Mwah!
“Oh my God! You’re gonna ruin my hair!”
He didn’t stop. He kissed you once more—loudly, obnoxiously—right on the top of your head, arms wrapped around you so tight you could barely fight him off.
“Joel, what are you doing with our rings?”
He looks down at them, tracing the gold edge.
Then he began to speak, low and raw.
“I loved you ‘fore everythin’, y’know?”
“I know baby.”
“I loved you in every sunrise I saw without you, every quiet night I spent thinkin’ of you. I loved you through fear, through anger, through losin’ myself trying to find you ‘gain. And I… I still love you. Always have, always will.”
Tears spring to your eyes, and you hide your face against his shoulder.
“I never stopped,” you whisper. “Not once.”
“I know darlin’.”
His hand lifts yours, and together you trade rings—his for yours, yours for his—as a silent acknowledgment of every scar, every loss, every year separated.
“I vow,” he continues, voice steady despite the tremor beneath it, “To keep findin’ you. To stand with you through the shit, through hell. Ain’t ever let you feel alone, not ‘gain. You are my heart, my home, my life.
He swallowed.
“My wife.”
You reach for his hands, steadying them in yours. “And I vow… I vow to love you. To stay by you side, never let something come in between us again. I will walk with you, always.”
You smiled wider than you have in years.
“My husband.”
The rings slip onto fingers that know each other so intimately.
You pull each other close, pressing foreheads together. And then, finally, lips meet—slow, then urgent, sure. A kiss that stitches together all the lost time.
And you knew—this was how it was always meant to be.
Contains: f and m orgasm, p in v, fingering, angst, misunderstanding, forgiveness, cute romance, Jack being super sweet to make it all better, brief military mention
--🩷--
Dana let out a low whistle as you walked into the department. You had been standing outside the entrance to the ER for twenty minutes, and it was cold. Jack was working a rare day shift, and you'd made plans to go out that evening for dinner after shift change. It was going to be a cute date night, a lowkey, hushed restaurant with good whisky and plush, leather booths. You'd looked at the menu ahead of time (obviously) and already knew which dessert you were having.
You'd dressed up nice, ready for him - a classy but low cut black dress, then nice earrings he had bought you for your birthday, and some strappy high shoes. You'd tonged your hair into loose curls and enjoyed putting on some soft make up and perfume.
You wouldn't say waiting outside had killed the vibe necessarily... but it had it in a chokehold.
Jack was often late, supervising another important case he couldn't bear to leave. You understood this when you started dating a year ago, it came with the territory of being such an attentive attending. Sometimes you couldn't help but wish things were a little different, that you fell asleep inside Jack's warm arms, rather than hugging his cold pillow, but you understood the competing priorities in his life.
'Daaaaaamn,' Dana looked at you over her glasses. 'He's gonna eat you like a snack.'
'If he ever ends his shift,' you laughed, looking round the department for him and not seeing him.
Dana checked her watch the shot a look at Primcess that she intended for you to miss, and you pretended that you had.
'Think he's just with a patient, doll,' Dana smiled brightly at you. 'I'll just go get him.'
Before you can read into it, Robby sidled up to you at the Nurse's desk.
'Here comes trouble,' he grinned, looking you up and down. 'Dr Abbot, eat your heart out.'
You laughed, self-consciously adjusting your bag.
'Whaddup, Robby?'
'He taking you somewhere nice tonight?' Robby asked, shuffling papers.
'Eventually, yeah.' You pulled a withering face at him in good humour.
''s gotta be done,' he held his hands up in mock surrender.
Dana reappeared, a strained smile on her face.
'He'll be out in a minute.'
'Still in Trauma 2?' Robby mumbled to her, out of the corner of his mouth.
'Mhmm.'
'What's going on in Trauma 2?' You asked, peering down the corridor. You couldn't see anyone in there.
'Catching up with an old friend,' Robby answered smoothly. 'A coworker from back in the military.'
'Aww,' you said, gratefully sinking into the office chair Dana pushed towards you. 'That's cute.'
'Mhmm,' Robby rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor. 'Well, duty calls.' He slipped off the desk counter and began to tiptoenaway.
'Coward,' Dana half-shouted to his back. Robby flipped her the finger.
'You stick with me, doll.' Dana smiled kindly. 'Watch me work my magic. I have them all dancing like marionettes.'
--🩷--
It had been a further twenty minutes. Dana was outside, smoking a cigarette, so you took the chance to go and visit Jack yourself - to wave at him through the window and jokingly hold up your wrist and tap on your watch.
Your heels clicked on the floor as you reached the bay. The door was slightly ajar, and you felt a thrill as you heard Jack's low, rumbling voice. You couldn't make out what he was saying but his voice had that rough quality you loved when he was tired.
'... it's not the same without you,' a female voice came clear through the gap in the door.
The words confused you, and you stopped still. As ashamed as you were for listening through the door to a patient's confidential conversation, this sounded too confidential.
'Don't you miss what we had?'
A cold sweat washed over you and your mouth suddenly went dry. Your heart was hammering out of your chest.
There was a moment of silence.
'Sometimes.' Jack replied.
What? Sometimes? Sometimes he missed what who had?
'It's hard not to think about.' The woman's voice was soft, gentle, tentative.
'I try not to,' Jack replied.
'Can you really manage that?'
'.... No. Especially not when I'm trying to sleep.'
What the hell? You felt like you were going to be sick.
When he was in bed with you, he was thinking about this woman?
'It could be like old times.'
'Fuck no,' Jack laughed.
'Okay... it could be like new, better times,' the woman's voice conceded.
'Look, it was a long time ago, and I've moved on.' You could tell this was Jack's polite attempt at wrapping up the conversation. You heard him stand.
'One drink,' the woman wheedled.
Fuck's sake!
'Maybe... Maybe one drink. Next time I have a free night.'
What? You felt like you might pass out.
'Here... is... my number,' crawled the voice of someone concentrating.
You'd heard enough. You backed away then semi-jogged, as fast as your heels would allow, back to the Nurse's station.
Dana looked at your face. 'You okay there, kid?'
'Yeah,' you swallowed thickly, engaging in a very solemn staring match with a stapler and trying to blink the tears away.
Robby walks past without stopping, throwing you a vague double thumbs up.
'Hey,' you hear, in that low, rough murmur.
You look up and see Jack standing over the counter. He leans his arms across it, tanned and corded forearms resting lightly on the top, large hands clasped together. His chest and bicep muscles strained under his black tee. Jack's salt and pepper curls were mussed from his hand running through them in stress. His twinkly hazel eyes look tired, the crinkles around them more pronounced and dark.
Your insides melted.
'You look... wow. You look beautiful,' Jack's voice dropped. He leaned over the counter to give you a kiss. You performed an awkward half-stand, pressing your lips against him. His soft lips were surrounded by scratchy grey stubble, and he smelled like antiseptic, negroni aftershave and fresh sweat. 'Mmm,' he sighed against you, briefly resting his forehead against yours.
Echoes of his words crawled inside your mind, louder than his contented sigh. You jerked backwards and sat back down. A brief look of surprise passed through Jack's eyes, characteristically controlled, measured, stoic. Jack recovered and resumed his steeled face, although his jaw gave a slight twitch.
Beside you, Dana pretended to be really interested in her computer screen.
'Are you ready to go?' Jack asked, standing fully.
'Are you ready to go?' You asked, fighting to keep the wobble out of your voice.
Jack's brow furrowed in confusion.
'Yeah,' he replied. 'I'm sorry I kept you waiting, babe. I'm so sorry. I was just finishing up with a patient.'
'Okay.'
You didn't want to get into it here. You didn't want to get into it at all. If you could just push it down far enough, it could be like it never happened.
But it did.
--🩷--
The dark restaraunt was cosy. You were sat in plush armchairs, light jazz playing quietly from somewhere, the small candle on the table the only light.
It danced soft, yellow light across Jack's face as he looked at the menu. His foot reached out under the table to gently press against yours. You returned the pressure.
'Do you know what you want?' Jack asked in that low, rough voice.
You.
For you to not have said those words.
For you to not have taken her number.
For you to have come outside on time.
'The chicken, I think.'
You were the chicken, not telling him what you felt. How could you? You didn't want to know the answer.
'They have the chocolate lava cake you like,' Jack looked up at you with his sideways smile. You returned a faint smile back, but you weren't hungry. You still felt sick with anxiety.
You'd been cheated on before, but never by someone you loved as much as Jack. The idea of him missing someone, thinking about them, calling them...
'Are you still with me?' Jack asked, clearly concerned.
'Yeah,' you managed weakly.
Jack ran his hand through his curls and rubbed the back of his head. His black shirt gave a waft of his aftershave, and you felt a swell of want deep inside. It was confusing.
'I am really sorry I was late.' Jack looked at you with such tenderness and sincerity that you had to look away.
''sfine,' you attempted a smile.
Jack's frown deepened before transitioning into a low, gruff murmur.
'You look so beautiful.' The adoration in his eyes was painfully obvious.
'Thank you,' you whispered.
--🩷--
Jack had his arm round you, leading you to his car. You hesitated, pausing the walk.
'I'm really tired and I need to be up super early. I might just crash at mine tonight.'
'What?' Jack looked bewildered. 'No, stay at mine. I don't mind you waking me up.' He gave you bedroom eyes. 'I actually enjoy it when you do.'
Heat bloomed in your stomach again.
'I want to see this dress on my bedroom floor.' Jack toyed with the zip.
'Honestly,' you shook your head, taking his arm from around your shoulders.
Hurt passed through his hazel eyes.
'Baby,' Jack actually looked upset. 'Don't do this. Come home with me.'
You felt yourself being convinced. Was it really that easy for him?
'Okay,' you nodded, letting yourself be backed up against his truck.
Jack pressed lightly into you. It was gentle enough that you knew you could leave, but hard enough you knew that he wanted you.
'Mmm,' he hummed again, taking his hand and pushing one of your soft curls behind your ear.
His large fingers traced along your jaw and held you there. You took in a big breath and held it. Jack leant in, looking deep into your eyes. You wanted him to kiss you. You needed him to kiss you.
But he dipped his head, giving you soft kisses just underneath your ear, along your neck, along your jaw.
You felt yourself melting under him. His soft lips and his long, scratchy stubble the perfect combination to make you wet... and Jack knew it.
He finally, finally, reached your mouth. Jack paused there, lips inches from yours. A gentle sound came from somewhere in the back of your throat and you caved, leaning forwards into him to close the gap.
You gave in, reaching forwards slowly to kiss him, just as Jack knew you would.
Jack continued to cradle your face, giving you deep, so deep, gentle kisses. Fire burned in your stomach now; he had lit the match.
'Come home with me, baby.'
Jack murmured, lips still pressed against yours, barely breaking the kiss. Your mouth absorbed the words.
'Okay,' you replied, more confident this time, your arms wrapping around his neck.
'Okay?' Jack asked, smiling against your mouth.
'Okay.'
--🩷--
You sat on Jack's bed, waiting patiently for him to use the bathroom. His phone on the nightstand pinged and the screen lit up.
Your head snapped sideways to look at it.
Don't. Don't. Don't.
You did.
You picked it up and pressed the wake button.
It's Adele 🥰 See you Saturday then? Xx
Your heart dropped.
You heard Jack coming out of the bathroom so you quickly sat up and looked at your book.
'Is your book good?' Jack asked, coming over to the bed on his crutches.
'Oh... yeah, definitely my kinda thing.'
'You know it's upside down, right?'
Shit.
'All the best novels are written upside down.'
'Is that so?' Jack smirked, sinking down onto the mattress next to you. He let out a long groan, the kind of groan where you've been tired since you woke up and are finally resting.
You stared forwards. If you looked at him, you'd cry. All of a sudden you didn't know what to do with your hands.
'Baby.' Jack put his hand on your knee. 'Baby, look at me.'
You turned to face him and wished that you hadn't. Jack's scruffy hair, smelling like his fresh shower, his tired face and the look in his eyes he only reserves for you. When there's no monitors beeping, no one's bleeding out, no one is shouting for him to be the calming, strong presence he brings to the chaos.
'Are you with me?' He asked, pulling you into a hug. Being pressed against his chest made your heart skip a beat. 'I had a really nice time on date night tonight.'
'Me too,' you whispered.
You could feel the steady beating of his heart behind the heat of his body against your back as he curls around you. Jack's hand, which at first had tugged you closer by your waist, travelled down your leg to your calf, raising goosebumps on your skin. The ascent was much slower, deliberate; his fingertips skimming the back of your thigh and dragging it closer and over his hip. Jack's hand started to reach to grab your butt cheek.
It took everything in you not to reach for him. You almost did. But then you remembered.
'I am super tired,' you tried to shrug off Jack's advances, despite the burning hunger in his darkened eyes.
You were very wet but very confused.
'Okay babe,' Jack smiled faintly. It wasn't that he'd ever want you to do something you weren't fully consenting to and enthusiastic about. It was that he could read you so well and he knew you were upset about something, he just wasn't sure what.
You settled against his chest, closing your eyes, as Jack turned off the lamp.
'Night baby. I love you.'
'I love you.'
--🩷--
You hadn't been over to Jack's apartment in three days. Three looong days. It felt like forever.
It was now Friday.
Jack had sent flowers on Wednesday morning - a dozen red roses. He was the classic gentleman. You had put them in a vase in the window and regarded them with the focus of a surgeon. They didn't tell you the answers you sought.
You were concerned they were guilty flowers.
Jack had invited you to his apartment Wednesday night, and last night, but you couldn't face it. Seeing him would mean talking to him.
The longer you went without seeing him, the easier it was to steel yourself.
You had made a lot of sacrifices for this relationship. You'd had your heartbroken broken before, and could objectively survive it again.
You were seated in your favourite chair, pretending to read again. Your phone pinged.
Are you home?
Yeah, why?
Do you want to come over?
I can't, sorry.
Ok x
You sighed and put your phone down. One day. One day until Jack's night off and meeting Adele.
The doorbell rang. You padded over, conscious you were only in your thin tank and sleep shorts. You hid the majority of your body behind the door.
Jack stood in the doorway, an easy smile on his face. He was wearing a cammo top and black cargos. You took a sharp inhale of breath.
Every time you saw Jack, every time, made you fall that much more in love with him.
'Hi,' Jack's eyes crinkled into a smile.
'Hi.' You couldn't hide your surprise as Jack's eyes burned into yours.
'I thought you might want some company?'
You hesitate, unsure. You don't have a reason to say you can't see him - he's already here.
Jack hovers outside your door. '... would you prefer I didn't come in?'
He's suddenly unsure and nervous at your hesitancy. The spontaneous romantic gesture had faded in his mind to what quite literally could be described as forced entry.
'No, of course,' you step back, letting him in.
Jack walks into the living room, trying not to give away his casual sweep of the apartment. Was he... checking if you were alone?
'I'm just finishing this lame cooking show before an early night.' You gesture vaguely at your tv and comfy couch, covered with a rumpled blanket. You surreptiously edge chocolate wrappers under the table with a slippered foot. Jack does you the kindness of pretending not to notice.
'Tell me to go.' Jack's rough voice is low as he doesn't follow your lead when you sit down, instead looking at you. Looking into you. His usual calm, controlled presence has an edge tonight.
'No, of course not.' You pat the sofa next to you.
Before you go to bed, and in the unsaid assumption Jack is staying, his fingers linger against yours as he cuddles you from behind.
You try to ignore the insistent bulge against your back. 'I'm sorry,' Jack murmurs, but his hand runs across your waist all the same. His thick fingers splay against your stomach, large enough to cover most of you.
'Jack,' you sigh, feeling your resistance melting as he kisses your neck, slow, and starving. The kisses are noisy and wet, and you melt. Jack's scratchy stubble against your cheek made you structurally unsound.
This wasn't the plan. This wasn't the plan at all.
Jack only had to look at you and you were ready. A goner... soaking wet.
Somehow you find yourself lying on your back as Jack's hand works down your panties. It's as if it can go unacknowledged if it's underneath your panties. Hidden by material. It's not really happening, it doesn't really count, if your panties are still on. You thought maybe you'd seen that on a bumper sticker somewhere.
Then your tummy was coiling tight, and your back was arching. Fuck. If you come then it's definitely going to count.
Jack is whispering, 'Oh good girl. That's it. Give it to me,' in that rough voice of his and now you're cumming all over his fingers and he's sucking them clean. Then he's lying above you, leaning on his forearms, and then somehow he's inside you. Jack's attentive and selfless, his hand between where you join, kissing your open mouth, swallowing your moans. When he finally comes inside you, it's with a relieved groan.
Now you're cuddled together and you almost, almost, forget. But you watch the clock on your nightstand tick over to 00:00 and then all of a sudden it was Saturday.
--🩷--
You don't know why you just can't ask. Jack's stood against your kitchen counter, as easily as he would if it were his own, scrolling on his phone. His hair is mussed from sleep and he is wearing those glasses as he reads an article. You regard him with wonder and sadness. You can't burn this sight in your mind if he's leaving.
You make some sort of excuse as to why you can't spend the day together. It killed you to say it but you couldn't bear to watch him get ready to go out to meet Adele.
--🩷--
Robby.
Brother.
I need help.
I know. I would ask your therapist for a full refund.
Ha-ha.
I think I broke my girlfriend.
With the giant heat you're packing?
Among other things.
She seems really sad.
Ask her?
I have. She says she's fine.
Then maybe she's fine?
She's not. I know she's not.
Can you ask her?
Fuck no, don't involve me in your doomed romance.
Maybe she's realising you work long, nocturnal hours and are emotionally unavailable?
...
Brother?
Yeah. Maybe.
--🩷--
Jack called around 7pm.
'Hi babe. Just wondering if I could come round later?'
'I thought you were busy this evening?'
'I was, but I think I'll cancel.'
Guilt struck you.
'Maybe we could go for dinner?'
You desperately wanted to say yes.
'I was gonna stay in with a takea-'
The doorbell rang.
'Hang on, there's someone at the door.'
You hold your phone in an outstretched arm as you answer the door.
'Thai for Dr Abbot?'
You were confused.
You told the delivery guy to wait a second then put your phone back to your ear. 'Jack, there's a delivery man here for you? Did you order to the wrong house?'
'No - right house. It's your favourite. I thought you might not wa-... have time for dinner.'
Your heart gave a pang.
'It's already paid for so you need to take it in before it goes cold.'
You smile gratefully at the delivery driver and close the door.
'You didn't need to do that,' you said softly.
'I know,' Jack's reply was just as soft.
You laughed when you looked inside. 'There's way too much food in here!'
'I know.' You could hear movement and keys jingling in the background. 'My favourite is in there too.'
--🩷--
Jack arrives, at the door with that tired set of his jaw but pure adoration in his eyes. 'Baby,' he murmurs, sinking down on the sofa with a sigh and turning to face you. He takes your hand in his. 'Please tell me what I've done wrong. Please.'
Suddenly you're overwhelmed and can't keep it in any longer. The product of too many sleepless nights and biting your nails down to the quick.
'I heard you.' You've hidden your head into his neck so you don't have to look at his face. Jack's neck is warm and scratchy from his stubble. He smells like cedarwood and citrus, his detergent that half your clothes have been washed in, and just Jack. The combination brings you to your knees everytime, sometimes quite literally, but right now it's all just steadying your heart beat. Feeling his low pulse against your lips helped to ground you.
'You heard me what?' Jack's low, rough voice is quiet, confused, but he doesn't make you look at him. He wanted you to feel safe by respecting your boundaries.
'At the hospital.' You couldn't believe the words were falling from your mouth. You tried to suck them back in, especially when met with Jack's silence, but you had to keep going. 'I heard you with... with Adele.'
Jack shifted slightly underneath you, an uncomfortable stiffening. 'If you're going to leave me, just tell me. Just tell me now, please, Jack. I can't. I can't-'
Jack brings your head to face him with two fingers. 'Baby,' he breathed. Jack's hand moved to hold yours, immediately drowning it in his thick fingers. He scrunched them on your palm until you opened your fingers, letting him intertwine his with yours.
'That's not what you thought it was.' Jack's smile was kind and his eyes were soft. 'I used to serve with her. She was asking if I missed having such a tight-knit group of friends. The soldiers from Pittsburgh make sure they keep in touch.'
You blinked as you absorbed his words. Your eyes flicked over his tired face, his warm eyes, his comforting body language. Jack's hair was mussed from running his hands through it so many times, rubbing the back of his neck, stressed from trying to understand.
You took a second. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. Jack was giving you the space to work it through. Your gaze ran over his graying hair from so many years spent surviving. The dusting of freckles across his forearm, which ended in his hand supportively holding yours.The warm body heat you weren't going to lose.
'Oh, Jack.' You breathed, and started to tear up.
'Hey, no, no, no. None of that.' Jack shushes you in a low voice, peppering your face in kisses instead of just wiping them away. 'I'm here. It's okay.'
'I'm just sad that you had a painful reminder of how brave you were, and how much grief it caused you.' Your eyes ran over his face. 'I'm sorry I ruined your evening.'
'You didn't ruin my evening,' Jack gave you an easy smile. 'I'm here with you. The best kind of evening. '
You felt butterflies and a selfish rush of relief. 'You still have time to go.' You stood. 'I'll drive you. Which bar is it?'
Jack laughed and put his arms around your waist. He pulled you down until you were sitting straddled on him. His crinkled eyes looked deep into yours with an intense want, giving you bedroom eyes and a small twitch of a sideways smile. 'I'm not going anywhere.'
Jack had perfect access to your neck now. Making it up to you came in the form of teasing you and insane from want. It worked the first time.
He ran his lips slowly from your shoulder to your jaw. He didn't touch you, just a whisper of breath against your neck. 'Physically or emotionally.'
You let out the breath you had been holding for days, and then sharply inhaled it back as he ghosted along your jaw, from your ear towards your mouth. He still wasn't touching you.
'Say you understand that I love you endlessly and would never hurt you.'
You let out a soft sound as Jack's lips paused near yours. His face was so much closer now, inches from yours. You could see the gold flecks in his eyes.
He paused there, waiting. Teasing you. Jack closed the gap even further. You could feel him breathing against your mouth, the longer strands of stubble brushing against your lips.
You stifled a moan.
'Say you understand.' Jack's voice was deeper, sharper, controlled. His eyes steeled a little. 'Say it.'
'I-I understand.'
Jack's eyes changed and he moved even closer, his lips almost, almost, touching yours now.
He slightly tilted his head to the side and stared directly into your eyes with a burning intensity.
'Good girl.'
Then Jack was kissing you; hungry and desperate. He let out a soft moan of relief from somewhere in the back of his throat and you swallowed it whole.
You leant forwards, pushing against him but not pushing him backwards. Your hands were around his shoulders, against his chest, in his hair.
Jack held you tightly against him, one hand around your waist pulling you even closer where your hips met his lower stomach. His other hand was playing with your hair, before bunching it in his fist and pulling your head back slightly.
It didn't hurt as much as send a quick, pained thrill straight down between your legs. Jack moaned, goal achieved, and ran his teeth against your collarbone.
'Jack,' you breathed. It was all you could say. 'Jack...JackJackJack.'
'I'm here baby,' Jack murmured against your skin, before licking a thick stripe from between your breasts to your clavicle.
You gave a sharp inhale as Jack pulled your sleep tank over your head. 'You won't be needing this.' He planted soft kisses with enough suction and teeth to leave deliberate marks all over your chest.
You couldn't wait any longer. You unbuckled his jeans and opened the fly, where his straining cock was desperate to be freed. When you lifted him out, it sprang up and slapped softly against his stomach.
'Fuuuuck,' you breathed.
'Exactly. Do that. Do it now.'
Jack was pulling your shorts to the side. He didn't even bother to shimmy his jeans down even a little. They remained fully on, with just his cock waving out. The desperation didn't have time for shimmying.
'I need to fuck you now.' Jack's voice was rough. 'I can't wait any longer.'
This broke you. You lined yourself up with him, feeling it pulse against your hole. You were already soaking wet, and smearing it across his head.
'Oh baby,' Jack breathed, 'and I didn't even touch you.'
His hands moved to your hips and he tightened his grip on you.
'Is that all it takes?'
A surge of want flooded through you and you sank down. Jack made a sound like he'd been suckerpunched.
You started to move your hips, and Jack helped push you down onto him with each dip.
'Oh, fuck.' Jack breathed, losing it.
The sound of him falling apart underneath you gave you a warmth of affection and a newfound confidence in yourself.
Your stomach pulled as you rode him, feeling every vein as you tugged upwards.
'Use me,' Jack whispered. 'Look at me.'
You met his eyes. Big mistake.
Jack hissed as he felt your pussy clench around him.
'Take what you need,' his voice was rough but desperate, 'because I'm not gonna last much longer.'
You bent your head to watch Jack's thick cock disappearing inside of you and pulling back out. He was so large you didn't know how it fit inside you.
'I know, baby, I know.' Jack's fingers on your hips pressed down harder. 'Eyes on me.'
You were rough now, angling yourself so the head of his cock was pushing against that gummy spot deep inside you that you couldn't reach with your fingers you.
You couldn't control your cries, loud and semi-pornographic.
Your stomach pulled even tighter.
'Good girl... oh good fucking girl.'
Jack's right hand left your hips and reached down between you.
The way he stared into your eyes, so close to yours, the hazel ablaze, was rocketing you into the sky.
'Use me,' Jack coached, maintaining eye contact as he started to circle your clit with practised movements.
You groaned and tipped your head back.
'Eyes.' Jack growled, and you shot back to look at him.
You couldn't control your moans now, losing your breath, and Jack's fingers quickened their pace. It was becoming difficult for Jack to maintain a rhythm. Your pussy was so wet, his fingers were sliding and helplessly trying to rub you in sloppy movements.
'Such a pretty pussy... such a pretty girl.' Jack was still looking straight at you. He was moving his head closer again.
'You're taking me so well.' You clenched around him and his eyes widened a little for a second. He audibly swallowed and clenched his jaw. His obvious restraint was becoming more and more difficult to maintain. It was simple biology with the way your warm, wet cunt was tugging against him. The power to control when he would cum inside you was not going to last much longer.
'Shit, you're so tight around me. Are you gonna cum, baby?' Jack moved closer still. 'Are you going to cum all over my cock like a good fucking girl?'
Then his filthy mouth was on you, wet and smashing against yours. All licking tongues and panting into each other's mouths.
'I'm going to cum,' you cried, 'oh I'm going to fucking cum.'
'Theeeere you go.. good girl... let it all out,' Jack coaxed you as you slammed down mercilessly on him, your wetness gushing over his cock and running down onto his barely unzipped jeans.
Jack waited for you to ride the few last waves, still soaking down onto his jeans, before he was roughly pounding up into you.
He made a soft, groaning sound and his hips stuttered sloppily. You felt him spilling deep inside you, the warmth of his cum hugging the walls of your cunt. The head of his cock was still pushed against your cervix, sputtering spray after spray into it.
When Jack finally came down, he pulled you closer to kiss you. This one was soft and deep... tender. He held you there as he softened inside you.
Jack held you by your cheek, rubbing his thumb gently across it. 'Are we okay?'
You laughed, still breathing hard. 'More than okay.'
'Did I make up for it?'
'Fuck yes... but if you want to go, there's still time, I'll get my keys.'
summary: good things happen to those who are found crying in the supply closet by their hot, older, maybe flirty boss-slash-mentor.
wc: 14.5k (i have no idea how that happened)
tags/tropes: age gap (duh), slow burn with an insane amount of tension, lowkey very emotionally rife, hurt/comfort, not-so-unrealistic amounts of crying, langdonmel in the background if you squint (you don’t have to squint very hard i love them so much guys im sorry) vaguely referenced but not subtlety implied bad childhood, gratuitous and frankly ridiculous medical inaccuracies because i took a lot of creative liberty, reader is an ode to Matilda by Harry Styles and You’re Gonna Go Far by Noah Kahan, Pitt Crew becomes reader’s family :)
a/n: this was supposed to be a sort-of drabble for @leeknowpegger. idk what happened. pegger i’m sorry i’ve been so dead recently (always) will you take this as an apology. If you’d like more cohesive tags, more context, extra details, and more in depth warnings, this fic has been cross-posted on ao3, and will be linked below :]
acknowledgments: thank you to @patrick-stewart for the amazing gif! my deepest, deepest apologies for not crediting sooner
ao3
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۫ ꣑ৎ
You have been the perfect day shift intern for five months. Five freaking months of listening to mostly constructive criticism, five months of adapting and learning on the go with not a single complaint voiced, five months of diligent note-taking, studying, and practice. Five months of weaseling your way into the list of interns-slash-young-doctors that your residents actually respect. Five months of grueling shifts, hard losses, and never saying no when someone needs you to do something.
Five months of being the untouchable, “perfect” intern. Robby’s newest addition to his growing list of “work-wards.”
Five months of unflinching effort and dedication and it took four hours of your third night-shift to reduce you to a miserable, snotty mess on the supply closet floor. Tucked into the space between the two shelves, just the toes of your blood and snot and god knows what else covered shoes peeking out, the rest of you obscured.
Five months, four hours, and back to back fuck-ups that escalated into Dr. Jack Abbot, the man you may or may not have had the hugest crush on since beginning your intern year, removing you from a case. Five months, four hours, and two parents screaming at Dr. Abbot, telling him that you’re not fit to be a doctor.
Tonight isn’t the first night a patient has yelled at you. Tonight isn’t even the first time you’ve been removed from a case. It’s not the first time Dr. Abbot has had to correct you, and it’s certainly not the first time you’ve made a mistake.
You’re an intern. It’s your job to fuck up, learn from it, and keep going. That’s what Dr. Mohan said to one of the other interns awhile back. They’d ended up flunking out, but oh well. It was good advice. It wasn’t meant for you, but hell if you don’t say it to yourself every night like a prayer.
But right now, the usual calming mantra is doing absolutely nothing. You’re stifling ugly sobs into the tops of your knees, arms wrapped around and squeezing as tight as you can, your chest shaking and shuddering with the force of your complete and total freak-out.
The patient isn’t dead. Despite your mistakes, they didn’t die. There’s really nothing to cry about. Nothing to hide in the supply closet for.
And yet, here you are.
Your first mistake wasn’t terrible, but it was ridiculously stupid and incredibly embarrassing. Triage room, emergency measures being taken. And you, tired and off kilter from being so used to the day-shift, broke the sterile field. Like some dumb medical student, not a fairly seasoned intern who’s drilled sterile protocol into her head until it’s muscle memory.
For a scalpel. You dropped a scalpel. Arguably the worst thing to drop. And then, like an idiot, you picked it back up.
And, well. There’s no time to re-scrub, so there wasn’t a need for you in the triage room anymore.
Your second mistake was equally stupid and avoidable, if you’d focused more. Dr. Garcia was kind enough to let you scrub in on an emergency appendectomy.
It was a test. Not your first.
And you ripped the fucking purse strings.
Once again, you were unceremoniously booted from the room (being kicked out of an OR feels a hell of a lot worse than being kicked out of a triage room) and sent back to the pit. Dr. Abbot immediately caught wind of it and demoted you to scut work until “you get your head back in the game.”
And, well. You tried really hard to devote yourself to your new task, but you had to keep blinking tears out of your eyes every five seconds and you absolutely refuse to cry in front of literally any of your coworkers, lest they think you some weak-willed weak-stomached intern who can’t handle some criticism and correction. You’re a hard worker. You’re good at this. You have to be.
So yeah. Crying in the supply closet.
You’ve always been a frustrated cryer, which is annoying on a good day and downright awful on a bad one (case in point.)
You’re just so upset with yourself. You’re better than this. You know you are. You’ve proven that you are. You don’t drop scalpels. You don’t break the sterile field. You don’t rip purse strings.
But you did tonight. And maybe one day you’ll laugh, but today is not that day.
You just don’t get it. Day shift? Incredible. Manageable. You’re on top of things, put together, and worthy of Dr. Robby’s respect.
But tonight? Quite literally the exact opposite.
You can’t be burning out, right? That’s not how burn out works. There’s like, signs, and you start to feel terrible and awful and exhausted and sure you definitely feel all of those things, but that’s because you work in medicine. And you’re an intern. You’re supposed to feel terrible and awful and exhausted. But maybe you’re not? You do enjoy your work, and it’s exhilarating, especially when you try something for the first time and execute it well, because you always do, you always get things right on the first try, obviously, so that means that this can’t be burn out. You don’t burn out. That’s not you. Right? No. Of course not.
You gasp a particularly rough sob into your knees, air feeling like knives as you inhale, making you cough horrendously. You must be quite a sight.
Unfortunately, due to your alternating hacking coughs and dramatic crying, you don’t quite hear the door open.
You do, however, hear the quiet “Oh.” that’s mumbled a few moments later.
Of-fucking-course.
You scramble upright, aggressively wiping at your face and attempting to make it look like you weren’t just crying on the ground.
“Dr. Abbot! I’m so sorry, this is very unprofessional and I know you have me on scut work but I promise I’m still working on it—“
He holds up a hand, and you slam your jaw shut with an audible click.
“Just needed some four by fours, kid.”
Always one to be helpful (especially to the guy you have a crush on who also happens to be your boss, aka the same person who professionally told you to get your shit together about forty minutes ago) you reach beside yourself and hand him the package of gauze, an awkward smile fixed on your face.
“…Those are three by threes.”
Bitch. Motherfucker. Fuck your life.
“Right,” You mumble, dragging your hand down your face. “I’ll just get out of your way. Sorry.”
You turn to walk past him, attempting to go quick enough that he might not notice the new tears shining in your eyes before a hand lands on your shoulder.
“Look,” Dr. Abbot starts. “You’re one of Robby’s adopted interns, right? Robby-Junior?”
“That is one of the rumors Santos has been spreading, yes.”
His hand is on your shoulder. His hand is on your shoulder. (!!!)
You don’t know what to do. He’s looking at you. Your boss doesn’t fluster you. You’re chill. You’re normal. You’re cool as a cucumber, yep yep yep.
“Robby doesn’t adopt interns lightly. Don’t let one bad shift mess you up. It happens to everyone.”
You purse your lips. You should let it go. Take his advice. Thank him.
The all-consuming-guilt and ever-present-need to prove yourself itches too painfully to ignore.
Dr. Abbot seems to notice, and he catches your gaze again.
“What, it doesn’t happen to you?”
A jolt of panic stabs your chest. “No! Of course it happens to me, I didn’t mean to imply that I’m like, above making mistakes or having bad shifts at all—“
Genuinely what is wrong with you. Why the fuck does he do this you. You’re a smart, confident woman who apparently chucks her brain into the garbage bin whenever her boss is around.
Dr. Abbot, probably picking up on a pattern of behavior by now, levels you with another look that shuts you up fairly quickly. He’s got a sort of impish grin on his face, and it shouldn’t be hot, but he’s got his hand on your shoulder and you’re having a ridiculously shitty night. Does anything matter anymore?
“Usually, we try to mix up interns schedules so you don’t get into a rhythm on one specific shift so that when you inevitably switch, the change doesn’t mess up your flow. But I'm sure your knack for keeping your head down and doing good work let you fall through the cracks.”
He takes his hand off your shoulder and shoves it into his pocket, but you almost don’t notice because he said you do good work.
Abbot gives you another grin. “And I didn’t stick you on scut as a punishment. Mindless work tends to be calming, which in turn helps focus your mind.”
“But I ripped the purse strings,” You blurt like a Catholic school girl in a particularly rife confessional, “Like an idiot.”
“You ripped them like an intern doing something for the first time.”
“I practiced hundreds of times to make sure it didn’t happen!”
He tilts his head, almost cat-like. “Did you also practice on a live person in a higher stakes situation while your body is messed up from a sudden and huge sleep schedule change?”
“…No?”
He snorts. “Exactly. Dr. Garcia probably won’t hold it against you. She’ll give you shit for it, but it’s not like she’s never going to give you another chance.”
You wipe the last bit of wetness of your cheeks with the back of your hand, embarrassment heating your face. Despite the awfulness of being caught crying in the supply closet, the beginnings of pleasant warmth is spreading through your chest, Dr. Abbot’s reassurances echoing in your head.
“Thank you, Dr. Abbot. Um. Sorry about the crying. I promise I don’t usually do that.”
Dr. Abbot snorts as he saunters towards the door. “Wouldn’t judge you if you did, kid.”
—
Dr. Jack Abbot is bored.
He has his work, which is great. He became a doctor after being discharged because he’s always been the kind of man that needs something to do. Something to mind, something to watch, something to fix. Robby and him and much the same in this way.
Working at the ED was enough for a while. There was a certain challenge to it, an unpredictability that itch sated, kept him sane. And, well. Now he’s an attending. Night shift lead.
He started to get restless again.
He thought a pet might work. He was going to get a dog, but it didn’t sit right with him to get an animal built for companionship and then leave it at home for over twelve hours a day. Then he thought a cat might do the trick. He looked online first, saw beautiful, well bred felines that could probably compete and win for best in show for whatever the cat equivalent is for the Westminster Dog Show.
And then he made the mistake of going to the shelter and seeing an old, one eared tuxedo cat that stared at him with something in between fear and spite and its eyes. And well. The shelter attendants assured him that the cat in question prefers being left alone and having its own space, but might warm up eventually, and he brought him home that day.
And then it was just Jack, occasionally Robby, and now his asshole cat who might not love him back.
That also worked for a while. Having Charlie was fun. It was nice having another living creature in his house that wasn’t him. Even if he did have a habit of chewing on power cords when left unattended and eventually progressed into attempting to destroy Jack’s stethoscope if he left it anywhere he could find.
Minding the cat gave him something to do that wasn’t tedious, and it was a special sort of bonus to wake up every now and then and see the cat sprawled at the foot of the bed, snoring away. He didn’t actually know cats could snore like that.
Around the time that the itch came back and Jack was considering adopting a second cat from the shelter (well on his path to becoming a crazy cat lady, as Robby said in the park over beers) he met you for the first time.
Sometimes Jack slips quietly into the ED and watches the chaos of day shift’s conclusions. He’s picked up a very special language of gauging what he’s getting into based on the body language and behavior of the rest of the hospital staff. Robby had told him about the latest intern— a motivated, stubborn sort of girl that frequently went toe-to-toe with Santos but without any of the pushback when receiving correction or criticism. He’d heard that you were smart, capable, and well on your way of becoming a great doctor.
Robby failed to mention that you were pretty.
He’d watch you, comparing notes with Mohan with a certain intense focus on your face, worrying your lip between your teeth and repeatedly tucking a piece of hair behind your ear because it’d fallen out of your disheveled pony tail he thinks ‘Oh.’
And then, a few months later, he finds you crying in a closet, subtly confessing fears of failure and falling short of expectations, and then he thinks ‘Well, there’s something to do.’
Jack tries not to think about you, at first. You, looking up at him with red-rimmed eyes, bottom lip jutted out just a bit, hugging your knees. He tries not to think about how you’d looked at him when he’d assured you that you did good work, the awkward thank you, and the way that for the rest of the shift, all the annoying menial tasks that get forgotten in the chaos were all mysteriously taken care of.
He tells himself that he’s just going to keep an eye on you. For Robby’s sake. He’d do the same for Whitaker.
The next time you have a night shift, you’re clearly more prepared for the exhaustion, and when he finally sees you in true, proper action, he understands immediately why Robby likes you and Mohan frequently attaches you to her cases. Skill, patience, and focus.
When he watches you trach a patient with a certain ease that only comes from practicing hundreds of times, Ellis shoots him a knowing look. Raised eyebrows and smirk. When she passes him in the hall a few hours later, she jabs her thumb behind her shoulder at where you’re diligently filling out a chart.
“That one yours, then?”
Jack shakes his head. “It’s not like that. You make me sound like a creep.”
Another raised eyebrow. “Sure it isn’t.”
“She’s Robby’s intern.”
“Mhm.”
“She’s way too young.”
Parker shrugs. “She’s good.”
“She is.”
The senior resident cuts a glance back to you. “Think she’ll burn out?”
“Maybe.”
Parker crosses his arms. “Are you gonna let it happen?”
“She’s not my intern.”
Up to three Parker Ellis looks and counting.
“It’s an HR nightmare.”
Parker shrugs. “You just said she’s not your intern.”
He narrows his eyes. “You know what I meant.”
“Do I? It’s been awhile, Jack. No one would really judge you for having some fun.”
“Parker.”
“Jack.”
He shakes his head, walks towards the boards. “You’re the worst.”
Parker just laughs. “Sure I am.”
To your credit, he doesn’t find you crying in a supply closet again to see evidence of you doing so for a solid few weeks. But, like most things in the ED, the peace doesn’t last.
You came into work soaking wet, which is odd, considering the fact that he knows you drive, and the walk to the parking lot isn’t far enough to account how you’re shivering in your freshly changed scrubs. He brushes it off, chalks it up to freakish Pittsburg weather.
Some night shifts are relatively slow and mild. Tonight is not one of those shifts. Patients are extra irritable at late hours, which is to be expected, but what he’s not expecting is to walk by South 15 and see a 50-something year old man slap you.
Jack blinks, and in the next second he’s in the room, standing in between you and the patient.
“Excuse me, what the fuck is going on here?”
Gloria will probably give him shit for his language later, but right now all he can think about is the startled look on your face and the echo that the contact made.
“I said I want a real doctor, not this fucking—“
“Get the fuck out of my hospital.”
Shen peaks his head in. “Security’s on their way.”
Jack reaches behind him to where you’re still standing, your hand covering your cheek, and gently pushes you towards Shen, towards the door. You stumble over your feet a bit, but truly, Jack’s never been more thankful for his residents because then Parker is right there, ushering you out the door with a hand on your shoulder. Jack resolutely ignores your mumbled “I’m fine, really, he just surprised me.”
Thankfully, security doesn’t take that long to get to the room, and the second Jack is finished explaining, he’s out the door and scanning the ED for your face. Nurse Young jerks her head towards the break room, and he thinks he manages to give her what he hopes is a thankful smile before he’s beelining for it.
When he opens the door, you’re sitting on the floor again, holding an ice pack to your cheek with one hand and dabbing at your lip with a paper towel. Like you’ve never heard of medical protocol in your entire life.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
You jerk your head up, a kid caught with its hand in the cookie jar.
“Dr. Abbot!”
Lowering himself to the ground is awkward, physically. Prosthetics don’t lend to much mobility and he’s too old to be doing this, but he just. There are little beads of blood collecting and then sliding down your chin, dripping onto the leg of your scrubs. At the same angle of the split in your lip, there’s a little cut he can see peaking out from under the ice pack.
He reaches forward, fingers itching towards the deep scarlet dripping steadily. He pauses, remembering things like words and questions and sees the wild look in your eyes.
“Can I…?” Jack’s voice trails off, the words clunky and useless in this bubble that’s seemed to form around the two of you, on the probably disgusting floor of the ED break room.
You slowly drop the napkin, let the ice pack lower to your lap and nod.
“He had a ring on. I guess it caught me. I didn’t really notice until I got here.”
“Parker and Shen didn’t notice?”
You look at your lap. “I told them I was fine… And covered it with my hand. There are other patients. It’s just a little cut.”
Jack’s fingers finally reach your face, and he almost takes them back when you flinch on the initial contact, shaking ever so slightly.
But then, with noticeable effort, you relax into his palm, his fingers curling around the side of your jaw. He should grab gloves. He should get up, take his hand off your face.
Anyone could walk in right now and call Gloria on his ass.
His thumb sweeps across your cheekbone, just below the cut, which does have some faint bruising around it. And truthfully, the split in your lip doesn’t look that bad either.
But there’s still little dots and trails of scarlet and he doesn’t think he’s going to be able to calm down until he fixes it. He needs to fix something.
“If I leave you here so I can get supplies,” He starts, voice a little rough, “Can I trust that you’ll stay here and not do anything stupid?”
“Uh, yes? Should I move to a real chair though?”
Jack huffs as he hauls himself to his feet. “That’d be preferable.”
Later, when he’s at home in his bed, he’ll assure himself that the night shift wasn’t truly that busy and he trusts his residents to handle things while he’s busy.
No one stops him on his way to the medical supply closet (the irony of the location is not lost on him) and he makes it back without interruption. Upon opening the door, you have in fact moved to a chair, and it seems the bleeding slowed in his absence.
What he should do is sit down in the chair opposite of you and handle this situation like a professional, like the Dr. Abbot, night shift attending, not Jack who’s got a thing for fixing.
He does try to remove his emotions and feelings from the situation, he really does. It’s something he’s generally very good at —which is where he and Robby differ; Robby would prefer to feel too much and Jack would prefer to feel nothing at all— but you’re looking up at him and there’s something really dangerous in the air and it must’ve gotten into your blood stream or something cause it’s swimming in your eyes and he realizes that removing his feelings is not going to be possible.
He decides he could at least tone it down. You’re an intern. Robby’s intern. So what if you’re bleeding all over the break room? Jack’s just doing his job as the attending to look after the doctors and nurses under his jurisdiction or whatever. That’s all.
“Tilt your head up.”
He sets to work cleaning up the cut and split as detached and clinically as possible, even puts on gloves so there’s no skin to skin contact, just protocol, but he can feel the warmth of your skin through the latex and you keep sucking in these tiny little breathes when something stings and he can’t get the sound of the slap out of his head and it’s all just kind of a lot.
He readjusts his hand on the side of your face, sort of holding your forehead now to have better access and control over the cut on your cheek and wow. Your skin is really warm. It kind of feels like you’re burning up.
Jack tosses the piece of gauze he was using and rests the back of his hand against your forehead. Shit, you are burning up.
He thinks back to you, walking in today, soaked to the bone.
“Did you walk to work today?”
You wince. “My car kind of died? On the way here? I was only a mile away. But I called a towing company, so I didn’t just leave my car in the middle of the road.”
He blinks.
“Your car died, so you had it towed and walked a mile to work, in the rain, late at night, and didn’t tell anybody?”
You just keep staring at him, brows furrowed.
“Yeah? I carry a knife and I’ve taken self defense classes, and my car was just towed back to my place, so. I had a shift to work.”
There’s… a lot to unpack in your answer.
“Kid,” He starts, wondering why Robby never thought to give him a heads up before you started working more night shifts, “What was your plan to get home?”
“Walk, probably. I was thinking about taking the bus. Dr. King knows the bus schedule, so I’m probably going to text her.”
Jack decides to just finish cleaning you up, before he does something stupid like shake you by your shoulders and ask why you didn’t think to let your boss know that your car broke down and you’d be walking home in the rain. Or that when a patient slapped you in the face, his ring cut your face and lip open.
God.
“It’s really fine though,” You say, gesticulating animatedly with your hands. “My place isn’t that far, and it’s not the first time my car’s died. The battery’s kind of shot, but I guess my car has a weird battery, and it’s like, crazy expensive to get a new one, so. Besides, I like walking. I’ve been meaning to catch up on my audiobooks.”
He wishes you’d stop talking so he’d stop hearing things that make him want to do things he can’t and shouldn’t do. Like find out what car you drive so he can buy you a new battery. Or buy you a new car all together.
Christ, you have him wrapped around your fucking finger.
“I’ll drive you home. If you’re fine with that.”
Jack has to fight a grin at how comically wide your eyes grow at his suggestion.
“Oh no, you really don’t have to. I promise I’m—“
“Please stop saying you're fine,” He begs, “You don’t have a working car, a patient slapped you in the face, and I think you’re coming down with something.”
The smile that’s seemed permanently fixed on your face since he came into the break room falters, for a bit.
“Well,” You grimace, hands fisting the hem of your scrub top, “Things certainly aren’t… great, but I’ll survive. I’m not like, incapable, or anything.”
Jacks quiet for a bit, not just mulling over your words but the way you said them; the cadence and tone.
He hums. “Is that what you think? That I or someone else here will think you’re not competent or that you’re weak if you take a break or ask for help?”
Your face falters again. “No, no, of course not I just… I don’t know. I’m an intern. It’s my job, supposedly, to mess up and have to be looked after in case I accidentally kill someone and stuff like that. I just don’t want to be someone that people think they have to worry about. I need— internships are competitive. They’re competitions, really. And I want to win.”
Jack Abbot knows what it’s like to want to win. That need to prove yourself, prove that you’re capable and strong and unfailing.
So Jack also knows how quickly that can all go south.
“You’re a smart kid,” He says, voice ever so slightly soft in the quiet tension of the break room, empty except for the two of you, “And you’re going to make a great resident, and one day, a damn good attending. But none of that means shit if you burn out or get run yourself into the ground before you get there.”
He avoids eye-contact while he carefully applies the bandage to your cheek. “This industry will chew you up and spit you back out if you don’t take care of yourself. I get it. We’re doctors. We make the worst patients. But you got slapped in the face during a shitty day. It’s okay to… not be okay for a minute.”
You huff a watery laugh. “Isn’t that what energy drinks are for?”
He shakes his head. “What, trying to die faster?”
“Anything to shake those student loans. Can’t be in debt if you’re dead.”
“Don’t they just pass it to your family? Next of kin or whatever?”
“I don’t think they can give student loans to a cactus. I mean, I consider her my daughter, but I hardly think it’ll hold up in court.”
Jack mentally files that information away for later. What later is, he isn’t sure.
He stands, pulls off his gloves and tosses all the used gauze and shit in the trash can.
“I gotta get back out there,” He jams his thumb towards the door, “But feel free to take five. No one’s judging you. Matter of fact, as your boss, I’m telling you to take a break.”
You roll your eyes. “Whatever you say, Dr. Abbot. But thank you. For the…”
You gesture to your bandaged cheek and lip. “…And for the advice.”
He shrugs, like taking care of you hasn’t become a persona fantasy he may or may not fall asleep imagining most nights. Like it doesn’t matter, like he’s just doing his job.
“Offer for the ride’s still open. Just let me know by the end of shift.”
And with that, he’s out the door.
It’s the end of shift, and you’re staring at the double doors that lead to the outside world, and beyond that, absolutely fucking miserable weather for walking, a dead car, and cold as shit apartment.
You’re not exactly rushing out the door.
You’re clutching at the strap of your bag, regular clothes on, still damp despite the fact that it’s been over thirteen hours since you originally took them off, begging the universe to strike you down where you stand. Spontaneous lightning bolts happen indoors too, right?
The doors just stare back at you, unchanging in their miserable-ness, and after a solid ten minutes of staring, you feel rather than see Jack sidle up next to you.
“Still raining out there?”
“Yep. Looks worse now.”
“Not great weather to walk in. Especially considering the low-grade fever.”
“Mhm.”
“Did you text Dr. King for the bus schedule?”
“No. I didn’t want to wake her up.”
Jack huffs a breath, then jerks his head towards the doors that lead to the employee parking lot.
“Come on, kid.”
The ride is quiet and awkward. Well. Dr. Abbot probably doesn’t think it’s awkward, because he seems like the kind of man not to be bothered by long stretches of silence. Or silence at all.
He’d been kind enough to turn the heat on full blast (you started shivering the moment you stepped outside) and the radio is softly playing, and it’s only thanks to Sabrina Carpenter’s voice that you don’t feel like completely freaking out.
You mouth along to the lyrics, quietly humming the chorus under your breath.
“—I get wet at the thought of you being a responsible guy—“
“—Treating me like you’re supposed to do, tears run down my thighs—“
By the time you’ve realized that perhaps this isn’t the best song choice to sing along to, considering the situation and who’s car you’re currently riding in, the words “I get wet” have already left your mouth so there’s no real point in stopping.
On a completely unrelated note, Dr. Abbot starts smiling a little bit when you hum.
Pittsburgh traffic is terrible, so the drive kind of drags on. The radio is playing Chappell Roan now. Casual specifically. You’re considering changing the radio station because god.
“So,” You start, just to say anything that drowns out “knee-deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now?”, “Did you… have a good shift?”
That was a terrible question. Jesus. What the hell is wrong with you? How did you get through medical school?
Dr. Abbot snorts. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”
Ah. Right. The Incident.
“I told you I’m—“
“Didn’t I tell you to stop saying that?”
Your lap has never looked more interesting. Wow, is that a loose thread on your sweats?
He continues. “Fine or not, a patient assaulted you. Even if he didn’t leave a mark, that’s still shitty.”
“Have you been hit by a patient before?”
He huffs. “Hell yeah. It happens to everyone eventually. It’ll happen again. You get better at keeping your cool.”
“Sorry you had to step in. I’ve been hit by a patient before and I was fine.”
“Oh yeah?”
You nod. “It was during my Pedes rotation, actually. I’ve always known working with kids probably wasn’t going to be for me, but, well. Kid came in for intussusception, and she was screaming and writhing in pain, and I failed to restrain her properly.”
“What, did she slap you too?”
“Nope. Kicked me in the chin. Ended up biting almost clean through my tongue.”
“Fucking hell, kid. What’d you do?”
You shrug. “Kept my blood in my mouth until we finished sedating the patient. Ended up with three stitches.”
Dr. Abbot lets out a low whistle. “Always the patients you least expect.”
“The importance of proper patient restraint was thoroughly impressed upon me, I assure you.”
The silence after your short conversation is slightly more comfortable, and thankfully the radio station has decided to play less pointed music.
Between the warmth of the car, the smell permeating the seats that smells distinctly like Dr. Abbot, and the drumming of rain outside, it doesn’t take long for drowsiness to begin to overtake you.
Your last thought before falling asleep is that you don’t remember if you gave Dr. Abbot your address or not.
Someone is gently shaking your shoulder, and you feel like shit.
“What?” You attempt to say, but the side of your mouth is pressed against the seatbelt and your shoulder so it comes out sounding like: “Whamfgh?”
Opening your eyes is a herculean task, like someone sewed miniature weights to your eyelids while you were asleep. You’re absolutely freezing, despite the steady hum of the car's heat, still on high, and you vaguely recognize the street the car is currently parked on.
Oh right, your apartment.
“Oh,” You yawn, hauling yourself semi-upright, aiming for woman who has it together, and less disheveled swooning woman in a Baroque painting.
Dr. Abbot is staring at you with equal parts humor and concern.
You rub at your eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Little over forty minutes. You looked like you needed it.”
“It doesn’t take that long to drive to my place, even with traffic.”
Your brain is moving like molasses, so it takes you a second to catch up with the implication of his statement.
“Did you just… park in front of my house? So I could keep sleeping?”
He just shrugs. “Like I said. You looked like you needed it.”
Embarrassment and a touch of something else floods through your body, hot and cold at the same time.
“Sorry. You didn’t have to wait.”
“If I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t have.”
Still moving slowly, you gather up your bag from where it partially spilled on the floor all over your feet, shoving old receipts and pads and chapstick back in with the reckless abandon of a person who isn’t nearly aware enough of social cues to be in a car alone with their hot boss.
Whilst you're grabbing and shoving, Dr. Abbot reaches into his back seat, rifles around for a bit, and then drops something rather unceremoniously over your head and shoulders. After a quiet “hey” you pull it into your lap, and then that hot feeling is back in full force.
It’s a rain jacket. Clearly Dr. Abbot’s. You can see his name written on the inside pocket. It’s nice too. Definitely not the kind of rain jacket you could afford on an intern’s budget.
“For the next time your car dies,” He clarifies, as if the jacket’s purpose is the thing that’s stupefied you, not the fact that he’s the one giving it to you, “In case of rain.”
“You really don’t have to,” your words are rushed and clunky in your mouth, tumbling over each other in your haste to say something, anything, “I mean, I can just buy my own—“
“First of all,” He cuts you off, voice smooth and rough at the same time, “Do I seem to be the kind of guy in the habit of doing things I don’t want to? And second of all…”
He tilts his head, gaze sharp. “Are you really going to buy one for yourself?”
Your mouth goes dry.
“I was planning on looking online—“
Dr. Abbot interrupts you. “Now you don’t have to.”
Like it’s that easy. Does he want it to be?
“Dr. Abbot, I—“
“Jack.”
His grin goes from mild to shit-eating as you stare at him, obviously radiating confusion.
“Jack,” you start, testing out the name in your mouth, hearing how it sounds in the air. “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to give me your jacket. I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”
“Kid—“
The prickling of perceived weakness makes anger spark in your chest.
“Don’t call me kid like I’m stupid.”
Dr. Abb— Jack seems simultaneously impressed that you interrupted him for a change and vaguely put out.
He holds up a finger, effectively silencing anything else you were thinking of saying.
“I don’t call you kid because I think you’re stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid. You’d know if I thought you were stupid, because I would tell you. ‘Kid’ is a…” He trails off, free hand tapping thoughtful rhythms on the steering wheel, “…Nickname. Term of endearment. Whatever you want to call it, but it’s not derogatory.”
Jack holds up a second finger.
“You have not been taking care of yourself. If you were, you wouldn’t have a low grade fever, and you would’ve called me as your boss or one of your friends to drive you instead of walking after your car died. You’ve been surviving. There’s a difference.”
Shame burns white hot through you— all your recent failings laid out by the person you want least to notice them. Clearly, he has.
Possibly out of pity in response to your no doubt miserable expression, Jack continues.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’d be an honest-to-god miracle if any intern managed to properly take care of themself. Hell, residents don’t do it either, and neither do attendings. Does Robby strike you as the kind of man who takes perfect care of himself?”
“That depends. Is my answer going to make it back to him?”
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Exactly. Doctors make the worst patients, in and out of a hospital setting. Knowing better doesn’t actually make us all that inclined to do better. Terrible misconception.”
He nudges the jacket on your lap. “So just take the jacket. One less thing to worry about.”
Emboldened by his recent streak of kindness towards you and the flush of fever running through your veins, you look over to him.
“You worry about me?”
Something dances in his eyes for a split second, gone before you can blink.
“I worry about all the interns and residents on my service, but especially the ones my best friend has taken a liking to.”
Right. Of course. He only cares because of Robby. And Robby only cares so he can add another doctor to the already short-staffed PTMC. It’s not like Jack actually likes you or anything.
You clutch the jacket to your stomach, finally finding the energy to get out of the car. Jack’s car.
“Well. Thanks for the ride, Dr. Abbot. And the jacket.”
“No problem, kid.”
And if later on that evening, in the safety of your tiny apartment, you take in the deep, fresh, almost spicy smell that makes up Jack, lingering on the jacket, that’s no one’s business but yours.
—
From that night on, it feels like Jack Abbot is everywhere.
Whether it’s something he’s doing on purpose or you’ve just developed a heightened sense to his whereabouts— it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it’s a whiff of his cologne (eerily similar to Dior Sauvage, which makes you shudder. Certainly he didn’t choose a cologne similar to the number one male manipulator scent on purpose?) or seeing his handwriting on a whiteboard or his notes in a chart, he’s there.
You’re being scheduled for night shifts fairly regularly now, in addition to the 24-hour shifts you have the pleasure of being put on as an intern.
Working a double isn’t horrific, really. Exhausting, sure, but Robby and Jack’s solid presence makes the shifts more bearable. Plus, you’re quickly becoming friends with the fresher residents, Whitaker and Santos, plus some of the older residents like Mohan and King. Even Dr. Langdon gives pretty solid advice and mentorship, despite the tension in the air whenever he happens to be working with or near Robby.
Normally, 24 hour shifts are grueling, but not impossible. Somewhere around the 15 or 16 hour mark, the sleep deprivation hits, and you can just coast on stress-induced inertia and a healthy does of energy drinks and mania.
Today, though, has been particularly fucking awful. Maybe it’s the fact that the fever never really went away, or the fact that you started your period the day before (being sick on your period should be illegal.) It’s probably both of those things.
But there isn’t really anything to do but grin and bear it. The day will pass, and you have the next two days off anyways. Just survive the next however-many hours of the shift and then you can go home, dress in exclusively fluffy clothes, and binge watch tv whilst eating heart-stopping junk food.
You’re distracted from your charting, propped up on the counter at the nurses station by a light tap on your shoulder and someone saying your name.
Dr. Langdon has sidled up next you, voice hushed.
“Hey, uh. I just wanted to let you know that you seem to have… bled through.”
If a spontaneous earthquake could open a chasm beneath your feet and swallow you whole, now would be the time.
“Fuck fuck-ity fuck fuck,” You mumble, wiping your hands down your face. “Right. Yeah. Of course. Thank you for letting me know.”
In a moment that is as mortifying as it is kind of sweet, Langdon passes you a hoodie that is clearly his.
“To tie around your waist,” He clarifies, holding the object out across the meager space between the two of you, voice a bit awkward and stilted, like you might decide to spit in his face or something.
You don’t actually know what it is that Dr. Langdon did before your arrival that makes the break room go quiet when he walks in (unless Dr. King is there) but you don’t particularly care. If it was truly something horrific that you should be worried about, he wouldn’t be working here. Robby wouldn’t let that kind of thing slide.
So you take the offered hoodie with a strained smile (can this shift just be over) and speed-walk to the break room, praying no one decides to snag you on the way there.
What you should do is go to your locker where your stash of pads, tampons, spare underwear, and extra scrubs are, and then probably the bathroom to get changed, so you can keep on going but you also just saw Dr. King go into the break room and you just really need a hit of her specific brand of optimism.
The woman in question perks up when she notices your arrival, hastily eating the same snack she always eats around this time— a tiny bag of pretzels.
She watches as you collapse into the chair across from her, letting your head thunk onto the table.
“Bad shift?”
“Bad life,” You grumble. “Dr. Langdon had to give me his hoodie to tie around my waist because I bled through onto my scrubs. Like a middle schooler who doesn’t know what pad sizes are for.”
Dr. King nods thoughtfully. “He asked me if it would be weird of him to let you know and offer his hoodie. To which I replied that periods are a normal bodily function and he’s a doctor.”
“Here here,” You half-heartedly cheer, any actual cheer or enthusiasm severely lacking in your voice. “How did you survive your intern year, Dr. King?”
“We’ve been working together for awhile, you can call me Mel,”
She pops another pretzel in her mouth before answering. “But to answer your question, I mostly just kept telling myself that failing wasn’t an option. Which. Probably isn’t helpful, or good advice, but it worked for me. Something that’s nice is if you have a fellow intern or doctor that you enjoy working with. I know the other two interns who matched into the PTMC dropped out of the course, so it’s just you, but you have Dr. Robby, right?”
You nod, picking absently at a spot on the table and ignoring the way that it wasn’t Robby who popped into your head, but Jack.
Your teeny, ignorable crush on him has become a full-blown thing, with semi-weekly dreams about him in various… situations, and casual daydreams at all hours of the day of what it would be like to just be with him, or hear him, in any capacity that couldn’t be qualified as work or a boss checking on his employee. Intern. Whatever.
Hormonal and fever-ish, you suddenly feel like you’re going to explode and die if you don’t have someone to confide in right this very second. You haven’t heard Mel really talk about anyone you work with outside of professional doctor-to-doctor conversation, not even about Dr. Langdon, who she seems almost suspiciously close with.
“Mel,” You start, voice a little too thick and watery to just be talking about your stupid, annoying, one-sided workplace crush, “Can I tell you a secret?”
She seems to consider the pros and cons first, and looks fairly caught off guard, but she answers. “Um. Sure?”
“Have you ever had a crush on a coworker before? Or like, a boss or mentor?”
Mel sets down her bag of pretzels. “Is this about Dr.—“
“I have the biggest crush on Dr. Abbot and I think it’s ruining my life.”
The words burst out of you all at once, and Mel’s expression goes from shocked, to confused, before finally settling in abject amusement.
“Ah,” She says, sliding the pretzels across to you. “Um. Well I personally don’t have a crush on Dr. Abbot, but I think I understand the sentiment.”
You bury your face into your hands and groan. “It’s awful. It’s so cliche. It’s so fucking Grey’s Anatomy.”
“I’ve never actually seen that show. Becca likes it though.”
Mel allows you a few moments of wallowing and pretzel eating before she speaks again.
“Have you… acted on it?”
“No!” You snap your head up. “I mean. No, I haven’t. I’m not naive enough to think that he would reciprocate. He’s an attending and I’m an intern.”
She leans in. “But…?”
“But sometimes… I wonder? I don’t know. I’m probably crazy. He drove me home the other day, cause my car died, and it was raining, and I got slapped by a patient, and that was when I first came down with this stupid fever, and like, that’s normal, right?”
Mel nods. “Fr— Langdon drives me to work when we share shifts, and sometimes when we don’t. I think Dr. Santos and Dr. Whitaker carpool too. So maybe?”
“Right. Yeah.”
She takes the pretzel bag back. “Is there more evidence that makes you feel crazy?”
Your skin flushes hot at the memory alone.
“He gave me his rain jacket. To keep.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Mel once again takes a few minutes, and the rest of her pretzels before responding.
“I’m honestly not the best person to ask for advice about this. I’ve been told I can be… dense when it comes to romantic endeavors.”
You shrug. “You’re a great listener, and you haven’t steered me wrong in the past.”
She brightens. “That’s good! I think my advice would be to talk to Dr. Mohan. She has experience with your… particular situation.”
Mel tosses the empty pretzel bag and heads toward the door. “I’ll let Robby know you’re taking ten, so don’t worry about someone looking for you while you’re changing.”
“You’re the best. I love you.”
The resident flushes at your gratitude, and then ducks out the door, leaving you alone to stew on her advice.
—
Talking to Dr. Mohan proves difficult, at first. How exactly do you start that conversation? “Hey, I heard you had advice on having a world-ending crush on your boss, got any tips?”
Additionally, she’s kind of hard to track down. You greatly respect Dr. Mohan’s work ethic and truly aspire to her unflinching devotion to patient care at the PTMC.
After a few days (which turns into a few weeks, because you are an emotional coward) of trying (and failing) to find a moment to talk, Dr. Mohan actually ends up finding you.
“Hey!” She jogs up to you as you’re walking to your car, a too-bright smile on her face for the fact that you both just got off a fourteen hour shift.
“Sorry to be that annoying coworker who talks to you in the parking lot, but I wanted to catch you before you left. Mel said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Right!” You stammer, slightly mortified. You admire Dr. Mohan so much and really want her to think you’re capable but you really need some advice on Jack Abbot as a whole, and it sounds like she’s the only expert around. “Yes. That. It’s a really normal question, you know.”
Dr. Mohan just nods, a smile still fixed on her face, like this is a totally normal conversation. “Uh, sure?”
There’s a beat of silence where you both stare at each other, and then she gasps.
“This is about Abbot, isn’t it?”
You groan, throwing your head back in defeat. “Am I that obvious?”
She laughs goodnaturedly. “No. Probably not. You’re just the only intern in the ED right now so I try to make it a habit to keep an eye on you. Plus, Mel is literally the only person in the world who knows about my now-dead crush on him, so. I just connected the dots.”
“He’s so hot, Dr. Mohan. I feel like I’m dying.”
She makes a noise of sympathy. “He is. It’s fucking annoying, at a certain point.”
“Thank you!” You shout, “Like it’s just so there. It should be illegal to just walk around and look like that. I should be focusing on like, studying and learning, but instead I’m just harboring this stupid crush on an attending.”
“Have you ever seen Grey’s—“
“Yes. I know. I can’t be Meredith. Meredith was like, always a mess. Am I a mess?”
Mohan purses her lips. “Well. You did just say you felt like you were dying.”
“I know,” You sigh. “It makes me feel… shallow. I like being a doctor. I was so excited to get matched into the PTMC, and this stupid crush is throwing me off my game.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“On my first night shift rotation I dropped a scalpel, picked it back up, and then ripped the purse strings on my first appendectomy.”
She winces. “Oh. That’s not… great.”
Your hand finds its way to your comfort necklace. “He found me crying in the supply closet like some medical student, and then he comforted me. It was terrible.”
Mohan starts ambling towards the direction you assume her car is in. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve been caught crying in the supply closet several times. I think it’s a right of passage. And as for that second part…”
She shrugs. “Abbot gives credit where credit is due, but he won’t coddle you. If he actually offered real comfort or advice or whatever, then he meant it.”
“That’s what he said. It just didn’t really help the whole crush-on-him part. And then there was the slapping incident, and he drove me home, and now I have his rain jacket in my backseat in case my car dies again.”
Mohan actually looks taken back.
“Okay. It sounds to me like this is a situation that is in serious need of wine. Do you drink?”
“Whenever I have a spare twenty dollars.”
She grins. “I happen to have a couple bottles at home that might do the trick. Follow me back to my place?”
“Yes please.”
Wine and, eventually, takeout at Samira’s is much more enjoyable than you expected— considering the fact that you’re an intern and she’s a resident. She confides that she doesn’t have very many friends outside of the ED and was excited at the opportunity to have “real girl-time”.
She shares how she weathered her own seemingly life-ending crush on Jack, gasps and screams at the appropriate times when you tell her about the slapping, the events that occurred in the break room afterwards, the drive home, and the jacket.
You leave her apartment feeling lighter than ever. Like life might be worth living. Like you could survive your intern year.
Maybe everything will be okay.
—
Everything is not okay.
You’re now two full weeks into a never-ending fever, you keep getting stuck with shitty shifts (how many times a month can one person possibly be scheduled to work a double?) and top it all off, you’ve been pissed on not once, but twice in the same fucking shift.
Santos snorts when she sees you go by in your third set of scrubs for the day.
You shoot her a look. “Supportive as ever, Dr. Santos.”
“I try.”
You sink into the chair next to hers, taking a moment to press the heels of your hands into your eyes and maybe, like, take a thirty second nap.
It doesn’t help much.
There’s a particular misery in watching the day-shift rotation handoff with the night shift and not being able to join in the process. Because you’re still there. And will be, until you see them again for your handoff, in twelve fucking hours.
Patients tend to get bitchier the later it gets, and it’s one of those nights where every patient bleeds into the next in a never-ending sea of complaints, pain, and fixing.
The fixing is fine. You like the fixing.
You’re just… having a hard time keeping up with everything while the fever perpetually runs you down. It’s the kind of thing where no amount of sleep can help you. Unless it was for 48 hours straight and then you got another 48 hours off after that to relax while you’re awake, and then another 48 hours to be productive.
A vacation. A week off. You’re describing taking a week off work. It’s comical, actually. Imagine requesting a week off from work. Gloria or whoever it is would never grant that. Not as an intern.
You notice Jack lingering around your general vicinity, which is fairly normal on a night like tonight. Technically, as the only intern on shift, you’re the only liability he has to really worry about.
Somewhere around the eighteen hour mark, he slides into the chair next to you while you’re charting.
“You’re flagging.”
Your eyes burn as you tap information into the tablet, then check on the computer in front of you. “I’m fine. I just need a Redbull or something.”
He slides the tablet out of your hands. “Part of being a good doctor is knowing when to take a break. Can’t be a good doctor if you’re falling asleep during the exam, right?”
“I would never fall asleep during an exam.”
He shrugs. “I’ve seen it happen.”
Jack jerks his head towards the break room. “Take five. Get an energy drink or whatever. Then I want you on chairs for at least an hour.”
“Yes sir.”
He rolls his eyes. “Get going.”
Chairs don't prove to be as uneventful as you (and probably Jack) hoped it would be. You get vomited on by a teenage girl, who apologizes profusely when she finally manages to stop throwing up, narrowly avoid a swing from a patient that quickly becomes a behavioral case, and become an unwilling participant in another patient’s doctor fantasy.
Security had to get involved with that last one. It was. Something.
Your shift ends with little fanfare. It’s honestly a miracle you survived. You’re exhausted, achey, and still feverish. The only thing you can think about is crawling into your bed, indulging in a rare expense of turning your heat up, and sleeping until your next shift.
Walking into your apartment ends up being a slap in the face. First of all, it’s fucking freezing. As if you left every single window open while you were gone. Secondly, it’s dark. Like, not even the clock on the microwave is on.
“Fuck,” you mumble under your breath, tears beginning to burn with unshed tears digging through your bag and fumbling with your phone, about to text your landlord when you see that he’s already texted.
Eric (Landlord): Power and AC is down. Might take some time to fix. Power should be back on by tonight.
And that’s just the last straw, really.
You slam the door behind you, not even bothering to go inside your apartment at all, chest tight and face hot, you race down the stairs, trying to find Samira’s contact through blurry eyes. When you think you’ve found it you click call, collapsing on the curb with your body doubled over, crying like a crazy person into your knees, at something like nine in the morning.
The phone rings for a bit, and you’re about to give up when the line finally stops and somebody picks up.
“Hello?”
It’s not Samira who answers. It’s Jack.
You sniffle. “Why are you answering Samira’s phone?”
“I didn’t. I answered my phone. Because you called me. Are you okay?”
“Oh,” You decide to ignore his question, “I meant to call Samira. Sorry.”
“Wait,” Jack’s voice comes out all rough and tinny through the speaker, but even distorted through a phone, you could listen to it for hours, “Answer the question. Are you okay?”
Your bottom lip wobbles dangerously.
“The power’s out in my building. And the heating went out too. My landlord said the power won’t be on until tonight, and I just wanted to go to sleep, but it’s cold and I'm tired and this stupid fever won’t go away.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
Always a man of action, Jack is.
You shrug, then make a non-committal noise when you remember he can’t see it. “I was supposed to call Samira and see if she’d let me sleep on her couch.”
“I have a guest bedroom.”
The statement hangs in the crisp morning air. You think of Jack’s encouraging advice, Jack’s steady presence, Jack’s warm car and his nice smelling rain- jacket. Jack, Jack, Jack.
“Jack?”
“Yes?”
“What’s your address?”
The drive over involves bawling your eyes out to Vienna by Billy Joel. It’s just that kind of day.
You have no problems finding parking (miraculously) and no one stops you as you head up to Jack’s apartment as directed.
It’s… fancy. Like, polished floor lobby, lounge area adjacent to the front desk fancy.
The actual building itself isn’t very tall, nothing like a skyscraper, so it’s not exactly surprising that Jack’s apartment is the penthouse. It’s just suddenly very awkward standing in front of the door, in the same sweatshirt you’ve had since high school, sweats that have seen better years, looking exactly like the kind of girl who sobbed on the ride over to Billy Joel.
Jack opens the door almost immediately after you knock, and.
If seeing him in scrubs was bad, it doesn’t hold a fucking candle to him in a tight, army green shirt and grey sweatpants. Grey sweatpants. That couldn’t have been intentional, right? Is he online enough to know these things? God.
His features soften when he takes in your tear-streaked face and disheveled appearance.
He makes a low noise in his throat.
“Oh, you poor thing. Come here,”
Jack had actually been gesturing to the apartment, saying ‘come inside’ but the dam breaks the moment he says “poor thing” and you don’t have the wherewithal to think anything more complex than “Jack=Comfort and Safety".
Your bag drops with a dull thud onto the ground and then you’re crashing into him, face pressed into his chest and arms wrapped around his middle. You can barely find it within yourself to be embarrassed.
Jack doesn’t react at first, going completely stiff in your hold, and you think maybe you’ve gone and fucked this up too, like everything good in your life, but right when you move to pull away a hand finds its way to the back of your head, and another rubs circles on your back.
“Poor girl,” he murmurs, voice a soothing rumble with your ear close to his chest, “They been running you ragged?”
You nod uselessly, feeling raw and cut open— like you’ve been smashed against a rock and everything you keep tucked inside is spilling out and you can’t stop it.
“I’m so tired.” You half-mumble-half-sob into him, a sentiment that feels too light to convey everything that’s happened since you became an intern at the PTMC, and everything else you don’t talk about that happened before.
“I know sweetheart, I know,” Jack is solid beneath your cheek and arms, a lifeboat in a storm. “How about we get you inside and get you warm, huh? That sound nice?”
At the promise of warmth you finally detach from him, shame burning through you when you eye the wet spot on his shirt.
“Sorry,” You say, voice barely above a whisper. “I think I got snot on your shirt.”
“Trust me kid, it’s seen worse.”
He grabs your bag before you can even make a move for it, and you trail behind him into his apartment, attempting to ground yourself by looking around his apartment.
It’s nice. Lived in, not sterile. It doesn’t, actually, look the inside of a dentist’s office, like you were half expecting. Most new apartments have that doctor’s office lobby feel. Not exactly comfortable when you’re a doctor and the goal of home is to not remind you of your job.
Jack hangs your bag on a hook by the door, right next to his own. Something twinges in your chest at the sight.
There’s a feeling under your skin you can’t place as you shuffle into his apartment, something warm and skittish that aches for this to not be a one time thing, to be able to compare the pale morning light you’re watching now to late afternoon sun. To know where he keeps his mugs, what drawer the silverware is in, if he’s got a junk drawer with random shit in it, and what the random shit is. What it feels like to be in his kitchen, shoulders brushing.
But that’s a lot of complicated things to name or voice just past the threshold of the foyer, so you wrap your arms around yourself and toe your shoes off, then pad quietly after him.
Jack is— inviting, or maybe enticing; all those words that beckon the skittish thing closer and it feels just on the tip of danger to obediently sit on the couch he ushers you to.
“By the way,” Jack says somewhere behind you, maybe in the kitchen? “I have a cat. His name is Charlie. He probably won’t come near you, but be warned, he’s an asshole when he wants to be.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I like cats. Especially the asshole ones.”
“That explains a lot of things.”
His statement is kind of loaded, chock full of subtext you don’t care to parse through at the moment.
“Um,” You start, feeling a bit unsteady, “Is— Do you mind if I shower? I kind of smell gross probably, and I feel… grimy. Your apartment seems clean and I’d hate to get my hospital grime on anything.”
Jack just chuckles. “One, I wouldn’t care if you got ‘hospital grime’ on anything because that would be a very hypocritical thing to care about, and two, of course you can shower. Do you have spare clothes?”
“I might’ve forgotten to grab those.”
Another huffy laugh. “That’s fine. You can borrow some of mine. I’ll leave them on the bed.”
That’s like. Wow. Yeah. You’re just gonna borrow some clothes from him. From Jack. You’re going to shower in Jack’s shower and use whatever bodywash he has (hopefully not 5-in-one) and then put on his clothes and you are totally capable of being Completely Normal about these things.
“I already started on dinner when you said you were coming over. Should be done by the time you get out of the shower. Chicken noodle okay?”
Damn Jack Abbot and damn your shitty emotional regulation and damn your life for putting you in these situations.
“Yeah,” You croak, thinking about things like soup and family and being cold and strong and alone, “Yeah that’s fine. Thank you.”
Jack politely does not comment on the fact that soup is reducing you to a tangled heap of emotions and tears, and instead directs you to where his shower is and says to use whatever you want and take however long you want. He says want, not need. You’re not sure if there’s an intention behind the word choice.
Once in the shower, you allow yourself time to cry, to feel awful and self-pitying and all those things that are terrible to go through in front of another person. His shower is expensive and the water is warm and he does not have 5-in-one. There’s a litter box nestled next to the toilet, and it’s not funny, but it kind of is, because Jack would be the kind of guy to look at a litter box and put it right next to the toilet. Everything in its place.
Maybe that’s your problem. You haven’t felt like anything is in the right place in years.
You want to stay in the shower, in the bubble of protection it provides, but the idea of running up Jack’s water bill is enough to guilt you into getting out. You shiver, dry, aggressively attempt to make yourself look less like a wreck at the sink, and then tip-toe into the attached bedroom and carefully pull on the clothes Jack left for you on the bed; a faded, oversized college shirt, and a comfy pair of sweatpants.
They smell like him. You smell like him, like his body wash. The house smells like him. Everything you take in is a pleasant assault of Jack, Jack, Jack.
Enough guilt to fuel an entire room of ex-Catholic’s is the only thing keeping you from snooping around his room. The idea of stumbling upon something private or hidden away makes you feel slimy and gross, so you exit the bedroom and pretend like you don’t feel like a foster dog on its first night home from the shelter.
(Do shelter dogs miss the shelter? Do they miss its familiarity? Do dogs miss anything at all?)
The apartment smells of more spices and good smelling food than you privately thought Jack capable of. You’d read him as the kind of guy to subsist on takeout and maybe like, protein bars. But he’s dutifully stirring a metal pot with all the diligence of the military man that he once was.
Quietly, as if he might throw the wooden spoon he’s stirring with if you make too much noise or take up too much space, you carefully pull out a barstool in front of his kitchen island, the one closest to the door, and haul yourself onto it.
He gives you an examining glance over his shoulder, turns a knob on the stove, then rests his forearms on the island counter across from you. His rather delicious looking forearms, you might add.
“Feeling better after your shower?”
You hum an affirmation, folding your arms and resting your chin on them.
“Isn’t it kind of weird to make soup for breakfast?”
He shrugs. “It’s dinner for us. Or, well, me. I’m not sure your body knows what meal it is.”
He taps a pointer finger rhythmically on the counter. “Any word from your landlord?”
“No. Sorry for… all of this. I know you’re tired.”
“I wish you’d stop apologizing for things I don’t mind doing for you.”
You don’t really know how to respond to that, or what to do with how it makes you feel, so you elect to save it for later. Good at compartmentalizing, ED doctors are.
You clear your throat. “I can call Samira whenever. She’d probably be excited to have girl time. So you know. Don’t feel like— I have other options. If or when you want me to leave.”
“Do you want to leave?”
You wish he’d stop asking questions you don’t want to answer.
You try to play it off, smother your fear and exhaustion with humor. Robby’s kid, through and through.
“Well, I can’t have you getting sick of me. You’re the only person I know who has a very rob-able house if this whole internship doesn’t pan out.”
Jack straightens, shoulders pulling and flexing. “Who said I’d get sick of you? Maybe I like the idea of you in my house.”
“Do you?”
You ask the question before you’re aware of how terrified you are of the answer. But you’ve already said it, and it feels nice to be the one asking the hard question instead.
Jack, likely experienced in this sort of thing, doesn’t look outwardly bothered by it, but he gets a sort-of-sad look on his face, almost like he’s disappointed that you had to ask.
“Have I given you any reason to think otherwise?”
“I don’t know,” You look down, picking at a hangnail to avoid his expression and his eyes and his everything, “I don’t want to assume anything.”
“You’ve already assumed quite a bit.”
You scrunch your face. “That’s different. Those are safe assumptions.”
“Are they?”
“Obviously, it’s safer to assume that you don’t want me to stay here, or at least not for very long, because if I assume that I do I’ll bother you and I want you to—“
You cut yourself off, jaw shutting with a firm click, but the end of the sentence hangs in the air unspoken anyways. It’s not hard to figure out what you were going to say.
I want you to like me.
Jack sighs, and alarm blares are going off in your head and your chest starts to feel tight and cold despite the warmth of his apartment, and then he’s rounding the island and you turn your body to follow him —never turn you back, never let your guard down— and then he’s standing in front of you, over you, and you’re not sure if you want to run or metaphorically curl up at his feet, tail tucked.
It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing. It’s impossible to ignore.
(What does a shelter dog think, on that first night? Do they hope? Do dogs hope?)
He raises a hand, slowly, giving you a chance to lean away, and when you don’t, it comes to rest on the side of your face, his thumb swiping at the barely-there wetness from earlier tears.
It’s cleaning the cut from the slap, it’s a kindness you can curl into, and it might be a threat. Might be bad, might turn harsh and painful, might leave without a word.
Unlike that day in the break room, there’s no fluorescent lights to suck any heat out of the room and no gloves as a barrier; as a reminder of who he is, of what you are, of how things work.
It’s just you and Jack, in Jack’s apartment, wearing Jack’s clothes, and pretty soon you’re going to eat food that Jack made. Just for you.
And you think maybe, possibly, if he stops here you could kind of hold onto this moment for the rest of your life and it would get you through being alive and strong and alone, and you’d make it through this, whatever this is, if he stops here.
He doesn’t. He starts talking.
“I like knowing that you’re safe. That you’re taken care of. I like knowing with certainty that these things are true because I’m the one making sure of it.”
Your breath hitches in your chest.
“That’s kind of a lot of work, though.”
He hums. “It is. Luckily, I just so happen to be a pretty hard worker.”
Everything about the current situation is a lot and your nerves are over-taxed and dialed up to hundred, so it’s not surprising that you start crying again.
Jack brings up a second hand to the other side of your face and gently wipes away the tears as they come. It feels sort of like the physical version of everything he’s been doing for you since that day in the supply closet.
“You don’t have to do anything, or say anything, or make any kind of decision right now, okay? We can do whatever you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”
There’s the word choice again; want, not need. Is there a difference? What does the difference mean to him? What does he mean? Why is he doing any of this?
Jack's phone goes off in his pocket, and he steps back, drops his hands, and goes back to the stove.
Jack said you don’t have to make a decision right now, but you kind of feel like if you don’t do something you’re going to be sick with everything that’s swirling and clawing inside you, threatening to burst. Like the very essence of you is going to explode, and your soul will be painted on Jack’s perfectly decorated walls.
That would be something, wouldn’t it.
You stay seated at the island, turning to stare at Jack’s back while he adds the final touches to the soup. He doesn’t talk anymore, but he keeps looking back every few minutes, like he’s making sure you’re still there.
Eventually Jack turns the stove off, dishes up a bowl of soup for you, and sets it gently in front of you. He uses his pinky to cushion the placing of the bowl, so there’s no loud clinking noise when he sets the bowl down.
There’s a tiny sprig of parsley on top of the soup, right in the center. Like a Panera ad for soup in September.
You start crying again, in earnest.
“I’m sorry,” You gasp, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m— I don’t know. I don’t know.”
You’re hoping the last sentence encompasses an entire lifetime of events, accidents, mistakes, and memories that have never been able to find a place in your head except dead center, at the forefront of your mind at all times, stamped on your forehead for anyone with eyes to see.
Your life hasn’t been wants or choices for a very long time. And here Jack is, giving you an array of both, and saying things like he wants you to want.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Hey, hey hey hey, shhh,” Strong arms wrap around you, tucking your head into a warm chest, effectively shutting off all sensory input that isn’t Jack. “You’re okay, you’re safe, you’re okay, I got you.”
He rubs circles into your back, then switches to tracing shapes, and he lets you cry into him again and he doesn’t tell you to stop, or to calm down, or you’re being too much too fast.
“You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay sweetheart. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
—
You, embarrassingly, fall asleep right there, sitting at the kitchen island over a bowl of soup and twenty-something years of holding up your life with hands that never quite seemed big enough to do it.
You wake up in Jack’s bed, his comforter pulled up to your chin and the clock at the bedside table reading 8:17 p.m. There’s the muffled sound of several voices coming from beyond the door.
Holy shit. What the fuck.
Deciding to ignore the implication that Jack carried you to bed, you mentally take stock of what’s around you.
In front of the clock is your phone (plugged in to charge), a glass of water, and a note with Jack’s handwriting on it.
Kid-
I’ll probably be in the ED for the night shift by the time you wake up. I called Mohan (who called Mel, who was with Langdon, for reasons unknown) to go to your place and grab you some things. There may be people in the apartment when you wake up. You are in no way obligated to interact with them. They have to leave eventually.
Charlie is in the room with you because he hates strangers, but he probably won’t leave the bathroom. Probably. Drink water and eat something, if you can. Text me if you need anything.
The voices beyond the door are, more than likely, the aforementioned individuals who have now seen the glorified closet you call home. It’s not ideal, but you’re wrung out and don’t have the energy to really care. Besides, Samira and Mel are too nice to judge you that hard (you hope) and from what you’ve heard, Langdon isn’t really in a place to say anything.
On one hand, going out there requires socializing. Which, ew. On the other hand, Samira and Mel are the best. Langdon is maybe okay.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, you shuffle out of bed and then continue shuffling to the door, hoping that whatever you look like isn’t too terribly awful.
Samira, Mel, and Langdon are standing around the kitchen island, various takeout containers and bottles of alcohol littering the space. For some reason, Trinity, Dennis, and Robby are also present.
Samira and Langdon are engaged in what looks to be a rather animated discussion-slash-argument, and Mel is standing just a little closer to Langdon than what could be considered normal for friends. Trinity is very obviously ignoring Langdon’s general existence, bickering with Dennis on the couch, and Robby is seated in the armchair by the window, nursing a beer and watching both conversations unfold.
You sniff aggressively, and all heads snap to you.
“There are more of you here then there’s supposed to be,” You grumble, scrubbing at your face. “Why are you all here?”
Mel is the first to speak.
“It was Frank actually!” Trinity rolls her eyes, and part of you wants to share the sentiment, “He figured Trinity would be upset that something happened to you and he knew and didn’t tell her, so Trinity decided that me and Samira would get your stuff while everyone else stayed here in case you woke up before we came back!”
Wow, okay, that’s. A Lot.
You squint. “That doesn’t explain why you’re all here. I mean it does, but only like, why you’re here physically.”
Robby frowns. “We heard that you were going through a rough time and you had to stay with Jack, so we came.”
Trinity snorts on the couch and Dennis, next to her, looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.
Robby shoots her a look, but continues. “We care about you. We— I don’t want you to feel like you have to do everything on your own. In or out of the ED.”
Trinity blows out a loud sigh and low whistle. “Jee-zus Robby, give the woman some time to wake up before trying to induce tears again.”
Robby does look a little apologetic, maybe a teensy bit chastised (and annoyed that Trinity was the one doing the chastising) and turns his deep brown eyes back to you.
"Sorry. Can't help these Dad tendencies, you know."
Your face gets hot, maybe a tiny, wet prickle behind your eyes forms while Robby smiles, and the tension leaves the room all in one go, and you start to think that maybe things are in the right place.
–
At the ED, Jack Abbot, who's been checking his phone whenever he gets a free moment like a highschooler with a crush, opens the first text that pops up on his screen after hours of waiting.
It's a picture from Robby. You, with your head thrown back in a cackle of a laugh, not a single bit of stress evident in any of the lines of your body. There's one text accompanying the picture:
Please don't make me give you a shovel talk. I think you already know what's at stake here.
Jack snorts and pockets his phone, because yeah, he does.
–
When Jack finally gets back to his apartment, he's half-expecting to see the kind of mess that a large grouping of obnoxious people leave behind. Trash, maybe a few red solo cups, empty takeout containers, someone asleep on his couch, someone passed out on the floor.
He's not expecting to see a clean space. The only evidence that people were there at all is some rearranged pillows, a half-empty bottle of wine on the counter, and some new takeout menus on his fridge.
And then there's you. You're lying on the couch, eyes glued to the TV, watching a show he doesn't really recognize. There's a well-loved backpack on the floor, just under the coffee table. The shocking bit is Charlie, his resident asshole, is 'loafing' right on your chest, purring away.
You lift your head when you hear the jingle of his keys, a smile immediately brightening your face. He mentally takes a picture, right there, so he can remember this exact moment forever.
"What'd you bribe him with?" Jack says instead of something much more neurotic, like 'You don't have to go back to your place when the power comes back on.'
You shrug, unaware of his emotional and romantic pain. "You were right. He came out from under the bed after everybody left. He kind of growled at me for a little bit, but once I settled down here he just kind of... came right up."
You plant a little kiss to the top of his head, right in between furry ears. Great, now Jack's jealous of a senior cat with one ear who licks his own butt. "How could I resist this face? I see why you brought him home."
Jack rounds the end of the couch, shuffling by, and Charlie opens his eyes just enough to shoot him a look that Jack takes to mean: If you make her get up and move me, I will kill you in your sleep.
Jack does not disturb his cat as he sits down on the couch. There's a moment when things almost get hairy- you pull your legs back when he goes to sit, slightly jostling The Asshole, who pins his only ear back in annoyance.
Jack solves this problem by taking your legs, clad in some soft flannel pajama pants and pink fuzzy socks, and lays them across his lap. There. Problem solved.
The warmth of your legs on his lap and the look on your face is reward enough for him. He can't think of a way he'd rather spend his time.
Jack, in a rare show of mercy, does not tease you, and decides that you've probably had enough excitement for one day.
"So," He says instead, looking up at the TV and grimacing at the mutilated corpse on the screen, "What are we watching?"
He watches you shrink into yourself. He hates it when you do that. He hates that you feel like you have to.
"Uh, Bones. I can turn it off, though. I'm sure you don't want to watch this."
He doesn't answer the question you've not-subtly voiced, instead choosing to redirect the conversation.
"Why did you put it on?"
You start chewing on your lower lip. Your signature 'I don't want to answer this question so I'm going to think really hard about it' move.
"It's kind of my comfort show? I don't know. I watched it a lot growing up. We didn't have cable, but the hotels I stayed at sometimes did. I'd wait until my dad fell asleep and then I'd turn on the TV and watch from the sci-fi or drama channels. Watched a lot of Bones. Supernatural too, and sometimes Doctor Who, if it was on. But Bones was my favorite."
The characters on the screen are involved in some sort of car chase now, police siren flashing on a black SUV. Jack isn't paying attention to that at all, because this is the first time since the day you walked into the PTMC and introduced yourself that he's ever heard you talk about your childhood.
"How come?"
"I don't know. I've always liked procedural shows. Had a huge House MD phase. Death and bones and corpses and stuff has never really grossed me out, which is part of the reason I became a doctor. But also..."
You point to the male character. "You see him? That's Booth. Seeley Booth. They all have kind of crazy names. He's an FBI agent, and his partner is that woman there. Temperance Brennan. Booth calls her Bones."
"She doesn't look like an FBI agent."
You smile. "She's not. She's a forensic anthropologist, but she consults on murder cases and stuff like that because she's kind of a genius. She's smart, strong, and capable. She and Booth don't always get along, because they both can be headstrong and stubborn. But he respects and trusts her, implicitly. No matter what. They love each other."
Your throat bobs, but your voice is steady when you speak.
"And when Brennan needs him, if she's in trouble or she needs him by her side, even if she doesn't know she does, he's always there. He always saves her."
Jack can picture it, in his mind. You, small and alone, watching these characters on some shitty hotel TV and getting it into your head that this kind of thing only exists in TV shows. He pictures you dreaming of having a Booth, of having someone to be there for you, to pick you up when you fall. He thinks of you crying in the supply closet and how quietly you'd done it. Almost silent.
He thinks of what happens to a person to make them learn how to cry without making a sound.
He rests a hand on your ankle, fingers instinctively drifting towards the pulse point there- posterior tibial. He keeps two fingers on it, even though he can't feel it through your fuzzy socks. With his thumb he makes circles, because he's seen how you lean into Robby's shoulder grabs, how you preen at physical and verbal praise, how you'd slumped like a marionette with its strings cut into his arms just yesterday.
"Jack?" Your voice is tentative, unsure.
"Hmm?"
"Am I..." You start chewing your lip again, "Are you— I don't to assume anything. So if I fuck this up and make you uncomfortable—"
"I want to kiss you."
Jack has learned how to speak fluent you. He knows how to stop an incoming spiral, how to soothe old wounds rearing their heads.
He continues when you don't speak.
"I want you to wear my clothes. I want to take care of you. I want you, in whatever way you'll let me."
"Oh."
"I was laying it on pretty thick, kid."
You look away from him, and this is another moment he'd like to keep forever.
"I thought I was just reading into things!"
"Do you think I call every intern sweetheart?"
Jack is positive Charlie's presence on your stomach is the only thing keeping you from actively squirming in place.
"I thought maybe you were just one of those guys. Samira said it was possible!"
He rolls his eyes. "You can't ask Mohan for romantic advice. She's you in a different font."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment."
You turn back to your show, losing yourself in the plot for a while. When the murderer has been caught and the credits are playing, you look at him again.
"We don't. Um. Can we just keep doing this? For now?"
For the first time since meeting you, Jack gets to say exactly what he's thinking.
"We can do this forever. We can do whatever you want."
"All because my head is full of poison
And my heart is full of doubt
I got toxins in my bloodstream
You tried so hard to suck out
—the cure, Olivia Rodrigo
summary: you’re the ray of sunshine and overly dependable smiling intern the night shift crew has been needing. But a certain attending begins noticing you might need more help than you let on.
wc: 11.7k (a short one sorry guys)
warnings: crippling perfectionism, high-key people pleasing, reader is bright and bubbly to compensate for how awful she feels day to day, one vomiting scene, service dom jack, santos is on nightshift bc i love her and i wanted her in this fic. trinity and dennis and reader r basically siblings, jack’s characterization in this is DEF andrew pope cody-esque panic attacks, mental health struggles, reader is an intern again but i swear it’s just cause i watch a lot of greys and interns r the only stage of medical career i know enough about to write semi-well T-T
acknowledgments: once again a round of applause for @wesandresons for the lovely gif, and @uzmacchiato and @cursed-carmine for the dividers!
a/n: i’m not rlly sure i like how this turned out but oh well @leeknowpegger i hope this keeps you company
masterlist
When you first get to the PTMC, Jack can’t decide what he thinks about you.
He vaguely remembers you— you’d done a rotation here, some time ago. One of the unfortunate ones who’d drawn the short stick and been stuck on the night shift. He has a hazy recollection of your face during an MVC, your jaw hard set and a permanent smile to your face. He vaguely remembers, at the time, the only thing he’d really though was:
Jesus, this kid needs to dial it back.
The sentiment, of course, remains the same when it’s handoff time, and Robby is telling him all about what an awful fucking day it’s been, and of course now he says “Oh, remember that med student you got stuck with awhile back? Smiley-face? You must’ve done something right, because she matched into the ED for her residency. She starts today.”
Not exactly the news an attending wants to hear right after the horror show the day has been so far. Especially when intern/baby resident in question is… charismatic.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Ellis says, her eyes trained on you as you soothe a crying teenager who just got wheeled in. “If you ask me, we could use someone who actually smiles. Bit too dark and dreary in here for my taste.”
“You like dark and dreary.”
She gives him an unimpressed raised eyebrow. “So? We can’t all be doing it. Like, we’ve got Shen, but his is more iced-coffee induced than actual smiling charm.”
“I can be charming when I want to be.”
“No, you can be flirty or suggestive. There’s a difference.”
Jack does not justify her response with one of his own, instead choosing to look down at his tablet and pretend to chart while he listens to how you’re interacting with the patient. The teenager seems to be calmed down, and the parents don't sound frantic or worried.
Maybe Ellis is right. Unfortunately, this tends to be the case fairly often.
He sighs and focuses on the chart he’s supposed to be doing and attempts to wipe his mind of bright smiles and glittering eyes.
—
The PTMC and Emergency Medicine in general was not, actually, your first choice. It wasn’t even your second, or your third.
First was surgical. Everybody wants to be surgical. You wanted surgical. It’s flashy, it pays well, and it’s cool as fuck. Plus, unlike some of your classmates, you actually have the stomach for it (one of the many things that eventually translated well to emergency medicine.)
Second was Ortho. Because bones are cool. Ortho surgeries are fun too, when they’re not arthroscopy after arthroscopy.
Third was any kind of unit like Burn or ICU. A high stress program that wouldn’t let you think, let you run on adrenaline all day.
But then you did your rotation in general surgery and absolutely fucking hated it.
Surgeons are assholes. Surgeons are uptight nerds who like to subject anyone they consider beneath them to cruel and unusual punishment.
Even in during the short duration of your rotation through surgery, it almost killed you. You could practically feel the light in your soul dimming at every pointed comment, every sharp correction, every barked insult and something or other cruel word.
And then there was the PTMC. The stupid ED that wasn’t supposed to fun, was supposed to be grueling and exhausting (especially since you’d gotten assigned to the night shift.) But instead of awful you got amazing, which sucked.
Seems counterintuitive, but it’s true.
You wanted to like surgery enough to power though. But not a single rotation after the ED even came close to measuring up. The speed, the action, the gore, and the kind but firm guiding direction from the attending’s and residents.
Matching into the PTMC was an event actually worth celebrating. As in, you decided to un-tense minutely and splurge on actual champagne that you drank in your apartment while dancing to your favorite music.
And now, you’re here. Determined to not fuck this up. To keep moving, keep going, and be a fucking excellent ED doctor.
Except your attending, Dr. Jack Abbot, one of the reasons you joined the ED in the first place, keeps giving you funny looks when he thinks you’re not looking.
You’re not sure if he’s aware that you know that he’s staring at you. You do have a wider than normal field of peripheral vision, so maybe he doesn’t know that you can still see him out of the corner of your eye?
Regardless of if he knows or not, it’s unnerving. Because he’s your boss. And you know he’s capable of being an incredible doctor and mentor, because you see it every single day.
Just not directed at you.
He’s not really mean, or standoffish, or anything like that, he’s just… not necessarily kind. Not in the way that you see him with the other residents on his service or even with you, during your rotation as a med student.
Hell, he’s nicer to Santos than he is to you.
“Did I like, say something to offend him and I don’t know?”
Trinity makes a face at you from over the edge of the monitor. “Isn’t that more my area of expertise?”
“No. You offend people on purpose.”
“True.”
You prop your head on your hands, resting your elbows on the counter above her. Your keycard, attached to your breast pocket via a red, heart-shaped badge reel is lovingly adorned with pink rhinestones and cute stickers. The pocket itself is filled with several glitter gel pens (and regular pens, just in case.)
“I just don’t get it. I’m nice, right?”
“Disturbingly so.”
“Exactly. The only thing I can think of is that I’ve messed up or something, but it’s Dr. Abbot. He’d tell me if I did. He doesn’t exactly hold back.”
“Do you really need me for this conversation?”
You level her with a look, but she just groans.
“Why do you even care? So what, one guy doesn’t like you, boohoo.”
“He’s not just some guy. He’s my attending. And you might’ve secured your spot here, but i’m all shiny and new. I can’t exactly earn people’s respect if our boss doesn’t like me.”
Trinity doesn’t immediately respond with a scathing remark, which usually means that you’ve made a valid point.
“Should I talk to him?”
She sighs. “I think you’re overreacting. You’ve only been here for like, two weeks? Three? He’ll probably calm down the more you work together.”
“Did he stare at you all weirdly when you first started?”
“Well, no, but that’s because I don’t suck at my job.”
Now it’s your turn to glare.
“Sorry. I guess you’re not completely hopeless.”
You roll your eyes. “Thanks, Trin.”
She scrunches her nose up at the nickname like you knew she would, because she hates it, which makes it one of the only weapons you have against her.
Trinity wasn’t as helpful as you’d hoped, and night shift means no Dana to ask for advice. There’s Dr. Ellis, but she’s pretty close to Dr. Abbot, which means there’s a high chance that whatever you ask her will make it back to him. You aren’t really close enough to Dr. Shen to ask him “Hey, how come Dr. Abbot stares at me when he thinks I’m not looking and isn’t as nice to me as he is to you guys?”
The question is stupid and kind of pathetic, so really, you shouldn’t be asking anybody, but you’ve always been crippled by an intense need to be well-liked. It feels like winning, and it feels good and safe. Safe is good. Safe is great.
Wanting the guy who's essentially your boss to like you is completely rational, right?
You just wish he’d tell you what you’re doing wrong, so you can fix it.
Also, it’s just driving you crazy.
Even if he just legitimately didn’t like you, and made that apparent, it’d be something. You could work with that. You could figure out what it was he didn't like via intense pattern recognitin and fix it. Problem solved!
But he isn't obvious about it. He behaves indifferent and detatched- like you could die tomorrow and he wouldn't care.
It’s the not knowing. If you could just ask him, if he could just give you an answer, then you’d know where you stood, and everything could be fine.
What changed? You want to beg, What happened after my med student rotation? Do you even remember that? What did I do? Where did I go wrong?
It eats away at you over the course of the week. It has been since you noticed, which was pretty much on day one. You don’t show this outwardly of course, because you’re pretty sure you can get through to him and level out the wrong-footedness you feel around him through stubborn determination. Surely, at some point your unwavering nature will win out and he’ll finally see there isn’t anything he needs to hate about you. This is an incredibly healthy mindset to move through life with.
The week closes with an MCI around 5pm, which is just everyone’s favorite thing in the world. The night shift gets called in, minus Trinity, who was already there working a double, and everyone sets in for the long haul. You do your best to focus on the patients and do not at all think about the ease and camaraderie between Mohan and Abbot, because that would be a very fucked up progression of priorities.
Eventually it’s all over— patients are stabilized, some aren’t. Overtime ends with phantom blood on your hands and being strong-armed into drinks in the park afterwards.
You feel awkward, because you don’t work with the day shift people that often, so you’re not really sure how best to be yourself and not come across as weird. Neither of your “safe” people (Trinity and Dennis) are present, so there’s no way in hell you’re going to be capable of relaxing.
You take the beer that’s tossed to you, even though you think beer is gross (why does it taste like that? Why do people enjoy it?) and sip on it excruciatingly slowly, trying to hide a grimace and occasionally chiming in with mentally rehearsed and carefully crafted jokes and comments.
It’s exhausting, and not at all how you wanted to spend your night after an MCI. In a dream world, you don’t have the social backbone of a wet paper bag, and you say no, and you go home to your house and shower, then watch one, maybe two episodes of a tv show, scroll through Pinterest, and then go the fuck to bed.
But for the low low price of much needed rest, you get to drink one of the most disgusting alcoholic beverages known to man and worry if everyone thinks you’re being weird! Yay!
Also. Side note. Minor comment. Little issue.
Jack Abbot is sitting next to you. Like, right next to you on the bench. Because he came late and it was the last spot open. So he’s just right there. Posture loose and open and not at all like he didn’t just help you try to save a girl your age who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like two hours ago your elbows weren’t brushing, elbow deep in a man’s organs, saving his life.
Jack, unlike you, looks comfortable to be at the park with everyone. He doesn’t look like he’s analyzing conversation to determine the best thing to say next.
Jack isn’t looking at everyone. He’s not looking at anyone. He’s looking at you.
You turn, give him a little smile.
Again.
Maybe he doesn’t know you can still see him out of the corner of your eye. (No, he’s a vet, he’d definitely also have wide peripheral vision. But maybe he thinks that you don’t have it, because you’re not a vet.)
(You’re probably thinking too much about the peripheral vision.)
Jack doesn’t stop staring at you. Instead, he reaches over to where your barely-drunk beer is in your hands, and says:
“Here, give me that.”
And then he just. Takes your beer. Straight out of your hands.
Jesus fucking fuck he so hates you.
—
“He took your beer?”
“Yes,” You groan from the kitchen island in Trinity’s apartment, “He said ‘here, give me that’ and then just took it. He didn’t say anything else to me for the rest of the night.”
She lets out a low whistle. “Maybe he doesn’t like you. What could you have possibly done to make him not like you?”
“I don’t know!”
“Well, you better fix it. Having your attending hate your guts will like, majorly suck.”
“I don’t know how to fix it. That’s what i’m over here for. To brainstorm.”
“I thought you were here to steal the cookies Huckleberry made?”
Dennis peeks his head up from the couch. “Wait, what?”
You wave a hand. “Semantics. Focus.”
“Okay,” Trinity taps a pencil on a notepad, “Have you tried sleeping with him?”
“He’s like, probably over twenty years older than me.”
“So? I know your type.”
You roll your eyes. “As if he’d go after me, Trin. He doesn’t like me.”
“Hate sex is a thing.”
“Name one time hate sex solved the hate part.”
She purses her lips. “Touché. What about like, baking him shit, like Huckleberry does for—“
“Shut up Trinity!”
You both snicker.
“No dice,” You sigh, “I can’t bake for shit. Recipes never have enough context. They’re never specific enough.”
“Two tablespoons of sugar isn’t specific enough for you?”
“You’re not helping.”
Trinity holds up her hands in mock surrender. “To be fair, I never agreed to help. I just said we’d both be here if you wanted to come over.”
“I think you should just ask him.” Dennis pipes up.
He shuffles off the couch and slides into the second chair at the kitchen island adjacent to you. “Dr. Abbot is a straightforward guy. He appreciates honesty. Doesn’t beat around the bush. I can’t imagine him being truly upset that you tried to fix a problem.”
“I want to, but that’s like. Too straightforward. What if—“
“Oh my god,” Trinity moans, “Just ask him. Or fuck him. Do something so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.”
You frown, opening your mouth to object, then close it with a sigh.
She’s right.
You have to just move on. Either deal with it or deal with it by… not dealing with it. Talk to him or don’t.
Easier said than done.
—
It takes two more shifts of unrequited awkwardness for you to finally reach your limit. At a certain point, probably when you almost snapped at him for hovering (doing his job) while you were trying to intubate a patient, you realize that you cannot, actually, just get through to him via stubborn determination.
Damn.
So when you have a second, you corner him in one of the quieter hallways. The conversation has the potential to be horrifically embarrassing and mortifying, so it’s best if there’s no audience.
“Do you have a minute, Dr. Abbot?”
He glances down at his watch, then crosses his arms and leans against the opposite wall.
He doesn’t talk (unnerving, annoying) and his sharp, ever analyzing gaze makes your skin prickle as you cross your hands behind your back and mirror his position, leaning against the wall.
He’s so irritating. He won’t even give you a fucking inch. There’s nothing to go on.
“Did I do something wrong?”
For the first time since you became a resident in the ED, he makes an expression: surprise.
“Why do you think you did something wrong?”
“Because you won’t fucking talk to me!” You hiss, absolutely fed up with Dr. Jack Abbot, “Half the time you only look at me when you think I won’t notice. You don’t talk to me unless it’s required for teaching, and even then, it’s short and stilted. I’ve seen how you interact with literally every other person who works here. I know you can be nice. You’re just not nice to me, and I’d like to know why.”
You pause. “And you took my beer!”
There’s a moment of silence, and then there’s a breathy, almost wheezing sound that takes you a minute to place.
He’s laughing.
Jack fucking Abbot starts laughing.
You honest to God want to kill him.
“Sorry,” He says, eyes sparkling with mirth and shoulders loose, “I can see how all of that can be taken negatively—“
“How else was I supposed to take that.”
Jack levels you with a look, and you shut your mouth. “But it was not my intention.”
He just stops speaking there, like that’s a perfectly adequate explanation and not at all vague and almost more disconcerting.
“So…,” You drawl, “What was your intention?”
Something interesting, a little more heated than just analytical sparks in his gaze, and he tilts his head, eyes flicking up and down your body.
Under the silence and scrutiny, you resist the urge to squirm in place, hands squeezing themselves in an effort to subdue the itch.
“You hate confrontation.”
Your chest feels like a cinder block just slammed onto it. “What?”
“You,” He levels a finger at your chest, “Hate confrontation. You hate it so much that you lie about yourself to people instead of saying things they might not like.”
You laugh nervously, voice high and reedy. “A lot of people do that. I don’t think that’s a crime.”
“It’s not. But it doesn’t exactly make me want to trust you with my residents. With my team.”
“You’re worried I’ll what? Get somebody in trouble? Do something shitty?”
“I’m worried that something is going to happen to you, and you won’t tell anyone about it.”
The hallway grows silent. In this distance there’s beeping, someone shouting orders, a child crying. But not in the five feet of space you, Jack, and the conversion currently occupies.
“Why do all of this?” You gesture vaguely to the space between you two, unwilling to be more specific. He does not deserve the itemized list you assembled in your head.
“I wanted to see if you’d confront me about it or not. Confirm my suspicions.”
“That’s—“ You wrinkle your nose, “Actually kind of shitty of you.”
Jack just hums.
“So what now? Did I prove myself to you?” Your tone is mocking.
He scoffs, “God, you really hate confrontation, don’t you?”
Your skin prickles again. “No.”
“Lying again.”
“Shut up.”
He knows how uncomfortable he’s making you. He’s doing it on purpose. And right then and there, you decide you don’t care what Jack Abbot thinks, because if Jack Abbot is going to be a self-assured asshole, Jack Abbot can go fuck himself.
Your pager going off saves you from verbalizing any of this, and with one last glare, you’re gone.
—
If Jack was an obnoxious lurker before, it doesn’t hold a damn candle to how he behaves now.
He’s just. Everywhere. Around every corner. Driving you crazy.
When you bring this up to Trinity, she looks at you like you’ve finally lost it.
Which. Okay. You probably have. But that’s beside the point! The point is…
…The point is that Jack Abbot is getting on your last nerve and you really don’t have any to spare. Life has been stomping all over the other ones, so the singular nerve Jack is stabbing with his annoying pointed looks and almost lingering touches and stupid little questions (“Hey, that was a rough one, are you alright?”) is just worn out. It doesn’t have anything left to give. You don’t have anything left to give.
But, like you were brought up to do, you keep right on giving. And working. And smiling.
Because it goes a little something like this: There’s no one to pick you up if you fall. You pick yourself up when you fall, and you’ve gotten pretty fucking good at it. All of your friends (read: Trinity and Dennis and maybe Mel) are doctors, which means you all have shitty work/life balance and no one would even be available if you called and said “Hey, every morning I lie awake and stare at the ceiling and convince myself to get up while listening to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, after which I will inevitably cry on the bus to work. Would you mind helping me with my laundry?”
Okay. Well. Trinity would probably show up if you asked because once she decides that you’re her friend she’s really intense about it (she’s a bit like a Doberman or some other dog like that, not that you would ever tell her) and Dennis probably would too, but only because he never says no when someone asks for help so it kind of just feels like you’re taking advantage of him. Mel is far too busy juggling being an ED doctor and caring for Becca for you to even think about asking her without feeling intense, soul crushing guilt.
So yeah. You don’t really have a best friend, unless one would count the singular romance book you’ve read so much the spine is completely fucked and the pages are yellow from years of travel and rereading. Counting any book as a best friend is probably very pathetic. But hey, don’t fix what isn’t broken.
So you have a system and a method and crying before and after work every single day is totally, completely normal, healthy, and sustainable. Probably even more so in the medical field, and especially since you’re a PGY1. Interns gotta suffer and all that jazz.
Jack Abbot does not need to make the suffering worse by existing near you constantly. Things are really honestly bad enough.
“Hey,” Trinity grabs your arm as you’re going by during a mellow shift, grip not tight enough to hurt but enough to be a bit past uncomfortable, especially for a girl not used to physical contact, “You good?”
‘No,’ You want to shout, collapsing on the floor in a heap of bones and tears, ‘I haven’t done laundry in so long that I’ve started wearing my cleanest dirty socks instead of washing more. I don’t have the energy to spend my days off doing anything productive, but every time I sleep instead of doing chores the anxiety eats me alive. I can’t sleep at night because the guilt makes me so nervous sometimes I throw up. Sometimes I don’t wash myself in the shower and I just stand in the water until it gets cold. Every day I wake up with the same headache, and then I take medicine for it, but by the time it’s gone I’m going to bed and then I wake up with it all over again. I think my liver is shot from over-the-counter medication usage. Everything hurts. I’m so tired.’
Trinity needs you to be okay. Trinity is too busy and under too much stress to worry about you. She needs you to be okay. Everyone needs you be okay.
“Mhm!” You nod, lips spread wide, “Pretty good day actually, all things considered.”
It’s not a total lie. The headache relief you’ve been taking religiously is kicking in faster than it usually does today.
Trinity scans your face, looking for signs of a lie, and she must find something (not shocking, it’s very hard to pretend that everything isn’t awful when Everything Is Really Awful) because her grip tightens minutely and she does that pursed lip thing she does when she’s worried and about to express it through anger or bitchiness.
“Don’t fuck with me. I don’t want to find out you’re like, doing drugs or something stupid like that. If you’re having a hard time—“
“Trin,” You interrupt, skin prickling uncomfortably as she implies that you’re not capable of handling things on your own, “If I need help, I know I can ask for it. And look,”
You tap your unbroken collection of glitter gel pens still intact in the front pocket of your scrubs. “It’s gotta be a good day. I still got my glitter.”
She wrinkles her nose, but drops your arm. “I don’t even know why you keep those. You can’t use them on like, anything. It’s against hospital policy.”
You shrug. “Glitter is a great motivator and mood elevator. Plus, kids love ‘em.”
You manage to feign something important coming up and duck out of the conversation and then, when the coast is clear, dart into one of the lesser used bathrooms and tuck yourself in the darkest stall.
Even in a hospital, toilet seats are disgusting, but you can’t quite summon any actual disgust as you plop down on the white porcelain, only lightly cracked, and cradle your exhausted head in your hands.
You have to keep going. There is no alternative. There is no other option.
Your chest feels tight and loose at the same time, and your skin feels clammy and wrong. Everything feels wrong. The lights are too bright and the material of your scrubs is scratchy and awful, and the longer you sit in the stall the more you want to throw up.
Someone knocks on the door before you get the chance to move down to your knees and start worshipping the porcelain altar. Assuming it to be Mel, who sometimes has a habit of showing up at the wrong time, you open the stall door to reveal none other than Jack Fucking Abbot.
You stare at him blankly for a few beats, too bewildered to feel sick. “You’re not allowed to be in here.”
“In the men’s bathroom?”
“This isn’t the men’s bathroom.”
“The sign on the door would say otherwise.”
Embarrassment brings the nausea back tenfold. You hold the stall door in a white knuckle grip to keep yourself upright and from hurling onto your boss.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I swear I didn’t do this on purpose—“
Jack raises an eyebrow, his hands folded behind his back. Military man, right.
“Clearly.”
You stumble forward. “I need to go—“
“Woah, down girl. I didn’t knock because I cared which toilet you use. You work here. Use whatever toilet you want. Preferably not the one in the attending’s lounge.”
“There’s an attending’s lounge?”
“No.” He grins, a devilish upturn to just the corner of his lips.
“Oh,” You pause, then catch up to the rest of what he said, “Then why’d you knock?”
“Cause it kind of sounded like you were dying in there, and I’d rather if you didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“The paperwork, for one. Two, Santos would probably shank me.”
“Ah.”
“Also,” He shrugs, “I’d miss you.”
You scoff. “No you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“You don’t like me. You don’t even trust me.”
Jack gets this pinched look on his face; his lips pull down, his brows furrow and he narrows his eyes, just a bit.
He opens his mouth to respond when the door bangs open.
Jack doesn’t even look up before he’s barking:
“Find another bathroom.”
“But I have to—“
“Find another bathroom or I’ll cut your dick off.”
The guy grumbles away, but Jack never takes his eyes off you. It’s unnerving— to be the sole focus of his attention.
You’re the first to break the now tense silence of the bathroom.
“That seemed a bit extreme.”
“I’m not a man who does things by halves.”
“No,” You sigh, “I suppose you’re not.”
Jack cocks his head to side, almost predatory. More methodical than anything. He looks at you— really looks at you. Shamelessly drags his eyes up your body, likely cataloguing every mystery bruise, frown line, eye bag, freckle, and all the million lines of exhaustion that seem etched on your very being, right down through the bones and marrow.
He sighs, crossing his arms before leaning back on the opposite wall of the bathroom.
“What am I going to do with you?”
His words instantly have you on edge, bristling at all the unsaid things behind his tone.
“I’m not something to be dealt with. I’m a person, not some fucking—“
“You’re like a stray cat,” He interrupts, “Always hissing. Do I need to win you over with treats? Should I start bringing canned tuna?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“And you’re drowning.”
Just like that, all the humor gets sucked from the room, replaced with the cold, sharp grip of reality. Suddenly exhausted by the weight of it all, you drop back down onto the toilet seat.
Jack gives you a few moments to respond, get angry, or defend yourself, but you don’t. He’s too good at reading you, it seems. What is there to say?
When you don’t speak, he does.
“Did you think no one would notice?”
“No one has.”
“Am I no one?”
You lean back, closing your eyes and awkwardly resting the back of your head against the wall and the back of the toilet.
“You’re nosy.”
If this were any other moment, any other scenario with any other person, you would never ever act so contrary. But you’re tired and Jack seems to bring out the worst in you.
He makes an amused huffing noise. “You’re good at what you do, I’ll give you that.”
“What, exactly, am I doing?”
“Pretending.”
You scoff. “Fuck off.”
“Come on, sweetheart. How much longer are you going to do this to yourself?”
You lift your head off the back of the toilet. “You act like I’m killing myself:”
“You are,” His inclined his head, “Just really slowly.”
You scrub a hand down your face.
“Look. I understand why you think you have to care, but you don’t. I’m just going through a rough patch. I’ll get through them like I always do. I’m not gonna crash and burn or endanger myself or do whatever it is you’re worried I’m going to do, okay? So you can leave me alone. I’m fine.”
Jack doesn’t get to respond, because the second the words are out of your mouth the nausea that’s been churning in your stomach since you made it to the bathroom rises all at once, and you barely have time to slide off the toilet and turn before you’re throwing up hard enough to almost choke.
The worst part is that you forgot to eat lunch so your stomach is woefully, painfully empty. You’re throwing up nothing but bile, throat burning and tears streaming down your face.
“Alright, come on,” A warm hand rubs soothing circles on your back, and if you weren’t busy hurling your guts out, you’d marvel at the feeling and juxtaposition between the Jack you know, who’s all cold indifference, and the Jack currently holding your hair out of your face while you vomit.
“Let it out,” He soothes, hand still rubbing, “Don’t fight it. It’ll be over soon.”
“I hate throwing up.” You choke, coughing and gasping.
“No one does. But you’ll feel better when it’s over.”
Over feels like it’s never going to come. But eventually your stomach stops clenching, you manage to stop heaving, and you’re slumped over the toilet, sucking down gulps of air, sweat beading on your forehead and the back of your neck.
“This,” You mumble in between gasps, “Means nothing.”
You can’t see Jack’s expression, but his response is so quiet you almost miss it.
“Okay.”
You can’t see his face, but you know this isn’t over.
—
Jack sends you home once you’re capable of standing on your own two feet without shaking like a newborn fawn.
(“You can’t send me home.”
“Yes I can. You’re not allowed to come back to work after throwing up in the bathroom.”
“We both know I’m not the only person to do it.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t caught the other people in the wrong bathroom and held their hair back while they vomited.”
“…”
“You only have two hours left anyway. Go home.”)
The problem lies in the fact that the buses aren’t running yet, which means that you can’t, actually, get home. Your house is an hour away on foot. An hour you’d normally be capable of walking, but your phone is almost dead, you’re exhausted, and you still feel a little weak because of the vomiting.
So after retrieving your things from your locker, you find yourself sitting on the little bench outside the PTMC, waiting for the minutes to tick by. If you didn’t bring at least one book with you everywhere you go in case of emergencies (like this one) you probably would have just walked into oncoming traffic.
It’s cold out and your jacket is cheap so you have to burrow into it, hood up to retain any semblance of warmth. It would be almost cozy —huddled in your jacket, watching the city go by, tucked into your favorite romance book— if the shift hadn’t gone the way it had and if a grueling bus ride and half mile walk didn’t await you once the buses finally start running. Waiting for you beyond that is just chores and an empty apartment.
Your fingers tighten on the edges of your book.
“Why the fuck are you still here?”
You jolt in place, cracking your neck over to the side and blinking blearily.
Jack. Again.
He makes an expectant face at you as if to say ‘Well?’ when you don’t answer immediately.
Your eyes dart back and forth nervously, even though you know you haven’t done anything wrong. “The buses aren’t running yet. It’s an hour walk to my house.”
Jack scrubs a hand down his face and curses under his breath.
“How long until your bus gets here?”
You check your phone. Shit. Only four percent left.
“And hour and a half. Maybe a little longer if it’s running behind more than usual.”
He seems put out by your answer, as if the bus’s heavily fluctuating schedule is of personal consequence and offense to him.
“Um,” You start, both uncomfortable at having been caught reading a romance book in public and at the general air of frustration Jack seems to be venting at the moment, “I’m fine. I have my book. I don’t mind waiting.”
Jack just sighs.
“Do you really think I’m just going to leave you out here, in the cold, after you threw up in the bathroom, to wait for the bus, for nearly two more hours?”
You wince. “Well, it doesn’t sound great when you put it like that.”
He works his jaw. “Have you eaten?”
“No…?”
He shakes his head.
“Come on. You’re coming with me.”
—
“I have to admit, this isn’t where I thought we were going.
Thirty minutes later finds you seated on the cracked vinyl seat of a booth in a cheap diner, staring at a menu and rationalizing spending your last $15 on what will probably be mediocre pancakes.
Jack is seated across from you, already two mugs of coffee —black, but oddly enough, decaf— and not even bothering to pretend to look at his menu. He either comes here often or doesn’t care to act like he isn’t staring at you.
Probably both.
“Where did you think we were going?”
Steam curls out of your own untouched mug of coffee —ordered for you by Jack, also unfortunately decaf— and you debate just getting up and running out of here.
Too bad you’re too exhausted to run anywhere. Jack’s probably banking on that.
“I don’t know,” You shrug, setting the menu down, “Maybe to Gloria’s office to write me up or something.”
“What would I even be writing you up for?”
“Disobeying direction? I’m sure you could come up with something.”
The waitress chooses that moment to appear, notepad in hand. “Are we ready to order?”
Jack rattles off his order, and then two sets of eyes turn to you expectantly. Before you can order the single fruit bowl you were planning on getting (the cheapest thing on the menu) Jack pipes up:
“Order whatever you actually want. Not whatever you think is cheapest or easiest.”
The waitress, a middle aged woman who has probably seen much worse than whatever the two of you have going on, just chuckles lightly under her breath.
You hesitantly list the item you’d been eyeing and thank the waitress.
It isn’t until after the menus have been taken and Jack’s coffee re-upped for the third time that you manage to courage to speak.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean,” your fingers curl on the edge of the table, desperate for something to hold onto, “I can’t— It’ll be awhile until I can pay you back. I barely made rent this month.”
“Do you think I would take you to breakfast and then make you pay?”
“Yes…?”
“You’re not touching the bill, kid. I’m a gentleman.”
“Oh,” You didn’t really see that coming, “Okay.”
Jack gets a funny expression on his face, then resumes his drinking coffee and glancing out the window routine.
“So,” You say after a beat, “Was there something you wanted to talk about…?”
The silence just feels so awkward. It’s killing you.
He raises a brow. “Do you want to talk?”
“I’m asking you.”
“And I’m asking you what you want to do. What do you usually do when you come out to eat?”
“I don’t? Eating out is expensive, so. But when I do it’s usually by myself, so I end up just reading.”
Jack gestures to your bag beside you. “Don’t let me stop you.”
“What?”
“Read your book.”
“But that’s— isn’t that boring for you?”
He sets his mug down. “I didn’t bring you here because I wanted something from you. I brought you here because you had a shitty day and it seemed like you could use some cheering up. If reading makes you feel better, then do it.”
You have to look out the window to avoid his gaze. You don’t understand how your perfectly crafted facade just crumbles into fucking dust around him. How he manages to see right through you at every turn, how he manages to uncover every lie and every half truth.
“How did you even know I like diner food?”
“Because I pay attention to you.”
You finally look back over at him, arms folded across your chest; not really defensively, more like you’re trying to hold your entire body together by sheer force of will.
Jack’s lips twitch. Not really a smile, but almost. “You bring it up every time Santos wants to get food after a shift. She always says no, because she hates it, but it never stops you from suggesting it.”
It’s just one detail. One tiny, inconsequential detail that he’s apparently memorized and held onto because to him, it’s important. For some impossible to understand reason, he seems to care.
"Also," He shrugs, "I'd miss you."
You scoff. "No you wouldn't."
"I would."
“Do you hate me?”
Jack looks back at you, seemingly startled by the abrupt question.
“No.”
You take a deep, shuddering breath.
“Okay.”
—
“You did what?”
You wince from your spot lying face-down on Trinity’s couch.
“Not so loud, Trin. I have a headache.”
She ignores you, seated on the floor almost directly in front of you. “So you’ve gone from hating each other to going on a date?”
“It wasn’t a date,” You groan, “We spent almost the entire time in silence. I read my book and he stared out the window and did… whatever it is men like him do when they stare out the window.”
“Brooding,” Trinity says, “He paid. That means it’s a date.”
“No it doesn’t!”
It doesn't. It totally doesn't. Just because Jack said he doesn't hate you doesn't mean he likes you either. There are a lot of emotions in between hate and love. Like toleration, for example. Mild amusement. Exasperation. An appropriate amount of annoyance.
Trinity pokes you on the back of your head, having none of it.
"He likes you. Why else would he willingly hang out with one of us after work?"
"He goes out for drinks in the park sometimes." You mumble.
"Yeah, after an MCI."
What Trinity doesn't know is the events leading up to breakfast at the diner, because that would involve telling her about the whole throwing up from anxiety in the men's bathroom directly after a mini-panic attack because she confronted you about your unhealthy lifestyle (which all just sounds a lot worse than it is), so there isn't really a way to give her the kind of context necessary to get her off your back and dissuade her from her (insanely insane) belief that Jack likes you. Romantically.
"Trust me Trin, he was just being nice. Nothing romantic about it."
It was kind of romantic. Just eating surprisingly good food in the company of someone you don't need to pretend around, enjoying being in the company of another human being without worry or expectation.
Not that she needs to know that.
"Jack doesn't do nice. Have you seen him? What happened to the hating?"
You shrug. "You'll just have to ask him, because I don't know."
You do know. He told you. Explained it.
It doesn't make sense.
Trinity throws her hands in the air dramatically.
"Whatever. You two are impossible."
She finally withdraws, leaving you to wallow in your headache-induced misery by yourself on her couch.
Your phone vibrates on the floor next to you, and you groan, rolling further over to hide yourself in the crack of the couch, shunning the light like the reclusive vampire you are.
Your phone vibrates again.
“Dennis,” your voice is muffled by the couch cushion so it ends up sounding more like ‘denim’, “Can you please see who’s texting me and tell them to fuck off?”
Dennis, who was eating cereal at the tiny table near the kitchen when you first showed up fifteen minutes ago and has pointedly stayed silent throughout the entire exchange between you and Trinity, finally speaks.
“Your phone is two inches away from your hand.”
“I have a headache I don’t wanna look at the screen.”
You feel rather than actually see him roll his eyes, but then there’s the clink of a spoon against a bowl and the faint sound of socked —you’ve genuinely never seen him ever be barefoot under any circumstances, no matter what, he’s always wearing socks— feet as they make their way over to your temporary pit (couch) of despair.
There’s a quiet rustle as he picks up your phone off the floor.
“Oh.”
You whine, dramatic and upset. “What?”
“Um,” He grabs your shoulder, slowly rolling you over and away from the back of the couch, “It’s Jack?”
“What!?” You screech.
You throw yourself up, wincing as you immediately regret it when the pain in your head doubles, take a steadying breath to ignore it, and then grab the phone from Dennis’s outstretched hand.
You turn on the phone and— yep. Sure enough. A text from Jack, complete with the stupid picture of a dinosaur you made his profile picture. Because he’s old.
(It was funnier at the time.)
Somewhere behind you there’s a crash, and then the thump thump thump that can only mean a person running towards you at dangerous speeds for sock covered feet on cheap linoleum.
“Incoming,” Dennis mutters.
“Did I just hear that right?” Trinity gasps, nearly giving herself blunt force trauma via the back of the couch, “Did Jack just text you?”
“I don’t know!” You cry.
“How do you not know! Your phone is right in your fucking hands!”
“I’m tired! Stop yelling at me!”
“Guys!” Dennis shouts, holding up his hands, “I refuse to spend my day off listening to you two argue over the validity of romance with our attending. Give me the phone.”
He snatches the phone without waiting for a response, quickly typing in your password (if there was ever a moment you regret telling him in case of emergency…) and opening the text.
He makes an incredulous face at the phone before saying:
“He asked what you’re doing today.”
Trinity claps once. “Fucking called it!”
“Trinity!” Dennis snaps, before sighing and tapping at your keyboard, “I’m telling him that you have a headache and you’re at our place and to please not text again—“
“No!” You squeal, launching yourself off the couch, arms outstretched, but your legs tangle over each other and you fall and slam, gloriously and beautifully, face first into the coffee table.
“Oo!” Trinity winces, covering her mouth.
“Oh my god!” Dennis balks, “Are you okay?”
“Just give me the fucking phone.”
Peeling your face off, you grab the phone, squinting at the screen and ignoring the black spots in the corner of your vision.
hi, you type, I’m at Trinity and Dennis’s. Did you need something?
You hit send before you can talk yourself out of it.
“We,” You haul yourself to your feet and stagger over to the kitchen table, “Will never speak of this.”
“I definitely am. When I’m the maid of honor at your guys wedding, I’m gonna give a speech and be all ‘you guys, she gave herself a concussion the first time he texted—‘“
“There will be no wedding!”
“That’s just what you think.”
Your phone vibrates again, signaling a response.
Just wondering how you were doing. Surprised to hear you’re not holed up in your apartment reading something.
Ah, sexy old men and their correct grammar and punctuation when texting. Shouldn’t be endearing.
“What’s he saying?”
“Go away!”
You tap out a quick response.
Not today unfortunately lol I have a headache so no reading for me
Isn’t this the sixth day in a row you’ve had a headache? Should I give neuro a call?
You stomach flips.
nooo I’m fine i get them all the time
That’s not exactly reassuring.
I went to the doctor for them awhile ago apparently they’re normal
Who?
if I tell you, are you going to call him and make him send over my chart?
Yes.
Your heart is starting to pound a fluttering beat in your chest, and you hunch over your phone.
then i’m not telling you. it’s fine, really
they usually go away when i take over the counter stuff
So your plan is just to destroy your liver?
pretty much
We need to work on your planning skills.
we?
I’m not doing all the work.
Now stop looking at your phone. Drink some Gatorade and take a nap.
this is a resident apartment there’s no gatorade here just redbulls
Have either of them buy you one. I’ll pay whichever one it is later. Go to sleep. You need it.
You turn off your phone, shuffling back over to the couch and flopping down onto it.
“I’m taking a nap. Jack wants one of you to go buy me a Gatorade. He said he’d pay you back later.”
“He said what?”
—
You end up sleeping the entire day away, which should have screwed up your sleep schedule, but thankfully you live in a state of perpetual exhaustion and are fully capable of falling asleep anytime, anywhere, no matter how much you last sleep. It’s a gift.
Shockingly, the shift you work the next day is actually much easier to survive and your smiles aren’t nearly as forced. Go figure. Who knew that getting an appropriate amount of sleep would be so helpful?
“Somebody’s in a better mood today.” Jack mutters as you sidle up next to him under the board.
“I’m pretty sure I slept for like, fourteen straight hours. Thanks for the Gatorade, by the way. I woke up around hour three, chugged it, and then went back to sleep. No headache when I woke up!”
“Wonderful,” He drawls, “It’s almost like taking care of yourself is actually beneficial.”
“I take care of myself plenty.”
He casts you a sidelong glance, expression pinched.
“When was the last time you drank water without being prompted?”
“That’s different.”
“Okay,” He dips his head, “When was the last time you ever felt truly relaxed?”
You give him a beaming smile, so wide it hurts. “We’re not going to talk about this right now!”
“You started this conversation. I’m trying to do my job.”
You snort. “You’re waiting to see if someone else is going to take the sunburn guy.”
“Are you accusing an attending of cherry picking?”
“Of course not. Just observing, sir.”
Jack’s turned to look at you now, head tilted up, hands folded behind his back.
When you say sir, his eyes flick down to your lips, and then his jaw tightens.
The air suddenly becomes charged, the space between you two filled with something too electric to be air.
It smells like aftershave, hospital antiseptic, wanting, and something that’s distinctly masculine.
You look away first, swallowing hard past the sudden dryness of your mouth.
“You know,” You say, crossing your arms and looking up at the board, “Trinity thinks you like me. Romantically.”
“Mm.”
“I told her that was dumb,” You babble, “Obviously it’s not true, but. She won’t let it go, so if she says something, just ignore her. Or not. Whatever you want.”
“Why wouldn’t it be true?”
You whip your head around so fast you’re pretty sure something cracks. “What?”
“I mean,” Jack’s voice is gruff as he shrugs once, “Is that really so unrealistic?”
“Of course it is,” You sputter, “You don’t like me.”
“I’ve actually never said that. That was a conclusion you came to on your own. I distinctly recall telling you that I don’t hate you.”
“Just because you don’t hate me doesn’t mean that you like me, let alone— like that.”
Jack tilts his head, almost predatory, and all that sharp tension rushes straight back in.
“Like what?”
Something hot and dangerous is starting to unfurl in your chest, untethering from where it was previously lodged deep behind your ribs, out of sight, out of feeling.
“Code Blue en route, ETA two minutes.”
Jack jerks his head in the direction of the ambulance bay. “You gonna go get that?”
“Uh,” You’re pretty sure you’re stroking out, having a seizure, or something, because the only thing you’re capable of comprehending is the fact that Jack just not-so-subtly implied to actually liking you. Romantically.
“Get going then.”
You scurry away, hot all over and absolutely done with emotions in their entirety.
—
The rest of the week is hell on Earth. Perks of being in your twenties.
Things could be worse though!
Kind of.
It’s just that it’s been several days since Jack basically confirmed Trinity’s suspicions on romance and you can’t stop thinking about it. Obsessively.
It’s bad.
Bad enough that when Mel asked if there was any way you could cover her shift, you said yes.
“Okay,” Dennis stage-whispers as you’re downing your third coffee of the day, miserably charting at the nurses station, “I feel the need to ask how bad things can possibly be if you’re covering a day shift.”
“Mel asked.”
Dennis blinks incredulously. “You love Mel, but not enough to work a day shift voluntarily.”
“What exactly are you asking me here?”
“Did you and Jack hit a rough patch or something?”
“Keep your voice down!” You hiss, ducking your head as if you can hide from Princess and Perlah, “And for your information, no. We didn’t. I just wanted to do something nice for Mel.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t need you to believe me.”
Day-shift crawls on in a whirlwind of chaos and a level of dumb-fuckery that can only be achieved from the hours of 8 a.m to 8 p.m. As usual, the place is understaffed, overcrowded, and filled with a lingering sense of impending doom.
By the time night-shift starts filtering in, you’re ready to completely give up and start a new life a sheep rancher in New Zealand. It’s always been the plan if being a doctor didn’t work out.
Jack finds you in the locker room once the handoff is over, sitting on the little bench in the same position Dennis found you in earlier. Face in your hands, heels in your eyes, methodically counting breaths and wondering if that fluttering feeling in your chest is from caffeine consumption or sleep deprivation.
It’s fine. Your fine. Everything is fine.
“You don’t look too good.”
“I’m—“
“Don’t say you’re fine.”
“But I am,” You grit, “I just need a minute.”
“Okay.”
There’s the distinct sound of Jack’s slightly uneven footsteps, and then there’s a warm weight pressed against your side.
You take another shuddering breath that feels less like breathing and more like placing a single brick in a wobbly foundation.
“Shouldn’t you be out on the floor?”
“I don’t work tonight.”
You raise your head just enough to look at him. “You don’t? I thought I saw you on the schedule. Why are you here if you don’t work?”
Now that you’re looking at him and not starburst patterns on the back of your eyelids, you can see that he’s wearing casual clothes, not scrubs, and he doesn’t have his usual army-issue backpack with him.
“I got Shen to cover me. I came here for you.”
Your next breath in almost gets stuck in your chest, air struggling to move past that alive and wriggling thing that keeps moving every time Jack is around.
“What’d you do that for?”
The barest hints of a smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Dennis called me. He said you’d need picking up after your shift.”
Shame, guilt, and embarrassment flood your veins, turning your blood into sickly-sweet poison that makes your stomach roll and twist.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I have no idea why he did that. You really didn’t have to drive all the way over here, I swear I didn’t tell him to call you or something like that—“
“I know you didn’t,” Jack soothes, voice a rumbly, smooth timber that washes over your permanently-frazzled nerves like a balm, “Which is why I came.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jack stands, pulling your bag and change of clothes out of your locker.
“I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with me, so you don’t have to answer it again. Can you do that for me?”
You nod once.
“Words.”
“Uh— yeah. Yes.”
“Good.”
Thank god the locker room is empty— everyone’s either on the floor or already left for their homes.
He closes your locker down, shoulders your bag, and hands you your clothes.
“Is it easier for you to accept help when you don’t have to ask and don’t get the chance to say no?”
It sounds so pathetic, hearing it laid out like that. The ugly guts of you; cut open, laid bare, and marked for research. Exhibit A, the inside of the girl no one ever needed to worry about.
You don’t want to agree. You want to laugh it off, maybe run away from it. Sit up straight, wipe your face, take the bag from Jack and explain that this is all a big misunderstanding and you’re perfectly fine and he can stop worrying about you now.
“Yes.”
Jack doesn’t verbally acknowledge your response besides a single dip of his head, like he knows that if he does anything more it’ll turn your response into a confession and that’s just too vulnerable for the hospital locker room.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“I don’t mean to be this way, you know.”
The passenger seat of Jack’s car isn’t somewhere you’d ever imagined yourself being. Not even late at night or on the bus when you’re pretending to be someone else who’s better at chasing what they want.
“It stopped being intentional a long time ago,” your hands are fisted into the material of your sweatpants, nails digging into the fabric, “It was just the natural progression of things. I like being liked.”
What you don’t say, what becomes an unspoken truth that lingers in the air despite not being verbalized, is the survival aspect of it. Why and how a person fuses this kind of thing to their personality; to their life. The circumstances that makes the natural progression of things end it being better for everyone if you just don’t have needs.
“I know.”
“I know you know, I just… needed to tell you. Myself.”
It’s odd seeing Jack illuminated by streetlights instead of fluorescent overheads. It’s odd being able to watch his hand flex on the steering wheel, watching his forearm tense as he shifts gears in his old stick-shift.
“You like being told what to do.”
Your face heats, but you’re determined not to lose face now. Especially after managing to survive being emotionally flayed open, willingly, by him.
“It feels safe. If I know what yo— someone wants, then I can’t mess it up, and I can relax.”
You can practically see the gears turning in Jack’s mind.
“Makes sense.”
The rest of the drive is quiet, the silence only filled by the sounds of Pittsburgh around you and the gentle crackle of something from the radio turned down too low to hear.
And for the first time in longer than you can remember, you begin feeling something that approaches calm.
Jack doesn’t have any expectations. There isn’t any one particular way he wants you to act or expects you to behave like. There’s nothing he wants you to do.
So you do what you want to do.
You relax.
—
In the weeks following Jack driving you home, there is a quantifiable shift in behavior between the two of you.
He starts pulling back.
It strikes you as odd first, and your natural inclination is to pull back too— to guard the soft, vulnerable bits you’ve showed him in case he throws them back at you.
But then you realize what he’s doing.
Instead of telling you how to proceed on a case when you come to him for advice, he asks you questions and steers you to the answer. He holds back when he’s evaluating a case with you, patiently following your lead and only interjecting when necessary.
He’s making space for you try new things and learn without fear of rejection. Building your confidence bit by bit.
It feels more intimate than sex.
After much deliberation, screaming into your pillow, and Reddit forum searching for HR violations, you decide to get him a card. Because he’s actually been really kind and helpful and he makes you feel like you can actually survive residency.
“What’s this?”
“A thank you card.”
You’re staring at your shoes, eyes flicking up and down between Jack’s face and the floor.
“What for?”
“It says it in the card.”
You scurry away, attaching yourself to the closest patient to avoid seeing Jack’s face when he does finally open it.
But when you look back, he’s just staring at it, a small smile on his face.
—
It’s the card that does him in.
Jack hasn’t made his feelings for you a secret, despite your unwillingness to see him as anything other than standoffish in the beginning.
He came on too strong at first— that was his fault. He didn’t yet understand how imbedded your need ran and how long it’d been since anyone bothered to look deeper.
He’d hoped, at least, that you were letting Whitaker and Santos help, and though you let them closer than most, it was clear you still seemed intent on holding up yourself and everyone around you on your own.
But it wasn’t just that. It was the way you oozed kindness— like it was a byproduct of your existence. He watched you get so wrapped up in being the perfect resident, perfect friend, perfect person, that no one ever stopped to let you know how good you were just by being.
He hadn’t planned on developing feelings or anything of the sort. At first, you’d just been one of his residents. Smart and capable but lacking confidence in yourself to fully commit. Then there was that MCI, and drinks in the park afterwards where he’d painfully watched you sip a beer you clearly hated, and everything just clicked right into place.
He never intends to flirt with you. It just happens. He can’t help himself. He’s a weak fucking man when it comes to you.
And then you bring him a card. A fucking card. To thank him for doing his job as an attending, a job he should’ve been doing better from the start. It has an illustration of bananas on it and says “Thanks a bunch!”.
He knows he’s completely gone, then. He was capable of being in denial before, could delude himself into thinking that what he felt was casual, but the sight of you before him, hands nervously wringing, your glitter gel pens sparkling as they caught the light was just the final nail in the coffin.
He allows himself a modicum of flirting on a day to day basis, mostly because if he couldn’t tease that real smile out of you at least once per day, he’d lose his mind.
Sometimes he takes you back to the diner, especially on longer days where none of your smiles reach your eyes and you start obsessively uncapping and capping your gel pens.
Even though you think it “looks dumb” you’ve also taken to sitting shoulder to shoulder with him in the booth, and he pretends he can’t see you sneaking fries off his plate because he knows how much effort it takes you to ask him if you can sit with him instead of on the opposite side.
Then he starts driving you home during a string of bad weather after you start sneezing from walking in the rain everyday, but even after the storm passes and the weather clears up he still finds you at the lockers, every day, car keys in hand. No matter how many times he does it, you always look so happily surprised that he’s still offering.
As if he’s not wrapped around your finger.
One day, after things have been mellow for awhile, Whitaker calls him and says that neither he nor Trinity have seen you in three days and you called out of work.
So naturally, as a calm and collected man, he showed up to your house.
You’d answered the door after the third time he knocked (which was great, because he was gearing up to force the door open) and you just looked miserable. Your hair was a mess, you head blanket wrinkles imprinted onto your face, and your eyes were puffy.
“Jack?” You’d mumbled, squinting your eyes against the not very bright light in the hallway, “Why are you at my apartment?”
“No one’s heard from you in three days.”
You wince. “I swear I meant to text Trinity. I just have a bad headache.”
His fingers twitch towards a penlight he doesn’t have. “How bad?”
“I don’t know. Like a seven on the pain scale?”
“Jesus— I’m coming in.”
“Nooo,” You cry, but shuffle back from the door and put up very little fight as he ushers you to the couch.
Your apartment is….. exactly as messy as he’d imagined a resident who lives alone would be. For someone who doesn’t drink enough water, there are an incredible amount of beverage bottles and cans littered about.
“Do you have headache relief?”
You gesture to the kitchen. “Cabinet furthest to the left.”
While rifling through your very disorganized medicine cabinet, he spies an orange prescription bottle with your name on it, dated for the previous year.
“Why do you have a prescription for a high level antihistamine?”
“Stop snooping. It’s for my migraines.”
“You’ve had a prescription this entire time and you’ve been taking all that over the counter shit?”
“Stop being mad,” You mumble into the couch cushion, “My migraine meds put me to sleep, so I can’t take them when I’m working. Plus I don’t have any refills left so I save them for when it’s really bad.”
“You called out of work and haven’t left your apartment in three days and you don’t consider this bad?”
“Could be worse. Could be throwing up.”
He sighs. Sets the bottle on the counter, breathes in once, then lets it out slowly. Imagines all the ways he could murder whoever made you think suffering alone for three days is preferable to asking for help.
“I’m going to help you back to bed,” He starts, voice low as he rounds the couch, “And then you’re going to drink some electrolytes, have a snack, and take your meds. Okay?”
The migraine has clearly taken it out of you, because you put up zero fight as he manhandles you to your feet and helps you drag yourself back to your bed.
“M’ sorry my apartment is a mess. I was supposed to clean it.”
“I’m not judging, sweetheart,” He says, tucking the blankets up around you, lips twitching as you make grabby hands for a giant triceratops plushie that looks to be the size of your upper body. “I’m gonna make you a snack, so try to stay awake until I come back. Can you do that?”
“Mhm. I’ll try.”
“Good girl.”
He manages to find a cucumber in your fridge, cuts it into slices and then adds a few pieces of lunch meat for protein. Last but not least, he snags a bottle of blue Gatorade from your pantry.
(He only knows they were there because he bought them for you a few weeks ago.)
He doesn’t make you sit up to eat, but instead scoots you a little ways away from the edge of your bed so there’s space for the plate.
You slowly nibble your way through, taking little sips of Gatorade when he nudges the bottle into your hands.
You finish the cucumbers, eat most of the lunch meat, and drink half the Gatorade before burrowing back into the blankets and declaring yourself done.
“Can I have my sleep mask please? I think it’s on the floor under my nightstand?”
“Of course you can.”
After your face mask is on and the curtains closed, he gives you the correct dose of your meds and gently shuts the door to your bedroom.
He fires off a quick text to Whitaker (he doesn’t have Santos’s number) that says you’re fine, stuck in bed with a migraine, and that he’s handling it.
And then he gets to work.
Two hours later your apartment is clean, your laundry is started, and Jack’s relaxing on your couch, aimlessly watching the news.
He hears the door creak open but knows you hate feeling on the spot, so he keeps his gaze trained on the tv even as he hears the sound of you shuffling over to the couch.
And then you pause.
“Jack.”
“Yes?”
“Did you clean my apartment?”
He finally looks over to you, and when his gaze reaches your face his stomach drops.
You’re crying.
He hauls himself off the couch (he’s thankful that he put his leg back on a few minutes prior) and stops in front of you, arms twitching at his sides with the need to fix, help, to stop whatever it is that’s making you cry.
“What’s wrong? Did I overstep?”
“No,” You warble, voice wet, “I just haven’t had the time or energy to clean in here for so long, and it’s been stressing me out so bad I avoid staying here during my off days. It’s just really, really nice of you.”
You look at him, eyebrows pinched and eyes wide with worry, “I— I’m not sure how to repay you for all of this. I know you said going to the diner was fine, but this is— a lot.”
“Sweetheart,” He starts, bracing one hand on the side of your face, thumb deftly sweeping across your cheek and wiping away the quickly drying tears, “I’m not doing any of this because I expect you to repay me. I’m doing it because I care about you and I want to see you happy.”
You sniff hard. “This is a lot of work, though.”
“I like doing it. I like taking care of you.”
Another sniff. “It doesn’t seem very fun.”
“I told you. You’re like a cat. Had to coax you over and now look at you,” he thumb rubs circles over your cheekbone, “Practically purring.”
You wrinkle your nose. “I don’t know if I like this metaphor.”
“Get used to it.”
You sigh, dramatic and long.
“I suppose I’ll allow it.”
“Oh, you’ll allow it, huh.”
You fold your hands behind your back, rocking back and forth on your heels. “Yes. I’ll allow it.”
“Well, aren’t I lucky.”
Later, when you’re lying on the couch, two movies into what Jack thinks is an unofficial early 2000s rom-com marathon (your favorite genre) you turn to look up at him from your spot tucked into his side.
“This is romantic, right?”
He presses a lazy kiss to your forehead, because he knows how much you like physical affirmations as well as verbal ones.
“Yes.”
“You’re serious about this?”
“You need confirmation?”
“I’d rather have it in writing, but this will do for now.”
He huffs a breathy laugh, tucks you closer to his chest.
“I’ll put it in writing for you later.”
You hum, pleased, and snuggle back into him, letting out a content sigh.
summary: your boyfriend doesn't like seeing you work so late and tries to get you into bed at all costs.
masterlist
Spencer knew that with you, five more minutes never meant anything exact.
There were mornings when you asked to stay in bed for five more minutes and, when the alarm went off again, you convinced him to remain by your side with insistent kisses and arms wrapped around his waist. There were afternoons when you read together on the couch and begged him to continue the story for just five more minutes, even though you both knew you would end up reading an entire chapter.
But there were also those occasions when you had somewhere to be and assured him you would be ready in five minutes. Then you would surprise him by appearing at the door barely two minutes later, completely prepared.
However, there was one version of those five minutes that Spencer hated.
The one that happened when you were working.
He didn’t know what woke him that night. Maybe some distant noise outside. Maybe the need to use the bathroom. Or maybe that hollow, unpleasant feeling of the empty space beside him.
When he opened his eyes, the room was submerged in darkness. He turned his head toward the bedside clock and discovered it was already quite late.
He let out a tired sigh before sitting up. He rubbed his face with one hand and searched for his slippers by touch. The thin line of light slipping beneath the door told him exactly where you were.
He found you in the same position he had left you in hours earlier; sitting in front of the computer, surrounded by papers, your attention fixed on a task that apparently still wasn’t finished.
When he had gone to bed, you had promised him you would finish soon and come back.
“Five more minutes,” you had said.
Clearly, those five minutes had already expired.
“Why are you still here?”
His voice, rough with sleep, made you jump slightly.
You looked up, and a guilty expression crossed your face.
“Sorry, sweetheart, it’s just... I haven’t been able to finish this. Five more minutes, okay?”
Spencer closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before nodding. He was still struggling to stay awake, but he crossed the room anyway.
Without saying anything, he headed to the bathroom and took care of his business.
You assumed that after hearing the toilet flush, the next thing would be his footsteps returning to the bedroom. That was why it surprised you to see him appear in the dining room again. And even more when he sat down across from you.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll wait here. Five minutes.”
An incredulous smile appeared on your face. At first, you thought he was joking.
But then you met his gaze. Serious, determined, and just a little sleepy.
You frowned slightly.
“Love, go to sleep. I’ll be there in a moment.”
“I’ll wait,” he insisted.
He rested one arm on the table and let his cheek fall into the palm of his hand.
“Besides, I can’t sleep when you’re not there.”
You watched him for several seconds over the top of your screen. At that point, it was impossible to focus completely on your work when Spencer was sitting across from you, making such an obvious effort to stay awake.
He blinked more slowly than usual and, every so often, his eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment before settling back on you. His hair was messy from the pillow, and the marks of sleep were still visible on his face. He looked exhausted. Completely exhausted.
Guilt slowly began to settle in your chest.
“Spencer...”
“Hm?”
His response came a few seconds later, distracted and sleepy.
A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips.
“You know I don’t want to be here.”
He lifted his eyes to meet yours.
“I know.”
“I’d rather be sleeping with you.”
“I know that too.”
You sighed and looked back at the screen. The document was still there, unfinished and urgent, waiting for you with the same indifference it had shown all night.
“But I need to finish this.”
“I know.”
The ease with which he answered drew a brief, tired laugh from you.
Because, of course, Spencer understood.
He understood deadlines. Responsibilities. The anxiety that came from leaving something unfinished, knowing it would continue taking up space in your head until it was done. He himself had spent countless nights awake, chasing a lead, reviewing reports, or analyzing the details of a case long after any reasonable person would have gone to bed.
“I’m not staying because I think you should leave it unfinished,” he said after a moment, with that characteristic calm that always managed to disarm you. “I just want to keep you company.”
You felt something tighten inside your chest. And looking up again was a mistake, because only seconds later you saw his head droop.
It was subtle. Such a brief movement that someone else might not have noticed it at all. His head dipped forward slightly, and his eyelids closed for a second before he quickly opened them again, as if hoping no one had seen.
“Spencer...”
“I’m awake.”
The denial would have been much more convincing if it hadn’t been accompanied by a yawn.
“Sweetheart, it’s past two in the morning.”
“And you’re still working.”
“Exactly. That’s my problem, not yours.”
“Your problems will always be my problems.”
The response was immediate, almost as if he had been waiting to say it.
“Please go to bed,” you murmured.
“In five minutes.”
You stared at him, unable to believe he was using your own tactics against you. He gave you a small, sleepy, faintly triumphant smile in return.
You tried to return to work after that conversation. For several minutes, you forced yourself to focus on the screen, reviewing documents and correcting details that, at that hour of the night, were beginning to seem increasingly confusing. Yet your attention inevitably drifted back to Spencer.
Not even a quarter of an hour had passed before, with a sigh, you pushed your chair back and stood up.
Spencer lifted his head when he heard you approaching, and a small smile appeared on his tired face.
“Finished?”
“Not yet.”
Before he could answer, you stepped between his legs. His hands found your waist almost immediately, as though the gesture was so natural he didn’t need to think about it. You rested your hands on his shoulders and closely observed the unmistakable signs of exhaustion on his face: the messy hair, the heavy eyelids, and that sleepy expression you rarely saw during the day. He was still wearing a gray pajama shirt and flannel pants.
“Hi,” he murmured.
“Hi.”
You leaned down to kiss him. It was a brief kiss at first, barely a loving brush of lips, but when you pulled away only slightly to look at him, Spencer leaned in again. Smiling, you gave him another kiss, slower this time. You felt his arms wrap around you with something close to relief.
They remained like that for several moments, enjoying the silent closeness both of you needed more than either was willing to admit.
“You know...?”
An amused smile appeared on your face before you had even finished forming the thought.
“If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you’re a pretty manipulative boyfriend.”
Spencer let out a short laugh and shook his head.
“It’s not manipulation.”
“Yes, it is. You sit here, half asleep, refusing to go to bed so I’ll feel guilty.”
“I’m not staying so you’ll feel guilty.”
His tone was gentle, but sincere. The amusement slowly faded from his features as he looked up at you.
“I know you need to finish your work. I understand perfectly. If I were working a case and someone tried to make me leave it unfinished, I’d probably do exactly the same thing you’re doing.”
That drew a small smile from you because you knew it was true.
“Then why are you here?”
Spencer shrugged slightly.
“Because I want you to go to sleep.”
“Honey...”
“I mean it.”
His thumbs absentmindedly stroked your sides as he spoke.
“Tomorrow you’ll be exhausted, your head will hurt, and you’ll spend the entire day complaining that you should have gone to bed earlier.”
Your smile turned slightly sheepish.
“That’s happened once or twice.”
“It’s happened a lot more than twice.”
You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t argue with him.
“I know you want to finish this tonight, but I also know you’ll feel a lot worse tomorrow if you’re still here three hours from now.”
For a moment, you simply watched him in silence. There was something deeply endearing about the way he said those things. They didn’t sound like criticism or impatience. Just concern.
When you saw him struggle against another yawn, whatever resistance remained in you finally crumbled.
“You win.”
Spencer blinked.
You leaned down to leave one last kiss on his lips before pulling away.
“I’ll shut down the computer and put all this away.”
“Good.”
“And then I’ll go to sleep with you.”
Spencer shook his head as he stood up and took your hand in both of his.
“Let’s go now. I’ll help you organize everything tomorrow.”
You knew that when your boyfriend got something into his head, there wasn’t a force on earth capable of changing his mind. So you simply closed your laptop and let him drag you toward the bedroom.
The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint light filtering through the curtains from the street outside. The moment he stepped through the door, Spencer kicked off his slippers and collapsed onto the mattress with a tired sigh. He seemed to have finally reached the limit of his energy. He settled beneath the sheets, rested his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes for a few seconds, as though the simple contact with the bed was enough to convince his body to surrender.
You, meanwhile, walked over to the closet to find something more comfortable to sleep in. As you changed, you couldn’t help glancing back at him from time to time. He was still awake, but barely.
One arm rested across his stomach, and his eyes were half-closed, fighting to stay conscious just to make sure you were actually going to bed.
The sight brought an involuntary smile to your face.
“You can fall asleep, you know.”
Spencer made an indistinct sound that could have been a response or simply a manifestation of pure exhaustion.
When you finished changing, you switched off the last light and walked over to the bed. The mattress dipped slightly as you settled beside him. You had barely rested your head on the pillow when Spencer moved toward you out of pure habit, still caught somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.
His arm found your waist and gently pulled you against him.
It was an automatic gesture. Familiar.
You let out a sigh as you settled beneath the sheets and rested your head against his chest. The warmth of his body, the steady sound of his breathing, and the calm rhythm of his heartbeat were infinitely more comforting than any unfinished work.
Spencer’s hand moved absentmindedly across your back in a slow caress before coming to a complete stop.
“See?” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. “Much better.”
Summary: You put out the smoke, glanced at your clock, and thanked the summer heat for making nights just as perfect as days as you walked to the willow tree at the back of the lake.
Sitting under it in his baggy, black shorts and one of your favorite t-shirts of his, smoking a cigarette with a phone in his hand and a blanket underneath him, is Bucky.
When he sees you, Bucky smiles at the side, then pats the place on the blanket next to him.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✎﹏﹏﹏﹏ ♫ Playlist
There’s a certain peace and power in being surrounded by all of your favorite people.
It’s the kind of peace that before certain people arrived in your life, you had only felt in garages on Sundays, drinking Cola and listening to the radio while engines ran.
Now, the smell of food being cooked inside the house and trailing to the outside where you and most of the others sit by the lake, plus the noise of conversation and Peter’s distinct loud laughter in the back—that’s peace.
It’s a movie scene. One of those rare moments when it feels good to be alive.
Across the lake, Bucky’s sitting on one side of his bike while Natasha’s on the other following his instructions—feeling your eyes on him, Bucky looks up from the timing belt and catches your eyes.
He tilts his head a little, and you keep watching, a smile opening on your face.
Bucky realizes you’re not going to look away and finds amusement in that—he laughs to himself, looking away from you with a shake of his head.
He then frowns at something Natasha is doing, and reprehends her with a roll of his eyes. She looks up at him with the utmost annoyance in her brows, and they go right back to arguing.
“Is it always gonna be like this?” You ask, finally looking away.
At your side, Steve looks up from his book to see what you mean and when his eyes catch what is happening on the other side of the lake, he snickers. “Oh, yeah.”
Down by the right side of your chair, Gabe hums on top of his Mojito cup. “Hmhm. Yup. A couple of months ago I saw Sam and Bucky just… flipping each other off.” He looks up at you, twisting his mustache. “Continuously. Back and forth. Just—” Gabe starts mimicking one finger being given after the other, and Morita starts laughing.
After the fifth or sixth middle finger, Morita reaches to grab Gabe’s excited hands. “I think they got it,” Morita nods.
Behind you, MJ stops the braid she’s doing to lean over and observe the scene in front of her.
On the other side, Bucky is laughing delightedly, and you can hear him saying ’yeah, you see the difference?’ and your heart flutters a little.
MJ pins you with a look and a smirk. “She’s going easy on him.” She lifts her eyebrows. “Why?”
You inch your sunglasses lower a little, observing Nat nodding along to whatever complicated bike engineering he’s teaching her about.
The past few days, Natasha had kept Bucky walking on his toes around her—never offered him a bone, always crispy-polite when he spoke to her; you knew her game well. She was intimidating him by doing nothing at all, and you knew what MJ meant with ‘taking it easy’.
Natasha took it easy with people whose opinion she knew mattered to you and would matter in the future, meaning she saw in Bucky someone who would be around for a while.
You look at MJ. “She knows he doesn’t know everything that went through between us yet.”
At the same time Steve hums in sympathy in front of you, MJ goes: “Ah.”
“Yeah,” you chuckle.
Steve rests his head against the chair and looks up at you. “Don’t worry. If he’s teaching her somethin’, that’s Buck language for a hug and a kiss on the forehead.”
Your eyes and attention shifted between the group surrounding you by the lake and the chaotic group of idiots you adored on the other side of the lake.
You nodded in agreement. Bucky took a while to warm up to people—when Nat had mentioned her new bike and how much she thought his own was beautiful, how much she’d love to know some things about them so she wouldn’t have to go to a mechanic over there too often and Bucky’s response was, “Want me to teach you some stuff?” your heart had done some acrobatics inside your chest.
“Nat letting someone help is Nat language for ‘you’re cool and we can be friends’,” you tell everyone.
Gabe points to where Yelena is sitting, watching Nat and Bucky on top of the rock. “That one is easy to make friends with, huh?”
Yelena, almost as if sensing you’re all talking about her, looks over to you guys and waves excitedly. “Nah.” Everyone turns around to you with a look that questions whether you’ve lost your mind or not, but you shrug at all of them. “It’s true. You know how Nat and Bucky give off those vibes to everyone but us?” They all nod. “Yelena gives off that vibe to everyone too… unless she’s around Nat. Or me.” They all hum in surprise, and you close your eyes when the feeling of MJ’s fingers goes back to working on your hair. “I’m happy you guys like them.”
Steve pats your calf. “We know they’re part of the package and we’re keeping you. Thank god we like them,” he sasses.
You laugh at him, and MJ snickers behind you to stand still.
Inside of the house, you can hear Sarah’s boys playing video games and now, the smell of whatever it is the Wilsons are cooking is truly starting to take over the air.
Steve seems to pick up on that at the same time as you, ‘cause he sniffs the air around him and starts craning his neck to get a look at the kitchen. “What on earth are they cooking in there?”
Morita hums at the back of his throat. “You’re a lucky man, Cap.” He huffs. “That’s a damn good family to marry into.”
To innocent ears, the compliment might’ve sounded very nice, but you feel MJ snickering behind you just as you try to hide your own laughter.
Steve, always so smart, knows better too and sees right through the bullshit. “Aht—knock it off.” He slaps Morita on the arm, and the man laughs at him, unashamed of his boldness. “You guys and your stupid fucking poll.” Steve throws his arms up. “We’re not getting married! Not now, at least!”
MJ lets go of any pretense of hiding her laughter when Steve slaps his friend, but she recovers quickly to tell him. “Oh, c’mon Steve. Don’t pretend you haven’t bought that man a ring already.”
Steve gasps in shock, and it’s such a genuine and loud gasp that it catches everyone by surprise. He points an accusatory finger at MJ and then looks over to the other side of the lake, where Peter’s laughter can be heard on top of Natasha’s voice. “That TRAITOR!”
At the word, Peter’s head snaps to where everyone is on the lake.
Everyone, including you, gasps at the realization of what Steve falsely assumed… and ended up revealing in the meantime.
“YOU DID?!” MJ yells the question.
Watching the realization hit Steve’s face is almost as priceless as knowing that Steve Grant Rogers bought Sam Wilson a ring.
You watch as his eyes go from accusatory to wide in horror, and then his eyebrows crease in pain. Morita and Gabe start causing absolute havoc, and you’re too shocked and happy to do anything but stand there with your mouth wide open and a smile splitting your face in half.
Steve, beet red and also beating himself over his misinterpretation, gets up from the chaos that has installed between a yelling Gabe, Morita, MJ and fastly approaching Peter (“What’s up what’s up what’s up why did he yell at me—”) and starts walking in direction of the house.
Big mistake.
MJ gets up from the chair behind you and starts singing the wedding waltz, and that’s finally what snaps you out of your shock.
Immediately, you pull her down by the waist and start shushing her. “Shushhhh, oh my god, Gabe, shut up! Are you guys kidding me?!” you scream whisper. “Make it more obvious, would ya?! Let the man keep his secret at least from the person who’s meant to be surprised, huh?!” You point vigorously at the house, looking at them like one looks at children who forgot that this is supposed to be a surprise party.
The three of them clasp their hands over their mouth, and you sigh dramatically. “If he finds out because of y’all, I’m killing you. I swear I am.”
Peter, between ragged breaths, looks between you all with wide eyes. “Who told you?” He whines.
For the second time, you feel MJ hiding behind you, and when Peter cries out a betrayed, “Babe?”, you can’t help but laugh.
Your eyes find a pair of blue ones on the other side of the lake, and sharing your moment of happiness with him makes it even better somehow.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ◦➳◦
Meet me at the Willow at 2.
The words had been whispered to you while dinner was served and everyone navigated each other in the kitchen; Bucky had slid behind you at the plate line, whispered that at the shell of your ear, and fucked right off the kitchen, leaving you standing there confused for a moment.
Confused and giddy, for that was the right word—giddy; as if you were a teenager; as if this was all a joyous new thing to experience.
Bucky said the words and created a monarch dynasty in your belly, butterflies fluttering with his wink as he left, with your eagerness to wait for the clock to strike midnight so everyone would retire to their beds and you could watch the minutes pass by.
It was stupid and foolish, but it felt good.
At one-thirty, you kiss Nat’s sleeping forehead, remove her cell phone from her hand before it falls on the wooden floor, slip it under her pillow, and leave for a smoke at the back porch.
There was no privacy at the lake house.
Surely, among a group of adults, no one lived under the impression to share a roof with prudes; on the contrary: having a group of intimate friends, you were learning, meant sharing the good, the bad, the weird, and the extremely personal.
Still. Common courtesy indicated no loud, delicious sex when you shared literally the same room with somebody else.
A thin wall? Acceptable. One can shove their heads under a pillow and go back to bed, ignoring the grunting and moaning on the other side, but when it’s sleeping right next to you?
A little rude.
Not that you and Bucky were meeting to fuck behind a tree, like an actual couple of teenagers—no. You had better self-control than that (you hoped), and taking things at their own time was not a problem for either one of you.
But god, you missed making out with him.
Kissing, tasting him, teasing him for more than an hour, feeling the way he likes to map your body with his hands—fuck, his hands.
You put out the smoke, glanced at your clock, and thanked the summer heat for making nights just as perfect as days as you walk to the willow tree at the back of the lake.
Sitting under it in his baggy, black shorts and one of your favorite t-shirts of his, smoking a cigarette with a phone in his hand and a blanket underneath him, is Bucky.
When he sees you, Bucky smiles at the side, then pats the place on the blanket next to him.
You walk to him, and instead of sitting where he suggested, stop in front of his crossed legs, looking down at him with no reservation to your thoughts.
He’s always been good at reading them. Bucky’s incredible at reading you, and if someone said you were once a book on his shelf in this or any other life, you’d believe them.
His legs all but melt in front of him, uncrossing in a clear invitation. To make matters better, Bucky opens his arms wide, leaving his cigarette dangling from his mouth—waiting. Open.
You sit down on his lap and his arms close around your waist.
“I’m glad you found the location easy, ma’am,” he teases, making you laugh.
The theatrical side of him is something few people know, and you, personally, adore. His voice gets carried easily in the dark and the silence of the night; you take the cigarette from his lips and lead it to yours, take a puff and then put it out in the trunk behind his head.
Bucky pouts at you. “I wasn’t done with that,” he whines a little.
You shake your head at him, rolling your eyes. “Don’t care.” You’d missed him. Missed being close to his body so much, so the first thing you do is get closer—wrap your arms around his neck and interlace your fingers in his soft, growing hair.
His hair’s getting longer again.
The days here at the lake house did him good; Bucky looks healthy, tanned; there’s a glow on his skin that’s almost unfair and his hair feels made of silk.
“You look so pretty, Buck,” you whisper to him.
Bucky’s eyes are on your mouth, and even in the dark, you can see the color rising on his cheeks. “What’s with you and callin’ me pretty lately?” He asks with a shy chuckle.
You shrug your shoulders. “Dunno. Just thought you should know,” you voice softly.
He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, but seems to miss the words to answer you.
To give him a way out, you lean closer and place a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “I like how long your hair’s getting. You plan on cutting it?”
The question is asked while you measure the length of his locks with your fingers, in the same way that a barber does before taking the tips out with a scissor.
Bucky remains quiet for a couple more seconds under you, but when he finally answers, your movements halt on his head. “Dunno yet. Hey, Y/N. You really think I’m pretty?”
The measuring stops. Your heart falters, skips, trips. It falls, and the floor of your chest echoes with the shatter.
Your body inches back slowly, to avoid spreading the pieces under places you’ll never find again.
Bucky’s looking straight ahead—eyes fixed on the necklace around your neck, both of his hands tight on your waist. With care, you cup his face into your hands and lift it until his eyes meet yours. “Bucky.” The moonlight does wonders with his eyes, and you’re growing to love the privilege of seeing him under a light that only you get the opportunity. “You. Are the prettiest person. I have ever seen.”
He blinks through watery eyes at how much emotion slips out of your mouth alongside your words, and both of you have to swallow down the knots of tears that belong to another moment.
You kiss his pink cheeks, one by one. “So pretty, Sergeant.” A kiss between his eyes. Catching a sniff of his citrus-smelling hair, you add “and you smell so nice.” Bucky chuckles under you, wrapping his arms tighter around your waist. “Except after your runs.”
Now, he laughs harder. He kisses your sternum, and you sigh. “Thanks, doll.” He looks up at you, his face still safe and happily tucked in your hands. “I ask ‘cause… you’re the most beautiful ever. So. You deserve to be with someone you think’s pretty.”
God, this man’s beauty will be your ruin.
His outer beauty, his inner one, too. Your smile widens, and you suddenly hate every breath you take without having kissed him at least once. “Trust me. I’m right where I should be.” Wiggling on top of him, you adjust your legs around his waist and tuck your feet under his thigh, just a little. “Kiss, please?”
Bucky’s eyes lose some of the blue with the question, and he obliges with that smile that always steals some of your breath and melts your insides a bit.
He closes the distance slowly, and his lips are soft and wet when they suck on yours.
Kissing Bucky is the smoothest bike ride you’ve ever been on.
If you unlearned everything overnight because of a mysterious reason or a curse, maybe a true kiss would be real, then. You’re certain that having his mouth on yours would come back to you, sure as the Sun does every day.
Whether it’s the same rhythm as you, or the way Bucky enjoys kissing, just like you—his lips on yours are a sweet taste you can’t get enough of. Never could, never will.
Bucky sucks on your tongue and kisses you until you’re both breathless. He lets you get some air, gasping through ragged breaths, as he sucks on your neck and licks on your neck with abandon.
He licks a stripe from the middle of your clavicle all the way up, finishing right under your chin. It’s ticklish, and your giggles get eaten by his hungry lips once again.
You suck on his moans and swallow down the grunting noises he offers you; kissing Bucky always makes your body come alive, your head spinning with the lack of oxygen and your lower body melting with the heated need that overtakes everything.
He kisses you with his right hand fisting your hair at the nape, his left hand gripping your waist, your ass, pulling you closer and further at the same time—Bucky wants you closer, but the more you sit and sigh in his arms, the more you rub yourself against his cock, which is rapidly answering to your hips and filling up inside his sweater-shorts.
When his left hand grips your waist tight enough to leave bruises and pull a whine out of your mouth, you both go still at the same time.
You take a deep breath together, inhaling the same air, right against each other’s mouths.
Bucky smiles, and you try your damn best to not move. His iron-grip on your waist is what’s guiding you now, and you did say to yourself you had better self-control than this. “Fuck, baby,” Bucky’s voice is wrecked.
It twists the knife on your stomach—the one made of butter, cutting through you like you’re made of honey.
He might be wearing boxers. Whether he is or not, you can feel the outline of his dick nestled between the lips of your pussy, even through the layers of your panties and your sleeping shorts.
You hum, and press a tentative, innocent kiss on his lips. “Sorry.” When he smiles, his grip on your waist loosens, but you remain still. “I thought you had come here to read for me… or something,” you joke.
It works—Bucky’s laughter is suppressed on your sternum, and you try not to think about how close his lips are to your nipples. He’s trying to keep it quiet; the laughter can be carried through the wind and end up waking someone up in a fright inside the house.
Fuck. You’d wake up everybody and kick them all out if it meant he just went back to kissing you right now.
“I was reading Ham on Rye before you came,” he whispers to you.
For a moment, your mind finds a safe boat. “Ah! Your first read or re-read?”
Bucky kisses your exposed shoulder, and the imaginary safe boat floats away like a popped balloon. “Re-read, but—the first time I read it I was pretty young, so it’s kinda like a first read?”
He hums thoughtfully, and you know he isn’t done yet.
Another kiss is placed, higher up on your shoulder this time, and you wonder if you’re safe to relax the bottom half of your body without going back to circling his hips like a bitch in heat. Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how much he behaves, too.
“I like it,” Bucky adds, kissing the column of your throat. So much for behaving. “But that’s not much of a surprise. I like the dirty old man.”
The silly nickname and jab at one of the author’s titles make you giggle. “He really was one, wasn’t he?”
Bucky laughs, but it’s with his stubble scratching your throat. Your own laughter dies in a little whine. “Guess we share a trait, then.”
“You’re not a…” your words trail off, ending in a soft gasp. Bucky sucks on your earlobe, and his hips buck up a fraction, and you never had a chance; not when he feels so desperate underneath you. “Dirty old man,” you whisper.
There’s a low hum as Bucky kisses more of your throat. “Dunno if I always was one, or if you just—you got this power to awaken somethin’ in me.” Bucky takes both of his hands from your body and places them on your cheeks, turning your focus entirely on him. “I used to be a real smooth fucker before, you know?” He whispers, stealing every ounce of your attention.
It’s unnecessary detailing before ‘what’; whenever Bucky mentions ‘before’, he’s referring to the army and, more specifically, his injury. Your body is frozen on top of his, listening attentively and feeling his fingers caressing your cheeks.
“I was always a decent-looking fella,” he says in mock-humbleness, and you roll your eyes at him. He chuckles, but continues in a more somber tone. “But after things like that, it’s. Fuck. You lose touch with yourself and—things that felt normal before. They’re harder. New, all over again.” Bucky leans up and kisses you, and you melt around him in an embrace. “I’m sorry I got so overwhelmed that morning… I never. Before you—the women I’d been with; they hadn’t noticed the thing I do. I don’t think I had either? It had—it’d been a while since I looked at someone I was being intimate with. And… I think knowing you really think all the things you say about me helped me… see myself. A new light, a bit better, all that yadda.”
The way he finishes does little to mask how real and open all the other things he’s said were.
Bucky’s fiddling with your necklace by the end of his speech, and you’re trying your best to finish picking up the pieces of a heart that broke for him because this… it needs to fall again.
How could people just skim past someone else’s obvious body language that way?
Well—thinking back on how all of this started, it had all come from the fact that most men before Bucky had never paid attention to yours, to begin with.
Not until this ‘dirty old man’ came and showed you what could truly be.
You close the distance between your lips in a soft kiss. “I’m glad I can make you feel that way, Buck,” you whisper. “I know we joke about your old age and whatnot, but honestly—you’re one of the most handsome men I’ve met. You’ve got years of being a menace to my heart and health ahead of you yet.”
Missing his 40th birthday had been the only truly sad day of this vacation for you. You knew from Steve Bucky had an amazing time with his younger sisters — Becca hadn’t gone because of an important work thing, it turns out — and you were happy for them.
But you also knew Bucky and how much the date must’ve made a mess in his thoughts about a lot of things.
“You see me being a menace to your heart and health for a long time?” He asks.
He makes himself comfortable against the tree, adjusting the pillow on his lower back and pulling you close with him. “Sure. Do you?”
Bucky smiles up at you. “For as long as you’ll have me.”
It goes to your head. Of course it does—Bucky’s offering himself to you on a silver platter, and saying it’s yours to have and hold.
“One more kiss, please?” You ask nicely.
Bucky chuckles at you, pulling you by the nape. “Have as many as you want,” he whispers before closing his lips on yours on short, sweet pecs. “Just… control these damn Succubus hips of yours, please?” He pleads, sucking on your bottom lip. “It’s hard already having you sitting on me—if you—ah, don’t do that, Y/n—if you give me blue balls in here I swear I’ll make you cum at the cinema theater as a punishment or somethin’. I know I probably deserve them, but you smell so good, doll, it’s torture already, c’mon.”
The problem with Bucky’s soft pleading is that it turns you on even more.
You have to physically stop your hips from circling his again, and he kisses you so sweetly that for a moment, you think of nodding along, saying ‘yeah, Bucky, sure, baby’.
That plan goes downhill when his hands go down on you.
For someone trying to keep himself away from blue balls, Bucky is sure not doing his best at keeping his own excitement at bay.
When the sweet, languid kisses start heating up once more, it’s him who starts pressing your waist down and guiding it with his big hands to rock back and forth against him. Bucky’s hands are big, they hold firmly on your pelvis and when you see, he’s moaning in your mouth because of the movements he’s inflicting on himself.
But god, does it feel good.
He kisses you like he starved for it for a month, and he did.
When you think about the last time you had Bucky inside of you, so long ago, your resolve cracks, and you’re whining on his mouth.
That, he notices, and it snaps Bucky out of his drunken lust. He pulls back with a gasp, and if he was half-hard before, there’s no doubt he finished getting himself worked up now.
You know intimately and closely the weight and the girth of that fully hard cock, and you whine again, rocking your hips against it. Bucky’s hips buck up to meet yours, and he groans against your neck. “Okay that might’ve been on me this time,” he gasps, licking and kissing on your neck. “Doll,” he rasps out, and woah, he even sounds drunk. “You’re gonna have to be stronger than me. I can’t get my hands off you right now,” he moans, leaving his trail of kisses on your beard-burned throat.
“Don’t wanna.”
Unlike you, he finds amusement in this frustration, because he chuckles. “Y/n, we’re both just gonna get more worked up and even more frustrated, baby.” He takes a deep breath and tries inching his waist back a little. “I didn’t bring anything with me,” he whispers to you, smiling through what are supposed to be comforting kisses. “Plus—I got a date to take you in first, don’t I?”
The logic is sound.
“Fine.” You pout. “You didn’t bring anything—no rubbing on each other. Just—kiss me?”
Buck obliges, kissing you with fervor.
If the plan and the reasoning were good, you two only missed one factor in this equation—the kissing, which you are both very good at, is effective with or without you two letting the lust and the heat take over your heads.
You and Bucky kiss to taste the missing days on each other’s tongue, to find in his soft sighs the words you missed from poems he read away from you, to nibble on the lonely days at his house and the moments you could’ve had together at his birthday.
Under minutes, your foreheads are glistening with sweat and your hands have found home under each other’s sleeping shirts.
Bucky’s burning under you, and he’s so hot and ready that his body starts doing something that breaks every last bit of resolve and rationalization you had stored in your brain.
For a second, you’re embarrassed to feel how wet your panties are. It’s ludicrous to be ashamed of it—Bucky loves how wet you get, but under the given circumstances you think it’s wise to have him at least lying on top of you instead of under before you start rutting against his clothed dick like one does to the corner of a couch.
It’s with a slip of the hand that you notice you’re not alone.
Adjusting yourself, you move back a little and start saying, “D’you wanna get on…” but when your hand misses his thigh — a genuine mistake in the dark — and finds his crotch instead, your words die on your tongue.
Bucky’s wet too. “Oh, fuck,” you mutter, pressing your hand harder on the patch now. “Bucky.”
“Y/n,” he groans.
He’s dripping pre-come in his boxers, and the wet spot on his shorts says as much as your panties do at this moment.
You don’t care whether he’s brought a condom or not anymore. “Bucky… d’you… have you been with anyone?” You ask him in a shaky whisper. Under you, Bucky stops groaning. And moving. “I swear I ain’t asking to be a dick—I’m asking, well—I’m asking ‘cause I trust you enough to know you’re one of the good guys and you don’t lie about this shit like some do just for pussy. And right now—I need to know. Not if you’ve been with others—that’s not—I care if you’re clean, ‘cause I am, and I’m on the pill, and if you tell me you are too, just this once we could…”
Bucky grips you by the jaw, stopping your rambles, making you look at him. “You really think I could touch anyone else when I’ve had you?” He asks, seriously.
You close your eyes, sighing in relief over a worry you had no right to have. “Buck…”
He kisses you eagerly, and you correspond in the same way, almost forgetting all about your question until he answers you. “I haven’t, no,” he says calmly—too calmly for a man undoing your insides like you’re a wool sweater and he’s unmaking you by the thread. “And I’m clean.” He pulls you closer again, since you had slid lower on his lap. “Are you sure, though?”
You nod, eagerly. “So, so sure.”
His groan is guttural. The grip on your waist and neck are primal, too—Bucky’s having a hard time hiding from you just how much you and your body are affecting him, or perhaps he doesn’t want to.
He never hid from you, but it’s with him writhing and moaning against your skin, unabashed and so soft at the same time, that you notice—he never hid, but he downplayed.
The Bucky who’d laid with you for months had been a giver, and a taker, and a very good partner.
This Bucky is everything.
He’s shameless—the way he looks up at you from under his eyelashes, so little of his eyes left blue and his cheeks pinker than the sky at twilight, it screams give it to me.
How could you not? If he’s shameless, then so are you.
Bucky’s wide open in his desire, rotating his hips to meet yours as he kisses you with the hunger to end a feast. When the heat starts becoming too much inside of you, the need to externalize it before you explode is what makes you take off his t-shirt, then yours, leaving his torso naked for the mosquitos (and you) to have a go at it, and your upper body in nothing but the black bralette your put on for bed.
It’s his little whines of your name that while he takes himself from his boxers that make you want to scream—you’re thankful for the loose booty shorts when you notice how practical it is for him to slip your panties to the side and move the head against your wet and waiting core.
Muffling the sounds that leave your mouths can only be done if you’re kissing at that point.
Bucky slides inside of you with ease, burying all of him to the hilt in only a few thrusts.
His metal hand holds your panties away, and his right hand grips the other side of your waist, and when he moves, the filthy sounds of your bodies connecting and your breathy moans start becoming a symphony.
It would be a lie to say it felt the same as other times.
It’s not. “Bucky,” you grind down on his lap, feeling full to the brim with him seated inside of you. “Oh god. Missed feeling you. Missed being so full.”
Bucky’s face feels stapled to your neck—the deep, almost wounded sounds he’s letting out would definitely be more than enough to wake everyone up, but they’re buried with the stubble burns on the side of your neck. “You missed it, baby?” He asks, biting on your skin. He’s picked that from you—Bucky was never a biter. “I missed ya too. Fuck—your pussy’s so good—oh god, so tight, Y/n, like it was made for me , huh?”
If you were a stronger person, you’d swallow the scream that climbs up your throat, but Bucky’s words, his strong arms, and the way he moves his hips like they’re made for sinning—it’s too much.
Feels too good. Drives your mind up the walls on every corner; it reminds you that he’s in you, and how there’s nothing between him and you—and oh fuck, fuck. “Bucky. Buck—are you gonna cum in me?” Your hands fly to get a grip on his hair before your back gives up and you fall backward, nothing but a puddle of pleasure in his hands.
His hips falter and become still inside of you, making you whine loud. “Y/n.” On one hand, it’s only your name—on the other, his dick twitches inside of you, pulling a broken moan out of your lips. Bucky moves back, just enough to get a look on your face, and he looks just as drunk and fucked out as you imagine you are. “Look at you.” Bucky’s right hand goes up to your face, getting the hair that’s plastered on your face away from it, then leaves kisses all over it. You’d try moving your hip, but the iron-grip of his metal hand makes it impossible. “You tryna kill me, doll? Hm?” With that question, Bucky starts to piston his hips up in slow, deliberate moves. “You tryna gimme a heart attack?”
The movements are slow, but you feel when he secures his feet against the ground and then, the next thrust is sharper. Thankfully, Bucky puts his mouth on yours before you scream one more time.
“You tryna wake everybody up so they know who’s making you feel so good, huh, pretty baby?” Bucky’s words are slurred out together, and he highlights some words by just pushing in harder, then pulling out slowly. “You call me pretty then… then get cock drunk on top of me like this—fuck, it ain’t fair.”
The second his hand goes from your waist to your neck, your hips gain free range to circle him and meet his thrusts; Bucky’s pace hits all the right places inside of you and the patience he has to make sure he’s angled just right every time is exactly why you know he’s right.
Bucky’s fucked you speechless before, he’s fucked you into a blubbering mess, he’s fucked you until all you could say was his name, but today, you’re taking him with you.
Gripping your pussy tighter around his cock in his next thrust, you feel his broken moan against your lips. “I am,” you breathe out, laughing breathlessly and mouthing on his jawline. “You feel how good you make me feel, Buck?” your voice is small, drunk, just as slurred as he is, but he hears it. Leading your lips to the shell of his ear, you grip him tighter on purpose again, going down a little faster. “You look so pretty under me—fuck, right there—so, so pretty, Sergeant. I wanna feel it. Can I?”
If he planned on pulling out before your whiny pleading, the resolve gets lost when you hold his face between your hands and kisses him filthily, just to match the sounds of your hips meeting each other.
“I’m—you sure? Fuck, are you sure?” Bucky moans brokenly.
All your agreement is muffled in the next kisses, but Bucky reads and understands the permission.
When he gets both arms around the middle of your waist again, you know what’s coming—the strain of his muscles every time he takes your full weight to himself and starts thrusting up faster and harder gets you without fail, burning you up even hotter.
You hold on to his biceps, feeling him kiss on your cheeks and your damn forehead like he does in front of everybody—and that’s what it does you in.
He kisses your forehead while fucking straight into your g spot, his grunts and moans all absorbed by your skin and trailing to the lake behind you two, and you’re done, you’re pulsating and cumming all around his cock, his name falling from your lips in a desperate prayer or a plea—you can’t know, you don’t care.
Bucky feels your pussy squeezing him and the only warning you get is the way he buries his face between your boobs and lets out a grunt before you feel him shooting inside of you.
Neither of you moves or says another word for what it feels like the longest minutes ever—this is going to become a problem.
You don’t want him to pull out—hell, you never want him somewhere that’s not inside of you, filling you up, ever again.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Bucky whines underneath you.
Oh. You said that out loud. “I’m… never.” You laugh brightly. “Sorry.”
“Do not apologize,” he laughs back.
“It just… it feels good.”
Bucky groans, and when he tries to pull out just a little, your whine stops him. He takes a deep breath and rests his head back against the tree trunk, and you get to appreciate his sweaty, fucked-out look.
The smile is your favorite part. “I don’t see how this is a problem,” he whispers to you, moving his hips a little again for another reaction—you both hiss at the sensitivity, but you hum pleased right after. “Nope. Nevermind. This is a problem—you know, I had a dream on New Year’s day when you slept over that I woke up and I was already inside of you for some reason?” Bucky’s voice is still deep and raspy, and you missed how he sounds after all those grunts and growls. “That’s why I went on a run.”
“That’s a nice idea,” you whisper.
“Are you trying to kill me?” He begs again, louder this time.
Laughing, you realize that Bucky is only starting to get an idea of how much you truly want to “kill him”.
This should be fun.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ◦➳◦
“That sounds cutthroat.”
The comment is offered so honestly that you can’t help but tease a little. “Yeah.” You sip on your Coke, then add in a tone as serious as you can muster. “Few places in this world are as cutthroat as a Ballet school.”
Bucky stops with the straw halfway to his mouth and, sensing how much of an absolute little shit you’re being, only shakes his head, amusement written all over his face. “I can imagine.”
You smile behind your cup, biting on your lip. It’s a little hard to concentrate on staying on topic when he looks so good. “Anyway. I think it’s good for them to get a little competition going on.” Natasha and Yelena were always good at bringing the best out on each other. “I can’t wait for the casting paper picture. They send me a pic of the paper the professors pin on the board with all the names of who’s dancing and as what—very pretty handwriting, dramatic old school style.”
Bucky smiles at that. “My bet’s on Yelena.”
“What!? Why?” You lean in, curious.
“Nat’s more experienced, but from what you’ve told me, she’s also… distracted,” he wiggles his eyebrows.
Oh. He had a point.
Wanda. “You really think so?”
“Sure. She’s got other priorities right now,” Bucky nods.
“Hmm, that is true.” You’re munching on your straw at the answer, thinking about the goodbyes at the airport, when the food arrives.
Given it was the last week of summer, everyone had (reluctantly) left Steve’s small piece of heaven and headed back to where they came from.
Your girls, after their extended vacation, flew back to Russia with the biggest smile on their faces and a little bit of a tan to boot.
When you were saying goodbye, Natasha had whispered. “I like him, lyubov. He’s still… pending. But I like him.”
Behind her, Yelena rolled her eyes and made a small heart with her fingers—she knew her sister, probably knew exactly what she was saying, but getting the stamp of approval from both your girls meant the world.
In front of you, Bucky thanks the waitress — a girl named Monica, who he introduced you to as soon as you arrived at Nakajima — and gives you a raise of his eyebrows at how delicious the food looks.
You prefer spending time observing how appetizing he looks.
The black trousers, brand new black shirt and plaid overcoat made his long hair and clean stubble give him almost a model look. That, or perhaps you were biased with how handsome he was.
Riding with him on his bike was maybe one of your favorite things now.
“How’s the pretty rescue?” You ask, digging in the food.
“Pretty rescue,” he chuckles under his breath. “I should’ve never shown you pics of him, ‘till last week I was ‘pretty boy’ and now all I hear from ya is ‘where’s my pretty boy, let me see that ball of fur, Bucky’ and no love for me.”
Most people would think Bucky’s doing all that theater just to get the laughter out of you — which he does, always — but you know him better; Bucky loves hiding his true adorable persona behind sarcastic jokes that have a little bit of truth.
That’s why you squeeze him by his cute chin, call him pretty when he wakes up, and wolf-whistle when he passes by in all his shirtless glory.
The comfort and ease that he carries himself around you now could never go unnoticed by you.
(You, and others.
Is that Bucky SHIRTLESS behind you? Damn, Y/n, that’s Buck language for serious businessssssss 😛 Steve had texted.)
Chuckling, you grab him by the chin. “Sorry, baby,” you press a kiss on his pink, sake lips. “He’s just too fucking cute. I’ll call him—hm. That long silky fur reminds me of those prince lap kittens who always look super mean, but Alpine isn’t mean, he’s just prince.”
“Alright, I’ll take it.” Bucky gives a small little bite on your chin, and you smile to yourself. Definitely picking up on your habits. He goes back to his food with a smile and answers, “He’s fine. I thought he’d have left ‘till I was back, but Luke said he gave no trouble and always ate the food he left for him. He even sent me a couple of pictures of them playing a couple of times when he came by and Alpine was sleeping on the couch or just around. Did I show you?” You nod, listening with a smile. “Right. He’s just been getting all my clothes properly branded now—everything has his fur, Y/n, I swear to god.”
Bucky feeds you the broccoli he isn’t going to eat. “That’s gonna be the default now,” you tell him.
“I know.” Bucky sighs. “I told myself ‘he’s not gonna sleep on the bed, you bought him a bed, Bucky’ but—he is. Yeah.” You laugh in sympathy, nodding along to Bucky’s conformism. “You’ll see when you go.” He shakes his head. “He annoyed me all day, every day, for a week when summer started and when I gave him shelter during that first storm I said—just tonight. He’s cryin’ outside, you’re not heartless, Bucky.” He turns to you and pauses dramatically. “He was eatin’ from my plate yesterday, Y/n. I have lost control of my own home.”
That does it in—you burst out laughing, your upper body falling forward, leaning against him.
“Stop laughing at me! This is serious!” He says, laughing too.
Not laughing with him is almost an impossible task.
That’s why you’re not scared, says a voice in your head. Whenever the things you feel for Bucky grow and bloom inside of you, growing branches to new places and solidifying how much he means to you and in your life, the breeze of fear is nothing but a passenger cold in your stomach.
It goes away quickly. Bucky warms you up with laughter every time he speaks to you.
That’s how you know he’ll be in your life for as long as he wants to—even when things were bad, or difficult, Bucky managed to make you smile through the sadness or the hurt.
He makes you happy.
“Does it taste good?” Bucky confirms at one point, when conversation dulled in favor of you both devouring the delicious dinner Yori prepared just for you two.
You nod with a mouth full, chipmunk cheeks ending up poked by one of Bucky’s metal fingers.
“Cutie,” he chuckles, pressing a tasty kiss on your cheek.
Dinner is almost as good as the date itself.
After picking you up on his special bike — a black, sleek and traditional Harley — and taking you for a ride around town, Bucky took you to a spoken poetry event he’d gotten the tickets for before you two had even “broken up”.
He held your hand the entire evening, asking or whispering things to you about the books surrounding you and the people he saw.
People-watching with Bucky was much more fun than with most people; his observational skills were incredible and after the spoken-poetry session ended, you two roamed the fair in which it had happened and left there with two bags of books, your mouths sweetened of cotton candy, cheeks pink and aching from smiling so hard.
Then, he asked you, “Ready to eat?” And you knew where you two were going.
This time, Bucky had introduced you to Yori.
The Japanese man owned the restaurant, and it took you two minutes laughing at their sharp banter to see how much Yori meant to him.
Yori had told you about what inspired him to do a place where Asian cuisine is so mixed, and he’d given you a tour of both floors while talking animatedly about how much he loves regulars who dress so nicely as you.
He also ignored Bucky’s attempt to be part of the conversation, because, according to him, “Don’t mind him, Y/n, he wants my attention ‘cause he’s used to it. Lemme talk to the girl, James. Go get us some more sake.”
It was nice to see someone else with the upper hand around Bucky who wasn’t Steve.
You two finish a whole bottle of sake before dinner is over — mostly you, considering he’s driving — and by the time your stomachs are full and conversation has finished making a hundred different stops, your bodies are leaning against the glass window behind you, your hands intertwined under the table.
Bucky smiles when he feels you leaning your cheek on his hand. He pinches it softly, then kisses it. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom and drink some water.” He kisses your eyelids, which are feeling heavier already. “I’ll get the bill before I come back. I’ll bring you a bottle, kay?”
That’s Bucky language for ’you’re tipsy and I’m gonna hydrate you’, and you appreciate it. Silently tilting your chin up, Bucky gives you the kiss your gesture asks for. “Meet me outside? I’m gonna smoke.”
He snickers, giving you a cheeky smile. “Tsk tsk, bad habit, miss.”
“I’ll quit it when you do.”
“I know. I’ll make us quit, you see,” he laughs.
It’s something you two have been teasing each other about, ever since Bucky heard you yelling at Natasha over the phone to wait until you’ve found your lighter, and she replied with “agh! that nasty fucking habit” and received a “which I got from WHO?” that silenced her really quick.
He claimed he was gonna help you get rid of this nasty habit before you were a hypocrite in a white coat and he had no lungs to eat you out for hours or have you sit on his face.
“Loving the priorities, Buck.”
Clutching your jacket closer around your body, you laugh at the memory.
If Bucky and Natasha’s competitive streak ends in you becoming healthier, then so be it.
“Ah! You’re here.” Your head snaps in the direction of the familiar voice and finds Yori getting down the steps from the side door, joining you in the alley outside. “I have Monica stalling James at the cashier with a pep talk of her little girl, that should buy me some time,” he says, making you laugh.
“Are you here to gimme more dirty secrets on him? ‘Cause I’m all ears,” you joke, angling your body so it faces the wind direction and none of the smoke hits Yori’s face.
He notices it, and eyes your cigarette with the same distaste your mother does. “I’m not, actually.”
The seriousness in his tone makes you hesitate a little, sobering up, too. “Is something wrong?”
Yori waves his hands in front of him in a dismissive way. “No, no. Nothing’s wrong.” He points at the smoke on your hand. “Except for that. I heard James saying you two are going to quit.” Yori pins you with a look. “Next time you two come over, I better not see smoke breaks,” he waits for you to nod in agreement before continuing. “Good. I’ve been trying to get him to quit for years, but if it takes a pretty girl and being in love for him to do it, at least it gets done.”
“We’ll quit it, Mr. Nakajima.”
He looks away with a shake of his head. “Ah! I told you before—Yori.” To your surprise, Yori puts out his hand in a request for the cigarette and you hand it to him, trying to contain your smile. “It’s a nasty habit.” He takes a slow drag and says through the exhaled smoke. “Feels good, though.”
“That it does,” you chuckle.
Yori looks at you calculative, taking another drag. “I came to thank you,” he passes it back to you.
“For what?”
“You know what.” Yori points to the inside of the restaurant, where if you follow his finger, Bucky can be found smiling at a picture that’s being shown to him on the girl you recognize as Monica’s phone. “He hasn’t smiled like that in years.” When you look back at Yori, the man has a smile on his face you haven’t seen before. “My son used to make him smile like that all the time, so I think there’s definitely a type there to where his taste lies, but—” he looks away from Bucky to you, his smile growing. “Kim could never get through his thick skull. You do. And he’s finally opening up to being happy again…” Yori’s hands join together and, like a flower, open in a blooming gesture. “Under your light.”
The words get caught on your throat, and you put out the cigarette even though it was only half-finished.
“Kim was your kid?” You ask, feeling suddenly very hot under the streetlight. My son used to make him smile like that all the time.
The picture in Steve’s corridor flashes behind your eyes; the bright smile of a younger Bucky, unmistakably happy and delighted.
Fuck. My sweet Bucky.
“Yeah,” Yori confirms. “I adopted him when he was just a kid.” His smile has sad and sharp edges. “I had a kid before him, but he… life can be tragic, sometimes.” Yori catches your hand between his, and his smile eases. “But not always.” Shaking your head and stealing a glance to the inside, he whispers. “You two make the loveliest couple. I can see in his face how much he cares about you. Which is hard. Men like James can hide a lot from their face, but he can’t hide it with you—oh, no,” he shakes his head, chuckling amused. “I’m happy.”
So were you. “So am I, Yori.” You squeeze his hand back. “I’m happy too.”
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ◦➳◦
Being Bucky’s girlfriend is, just as you expected, even better than being his friend.
He’s a great partner, he discovers. You knew that already—he had taken care of you in more ways than one when first approaching you.
The soft-spoken compliments might not have been there, or the subtle touches he seems to love so much when he’s in public with you now, but the laser-focus attention and the sweet way of caring have always been.
Being Bucky’s means grease stains on your cheeks too because he’s incapable of seeing you at his shop and not kissing you. It means late-night dinner at Nakajima’s, the place with the best food in this area of Brooklyn.
There’s also the mindblowing sex, but that was your entry card.
With the days passing, you discover more of him can blow your mind.
His ability to compromise is incredible.
Bucky’s patient with your schedule—when summer ends and the rush of school starts once again, your first fear is that your studying and how busy you are will mess up the good flow you two have going on.
What happens is: Bucky brings back the habit of texting between you two and when he catches you biting your lip raw in worry, he hugs you for a long time and kisses your worries away with a simple “I met a busy woman, I asked a busy woman to be mine—I’ll deal with the consequences, kay?”. Just like that.
His openness about his past takes a little of your breath away.
Through text messages or in person, Bucky starts offering to you cuts and pieces of life before you met him.
You learn more about his family — he and the girls are getting much closer and Bucky mentions a couple of times about the possibility of you meeting them — and in return, he listens to your tragic tales about yours, told through sarcastic jokes and glasses of brandy.
He never shies away from your touch or hides in the shadows anymore. Yori’s analogy of a flower gets imprinted on your head and, in only a few days, that’s all you can see in his selfies or cute little snaps.
Bucky looks amazing. Happy, and less broody.
He looks seen.
And from how he talks, he feels that way too. “Hey—can I pick you up at your University?” He asks on a Friday over the phone.
“Hello to you too, Sarge.”
“Hi, pretty.” He chuckles. “Can I pick you up? Morita just sent me a page about somethin’ on the other side of town you’re gonna like and I wanna take you. I even changed clothes—I won’t look like a hobo coming to kidnap you, I promise.”
The joke makes you laugh, but it also raises the need to do something in your brain.
As soon as Bucky arrives at the parking lot of your university and parks his bike, you throw Sarah a cheeky wink and go to walk in his direction.
Bucky hugs you close and kisses you hello, and then you put your plan to action. “Sergeant.”
“Hm?” He asks, taking your backpack from you.
You circle your arms around his neck, bringing his attention fully to you. Sweet like honey and low enough for only his ear, you ask. “You see all these people… looking at you over my back. Drooling a little. Eyeing you up and down?” Bucky’s eyes go over your shoulder, looking around in the parking lot, and you get to witness his eyes widening a little, his cheeks tainting. “Yup. All of ‘em.” You kiss his jawline. “They’d all love for you to show up here dirty with grease and make their wildest dreams come true just by… getting a look at you.” You cup his surprised face in your hands. “You forget sometimes, don’t ya?” With a kiss to his smiling lips, you add. “Pretty boy.” Another kiss, and Bucky’s smiling too. “They all wish they were me right now, Sarge.”
That makes him laugh loudly, and the way he eyes you up and down, eating you with a glance; your skin burns hotter from it. “Oh, baby. They wish,” he states boldly, kissing you again.
Bucky’s spontaneous rides around town are the best surprise of them all, though.
He takes you to see a poetry reading, a book opening for a poet you’ve never heard of before and in return, you take him to the car exposition you always went to when you were younger with your dad, but stopped frequenting once he left.
You take Bucky to Flora and Rosa’s back-to-school play because if there’s one person who deserves to see your special little bundles of joy dressed as aliens, it’s him.
Bucky officially asked you to be ‘his girl’ on the night of your first date, and only a month after that, you noticed that you were his girl since he first leaned down on Bullet’s window and asked about your car’s name.
His eyes hooked you in, and his voice sank you down below, but it was his personality that froze the lake and kept you under until now.
Bucky stops reading to you when he notices you aren’t paying attention.
“Have I lost you?” He asks with a smile.
He’s lying on your bed with What We Buried in his hands, reading the poems out loud to you, he has your legs thrown over his lap and your back nestled against the headboard of the bed.
The thermal bag over your stomach eases the cramps you’re feeling, but Bucky’s the real medicine here. “A little bit, but in a good way,” you answer.
Your voice’s groggy from the pain meds, and Bucky leans down to kiss your exposed thigh, and you feel his warm breath on your sensitive skin. “Do I keep reading?” He asks.
“Yes, please.”
“Just don’t fall asleep like that, baby. You’ll crane your neck.”
“I won’t.”
“Yori said he’ll bring dinner for us later ‘cause none of us are gonna cook tonight, okay?”
“He just wants an excuse to see Alpine,” you giggle.
“Alpine and you.” Bucky huffs, and opens the book again. “I said he could ‘cause I can’t say no to his food, but don’t abandon me when he gets here. You two always lose me on your Chinese literature rants.” He throws you what’s supposed to be a menacing look. “No man left behind, doll.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” you smile.
“Good girl.” He kisses your leg again, and clears his throat. “Now—where was I?”
“Bucky?”
He looks away from the book with a patient smile. “Hm?”
“I love you, pretty.”
He smiles with the same happiness from the first time he heard it, and leans in his whole upper body to place the next kiss on your waiting lips. “I love you more, baby.” He pulls back smiling. “Now hush. I’m reading the pain away from my girl—where was I?”
“In This Story, you have claws…”
He nods happily. “In this story, you have claws. In this story, happily ever after has bite marks in it. In this story, you are free and terrifying. In this story, you get away. In this story, you bleed. In this story, you survive.”
We do, you think.
In this story, you bleed, and the love leaves bite marks, and even though you’re terrifying, both of you are free—he, a survivor, you, a fighter.
You two get away, and most importantly, get together.
In this story, Bucky smiles at you under the sun and the Moonlight, and he’s just as perfect as he was when you met him, perhaps only a bit brighter.
Summary: You four sip on cocktails and cover from Bullet's past, to Freud and the latest sexy TV show that hasn't left your mind since you've seen it.
With the help of Yelena, you and Sarah get a little bit about Wanda of Nat. Knowing your girl, this is definitely the first time someone's sparked Nat's interest—Wanda's younger, has a twin who's her pair in classes, but from the way Nat speaks, it's clear she'll end up dancing in your best friend's arms sometime soon.
Nat's interest is simmering and shy, like a flower with the potential to bloom.
Summer starts off great.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✎﹏﹏﹏﹏ ♫ Playlist
Vulnerability’s always been stored in close hugs and the dark corners of a house.
According to therapy sessions, you spent a good amount of money on, rationalizing this part of yourself came from childhood moments when feeling your emotions was not an option, or if it was, knowing you’d be judged for it.
Thanks to those insights, even if it killed you a little bit, you allowed yourself to feel it.
It’s impossible not to.
Bucky’s words might as well have been printed on your brain, and if they weren’t, his belongings lingering in different rooms of your apartment demand his presence and, now, his absence to be felt.
First, you’re numb to it.
Thoughts like ’what if you two aren’t fucking anymore? it doesn’t matter' is your go-to response, but they last only minutes when you’re left alone with your thoughts. No ego is louder than a mind coming to realizations.
Then, the pain comes in waves.
It comes when you find his t-shirt in the middle of your clothes before your shower, and you have to physically force yourself to put it down.
Smelling his clothes would definitely bring bitterness to your lips now.
The thought makes you realize how much Bucky’s perfume and natural scent have been marked as comfort in your brain. It makes your skin itch thinking of how now, it’ll only be the smell connected to memories.
That’s what the good sex will be now. Make your peace with it.
It’s a good way of looking at it.
You two had embarked on this idea together.
Bucky was no womanizer or fuckboy with a twisted sense of right or wrong who put you in this position and now exited through the fire escape—you had been there when the decisions were made.
You knew what he had to offer and what he didn’t.
The reflection on your bathroom’s foggy mirror says you’re too sad to cry now. Your own face looks back at you with dark circles under your eyes, which has gained a new type of emptiness.
He was right to call it off.
That’s what you think inside your bathtub, absently flipping through the pages of Elizabeth’s miserable and condemned life. Diving into Brontë’s sad and heart-wrenching romance seemed only fitting as an escape from your failure.
Or, at least, what felt like a failure.
You drop the book by the side of the tub, eventually, and submerge inside the water, trying to see if having a flood surrounding you will lessen the growing tide inside your chest.
Bucky’s words had hit the nail on the head.
You cared for him in more than a friendly way, no matter how well you were doing at separating the sex from the rest. In front of your friends, the flirting never stopped, but there were no lingering touches.
He had found his way into your life through the seams, but Bucky was now everywhere.
He was in your circle of friends, between the cracks of your ribs, on the lines of books you’d never read before, on your car’s sound system and its new playlists, in the places of your brain you’d forgotten about long ago.
You fall asleep with Natasha on the phone, still reading Bronte to you.
She heard about the conversation with thin, unhappy lips, but swiftly morphed her face into something softer to take care of you.
“He might’ve been rationalizing it right, but it doesn’t mean he’s right, lyubov. Anyway. That doesn’t matter—if you say it’s better now than later, I believe you. He seemed to be a good friend, at least. Now—d’you want me to read to you?”
When times are hard, and she can see the sadness pouring out of you, Natasha always uses her best weapon to soothe your worries: her voice.
She reads until you’re asleep, and when you wake, there are several messages on your phone from her and Yelena talking about their plans and thoughts for the first week of vacation, when they’ll be here, and things will be good.
It’s almost enough to finally bring the tears clogging the knot in your throat. Almost.
They're attentive and thoughtful friends, but they’re also far away.
You might’ve learned how to feel your feelings, but letting go and letting it out still requires a safe space.
That, naturally, arrives on Monday morning, in the form of Sarah’s sniper eyes focused on you.
It’s after a morning of lectures that it all truly settles for you.
As you retell Sarah what happened, her arms wrap around your body and you find solace in her embrace. Sarah offers no words of fake encouragement—she whispers in your ear that it’s okay, to let the tears out, that she’s sad it ended like this and not how she had envisioned.
Time slips through your fingers as the tears silently fall from your eyes and you let yourself be truly sad about it, too.
It hurts.
More than anything, it hurts because he was right.
Bucky had said he had nothing to offer and if his detachment and cold, logical thinking of a couple of days ago was anything to go by, he’d been right about his words on New Year.
At least he was honest about it.
You give yourself time to be sad, then time to be mad, then time to will yourself away from giving a single fuck.
There are exams right across the corner, you had a little more than three months of phenomenal sex with a man who, in the end, respects and adores you too much to not be your friend and truly, who can be mad about that for too long?
Certainly not you.
Someone else might hold grudges, but you’re too busy for that.
It takes you almost a week, but finally, you’re out of tears and out of fucks.
Bucky Barnes wants you as a friend? Then he’ll have it.
If there had been paths that could’ve led to you falling for him, you manage to lock those away and store them under seven keys. You can be a friend.
Hell—you’re an amazing friend.
Saying goodbye to the amazing chemistry that seemed to let out sparks anytime you two were in the same vicinity, you finally text him when you’re done grinding all your thoughts over this into dust.
i have a very important question to ask you
The message is sent while you cook dinner and not three seconds later, your phone pings with his reply.
i’m suddenly very happy to be caffeinated
hit me, lady b
You’re thankful for the old nickname and not ‘pretty’, or ‘doll’.
Those no longer belong to you and if Bucky was a dick, he’d use them. You don’t want to hear them. You want to see him the next time and not stare at his lips.
bronte or austen?
Being friends with him will be enough.
It might take you some time to internalize and believe in that horseshit, but you can do it.
oh shit
i’m not caffeinated enough for THAT
hold on im sending a vn in two minutes
my habds are dirty as fuck
dont go anywhere
Bucky’s worth it.
◦➳◦
For the first week of summer, you, Natasha and Yelena stay in New York City.
Through incessant texting — nagging — Steve had demanded you still spend the summer with the group at his aunt’s house and, by extent, invited Nat and Yelena.
“He’s not even going, Boo. He’s an idiot and a grump, and he’ll spend the whole summer melting away in his damn house. You’re forbidden from missing it, ‘cause you promised MJ, and if you don’t go, she won’t go and it’ll be a whoooole thing. Don’t make me beg. I’ll give you puppy eyes and you’ll feel bad you made me beg, and honestly—”
“Steve.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll go, boo.”
“Oh, thank fuck. Dealing with my idiots is so much better with you around. I can’t wait to meet your childhood besties. We’ll be waiting for you all, kay?”
A tiny part of you felt bad that Bucky’s closest friends demanded your presence so badly, but that part was microscopic.
They were your friends now, too.
It had been one of the reasons, hadn’t it?
“You’re doing the face again,” says Yelena, typing away on her phone and stealing glances at you. “If my sister sees it, she’ll go full mom mode on you again.”
The reminder makes you wince, and you lean closer to Yelena, steering yourself away from the thoughts.
The three of you were spending your last day in the city going to a comedy club and right now, you and Yelena were (not so subtly) giving Natasha and Sarah a few moments alone for them to finally talk to each other in person and sort out their “differences.”
“D’you think we’ve given them enough time?” You ask, taking out your lip gloss and re-applying it. “If I go back and either one of them is dead I’m gonna be very sad all summer.”
Yelena chuckles. “I think that now that Sarah sees my sister loves you as much as a human being can love another one, she’ll back off.” With a pointed look to you, she steals the lip gloss from your hands, smirking. “You did tell Sarah the whole story. What did you expect?”
Sighing, you have to nod in agreement. “Silly me.”
“Silly you,” Yelena echoes, applying the gloss as well.
Sarah’s “dislike” for Natasha came from the same place Natasha’s “dislike” for Bucky did—they were fucking amazing friends and hated knowing someone (especially someone they never met) hurt a person they love.
You recalled the look on Sarah’s face when hearing your complete story with Natasha.
It was a similar one to the face Natasha gave you on the phone while you told her the course of things with Bucky.
Sarah’s opinion of Natasha was, much like Nat’s opinion about everyone in your life she hadn’t met yet, “on hold”.
Your only hope is that by the time you and Yelena make your way back, they’ve grown past it.
Yelena caps the gloss and puts it back in your purse, then links her arm with yours, opening her sweet smile. “Alright, they better have utilized this time properly ‘cause ready or not, here we go.” Her accent had gotten much thicker since moving back to Russia and for some reason, you love it. “I’m starving.”
Mimicking her cool accent very poorly, you agree. “Oh, I’m starving too.”
Yelena laughs at you, nudging her hip on yours. “Shut up.” The giggles only get louder when she hears the way the words come out of her mouth, and she points a finger on your face. “I’ll tell your mom you’re mocking my linguistic differences if you don’t quit it.”
Groaning, you poke a finger into her arm. “Why’d you always gotta bring our parents into shit, Lena?”
She chuckles proudly at herself, looking forward. “I’ll always use my…” her voice trails off as her jaw hangs open, her eyes stuck on something ahead of you two. What the hell’s gotten her attention?
Your eyes quickly travel from her to the direction which has stolen her attention and your jaw finds the same fate as hers.
Ah. This has gotten her attention.
Sitting on the same table you two had left them in, Natasha and Sarah are leaning towards each other with what looks like conspiracy whispers, and their smiles are bright enough to illuminate every dark corner in your mind.
Your wide, open mouth turns into a smile.
“Awn.” Yelena clutches your arm tighter and leans close to you. “Your besties are becoming besties, babe.”
“I know!”
Yelena starts walking you two again, laughing. “You look so happy.”
“Lena, my three favorite people in the world are finally about to get along like I’ve always wanted.” You look at her with a blinding smile. “I’m as happy as a kid on Christmas day.”
“And we’re about to watch a comedy show!” She offers giddily. “And get drunk!”
Due to the proximity with the table, Sarah and Nat have heard your approach and look up at you two.
“Ah, you’re back,” smiles Nat.
Sarah looks at you, smile just as big as yours. “That was a perfectly timed strategized exit.” She glances at Nat. “She ain’t on hold, anymore.”
Natasha laughs under her breath while you and Yelena take your seats again.
“She just forgave me ‘cause I told her where Bullet’s name comes from,” Nat shrugs in a mock-hurt tone.
Yelena frowns next to her sister, looking between you and Sarah. “She hadn’t told you yet?” She asks Sarah.
Dramatically, Sarah sighs. “No. I guess she never deemed me important enough to tell me,” her voice drips with irony, and while the two sisters share a laugh, you pretend to pout for Sarah’s forgiveness.
“I thought you’d judge me!” You say, equally as theatrical.
“Judge you, girl?” Sarah asks, returning to her normal tone. “When on earth have I ever judged you? And why would I in the first place? I ain’t in a position to be judging people.”
“I don’t think anyone is,” Nat offers, biting on her appetizer and offering you some.
“Hmm. I’m glad to know you like Bullet’s past,” you smirk, leaning in across the table to grab the buttered bread from Nat’s offering fingers.
Sarah laughs beside you. “I can’t believe you used to race in the countryside with a bunch of farmer’s kids and their fancy cars.”
“We used to rip them off so nicely!” Yelena sighs wistfully, ignoring the look her sister sends her.
“Two reckless teenagers.” Natasha’s dislike for the race might be attached to why you started doing it in the first place—lashing out at your ex-girlfriend-who-was-never-really-a-girlfriend by racing and winning with her sister as your loyal sidekick was definitely… dramatic. “That’s where my heart’s weakness comes from, you know? All those times praying for gods I don’t even believe in to keep you two alive.”
“You’re so dramatic,” you roll your eyes fondly.
“Yeah, and it wasn’t even that dangerous,” counters Yelena, pouting. “The roads in our old city were made for that shit. We just ripped those boys off and skrrrrrrrt, left like it was nothing. Nothing!” She lifts her hand for a high-five that you grant with a big smile. “I’ll never forget when Flat Dick Mike wanted to bet a night with me that he’d win from us. I mean—what a fucking loser. He asked that shit only because he knew I was ace, and I am so glad every day that you were on a rage rampage and had no fucks to give ‘cause that punch? Babe. That punch was everything,” she laughs.
The memory awakes in you the sleeping monster of anger that lived and breathed fire all those years ago. “And he ate dust,” you add darkly, chuckling bitterly.
Fuck Flat Dick Mike.
Sarah, who was listening to Yelena’s rant with delight written on her face, exchanges a look of admiration with Natasha. “While the habit was dangerous as fuck and probably gave the blondie here minor heart trauma… Now I need to know more,” Sarah says.
Never one to say no to your girls, you start talking.
Dinner is eaten over conversations about past memories, and your stomach hurts from all the loud laughter you try to contain so as to not bother the other patrons too much.
You four sip on cocktails and cover from Bullet’s past, to Freud and the latest sexy tv show that hasn’t left your mind since you’ve seen it.
With the help of Yelena, you and Sarah get a little bit about Wanda of Nat. Knowing your girl, this is definitely the first time someone’s sparken Nat’s interest—Wanda’s younger, has a twin who’s her pair in classes, but from the way Nat speaks, it’s clear she’ll end up dancing in your best friend’s arms sometime soon.
Nat’s interest is simmering and shy, like a flower with the potential to bloom.
Summer starts off great.
◦➳◦
Steve is a great host.
It’s a testament to how good he is at knowing his angles that even in a small lake house like his aunt’s, he manages to make everyone feel right at home.
You and Nat share a sleeping mattress because if there’s one thing that is true, is that intimacy when it reaches certain levels, it never leaves; Yelena sleeps with Sarah and the boys in one of the rooms that are still available when you guys get there and all the others are spread around the house in similar sleeping arrangements.
To your surprise, Gabe and Morita are there, too.
They’re the quietest ones of the group, but something about Yelena’s contagious giddiness and Natasha’s sharp, funny remarks seems to bring out the easy comfort in them within a week.
“You have a really nice taste in friends, you know that Lady B?” Gabe whispers to you while sunbathing one of the days. He pulls his sunglasses down on his nose a few inches and smiles. “They’re great ladies,” he adds with a better imitation of their Russian accents than you can dream of.
“‘Course she knows that,” Steve huffed, sitting in front of you. “She’s our friend, isn’t she?” He looked up at you and raised his glass. “Mojito?”
Those were the moments you lived for.
Moments where you saw all your friends swimming in a lake, laughing like there were no worries in the world and no reason to be sad.
Around them, that was true.
Things are so good that when Nat asks how your page is going, your first thought is an old one, but you voice it without fear. “Wanna take some pics with me?” You ask, wiggling your eyebrows.
Natasha’s devious smile is enough of an answer.
With the help of Yelena and Sarah, your phone slowly gets filled with shots of you two holding each other in numerous sensual poses, in a few different locations.
Walking in lingerie in the field or taking sex-painted pictures with your bodies wet from the lake while your best friends laugh in the background is, perhaps, one of the best summer memories you’ve ever had.
No one in the house blinks an eye to you four when you come back, giggling, drenched and half-naked.
It’s summer. Everyone’s half-naked and no one knows Lena and Sarah just captured you and Natasha posing as if you were long-lost lovers.
You save the images for when you feel like posting them, and forget about them for a few more days.
It’s only when Bucky texts you about an Impala in his shop that you notice an entire month has passed by, and even without him, you’re as happy as you can be.
Messaging him gets easier, too.
Through texts, there were no hiccups; his eyes were hidden from you like that, and you appreciated the practice for when you had to go back to see him.
You just didn’t expect it to happen when it does.
As usual, you wake up earlier than most people in the house and silently make your way to the kitchen to brew your first cup of coffee. Some days, Steve’s awake too and you both engage in whispered conversations about anything that comes to mind, which often end in you laughing too loud and waking up MJ and Peter who are sleeping in the living room.
Morita and Gabe sleep like the dead, so you’re mostly fine.
Today, Steve’s still asleep, and you get to breathe in the humid, fresh air of the country while coffee brews and the rest of the house is still vibrating in the lowest frequency, everyone lost in their own dreamlands.
Summer rain had poured the whole night yesterday, lasting all the way until early morning. You had all watched the sky finally go pitch black after days of intense heat and almost no rain; you’d seen the clouds accumulating and the storm brewing, using that time to take everything to the inside of the house.
The rain had a certain power over people—it calmed down not only the temperature for a few hours, but also your chaotic and talkative group.
You guys had been drinking every day, played games and sports together, rotated between teams and different groups until everyone had spent some time with each other, but as soon as the rain started, everyone huddled with their closest people.
MJ who was getting along great with all your girls now — “it’s good to have you guys around” — stole Peter first, then Gabe and Morita went to smoke their cigars alone, Sam and Steve had disappeared to their room leaving Sarah, you, Yelena and Natasha to make hot chocolates with scotch and get drunk and silly together.
When you finally laid in bed cuddled with Natasha at the end of the day, water was still ricocheting against the window.
You’d fallen asleep late, too busy talking on your phone with some other photographers who were complimenting and commenting on your latest post—a picture of you and Natasha.
Her blonde hair and fair skin looked spectacular against the dark red linen sheet, and no one would know how much you two had laughed before, during and after taking that picture.
It wasn’t the first time she helped you with the page or showed up on it; there were other pictures of you two from the other times when she’s visited you, but this one might be the best one.
Yelena had also taken some with you, just because she wanted to try it this time. You’re thinking about how much your friends trusted you and how happy that made you when the water is done boiling.
You make yourself a cup of coffee, grab the mug and go sit on the back porch outside to enjoy one of your favorite smells—the one of grass after heavy rain.
It’s that picture that brought all your noisy online friends back in your DMS that you’re looking at when you hear the faint noise of what sounds like a bike.
Brows furrowing, you lean over to the side, trying to get a look at the front of the house. Did someone leave and you hadn’t noticed? Gabe drove a bike. Nat had also rented one back in New York, but that one, just like some of the boys, slept like the dead.
She had also stayed up until pretty late talking to Wanda, showing the girl — who you got a chance to talk through in a voice call last night — the best pictures you guys had taken and some screenshots of the best things people were saying about it.
If Nat had left, you’d know it.
You’re still looking over to see if you catch a glimpse of any more noise when you hear steps on your right, and as soon as you look to the side, your heart stops on your throat.
Bucky’s walking up the steps with his hands inside his pockets, but he stops dead on his tracks when his eyes catch you sitting in there.
It’s him and he’s here and oh god, I can’t do this.
Your first thought is that you can’t do this—you can’t look at Bucky and not want him. Will you ever not want him?
You could try.
Physically shaking yourself out of your stupor, you try opening a smile. “At least you didn’t scare the crap out of me this time,” you joke.
It’s strange how you can feel your insides come alive at the sight of him, but sound so natural when talking. There’s something to be said about your ability to keep it cool nowadays, something past you never thought to be possible.
When Bucky steps closer, what you see makes your smile falter a little.
He looks tired.
Bucky looks… well, not like himself. At least, not the Bucky you saw a little more than a month ago.
Even when he was busy as hell with the shop or problems to solve, you’d never seen him with this look. These sad eyes seemed to carry many sleepless nights.
“At least,” he finally says, clearing his throat and putting on a smile too. He points to the mug of coffee in your hand. “You would’ve dropped that and you’re not that nice without it.”
The joke makes your worry ease a little—he might look tired, but he sounds okay.
He sounds perfect, you think, ‘cause Bucky always did. His sweet voice that you could listen to for hours. “Not in the mornings, I’m not,” you agree.
Bucky looks around the porch, and when the silence around you two settles, you can hear the same peace and quiet that was there before he arrived.
You’d think being around Bucky would be strange now, but his presence remains the same. “No one’s awake yet?” He asks, walking to the other chair and grabbing it.
You shake your head, watching him place the chair in front of yours and sit down. “Nope.” You drink your first sip of coffee, starting to feel like you’ll need it. “We went to bed pretty late.”
Bucky hums, nodding in agreement. “It rained there, too.”
“Did it?”
“Yeah.” He looks at you and the coffee in your hand, and you hate yourself for knowing what he wants. You extend the mug towards him and Bucky lifts one eyebrow at the offer, too surprised at the easy gesture to hide it. He looks from the cup to you, then accepts it with a nod and a smile. “Thanks.”
Sniff, then sip.
Bucky always smells his drinks before he has them.
You scrunch your nose, looking away from him and your stupid pieces of knowledge of his habits. “Sure.” Pulling both of your legs up, you hug them close to your chest, and you look back at him when you talk. “The gang’s gonna be happy you dropped by.” A genuine smile grows on your face at the thought of Steve and the others seeing him here. “I heard from Steve you came here the first week for a couple of days and Morita, like, cried when you left,” you say dramatically.
Bucky laughs behind the cup, then sips it while shaking his head. He returns the mug to you after it and says, “I don’t think that was Morita. Pretty sure it was Peter,” he muses out loud, pretending to think about it.
You accept the mug, hating him a little for how easy it is to fall on these silly banters. “Ah, my bad.” You drink more coffee, and then breathe in deep. “Are you staying? ‘Cause that might get an emotional tear even outta Sam.”
“That man will never cry for me,” Bucky rolls his eyes, smiling sideways. “But I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Are you allergic to answering questions?” You ask, scoffing. Bucky laughs at that. “‘Cause I swear you might be.”
A ghost of something passes on his face, but Bucky’s glee remains the same. “You know what? I think I might be.” He pins his eyes on you. “I’ll get it checked, don’t worry.”
“Cool, cool.” You smile as you sip again, and you wonder if Bucky isn’t staying because of you. “Steve and I can take turns taking you to the treatment, don’t worry. You won’t be alone in this,” you add seriously.
At that, Bucky laughs even more, ducking his head down. When he looks up again, he reaches out his left hand in a silent request for more coffee.
“To answer your question,” he starts in a ’I am truly serious now’ tone. You giggle, then pass him the mug. “I am staying, yeah.” He glances inside the house. “I’ll sleep… on the roof. Well—maybe not today ‘cause it’s still wet. I’ll sleep on the kitchen counter, and tomorrow I’ll hook up the roof for me,” says Bucky.
It’s your turn to laugh now—it’s a joke, but also a serious statement about the lengths a group of people will go to just to sleep under the same roof.
“I’d offer a place under my bed or the other side of my couch, but unfortunately I’m sharing my royal sleeping chambers with a Russian lady who is actually allergic to men, so you’re alone on this one, I’m afraid.”
“Ah! Right. The infamous Natasha is here,” says Bucky, looking at you. His posture changes just a fraction, but you feel the curiosity and something else you can’t put your finger on resting on his shoulders. “And her sister, of course,” he adds in a softer tone.
“Yup.” Your smile softens. “Nat and Sarah are besties now.”
“Are they?” Bucky questions, looking almost as happy as you.
He knows how much them getting along means to you.
“Yeah,” you silently ask for your mug back, and Bucky hands it to you. “They bonded over my tragic past and their love for creepy horror cinema, apparently.”
“I find it hard to imagine them bonding over your tragedies,” Bucky muses.
“It was more like stories of Bullet’s name and embarrassing things I used to do?” You clarify with a sheepish tone. “I’m the one who thinks these are tragic.”
“I never heard the story of Bullet’s name,” says Bucky, tilting his head to the side.
His puppy pose works on you just as well as ever. “You never asked for it,” you say, just to tease.
He nods at you, pointing a finger. “And that’s on me.”
“It’s not even that cool of a story, anyway,” you shrug your shoulders. “I used to race.”
Bucky’s smile freezes, and he looks comic with his deer-caught-under-the-headlights eyes. His jaw falls open a little bit and you’re starting to brace yourself for another lecture — the one from Sarah had been effective enough — on what on earth were you thinking, but as he swallows down and his throat bobs, your brain goes—ah.
That look you’ve seen before.
“You used to race?”
The almost breathless tone in which he asks is sharper than a winter’s breeze.
It seizes up your chest and makes you stand up a little straighter, with some of the lightness gone from your thoughts. That look is not fair.
“Yeah,” you chuckle weakly, looking away from him.
Bucky’s silence lasts so long that even your slow sips of the remains of the coffee leave you two still bathing in the morning chirp of cicadas.
You look back at him, but Bucky’s looking away too, his eyes lost between the trees and his face more somber than before.
“I used to race, too,” he says finally.
Oh. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Bucky remains quiet for another heartbeat, and you feel a weight on your chest from something that wasn’t there before. His agreement seems laced in ghosts, tied to chains of the past that carry a lot of weight. “It was my way of letting out all the stupid and reckless shit inside of me.” With those words, Bucky looks back at you. “The rage.”
Two words and Bucky’s reached inside of you again.
He’s sitting a couple of feet apart, but his hands are inside the cave of your chest and he knows you, he sees you, and it’s infuriating.
He’s looking at you, and his expression is more open than it’s ever been.
He knows he has you at that moment.
Bucky’s aware that his hands know the path inside your ribcages and that he sees you with terrifying ease only one person mastered before.
“That was the reason I began,” you find yourself saying.
Keeping your mouth shut around him was never an option, anyway.
“Yeah?” He asks, prompting you for more.
You nod. “Lashing out at Nat,” you confess, looking between Bucky and the green of the trees to see if you can stay hooked at the moment and not in the deep of his ocean eyes. “When she and I… broke up, I guess.”
You chuckle at yourself, thinking back on how much you felt at that time, and the place you are at right now. Speaking of this so calmly, with your first love sleeping inside a new friend’s house and dreaming of another woman, while you share your past with a man who could break your heart as easily as she did, and you can’t even bring yourself to care.
“She was furious,” you laugh.
“So it worked,” Bucky reasons.
You nod, proudly. “Fuck yes, it did.” You let out a shaky breath. “It was mean of me, I guess, but I really wanted it to hurt for her too.”
“I think you did more than just that,” Bucky says, surprisingly soft.
You look at him, frowning. “I know.” Being reminded of that was not your favorite thing. “But anyway… What about you?” You ask, sounding bolder than you feel. “What were you angry about?”
Bucky’s smile turns sour. Sad.
“Losing a great kid.” He lifts his left arm and wiggles his fingers, then says. “This. Coming back and feeling like the world had fucked me over beyond repair.” Bucky looks away from you, and breathes in deep, too. “Knowing how fucked up humanity can get takes… a while to come back from.” He looks back at you. “Took me a few to realize I didn’t need repairing. Just some therapy.” He makes a funny face. “A lot of therapy.”
The joke makes you both laugh nervously, and you miss the mug you were holding because you suddenly realize that Bucky didn’t come here to spend a nice summer with his friend.
He looks at you, swallowing down his nerves and rubbing his right hand against his jeans and you know.
Bucky came here for you.
“You’re not a car,” you whisper to him, smiling through the sadness. “You definitely don’t need repairing.”
Bucky nods slowly. “Yeah.” He lets out a breath. “And yet, I still need some… face-slapping every now and then. Lots of it, from the looks of it.” Bucky lifts his hands and rubs it over his face. “God, I can’t believe I had to hear advice from Samuel ‘It’s Not Like That’ Wilson.”
The words only confuse you further, and your heart misses the memo that Bucky’s frustration doesn’t equal to yours because it starts speeding up.
“Did you?”
“Yeah.” Bucky pushes his hair back, and scratches his nape. Some things never change. “I did come here to stay, but—I also came here to tell you somethin’. And to ask you a question.” Bucky says that looking you dead in the eye, and there’s no amount of green that could save you from being caught when he looks at you like that.
You’re glad to still have your legs to hug, because that way you can trace patterns into your skin and avoid biting all your fingers out. “I’m all ears,” you say.
“I’m just gonna tell you a story, and feel free to interrupt me at any time, kay? I just wanna tell you all of it so you can… understand.” Bucky waits for you to nod in understanding, then he looks at his hands and starts. “Some years ago, Steve and I were away on one of our first tours in a city I can’t even remember the name of, and it’s crazy ‘cause in there… we had one of the most important conversations of my life.” Bucky looks up at you and he’s smiling, as soft as a cherry blossom. “He was drinking his weight in alcohol, like a big boy, for the first time in fucking—forever, I guess. There was somethin’ eating him up and I knew that, ‘cause I know Stevie, and I was just waitin’ for him to tell me what was up. He and I were basically the only ones in there, Morita and Gabe were asleep faces down on those disgusting tables,” Bucky laughs, and you have a hard time keeping yourself from smiling back at him. “And Steve just blurts out of nowhere—’you know why he pisses me off? you can’t be that nice and that hot. that’s just not how shit works!’ and I knew that motherfucker was in love.”
You burst out laughing.
“I did! I knew it. That’s how he used to complain about me to Jessie and the other girls when he thought I wasn’t listening. Except he complained I was hot and annoying, but that’s just Steve-code for ‘they keep me in line’.”
You can see the scene perfectly. You can see young Steve Rogers rolling his eyes at Bucky while the latter bats his pretty eyelashes and slings an arm over the blonde boy’s shoulder.
Oh, Steve had no chance.
That poor, bisexual baby. No chance.
“At that bar, he swore up and down he wasn’t in love with Sam. Cue four years later, around the same time he said that in that bar, Steve was telling me about how no award would make up for the things he couldn’t have—that no life the military could give him would be the same as what he wanted.” Bucky sighs. “He asked me if I knew what being in love was like, and if I understood him when he said he’d do anything for Sam, whether that meant staying in the military or leaving it. And I… I couldn’t. Y/n, after the things we’d been through in those deserts, I could never imagine myself going back there even if someone asked me. Someone I loved. I know that’s an exaggeration, but the question made me think about what Stevie and I had when we were really young and I noticed—I’d never been in love,” when Bucky finishes, it’s barely a whisper.
He licks his lips, and your eyes track the movement involuntarily.
“Maybe that’s… sad. Or some people might think it is, but. That’s not me saying I had a sad, miserable life. I was never unhappy without romance in my life, because honestly, despite the shit and the pain, I was definitely blessed with love in my life. You know? Family, and friends, and my passions. I’ve never been loveless. But whenever someone caught my attention for a while, it faded quickly when we started spendin’ more time together. People most of the time are just not worth all the trouble,” he shrugs his shoulders.
Bucky pauses for a moment, but your voice is nowhere to be found.
You’re listening patiently and waiting to understand if this is all just a fever dream, or if Bucky’s truly saying what you think you read between the lines.
“You really screwed that up for me, didn’t you, doll?”
The breath you didn’t know you were holding comes out, and you have to look away from him for a second.
You rest your head on your knees, then look up at him.
“I mean—the picture would’ve done it already if Sam’s call hadn’t come through.” Bucky shrugs again, breathing out and relaxing completely like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders. His legs slouch a little in front of him, and there’s the hint of a smile on the right corner. “But I’m glad he did.”
Wait—“What picture?“
Bucky lifts one eyebrow again, and takes his phone out of his pocket without a word. He unlocks it and types in it for a moment, then turns the screen at you.
You reach out and take his phone.
Ah.
Your picture with Natasha.
You bite your lip, suddenly feeling caught for a crime you never committed. Feeling… cheeky.
Bucky’s followed your account.
He followed ‘Tess’, and you wondered if he thought the picture was aimed at him.
“Oh.” Grinning, you give the phone back. “She’s helped me on the page before. You know I didn’t do this to poke at you or anythin’, right?”
It was true. You and the girls had been laughing loudly while taking those, Natasha was singing ‘Rick and Morty’ underneath you and making you snort in laughter.
Bucky laughs at that, and it sounds pleased. “Oh, trust me, I know.” It sounded like that made it worse, and his smile indicated he knew you were aware of it, too.
“And Sam called with wisdom of what, exactly?”
Bucky grinned. “He thought you and her had gotten back together, which Steve guaranteed me he’d know if it was the case because you’re—”
“Besties.”
“—besties, yes, I know. And Samuel was apologizing for texting me that ‘misinformation’ and almost causing me to lose a finger inside a BMW. But that’s on me. But the wisdom came after, when he was just about to hang up, and said ‘just don’t actually lose a finger when she does go out with someone and you realize it’s too late to have even tried’.” He pauses, allowing you to take it in. Your eyes widen, and Bucky chuckles, entirely amused. “Oh. I know. The guy was on some yoda frequency last night. Dunno if it was the rain, or what, but that hit like a brick to the face, so I guess I have to thank him later or whatever.”
“Like children,” you mutter, happily.
“I know,” he agrees quietly. Bucky takes a deep breath. “So my question.”
“Yes?”
“Is it too late to ask you on a date?” Bucky’s cheeks gain a slight color at the question, and it says enough about how you feel about this man that him blushing would have almost the same effect on you as him coming undone inside of you. “‘Cause I am willing to do my best damn at giving you anything you want, Y/n. It had been easy as fucking breathin’ before I opened my stupid mouth, but I can learn on how to do not do that.” His smile seems to undo the spell on you. “The way you make me feel might terrify the hell out of me, but I never thought being scared could feel this good, so,” instead of finishing, Bucky shrugs his shoulders again, flushed and shyly smiling at you.
You get up on a shaky leg and gravitate towards his lips.
With one hand cupping his jaw, you press the softest kiss you can manage to those pretty lips, and feel Bucky sighing against you.
When you pull back a few inches, his eyes are closed and his mouth is as pink as his cheeks.
For good measure, you press another kiss, and licks his bottom lip, sucking it between yours deliberately slow. “Does this answer your question?” You whisper.
Bucky pulls you to his lap in a swift move, and you shriek. “Thank fucking god,” he kisses you, shutting down your laughter.
His kisses are soft, and close-lipped, but persistent. It’s hard to kiss in any other way when you’re both smiling.
You pull back and run the tip of your fingers over his face. “I missed your pretty face.” You’re paid in pink cheeks and more laughter, and you hate how he shakes his head, so you add. “I did. I missed your pretty face, Sarge.” With a kiss on each of his cheeks, you get up from his lap before you start making a fool of yourself.
It’s too early in the morning to be drunk on Bucky Barnes.
“You should bring your stuff inside. You’ve got besties to meet,” you smile, loving the hummingbird that lives inside your chest now.
i saw a video where the wife texts her husband that she’s leaving while he’s busy and he immediately gets up and searches for her to stop her, do you think you could pls write that with clark? thank you!
Ty for requesting! fem, 0.7k
Clark gets a wrinkle between his brows when he’s reading. It’s an expression completely paradoxical to his own enjoyment; he looks like he could throw his tablet across the room and never read again, but he’ll tell you how great it was later, over dinner or laying against you in bed.
You are, admittedly, attention-seeking as you write him your text. But can you be blamed? You figure anyone with a boyfriend like yours would seek his attention, and often, especially when you’ve been home from work for three hours waiting for him to finish his book so you can make dinner together. He insisted.
You created a new recipe for work that got the third page in the Daily Planet’s spread a few days, and though Clark had the privilege of trying it many many times while you were developing it, he insisted you make the finished product together to celebrate your ‘genius’ and to ‘appease’ his stomach, which loves your cooking.
Im leaving, you type, pondering how best to get him to come and love on you. text me when ur done with ur book <3
You add the heart because you don’t want him stricken by the text, and you certainly don’t want to start an argument. You’d just like him to dote on you and also some dinner. Usually you’d simply tap him on a hard shoulder and say, Hey angel, did you forget the time?
The text pings. Clark reads a few more lines of his book before he puts down his tablet and takes his phone in hand, tapping in his password, and opening your texts. He reads the newest one with a pinched brow, then his head snaps up as he gives a small, fearful gasp.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asks, scrambling up off of the sofa toward you where you’re half hiding in the kitchen. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m just gonna do some errands and stuff while you’re reading. Oof–”
The air puffs out of you from the force of his grabbing. He takes you into his arms and folds you into an embrace that smells like woody pear blossom and almond oil, your face forced into the curve of his neck. “Why didn’t you say something, bubby?” he asks, sounding truly, sincerely heartbroken. He pulls his arm up your back and makes another small gasp. “Jeez, look at the time. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was getting this late! Gosh, I bet you’re starving to death, poor girl, I’ve completely neglected you.”
You wrap an arm behind him, feeling the solid planes and shapes of his muscles beneath your warm hand. “A little,” you say, too soft, too silken. It’s nearly silly how small your voice sounds.
Clark just sighs. “Don’t go get errands without me, sweetheart, you need something to eat first. You can’t skip dinner, you’ll give yourself a headache. I’ll give you a headache,” he says, sounding rather self-loathing. “Sorry. I’ve ignored you.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s usually how reading goes.”
“I thought there wasn’t a ton left–” He tips your head back. It’s not forceful, and yet, at the same time, you feel moved, like you don’t have much choice in things as he handles you into whatever position he’d like you to be. He smiles when he meets your eyes, presses a short, sweet kiss to your cheek. “So sorry. I’m a jerk.”
“Clark, it’s okay–” He pecks you and starts cutting off your words, “I’m not mad– I didn’t want to waste– my evening– sat at the bar scrolling– on my– oh my god– on my phone.” You giggle, kissed into tingling lips and warmed by his big hands running up and down your back. “Can I have another one?”
Clark leans down slowly to give you another kiss.
“We will make dinner right now,” he says into your mouth, “so please don’t leave. How’m I supposed to cook with my heart missing?” It’s so insanely corny, you wrap yourself around him like an octopus. He shifts backward to take all your weight. “Is this a yes to staying?” he asks into your cheek.
prompt: “i saw someone saying on twitter about a woman who said that her boyfriend was so nervous when propose her that he forgot everything and ended up just getting on his knees saying “please”.” with bucky?
It’s not supposed to happen like this.
Bucky has planned it for weeks. Maybe longer, if he’s being honest, because the idea has been sitting in his chest, heavy and certain, long before he ever worked up the nerve to do something about it.
He has the ring. He has the speech. He has a whole stupid list in his head of things he’s supposed to say—how much he loves you, how you make him feel human again, how you’ve carved a home out of a man who never thought he deserved one.
He’s practiced it, too. Quietly. Under his breath. In the mirror once, which he immediately decided was humiliating and never did again.
He’s got it.
He has it.
Until he doesn’t.
---
You don’t know anything is different when he asks you to come with him.
“C’mon, doll,” he says, tugging on your hand, already halfway out the door. “Wanna show you something.”
You squint at him, suspicious, but you go anyway, letting him pull you along with that soft, insistent grip of his. The evening air is warm, the sky bleeding into that soft gold-and-pink stretch just before sunset, and he’s quieter than usual as he walks beside you.
You nudge him with your shoulder. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m always weird.”
“Yeah, but this is like… upgraded weird.”
He huffs, but there’s no bite to it. Just nerves. You don’t recognize them for what they are yet—just assume it’s one of those Bucky moods where he gets in his own head a little too much.
So you lace your fingers through his, grounding, steady. He squeezes back immediately.
Always does.
---
He stops when you reach the spot.
It’s nothing extravagant. Not some big, sweeping, cinematic place.
Just your place.
The quiet stretch near the water where you two end up more often than not—late nights, early mornings, stolen hours in between. The place where he’s watched you laugh, watched you cry, watched you fall asleep with your head in his lap while the world kept spinning around you.
It matters.
That’s why he picked it.
You turn to him, brow furrowed slightly. “Buck?”
And that’s it.
That’s the moment everything in his head just—
Gone.
Completely blank.
He knows he had words. He knows he had a whole damn speech lined up, something worthy of you, something that could even begin to explain the way you’ve changed his life.
But you’re standing there, looking at him like that—soft, curious, a little concerned—and suddenly every single thought just… disappears.
All he’s left with is feeling.
And it’s too big.
Too much.
His chest tightens, his pulse pounding in his ears, and before he can overthink it—before he can talk himself out of it—he just moves.
Drops.
Right there.
One knee hitting the ground hard enough that he barely registers it.
Your eyes go wide.
“Bucky—?”
His hands are already fumbling, pulling the ring from his pocket, nearly dropping the damn thing in the process. His fingers shake—actually shake—and he can’t even look away from you long enough to be embarrassed about it.
Because you’re staring at him.
Like you can’t quite believe what you’re seeing.
And he's panicking.
Not about the answer. Never about that.
Just—about getting it right.
About saying it right.
About making sure you know.
And he can’t find the words.
Not the pretty ones. Not the practiced ones. Not any of it.
So what comes out is—
“Please.”
It’s rough. Breathless. Barely more than a whisper.
Your face does something soft, something almost startled.
He swallows hard, chest heaving slightly as he tries—tries—to pull something else together.
“I—” He shakes his head, a broken little huff of a laugh leaving him. “I had a whole thing planned. I swear I did. I—”
Nothing.
Still nothing.
His throat works, his eyes burning just a little as he looks up at you, completely exposed.
“Please,” he says again, a little stronger this time, but no less raw. “Just—please.”
And it’s all there anyway.
Everything he couldn’t say wrapped up in that one word.
Please stay.
Please choose me.
Please let me spend the rest of my life loving you.
Please don’t let this be something I lose.
Your eyes shine almost immediately, tears welling up faster than you can stop them. You press a hand to your mouth, a breath hitching out of you as you stare down at him.
“Bucky…”
He looks terrified.
Not of you.
Of losing you.
And that’s what does it.
That’s what breaks you open completely.
You drop to your knees in front of him so fast he barely has time to react, your hands coming up to cup his face, grounding him the same way you always do.
“Hey,” you whisper, voice thick. “Hey, look at me.”
He does. Instantly.
“You don’t need a speech,” you say softly, brushing your thumb along his cheek. “You don’t need any of that.”
His grip on the ring tightens, like he’s still not convinced.
“You’ve got me,” you continue, tears slipping free now, but you’re smiling through them. “You’ve always had me.”
His breath stutters.
“Yeah?” he asks, quiet, almost disbelieving.
You laugh a little, wet and shaky, leaning forward until your forehead presses against his.
“Yeah, idiot,” you murmur. “Of course I’ll marry you.”
The relief that hits him is immediate.
His shoulders sag, a broken, breathless sound leaving him as his eyes squeeze shut for a second, like he needs it just to steady himself.
“Jesus,” he mutters, half-laughing, half-choking on it. “Thank God.”
You pull back just enough to look at him again, grinning now. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I know,” he says, still a little dazed, finally slipping the ring onto your finger with hands that are only slightly less shaky. “I had this whole—this whole thing, doll. It was good, too. Real good.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“I practiced.”
You snort. “Did you really?”
He groans, dropping his head forward until it bumps lightly against your shoulder. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not,” you say, laughing as you wrap your arms around him. “I think it was perfect.”
He huffs. “Yeah? Just ‘please’?”
You pull back, kissing him slow and soft, pouring every bit of your answer into it.
“Yeah,” you whisper against his lips. “Just ‘please.’”
first time she pointed out the townhouse, jack didn't think much of it. he hummed in response, holding onto her smaller hand even tighter as a biker was passing them on the sidewalk.
they were walking back from their favorite coffee shop, paper cups warming their hands against the chilly pittsburgh morning.
she'd stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring across the street with that dreamy look she got whenever something captured her attention.
"ugh.” she swooned. “that's my favorite house," she'd said.
jack had followed her gaze.
it was a beautiful townhouse. it was about three stories of brick and black shutters with overflowing flower boxes beneath the windows. it was elegant without being flashy. it was lived-in without looking old.
he'd hummed his acknowledgment and continued walking.
that should have been the end of it.
but it wasn't.
because the next week she pointed it out again.
and the week after that… and the one after.
soon it became part of their routine.
coffee, pastries, the townhouse.
every single saturday morning and every single time they passed it, her pace slowed.
sometimes she'd admire the little balcony on the second floor, or the iron railings, even the huge windows that flooded the interior with sunlight. and other times she would just smile at it quietly before continuing down the block.
jack never teased her about it.
he just listened the way he always listened.
collecting and gathering every detail she offered without her realizing it.
it was like he was storing them away somewhere safe.
—
months later, she was standing in front of the pastry display at the coffee shop when jack casually mentioned the open house.
she looked up immediately.
"what.. really?" she said is disbelief. “i didn’t see a sign, though. are you sure?” she said in the middle of taking a bite of her banana loaf.
"yeah they’re showing the townhouse today.” he repeated with that signal sideways smile. “it’s a private showing.” he shrugged.
the excitement that lit her face was instant and for a moment, jack almost felt guilty because she had absolutely no idea…
when they arrived, the house was somehow even more beautiful inside.
sunlight spilled through oversized windows, warming polished hardwood floors and pale walls.
the entire place felt bright, open and comfortable.
it was a place that people built lives together and they could feel the warmth of a loved and cherished home.
jack spent most of the tour watching her instead of the house.
watching her wander into every room with wide eyes, watching her run her fingertips along the bathroom countertops.
watching her stand in front of windows and imagine things.
he knew she was imagining things because she'd always done that. her imagination was everything that made her into the dreamer that she was.
even in their tiny conversations, or while walking down the street.
she saw dreams everywhere and a beautifully bright future in every empty space.
"this kitchen is incredible." she mused, as she rounded the kitchen island and peered out the windows that rested right above the kitchen sink.
her voice echoed softly through the room as jack leaned against the doorway.
her shoulders sank as she peered into the lush backyard garden.
"It is." he said as he watched her in quiet awe.
she moved toward one of the windows, sunlight caught her hair. the sight of her standing there nearly stole the breath from his lungs.
because she looked like she belonged there.. with him. he nearly groaned at the sight of her. her hair falling behind her shoulders while she playfully pretended to wash the dishes.
he smiled wildly as she looked behind her at him and wiggled her eyebrows, causing them both to giggle.
it looked like she wasn’t visiting.
or imagining.
she was just belonging.
as if the house had been waiting for her this whole entire time.
the realtor eventually left them alone to explore.
that was when the trouble started.
because the more she saw, the more she fell in love with it.
and the more she fell in love with it, the more impossible it became for her to hide her disappointment.
by the time they reached the living room again, she was trying very hard to be realistic.
jack knew that look it was the one where she talked herself out of wanting something.
it's okay," she said softly.
nobody had even asked a question.
jack raised an eyebrow as she laughed a little sadly.
"this place is just..." her gaze drifted toward the windows.
the fireplace.
the staircase.
everything.
"it's perfect." she hummed as jack placed his hand on the back of her small back. her words came out as barely more than a whisper as she looked up at him.
jack felt something squeeze painfully inside his chest.
because she wasn't being dramatic.
or materialistic, or unrealistic, she just genuinely loved this place.
the same way she loved old bookstores and small coffee shops and rainy afternoons cuddled with a good book.
she loved things completely, with her whole heart.
"a girl can dream, right?" she said softly to him. her smile small.
jack stared at her for a long moment— long enough that she did a double take when she wanted to pull him out and go back home.
"w-what?" she looked at him in confusion.
his hands slipped into his pockets, a nervous habit which was one she rarely ever saw.
then he nodded toward the room around them.
"good thing you don't have to." he nodded earnestly.
confusion flickered across her face. she laughed his name, "what are you talking about?"
"you don't have to dream about it, baby."
the silence that followed stretched before he finally said it.
"i bought it."
she blinked…once…twice.
the words clearly didn't fully register and he wanted to kiss her stupid as she gave him a look of purse confusion.
"i bought the townhouse, baby.” he said stalking closer to her, his shoes echoing throughout the kitchen.
still nothing.
her mouth opened slightly.
closed.
opened again.
jack fought back a smile because for someone so smart, she looked completely lost.
"you..." her voice disappeared.
jack nodded trying to get it out of her.
"i bought it." he said cocooning her into his arms as if to block her away from the rest of the world.
another heartbeat passed.
then another.
finally her eyes widened.
not a little.
a lot.
the kind of realization that arrives all at once. it was sudden and overwhelming and her heart was beating so fast she could have sworn that he could hear it.
"f-for us?" the question cracked in the middle.
jack's expression softened immediately.
"yeah." his voice was gentle, “so we can have somewhere that's ours."
the tears arrived instantly.
jack sighed.
because of course they did.
she slapped both hands over her face.
which somehow made it worse.
"sweetheart—"
"you bought me a house?”
his laugh filled the room. "i bought us a house."
"a whole house, jack."
"technically it's a townhouse." he teased causing her to let out a watery laugh.
then immediately started crying harder.
“i want you to decorate it however you want and i’m gonna help you.” he said softly, moving her hair behind her shoulders as she looked up at him. “we’re gonna make it ours.”
the next thing jack knew, she was throwing her arms around his neck as he wrapped his strong arms around her small frame.
of course he caught her automatically.
strong freckled arms wrapping around her waist as she buried her face against his chest.
the familiar scent of coffee and aftershave surrounded her instantly.
safe, comforting, home.
kack rested his chin on top of her head, holding her tightly. neither of them spoke for a while.
they just stood there in the middle of their future living room as the sunlight poured in around them.
the house quiet and waiting.
finally she tilted her head back enough to look at him.
her eyes were red and her cheeks damp.
beautiful.
"you remembered." the words were tiny they made jack frown.
"remembered what?" he wanted to know, as he wiped his thumb against her wet cheeks.
she laughed softly. "the windows."
his expression immediately melted because of course that's what she was talking about.
not the price, or the size and not even the investment of it all.
the windows.
the thing she'd mentioned months ago during a random walk.
"the balcony." her voice trembled.
"the flower boxes."
jack brushed his thumb against her bottom lip as it quivered.
"i remember everything you tell me." he mused.
and judging by the way her face crumpled, that might have been the most emotional thing he'd said all day.
—
later, after the realtor returned and paperwork was discussed and the reality of it all slowly settled around them, they found themselves standing on the little front patio.
the one she'd always admired and pointed out dozens of times.
jack handed her the key, simple and unassuming. yet somehow heavier than anything she'd ever held before.
she stared at it in her palm, then up at him, then back at the house.
their house. their future.
their home.
jack leaned down and kissed her forehead softly before giving the smile that destroyed her every single time because it was the kind of smile he reserved only for her.
"what do you say we go back and start to unpack" he hummed.
and this time, when she looked at the townhouse, she didn't have to imagine anymore.
Summary: Suddenly, Bucky's face is up close to yours, inches away, with a smile that never fails to make your knees weaken a little. "I don't need gifts, certainly not from you, who gives me plenty more than most people," he whispers smoothly, liking on his bottom his unconsciously. "Are you gonna gimme a ride back home, darlin'?" Bucky asks, and the invitation under his tongue makes your toes curl a little.
You blame it on the sake for your blush turning darker. "You want a ride?"
Bucky moves slowly to the side, ghosting his nose over your cheek and slowly moving downwards in direction of your neck. The barely-there touch makes you close your eyes, and you feel the breath of him chuckling underneath your ear, right before his lips meet your skin.
"Oh, I want a ride," Bucky laughs, and you know you'll give him exactly what he's asking for.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ✎﹏﹏﹏﹏ ♫ Playlist
Thanks to your side job, taking Bullet to repair the small things Bucky reviewed for you all those months ago, but said it could be done later, comes sooner than expected.
In March, you take her back to Barnes Auto and deliver the keys in his palm, telling him to make your baby as pristine as possible. Bucky winked in response, and now, one week later, you’re sitting in his office waiting for him to finish with his latest client so you can take Bullet home after having dinner with him.
The invitation surprised you when it came.
Even though the “arrangement” — as you came to call it in your mind — between you and Bucky came with change — mind-blowing sex — it did not affect the rest of your relationship.
Since January, you and he have continued with your numerous talks about literature, life, and any silly things your friends came up with, or something nice you saw that day that reminded you of the other.
It was almost… perfect.
Which meant you were terrified.
To your luck, the friends by your side had expertise in keeping you sane and on track. Sarah’s ability to drive you away from the edge of insecurity and insanity only got better, the same way your abilities to bring her back to herself and make her take care of herself for a change were almost at a doctoral level.
“Look at this shit,” Steve says by your side.
Blinking out of your thoughts, you step away from the green board and lean down to look at the screen he’s pointing at you.
On it, there’s a DeVille 70’s Cadillac. It’s been edited to look Tiffany blue, with a coat of gloss paint over it.
You frown with your entire face. “Ew.”
“I know!” He sighs loudly and pulls the phone back to himself with the same sneer on his lips. “It looks ridiculous.”
“It does.” Half of the time you hear Steve complaining, it’s about a job a client has asked him to do, of the, frankly, dubious choices they want for their car. “I just wish they wanted somethin’ cool like cherry red, or gold, hell—I’d even take silver at this point.”
While you’re aware people’s tastes are their own business, judging them when it’s not to their face can’t be helped. “Some people just got shitty taste, Steve,” you chuckle.
He scoffs behind you. “Yeah, and then make it my problem.” You go back to writing down the quote on the office board, knowing his complaints are nowhere near done. “D’you think I could convince him to make a less insane blue choice?”
Putting the pen down, you smile back at him. “Sure. Show him the traditional metallic blue people usually go with this model.”
After an even more dramatic sigh, Steve puts his phone down against Bucky’s table and turns to you, spinning the chair. “Anyway. What are you still doing here?” He asks with a friendlier face. “I thought Buck finished Bullet this morning.”
“He did. I’m waiting for him to finish with the client ‘cause he’s ending my Japanese food drought complaints,” you point at where Bucky is, still talking to the blonde lady with the BMW. “He told me he knows the best restaurant in town to have it, and I’ve been craving and complaining about it for like, a week,” you shrug your shoulders.
Steve, on the other hand, seems to find your news less amusing. If his wide eyes are anything to go by, you’ve said something meaningful without knowing.
“He’s taking you to Nakajima?” He asks, clearly awed.
“Uhm. Yeah? I think yes.” You twist uncomfortably. Steve’s eyes are so blue and earnest, and having Bucky’s best friend look at you like him taking you to a restaurant is an Oasis sight that could make anyone uneasy. “All he said was ’alright, you did great in your presentation, you deserve some niguiris’ and… I can’t argue with that logic,” you chuckle.
Steve chuckles too, eyes still fixed on you as his smile grows fondly. “Yeah.” He stops spinning his chair and breathes deeply. “And here I was thinking you were waiting ‘cause you were gonna, you know—,” he stops mid-sentence and wiggles his eyebrows. “Bow chicka wow wow.”
You burst out laughing, almost falling against one of the bookshelves. “You’re a child.” When your laughter dims to a giggle, you look at Steve to see his pleased and smug face. “We don’t fuck at his workplace, Steven Grant. Because both of you agreed to this rule, apparently,” you add with a long-suffering sigh.
Steve’s face gains puppy-like happiness, an often-occurring event when he makes you laugh like this. “Ah. Glad to know it isn’t because of lack of opportunity.”
“Have you seen your best friend?” You tease. “He can get it anywhere he’d like, boo.”
This time, it’s Steve who bursts out laughing, clutching his right hand over the left part of his chest. “You’re so bad!” Through his giggles, he adds. “I have seen him, yeah. Been there, done that, remember?” He wiggles only his right eyebrow at you, and you shake your head at him in disbelief, entirely amused by the fondness with which he manages to say that.
“I sure do.”
“So you two are not doing the devil’s tango in our office, and he’s taking you to dinner,” Steve prompts, voice laced with insinuation.
You decide to ignore the unsaid question and shoot him another teasing remark instead. “Are you actually allergic to the word fuck?”
Unbothered, he shrugs his shoulders. “I like a good metaphor,” Steve answers promptly. “Is it a date?” He asks you, totally unfazed by your attempt at distractions.
The question tugs like a hook in your chest, and it pulls.
“Steve,” you chastise.
“Y/n,” he replies, tilting his chin lower and piercing you with blue daggers.
“It’s not.” With a pointed look at him, you try to look as menacing as possible in the presence of Steve, who’s one of the people you grew to love the fastest in your life. “You know that.”
He smacks his lips, then looks away. “A guy can dream,” is what he says under his breath, going for a joking tone, but you know him better, and he knows you know him better by now.
“You’re more of a drama queen than your man,” you offer with a huff.
“He learned it all from me,” he replies proudly.
There’s a shared moment of silence where both of you exchange a look of happiness, and when Steve looks out of the window to where Bucky is still trying to leave from the octopus grasp of the client.
She’s still leaning against the hood of her car, and still smiling as charmingly as she did when entering the auto shop.
Steve watches as the client laughs with her head thrown back at something Bucky said, and from the office, you two can both see his grimace that he’s attempting to pass as a smile for an answer.
“That doesn’t bother you?” Steve asks in a lower, somber tone, suddenly right at your side.
How he and Bucky can be as stealthy as cats on their feet when being over six feet tall is beyond you.
At least you’re developing the ability to not get startled like an idiot every time it happens.
Shrugging your shoulders, you look away from the view. “Can’t blame her.”
Steve hums at that, then tries to look over your shoulder to see what you wrote on the board. You take a step to the side, but your handwriting’s too small for him to read from where he is, so he gets up and walks to you.
On the board, he reads.
I reach out in love, my hands are guns, my good intentions are completely lethal.
“Where’s it from?” He asks behind you.
“Margaret Atwood,” your smile widens. Gaining back the habit of reading was, perhaps, one of the best things Bucky’s brought back to your life. “Selected Poems, 1965 - 1975.”
“Nice.” When you turn around, he’s looking at you with a funny look on his face. “Another bookworm.”
“Guilty as charged,” you giggle.
“Who’s guilty of what?” Bucky’s voice comes from behind both of you, and you and Steve turn around in unison.
This time, you jump a little in your seat, but only Bucky seems to notice.
Steve points at you. “Another book nerd.”
Bucky looks from Steve to you, and the stain of grease he has on the side of his jaw makes you want to scream a little bit. He always scratches his beard with grease-stained hands, so every time you see him, some part of his face is painted in black.
You’ve smudged out plenty of those traces from him by now.
Bucky smiles in your direction. “I know.” He looks to Steve. “You know me—I love sexy brains.”
“And that’s my cue to leave,” says Steve. With a lazy, one-arm hug around your neck, he says. “Bye, Lady B.”
“Bye, Steve Boo.”
Behind Steve’s arms, choking you with a little bit of love, you see Bucky rolling his eyes, a sweet smile on the corner of his lips. “You two are becoming gross,” Bucky comments.
Without a single moment of hesitation, both you and Steve poke your tongues out at him.
“You adore us.” Steve lets you go and claps his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “See you tomorrow, jerk.”
“Bye, punk.”
With Steve gone, you take one more peek out of the window and see the black BMW driving out of Barnes Auto. You turn to Bucky with a smirk. With the grossest and most insinuating tone you can muster, you ask. “Did she invite you to check under her hood?”
Unlike Steve, Bucky doesn’t nearly fall out of his chair laughing at your awesome joke. What he does is look at you while trying to hide his amusement, then shake his head as if he heard the saddest dad joke on the planet. “I’m banning Steve from spending time with you.”
“Shut up!” You laugh. “You can’t ban him from me. We’re friends now. We hang out without you, okay?”
Bucky chuckles at that. “Oh, trust me, I know.” He starts closing everything on his computer and organizing his files, mostly because he knows you’ll bitch about his messy table if he tries to leave without cleaning up a bit first. “He told me all about it yesterday.” Over his computer screen, Bucky gives you a threatening look. “Don’t you dare steal my best friend.”
The threat is so funny because it sounds both mocking and real. There’s no way in heaven or hell that Bucky genuinely thinks someone could steal Steve from him, but just in case, you stop your giggling to answer him properly. “Bucky, I don’t think anyone can.” You get up from the chair in front of his desk and grab your purse. “Also, I wouldn’t want to. He can have other friends, you jealous bitch.”
Now Bucky laughs. “I’m surrounded by brats.”
He truly is, so all you can do is grin and wait for him to be ready to go.
You and Bucky drive to Nakajima in Bullet, with him sitting on your passenger seat and all his things thrown in the backseat of your car.
On your way there, Bucky tells you about his biggest client, Marcos, who’s part of legal (and illegal) races in New York and some areas surrounding it, and who’s giving Bucky enough headaches to last an entire year.
He also jokes that he’s happy you genuinely brought Bullet back for a follow-up and to do the remaining repairs, which he said you could leave for later.
“I’m glad you get so much cash smiling at fancy Upper Easters,” he jokes. “Turn left.” He pockets his phone, and completely misses the way your body tenses at his first joke relating to where you get your money.
Although your posts have diminished since October, a lot of it had to do with how many shots you had saved on your phone, ready to go, all because of that burst of inspiration that hit you right after meeting him.
“Yeah,” you chuckle, throat suddenly dry. “Are we close? I’m about to eat this wheel if we’re not,” you joke, needing a subject change before your hunger dissipates from nervousness.
Bucky not knowing of your side-job is something that’s been plaguing your mind for a while now.
After two whole months of deepening your friendship and occasionally losing yourself in tangled messes in his sheets and, eventually, yours too, Bucky’s someone you deem trustworthy.
Telling him you sell pictures of yourself online to strangers who are willing to pay for shots of you in lingerie is something that feels as pleasant as a beehive living in your gut.
You have no idea how he’ll react to it.
If Bucky notices your mood shifting, he says nothing.
He leads you inside Nakajima, goes straight to the back to a table that says ‘reserved’, and drops his body heavily on the booth.
Bucky looks tired from an entire day of work, but even still he looks handsome.
“Can I order for you?” He asks softly, not even picking up the menu. He’s got that tired side-smile on his face from when he’s sleepy, but still happy to be where he is. “I kinda know everything in here.”
“Go for it.”
Dinner with Bucky is amazing, even if it isn’t a date.
The laughter is the same, and the conversation never stales between you two.
Bucky orders for both of you with a shy smile to the waiter who recognizes him and says someone named Yori sends his hello, then goes right back to the story he was telling of his earliest client who threw a fit over sunglasses that “went missing” when the car was at his shop, apparently.
With school picking up for you and business rising for him with the start of the year, you and Bucky have less time to text and call, but technology is hardly necessary for your communication at this point.
If it isn’t at his place, you two see each other at Sam’s, and if not at Sam’s, you can also see each other at Steve’s place.
Bucky even went to your apartment.
Sarah’s the only friend you have in New York who’s been to your home before.
You don’t need it to be a date to be happy in this arrangement.
Bucky’s made it clear he has no intentions of being anyone’s partner because he isn’t in no position to give them what they deserve from one, but as a friend, Bucky is excellent.
He always cheers you on when things are hard, he’s honest when you ask his opinion on the things that matter, he confides in you when he’s feeling anxious or stressed about life and most importantly, he communicates when he needs a little bit of space or when he wants your presence.
Then, there’s the addition.
As a lover, Bucky Barnes has most likely ruined you for all men.
Outside of Nakajima, with your bellies full of food and your mind aching less after a little bit of sake, you and he smoke one sitting on a curb as you rant about how much you loathe the way your mother treats your sisters sometimes.
“They’ll be fine, Y/n,” Bucky laughs at you when you dramatize about their future. “They’ve got you.”
“Hm.” With your head still supported on your knees, you sigh deeply.
“Min and Liv told me I could take them to that place you showed me,” Bucky offers lightly, knowing damn well it’ll distract you from your problems.
You look up at him with your whole face lit up. “They liked it?!”
He laughs at your reaction, nodding along. The street lights are just enough to illuminate the blush that appears on his cheeks, which means Bucky’s so happy about this he can barely contain it in himself. “Thanks for the tip. The girls are now convinced you’re cooler than me.”
“I told you to show them the museum, not tell them a friend of yours knew it and showed it to you, idiot,” you roll your eyes fondly.
“God, the insults just keep on comin’ lately, huh?” He asks.
This time, it’s your turn to blush.
“I’m this close to being a forty-year-old man, sweetheart, I will install some respect on your bratty ass even if I have to shove it in there myself,” he jokes, making you laugh and almost fall with your whole body on the sidewalk.
He holds you from that fate by your arm, laughing alongside you.
Then you register his words. “Wait—what do you mean this close?”
Bucky stops laughing and, realizing what he said, grimaces. “Uh…”
“James Buchanan Barnes. When is your birthday?”
He recoils at his full name, sheepishly looking at you from under his eyelashes. “In… ten days?”
You screech at that, hitting him with your full force, repeatedly. “You! When—were you—gonna tell me?” You punctuate every word with a punch to his arms, and all he says is ‘ow’ and ‘stop’, but he’s laughing before you’re done with the question.
“I don’t like to celebrate it!” He defends himself, still unable to contain his laughter. “I usually just spend it with Steve, and then over time, those other idiots joined us, but it’s boring. I’m—I don’t like celebrating the passing of time.”
You give him a sad, pouty look, then shrug your shoulders.
“Well. I’d still have liked a warning, I wanna give you a gift, at least,” you whine a little, thinking back on the awesome gift Bucky gave you for yours.
Suddenly, Bucky’s face is up close to yours, inches away with a smile that never fails to make your knees weaken a little. “I don’t need gifts, certainly not from you, who gives me plenty more than most people,” he whispers smoothly, licking on his bottom lip unconsciously. “Are you gonna gimme a ride back home, darlin’?” Bucky asks, and the invitation under his tongue makes your toes curl a little.
You blame it on the sake for your blush turning darker. “You want a ride?”
Bucky moves slowly to the side, ghosting his nose over your cheek and slowly moving downwards in the direction of your neck. The barely-there touch makes you close your eyes, and you feel the breath of him chuckling underneath your ear, right before his lips meet your skin.
“Oh, I want a ride,” Bucky laughs, and you know you’ll give him exactly what he’s asking for.
You drive him to his house slapping his hand away from your thigh — “if I crash my baby i’ll have to kill you, Bucky, stop it” — and when you two get there, Bucky leads you to the kitchen between sloppy, wet kisses, and in there retrieves another bottle of sake with challenging eyes at you. “Are you tryin’ to get me drunk, Sergeant?” You ask, walking towards him with a smile.
Bucky rolls his eyes and grabs two glass shots. “I know it takes a lot more than a couple of shots to get you drunk, darlin’.” He puts both cups on the counter, and then stops abruptly, turning to you with sudden seriousness. “Unless you don’t want one? I’ll have both, I don’t mind,” he says in a playful tone.
“Oh, that wasn’t a complaint,” you shake your hands.
He pours you two shots, but that’s not the only one he has. Bucky also decides it’s a good idea to lift your body onto his counter, drip a shot between your boobs, and drink it as if he’s done this before, many times.
He also spills some drops on the inside of your thighs as an excuse to lick them, and at this point, you don’t know what you’re more drunk on.
You and Bucky are incapable of taking your hands off of each other and making it to the bedroom, so his counter becomes another addition to places you two get lost in each other’s bodies.
Between the kisses and the groping, you two barely remove your clothes before you pull Bucky out of his pants and makes him fuck you right there, building up the sweat on your body at how delicious he feels leaving beard burns on your neck as he moves his hips in a sinful, slow pace.
It’s easy to cum with Bucky whispering filth in your ear, with one hand gripping your waist as the other expertly touches your clit, pushing all the right buttons at the right speed.
It’s as easy as having him in the corridor, stripping him naked on his bed and getting maneuvered like the doll he calls you to be until, finally, you’re sitting above him with your hands bracing the headboard, and his head buried under your chin, arms secured around your waist.
Riding with Bucky anywhere is great.
Riding him into both your orgasms takes the cherry, though.
◦➳◦
“Okay. This is like, the third time you’ve spaced out, baby. What’s up?”
If she hadn’t just pulled you from the depths of your thoughts, you’d try for stupidity and say ’whaaaaat, Nat? I’m not sure what you mean’.
On the other hand, it’s Nat.
Your best friend. Your baby, even if she’s older than you.
Hiding from someone who’s known you for what feels like a lifetime stops feeling like even an option, eventually.
“Sorry,” your nose scrunches sheepishly, and Nat’s smile softens even more on the other side of the screen.
“It’s fine.” Her deep voice always soothes you, and she’d been arguing with Yelena on the other side about something, so your mind had taken a detour to what if land, losing itself in the same scenario that hasn’t left your head since dinner with Bucky last night. “I’m just wondering what’s on that big brain of yours. Is the new bestie taking care of you alright?”
The teasing tone she uses makes you roll your eyes, but you know Nat well enough to tell when her smirk is being mean mean and when it’s being i’m messing with you mean.
“I don’t need taking care of,” you sass back, because being a brat to Nat was as much nature as anything else on your body.
“Sure you don’t.” That’s said seriously, and then the smirk takes over again. “Just some eventual check-in, in case you’re biting your lip too hard, painting strands of your hair pink or, you know, spacing out for the thousandth time.” Nat straightens up her posture — and it’s ironic how much she enjoys slouching around, for a professional ballerina — and starts taking the pins off of her hair. “I’m listening. I’ve got an hour of break because no, Yelena, I will not go get you a sandwich downstairs—what? Go get it yourself, you lazy ass—no! I already told you, I’m talking to her. You call her yourself when you remember that you own a phone and stop stealing my time.” She takes a deep breath. “Anyway. Go ahead, lyubov.”
Nat’s eyes fall on your lips through the screen and you stop biting them with the accusatory glance.
“Are you nervous to talk to me about something?” She asks, reading you like an open book. “Ah. This is about the… Sergeant.”
Damn.
Since you two have been friends, you and Nat haven’t had secrets from each other.
Sure, at the highest peak in your journey, you two held the most important secret from each other—being in love can hurt a lot when you pretend it isn’t real. Natasha admitted only a couple of years ago that she had felt it too, even if she never said it at the time.
The entire relationship had been messy—there wasn’t one, to begin with, and at school and outside you two were and behaved like the best of friends, except for when the rain trapped you inside lakehouses or the alcohol made you stupid with braveness; getting involved with Natasha had been one of the most intense, emotional and soul-changing things in your life, and you knew that feeling would linger until the day you died.
You remember the taste of her lips and the shaky, terrified way with which she kissed you sometimes.
You recalled the calloused touch of her hands on your soft skin—the hands that loved to practice hand-to-hand combat just to differ from the dainty other pairs in her dance room. Natasha’s hands never shied away from you between four walls and when the curtains fell for you two.
It only shied away everywhere else, taking away with her cold turn of the chin all the heat her kisses and sweet-talking created.
It took you months to put your pieces back together after she broke them on the ground, and since you’d managed to glue them all and find a way to forgive her, she’s been her. Nat.
The friend who always watched out for your six. People looked at Nat and saw only the poise and the straight face, the small smiles.
“It is,” you whispered back.
Nat looked back at you, and you saw what others always failed to.
The ballerina that carried her steps, constantly, was the eye of the hurricane.
Natasha’s aloofness was an illusion; her soul carried a turbulent depth that few managed to navigate.
The point was, there were no secrets between you two and as soon as something happened between you and Bucky, you told her everything.
Natasha’s opinion on Bucky was, according to her opinion, “still pending”.
“What happened?” She asked, calmly.
“It’s funny you ask, ‘cause… you’re the only person who can give me an opinion on this from a—a… partner’s point of view?” You force a smile open.
The clinking of Nat’s hairpins falling inside the metal container stops for a second, and then they come back when she shrugs. “You wanna ask me about your page.” It isn’t a question, and you let out a breath you weren’t holding when you notice she isn’t upset.
If Nat isn’t upset, then it might not be hopeless.
“You don’t think I should be shitting my pants right now?” You ask.
Natasha’s genuine and surprised laughter makes you smile. “Why would you be? Does he pay your bills, liebe?”
“No,” you pout.
“Then his opinions on how you do are the only ones that are allowed to be shit in this scenario.” She looks up at you, letting out her red hair and shaking it. “Tell him. If he’s an intelligent and reasonable man, he’ll have no issues with what you do with your own body. If he doesn’t wanna be with you ‘cause of that, as if you selling pictures changes anything in who you are as a person, he’s a hypocrite and pretentious dick and you can tell him to fuck off.” Natasha leans closer to her phone and smiles in that way that makes you think she definitely could be a comic book villain. “What you do is nothing to be ashamed about. It’s something some people judge, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. People judge a lot of things ‘cause people are shitty.” Maybe not a villain. An anti-hero sounds more like her. “Did you two discuss at any point if you are even exclusive?”
All her words are true and, to a degree, you’ve known those things yourself, but since Bucky teased you about the money the previous night all you wanted was to get this out of the way.
Perhaps it was just your fear that he said something idiotic — or worse, hurtful — now out of all times, and you were left to feel like an idiot for trusting him to be something he’s not.
You stop biting at your thumb to nod at her. “Yeah.” Right in January when this had all started, Bucky had said he would let you know if went out with someone else just because he thought that was fair, and you had agreed completely. “We said we’d let each other know if we went out with another person, just ‘cause—you know.”
“Open and decent communication about your relations,” Nat nodded. “I remember my therapist saying something about it, yes,” she jokes.
It works. You burst out in giggles, and then nod vehemently at her. “Exactly.” It was even funnier ‘cause it was most likely true. “And neither one of us has said anything about other people, so…” You trail often, lifting your thumb to your mouth again before Nat smacks her teeth at you in reprehension. “Sorry.”
“Where’s your anxiety ball?” She asks. You go up and go fetch it in your drawer, and once you have it in your hand she goes back. “So. Tell him you wanna tell him something personal, then show him the page. It’s gorgeous, you take great pictures, you make bank with it. Remember what Sarah said?”
Your smile widens with Nat bringing up Sarah.
You really have hope for them to get along one day.
Sarah only needs to get over her mistrust of Nat that she gained from hearing the whole story between you two.
“I do, yeah.”
“Sarah has a point.” Behind Natasha somewhere, the voice of Yelena comes bursting ‘yeah she does!’. You’re laughing out loud when Yelena’s face pops up in the top corner of the screen. “Sorry Y/n, I was getting ready and hearing everything. Sarah really has a point. I’ll call you tomorrow, kay? Love you!” After rushing out the words, you hear the hurried steps of her leaving for her practice.
You and Nat stare at each other and then burst out laughing together.
“Sorry, I was alone here with her. If I had remembered the sister I have I’d have put on my air pods.”
“Don’t worry, you spare me the trouble of having to say it all again tomorrow,” you turn around in your bed and when your eyes catch your pile of books spread on the floor, you groan.
“Studies calling you?” Nat asks with.
“Shhhh, don’t remind me.” You whine and pull your Stitch plushie closer to your body, hugging it close. “You have an hour of lunch and I plan on stealing it.”
“My time is yours.”
“Good.” Remembering where you two had left off the last time, your grin turns into a devil-ish smirk. “Now… how’s the newbie going? Wanda?” You wiggle your eyebrows at Natasha.
Her blush is worth a fortune even through pixels.
◦➳◦
After the message you had received, you looked forward to a night of ecstasy.
Steve Boo
we need reinforcements
Me
what do you mean
wait, first, are you done with your exam?
Of course I’m done boo
Couldn’t be texting you from the middle of it could I
har har
come to my place in thirty can you make it in thirty
U ok babe?
Of course I can be there
oh no everything’s great!!!
We’re just gonna convince Bucky to spend summer @ my aunt’s house for summer this time. whatever it takes!!!! so i need reinforcements
Come
Oh ^^ to the house too
MJ says she’ll only go if you go
Peter’s been trying to convince her since last year so I guess u have to go now ! u’re gonna have a great summer with us
(Sarah’s obviously coming. the house isn’t big but the food is awesome and you can swim all month!!! did I sell it to you? 👀
You sold it to me boo
I’d love to go
(Be there in 30-40)
With summer plans defined, even the next weeks of exams couldn’t put you down.
A night with almost all of your friends in the same place is exactly what you needed after two days of intense studying preparing for exams week.
When you get to Steve’s place, you’re welcomed in a hug by Sam and behind him, the screeches of two happy pre-teens who haven’t seen you in days makes you feel like you’ve come to a second home.
MJ and Peter arrive with the pizzas a few moments later, and Bucky follows them. Almost everyone is at the house, and with only one week left for Bucky’s birthday, you and Steve are found gossiping and plotting things together more than once around the house.
Between a couple of pizzas and the next round of beer, Bucky finds you alone in the kitchen and flirts shamelessly, even if he doesn’t get closer.
You two love playfully teasing each other in public. There are no small touches or a lot of physical contact, but more than once Steve, or Morita, or Gabe had to tear you two away from your ‘bubble’ and the ‘eye fucking’, as they’ve grown to call it.
Handing Bucky a beer, you ask him about his sisters and whether he’s invited them to his birthday at Coney with the boys already and when Bucky gives you a confused look, you roll your eyes at him.
“I should invite them, right?” He asks in confirmation, sounding almost hopeful.
“Of course, Buck.” No teenager or young adult would refuse a day at Coney with rides and candy floss, especially if it was a celebratory day.
You’re pretty sure you convince him of doing so. Bucky says he’ll “think about it”, but you catch him smiling and glancing at his phone a few times during dinner.
When everyone’s gathered at the table and multiple conversations are overlapping, Sam asks you about your ‘russian girls’ that Sarah talks about so much, and with a lot of excitement, you tell everyone that Natasha and Yelena have gathered enough money to visit you for three weeks of the summer.
That ensues conversation about how you all met and briefly, you tell him about your oldest friends.
Peter wins the commentary of the night, though, when upon discovering that you had “dated” Natasha for a few years, says. “I’m just glad you’re not dying your hair red anymore,” he says to MJ. “I don’t think I can go against her charm if she saw what you look like with these curls all red,” he says, pointing at you.
Everyone laughs at that, and you catch on the other side of the table Bucky’s curious glint in his eyes.
You two drive to his house again — always the case when you go to Steve’s — and the mood is so great that you almost blurt out the thing that’s been nagging at the back of your brain.
Your hushed whispered “can I tell you something?” interrupts the episode of Squid Game you two have playing in the background while you drink some whiskey together, and it’s sitting on his bed with your legs thrown over his that Bucky finds out.
“I wanna show you something.”
He puts down his glass and looks at you expectantly, so you breathe in deep and start explaining as you open your little secret up on your phone.
Bucky listens without interrupting, and when you hand him your phone, his jaw falls open in surprise, his eyes widening a little.
Then, his fingers start scrolling. Touching, zooming in, silently looking at almost every single post you’ve ever done.
You sit in silence next to him and it’s only because his face says so much that you manage to keep it quiet through it all.
Bucky’s eyes are wide, but his open lips are almost smiling.
He looks like someone who’s entered a museum for the first time, someone who’s been handed something exciting and all they can do is appreciate it, look at it, gasp under their breath when their attention is taken to a new height.
When he finally turns to you, his pupils blown wide and his bottom lip caught between his teeth, your trouble becomes bigger.
You never calculated what would happen if he liked it a lot, instead of the opposite.
“These are so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, inching closer and closer to you.
“Yeah?” You breathe out.
Bucky nods, eyes falling to your lips. “People should pay good fucking money to see these.” He puts his phone at his bedside table without ever breaking eye contact from your lips, and then his hands move to your waist. “Art is priceless, you know?”
The embarrassed giggle that comes out of you makes your whole upper body squirm under his touch. “You’re cheesy. They’re not that good.”
Bucky looks up, his lips inches away from your collarbone. “That’s defamation and I won’t have it in my house,” he says in a serious tone, prolonging your laughter. “God. You make me wanna take a picture and I’m a shit photographer.” He kisses your shoulders while his hands massage your thigh, and you hold back a whine. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Y/n,” he whispers.
You’re breathless, and your skin is honey, but you still manage a teasing whisper. “I’m quite a good photographer.” His hands roam under your shirt, and you adjust your legs properly around his waist.
Bucky lifts you up to sit closer on his lap and you know that soon, his hand will reach out behind him to pull the curtains now letting the Moonlight in, and it makes your skin itch.
Your hands grab both of his, and you start kissing on his throat.
He chuckles, and lets you pin his wrists to his body, pliant under your touch, too. “Good. I’ll grab the camera in a while.” He bares his neck to you and whispers when your ear is close to his lips. “Get the curtains for me? I wanna show you somethin’.”
It’s said in his aloof and cheesy way, but it makes you stop.
You want to see him, too, and a big part of you knows — or at least, it tells you — that you’re aware of why he doesn’t let you.
Always in the dark, or with your back to his chest. Always so close, but just out of your reach.
“Do I have to?” You ask in a whisper, faces inches apart from his. “‘Cause… there’s only the light of the Moon here and honestly, Buck… I’d love to see you come undone when I ride you.” Saying the words make your throat go dry, and your heart beats too fast for you to understand all the reasons why. Bucky’s a little rigid underneath you, but his eyes are still on you, open and listening. “I’m not the only one that’s beautiful here.”
His eyes close tightly at the words. “Doll…”
Both of your hands go up to cup his face, and it makes him open his eyes again to look at you.
“It’s not pretty,” he whispers to you, and neither one needs more words to understand what he means. “There’s a lot of scarring, and… you don’t gotta see that. It’s not pretty.”
“Bucky. You’re insanely handsome. No—look at me,” when he ducks away his face in shyness, you grab it between your hands again. “I mean it. It’s almost offensive, honestly,” you add with a lighter tone, and is gifted with him rolling his eyes fondly. “And if you think that some scarring changes that you either don’t know me or mistook me for someone else. Someone a lot thicker and more shallow than me, that’s for sure.” You wiggle closer to him on his lap, watching the smile trying to crack open on his lips. “I’m not perfect, either. I’m not saying that to make comparisons, I’m sayin’ it to remind you that I live in the real world, and that in the same way you don’t see flaws in my stretch marks or my scars, I won’t see it in yours. Now…” you trail off, looking at the curtains and the sky dark behind you two. “If you don’t want to, I’ll respect that. And won’t ask you again,” you smile back at him. “Pinky promise. I just—I don’t want you to think you have to ‘cause I won’t think you’re the handsome devil you are ‘cause… that’s pretty impossible.”
Bucky stays silent through your whole speech, and you’re thankful he isn’t lying above you like normally for it ‘cause if he felt the way your heart is beating, it’d be embarrassing.
Thankfully, he isn’t.
And thankfully, he believes you.
The smile that takes over his face makes your heart slow to a dangerous pace given how fast it was beating before it, and when Bucky seals his lips on yours and starts to drag his tongue on yours in that filthy and languid way that makes your toes curl, you’re not aware of how any part of your body is functioning anymore.
He’s good at making everything feel like a hot, humid summer day like that.
Bucky not only lets you keep the curtains open, he also lets you take his clothes off and get him ready before you sit on him all the way down.
He sits underneath you with his feet planted on the mattress, his hands gripping your waist tight enough to leave bruises and his mouth always close to the column on your throat, where he loves to leave his sinful praises and sordid requests.
He sits and takes it as you use his body for your pleasure, for his, for both of yours.
The pace is yours until it isn’t; until you’re too weak on how good everything feels to do anything anymore, and that’s when he takes over and leads you both to the release you’ve been chasing for an hour.
Usually, Bucky gets up from the bed after a while to clean up and toss the condom away and comes back with a warm towel to soothe your red skin — the slaps and the beard burns and the sweat are his to tend for, as he put it — but this time, he carries you to the bathroom and says “shower” like a monosyllabic cave-man.
You hook on your phone to the JBL stereo and for a while, it’s peaceful.
As you wash his hair, you sing under his breath.
When you turn around for him to wash yours, your humming of Ezra Furman comes to a still when he talks.
“D’you wanna know how it happened?” He asks.
His voice is gravely and low, and you take a moment to answer.
“Yeah,” it comes out.
“It was an IED.” The distance in his tone doesn’t fool you. You can feel in the soft and circling movements of his fingers that Bucky’s miles away and years ago. “Peter and Kim were doing patrol… I managed to pull Peter by the arm and threw him a few meters away, but… Kim… he wasn’t close. He was…” Bucky’s words trail off, and you wait with your heart bleeding on your hands for him to finish. “He wasn’t close.”
You’re sure Bucky doesn’t want to hear about saving Peter’s life.
You’re not sure if there is something you can say to make the pain dull any less, so you do the only thing you can think of. You turn around and hug him, and you let Bucky stay in there for as long as he likes it.
The only words you can whisper in his ear are ’i’m so sorry that happened to you’, and Bucky’s arms tightening around you is the only answer you need.
Usually, you leave at this point, but this time, it’s impossible. You two fall asleep hugging each other, and the last thing you think about before drifting to unconsciousness are Natasha’s words from when you first told her about him.
He sounds… like a lot, liebe.
You wake up alone in his bed, and your stomach is too tight.
Glancing outside you see it must not be even seven, but the coldness of the bed makes you more uneasy than the hour.
The house feels empty, but something tells you it’s not.
Bucky left the bed hours ago if the chillness on his side of the sheets is anything to go by.
You put on your clothes slowly, trying to push away the hook on the back of your brain as you look for him, but when you find him on his porch outside the kitchen, it only worsens.
Bucky’s surrounded by cigarette smoke, finishing a phone call. He presses end right before he sees you standing on the other side of the door, and when his eyes lock on yours, you know your instinct warned you of a storm before you encountered it.
You open the glass door bracing yourself for chiller weather.
There’s a heartbeat of silence when you stand under the threshold, and Bucky looks from you down to his phone with a bitter smile.
“Becca’s not going,” he chuckles, and oh.
His baby sister, the oldest one of them all, is also the hardest.
“I’m sorry, Bucky,” you tell him honestly.
He shakes his head at you, sitting down on the chair again and lighting up his cigarette again. “’s okay. I knew it when I asked.”
The comforting words that climb up your throat can’t seem to find their way out, and he talks before you can push them out.
“Y/N.”
It’s only your name, but you’ve heard it like that before. You heard it said with that weight; with the trembling hands of someone who’s about to drop something of yours they have and you hadn’t even noticed.
“Yeah?” You ask.
“I don’t think this is gonna work with… with us sharing so many friends, that is.” Bucky blows out the smoke from his cigarette and looks up at you. “I’m scared to do somethin’ royal and fuck this up and I know it’d come eventually, and—you’re my friend. And I’m scared you’re caring for me like more than just that ‘cause if I break your heart or anything like that—” Bucky shakes his head again, sounding a little choked up. He clears his throat. “I can’t have that. I said we wouldn’t pretend nothing happened and I haven’t, right? But I also told ya I can’t—I don’t have what you deserve from someone you’d care about. I wish I did.”
In your head, the memory of January 1st on The Wilson 1 pizza night comes back to you.
When Sarah and Peter, both losing their absolute minds at seeing you two share the stupidest wink above everyone’s head, had asked out loud about you two.
“Do I have to sue him, girl?” Sarah asked you.
The whole table had stopped, and Peter had opened the widest grin. “Oh, yeah. Y/n. Did Sarge restore the honor of men in your eyes? The dude was ready to chop his dick off—”
“I’ll never live that one down, will I?” Bucky asked, munching on celery.
“No,” everyone answered in different tones.
“Y’all are so noisy. Stop meddling,’ Steve had intervened. ”Bucky’s pretty good at what he does and that’s their business, anyway.“
”Pretty good?“ You had finally voiced, making everyone’s eyes go from Steve to you. ”Stevie, you don’t gotta lie on your bestie like that just ‘cause you finally conquered your man. Saying that man is ‘pretty good’ is slander, at the least.“
The wolf-whistling and cat-calling from the whole table had only amplified Bucky’s laughter and bright red cheeks, but after hiding behind his hands for a total of three seconds, he’d lowered them and answered with a smile, speaking louder than the bursts of commentaries.
”Alright, alright—“ He’d pinned you with a look. ”I had plenty of help, she flatters me,“ he’d added in mock-humbleness.
That had eased your worries of him not repeating the same mistakes you worried so much for.
That made you open to trusting him and Bucky had shown to be worthy of that, every step of the way.
It’d also made you open to let him in, without even noticing.
And Bucky was right.
You were ‘starting to care for him’ like more than before.
“You’re right, Buck.” You swallowed the knot on your throat and resisted the urge to ask him for a smoke. The idea of brushing your skin on his makes you lightheaded, which is ironic considering how much of that you two were doing just a few hours ago.
Oh.
You might need a few days away to make your peace with what that touch did to you.
“Is it a completely horrible idea?”
“What is?”
“If I asked you whether I can give you all the orgasms you’re due from these shitty occasions… plus fees, of course,”
He had given you what you both wanted, and closed the door before one of you — you, clearly — were over their heads without noticing.
“At least you worked that out before this really became a bad idea,” you tell him with an attempted smile. “I’ll see myself out. I’ll text you, okay?” You ask.
He must see on your face that it might take a while.
Bucky nods, and blows out more smoke. “Please, do.”
His ‘please’ sounds as honest as everything else he’s whispered against your skin.
synopsisyou and Robby had been going steady for a few months now but when a betting board is made on who your mysterious male friend could be, Robby is not happy with the outcome.
warningslanguage, smutish- allusions to smut, jealous Robby, mention of shooting- GSW
author noterobby x reader but platonic frank x reader, can you tell santos is my favourite cause i include her in basically everything i write
Santos had had a day.
More traumas than she could deal with and a young girl who came in with bruises that suspiciously looked like abuse. She’d had just about enough when she realised she’d have to give another two hours to the place to get her charting done.
When she came home she knew Whitaker was at Amy’s and you should have been home. She watched you practically bolt out the place. Santos hoped it’d be a night of crappy food and shitty movies.
So when she ditched her keys at the kitchen counter and listened out the last thing she expected to hear was moaning.
“What the?” she called out for you.
Maybe you were having a self-care night. Charged up a vibrator and such.
Santos chuckled to herself as she made to tiptoe past your room.
There was the unmistakable sound of another.
“Oh fuck.”
Trinity paused.
You and her were close, she could admit that. You were maybe her only friend. So she knew you had been going through a dry patch. Because you were making it everyone's problem.
She listened in.
There was deep groaning from a man and your moans, the soft thudding of a bed against the wall. Trinity thanked the heavens again that the head of your bed was against Denis's wall and not hers.
“Deeper, harder,” she heard you moan.
“Oh, fuck me,” the guy groaned deep. She didn't recognise the voice. Did she?
Curious she tried to listen to the mans voice, wondering what she could tell. He must have been busy as little else was said other than groanings.
Where had you met this guy? Had this been happening longer than she knew? Is this why you hurried out?
Santos thought you weren't one of one night stands. Were you proving her wrong?
She snook into her room and knew she had to tell someone, at least Whitaker.
Robby collapsed next to you on your bed, catching his breath as you pulled the sheets up to cover your slightly sweaty bodies. The bed creaked under his weight as he moved around, getting himself comfortable.
Your bed was a small double, not really built for anyone more than one. Let alone Robby.
“You want some water or something?” you asked.
Robby chuckled, the bed creaking again as he turned on his side to face you. “Aren't I supposed to be asking you that?”
You lifted your shoulders, tucking your hands under your head to admire him. “Well you're the senior citizen with the... bad back?”
His brows lifted. “Oh that's how you want to play it.”
He grabbed your hip and pulled you close.
You were still trying to recover from the multiple orgasms Robby had ripped through your body as soon as you'd stepped through your apartment door. But that didn't stop his hands from crowding around your body, pulling you into him as all his hardness turned soft.
His lips found yours as easy as one found home, kissing you the way he knew you liked to be kissed. Head tilted to reach deeper, nose moving against your cheek.
There was a sudden shriek in your apartment.
You pushed Robby off, sitting up quick in bed.
“What?” he asked, far less alarmed then you as his arm fell around your waist.
“Trinity.”
Robby hummed. “Thought you said she was at Garcia's tonight?”
“I thought she was,” you uttered as if she was in the room.
The dating with Robby had started maybe three months ago when you'd had a disastrous date at the same bar Robby frequented with his buddy Duke. He'd seen the distress you were in with your date when he wouldn't stop talking about why sports people should actually get paid more than health care workers.
From there you had drinks with Robby.
From there he asked to see you again outside of work.
From there you ended up in his bed and he in yours on the occasions you had the place to yourself, which with two room mates didn't happen often.
You'd thought tonight was one of them.
“You should go,” you said, throwing the cover back to find your clothes in the dark.
“What?” Robby laughed, without moving. Instead he got himself comfortable, throwing an arm around the back of his head and tugging the covers down to his waist.
“Yes, do you want Trinity to know?”
“She doesn't sleep in your room though does she?”
Still, you tried to find some clothes.
The word around the PTMC was that Robby was a seven week itch kind of guy, the sort to never tie himself down. So though you'd been on dates with him and though he'd brought you flowers before and held your hands in bars and took you to a fancy dinner, he still fucked you like a guy that could move on the next day.
And you didn't want to scare him away with talk of serious dating. A bit of Robby was better than none of him.
You just didn't want your friends to judge you for that.
“Hey-hey-” Robby moved over on the bed, arm darting out to wrap around your waist and tug you back in.
You couldn't even protest before he was pulling you into him, hooking one of his large legs over yours and trapping you in. Your quilt was pulled up and his head rested next to yours.
At least when you and Robby were done with the sex you never kicked each other out of bed. But you did go into work separately.
“But-”
“-I'll be out of here first thing in the morning.”
With his arms around you and his calming breath you didn't think you could push him off you if you wanted to.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Robby kissed the blade of your shoulder and for the rest of the night that was how you were and when you woke in the morning with two hours to spare before your shift started, Robby was already gone.
“So who's the lucky guy?”
You chocked on your coffee, peering next to you at Trinity. “What?”
She smirked, leaning on the locker next to yours. “Oh come on, I heard you last night.”
The bitter taste of black coffee turned to ash in your stomach. She'd heard. Or worse, she'd been up to see Robby sneak out in the morning.
“What-what do you mean?” play it cool, you could totally starve of the humiliation. Maybe you could persuade her it was a dream, a nightmare, that she was sleepwalking and actually heard/saw/knew nothing.
“I heard you last night,” she said. “Quite the dicking down from what it sounded like.”
You felt the heat in your cheeks. “Oh my god.”
“Hey, I think its good, you deserve it,” said Santos as you hid yourself in your locker, taking great care in peeling off your jacket and finding your stethoscope inside. “So is it someone I know, or...”
She didn't know. You rejoiced silently before realising she still knew there was someone. “That is none of your business.”
“Oh come on, you know Garcia!”
“Because she works here.”
“Does he work here?”
“No!” you close the locker door, not as amused as Trinity was clearly finding this situation. “Please, he's just... a guy.”
She leaned in closer for the gossip. Few things got her as excited as gossip did. “A boyfriend guy or a sleep around guy?”
Wasn't that the golden question.
“Oh my god, you don't know.”
“Santos!” the call of her name should have saved you. Not when it was Robby calling for her as he stood between the two of you. “Pelvic exam in three.”
She groaned but gave a salute. “You got it boss,” she said to him before aiming a finger at you. “This isn't over.”
Santos had turned, leaving and you hardly waited anytime to turn back to the lockers and bash your head into them. Not enough to hurt but enough to erase the terrible fact that Santos had heard you.
Robby liked hearing you moan and you liked Robby so you always moaned loud.
And she'd caught enough of it.
Usually, you wished for Robby to be a bit louder in bed. You were glad he hadn't been.
The cold metal of the locker was replaced on what might have been your twentieth go at hitting yourself with the back of a rough hand.
“Everything okay?” asked Robby, coming to stand next to you, leaning on the lockers. His eyes creased with concern.
“She knows.”
His brows shot up, which didn't indicate a good reaction. “She knows?”
“Not about you, don't worry,” you said with a light scoff. “She knows that I had a good time with a guy last night, she doesn't know who.”
Robby nodded in consideration. “So we're in the clear?”
You screwed your eyes shut. You hadn't realised just how bad you wanted him to shrug it off, tell you he didn't care if Trinity knew, that of everyone in the ward knew, that he only cared about what it meant between the two of you. You only realised when he didn't give you that option.
He wanted to be sure he wasn't affiliated with it.
“Yeah, you're in the clear.”
You left Robby at the lockers before suspicions could grow. Nothing wrong with a resident talking to their attending and so far you and Robby had done a good job at not having any suspicion- not even from Dana.
The least you could do for the guy was keep it that way.
“You had a hot date last night?” Princess slid up to your side before you were even half way across the ward.
You groaned. “Santos told you already.”
“Why didn't you say anything?”
“Say anything about what?” Javadi's voice suddenly came from Doctor McKay's side. The older woman tried to act uninterested but her keen eyes were watching you from over the computer.
“She had a date around hers last night,” said Perhlah, coming up to your other side.
“And she won't tell us who it was,” added Princess.
Javadi's smile grew and her jaw hung open. “Who?”
You shook your head and stared at your shoes. “This is the worst day of my life.”
“Okay!” Robby's voiced boomed out. He clapped his hands, gaining everyone's attention. “We have patients, how about we go ask them some riveting questions?”
Mel frowned from somewhere in the crowd that had formed. “We should go ask them if they know who the guy is?”
She realised quickly that wasn't quite what he meant.
Perlah and Princess walked off together, quietly scheming. “Men just don't get it.”
You gulped down, smoothing your hand over your head and where the growing headache was forming. “Thanks.”
Robby said nothing but there was the brief feel of his hands on your shoulders as he squeezed before moving past you.
It was going on lunch, you'd just gotten a trauma through and up to the OR when you spotted bright post-it notes stuck up on the board in Ahmed's office. The betting board, his mini kingdom had been put back together.
Three titles.
Who?
How long?
Casual or dating?
“Oh my god!” your shriek echoed around the Pitt.
“What? What is it? What?” Robby was at your side in an instant, body almost slamming into you with how quick he slid next to you. He steadied himself, holding on.
“That!”
Ahmed had set up a betting board based on your love life.
The who column was spread with names and the name of those that had bet scribbled underneath. In the middle there was how long had it been going on for, some thought it was only a few weeks, others guessed up to six months.
The last column, wondering if it was a casual thing or serious was filled with almost every post it note saying 'casual'.
“Oh,” Robby chuckled.
“It's not funny,” you argued. “Has every body here bet?”
“Not me, I had no idea. Besides I think that's kind of cheating, right?”
“I see you've found my latest and greatest,” said Ahmed, approaching behind the two of you. “We got this up and running two hours ago, you want me to break it down for you?”
“Holy shit,” you uttered, scanning the board. It was a great and easy way to find out what everyone thought about you.
Robby nodded, leaning on the door next to you. “Holy shit.”
“How much money's in the pot?” you asked.
Ahmed grinned like he was just waiting for you to ask. “Five-hundred and five dollars!”
Robby chocked on a breath next to you as your jaw hung open.
Someone was gonna make money of your guys' sex lives and none of that was going to come to you.
“And I'm guessing I can't get in on it?” you asked.
“No," said Ahmed. “Unless, you know, you wanna tell me who it is and I'll split the money between us.”
“And who do you think it is?” asked Robby. He asked casually, still leaning on the doorframe like he couldn't care less. If he was a girl in a rom-com he might have even checked on his nails or twirled his hair. But you'd studied him close the last couple months, you'd worked all his emotions out into your own little Robby dictionary.
There was a hint of jealousy.
“Well, I've gone with the fan favourite,” he said, plucking off his post it note to show you. “Frank. Three months. And serious.”
“Langdon!” Robby announced.
Uh-oh.
“Yeah, man,” he said. “More than half these notes say it's him.”
On further reading you noticed it did. On yellows and pinks and greens Frank's name was written in quick scribbles or thought out curves.
Frank? Sure the two of you were close. You'd worked close together for a year- nearly two. You worked coordinated well in traumas and with patients you always knew what the other was thinking.
Since his divorce with you'd been helping him as much as you could. You had a friend who was a good lawyer and when he had a chance to see the kids you always covered.
You knew, of course, everything that had happened with the benzos.
You knew Robby still wasn't back to being best-buds with the guy.
You didn't know everyone thought you and Frank were together!
Donnie side stepped past you, coming in with his bets. “I got it, I got it-”
Robby snatched them from his hand, scoffing at whatever was written.
“Langdon. Two weeks and serious.”
“Et-tu, Donnie?” you asked.
“I got fifty in the pool, looking to get a new tv, you know.”
Robby stormed off.
Donnie watched. “He got a bet in?”
“Not yet, sorry, you don't mind?” asked Ahamed.
You scoffed. “Do I have a choice?”
You left them to it, finding Robby sitting at the nurses station at a computer. His jaw clenched and fingers worked furiously over the keypads. You evaluated the area before leaning in. “If you put a pool in we could split the money?”
“Should I put a bet in for Langdon?” He didn't look up to you as he slid on his glasses.
It angered you because he seemed annoyed at something he knew not to be true and because he slid on the glasses that made him even hotter than he already was.
“Is there something wrong, Robby?”
“No.”
“You seem-”
“- I'm not,” he snapped.
He was.
Robby wouldn't admit how much he let his emotions rule, especially anger. He used to be terrible for it but for a while he'd been better, lighter on his feet, patient. Since about.... well, since you started seeing each other.
“Hey.” Langdon joined your side.
You noticed a vein in Robby's neck twitch. “Hey.”
“You seen what everyone's saying?” asked Frank. “Apparently we're seeing each other?”
“Yeah,” you said, turning to him. “I had no idea.”
“You think I should buy a ring next?” he teased.
Robby slammed his hands on the counter, pushing himself up and storming off without so much as a glance.
Frank watched. “What's his problem?”
What was his problem? You'd love to know. “He had a bet on someone else,” you excused.
“Oh bummer,” said Frank. “You think he lost a lot of money?”
You didn't have time to come up with another lie as you spotted Santos and Whitaker walking by. Politely, you ditched Frank, promising you'd catch him for lunch.
“Did you start a betting system on my sex life?” you asked Trinity.
She smirked. “That wasn't me, I had nothing to do with that, seriously!”
“It's true,” said Denis. “But she was the first to put down a bet on Frank.”
You looked at her. You knew the history between her and Frank. Why would she want you to sleep with him? “You hate Frank?”
She shrugged. “So I guessed you were sleeping with him and didn't want to tell me because you know I don't like him.”
You shook your head. “I didn't want to tell you because it's none of your business.” You considered Whitaker. “Who'd you bet for?”
“I-I didn't, I-I wouldn't-”
“He bet on Nick from radiology.”
All of this from Robby sleeping with you in your apartment. Next time- if there was even gong to be a next time- you were doing it at his.
By the end of your shift anyone that hadn't placed a bet had.
Franks name had doubled and the pot was up to one thousand dollars (the highest bet in Pitt history). Frank found it funny, cracking jokes about it all day, throwing arms around you and dragging you onto cases saying 'couples that save lives together, stay together.'
Any other time you'd have laughed.
But when Robby was around every corner, glaring yet refusing to talk to you you couldn't find amusement in it.
The night had come and you were catching a break at the ambulance bay, sitting down on the curb. You were home in an hour, Denis had already gone to Amy's to deliver a lamb or something and Santos was supposed to be at Garcia's tonight.
But you highly doubted you'd have company.
“Hey,” Jack greeted, walking over to you in his midnight scrubs and bag slung over his shoulder. “How's my favourite day shift resident?”
You smiled a tired one at him. “How much money do you have in your wallet?”
Without a beat Jack fetched it and offered you what he had. Because that's the kind of guy Jack was.
“No, no,” you chuckled. “I don't need your cash. There's a betting pool on about who I'm sleeping with. I just- I was gonna ask you to not place a bet.”
Jack laughed, setting next to you on the curb, stretching out his prosthetic leg. “Would be a bit unfair seeing's as I'm best pals with the guy you're dating.”
“Not dating,” you corrected. “Probably not even seeing each other after today.”
Jack listened as you explained the distance, the glares, the snapping that returned to Robby. He didn't jump to defend his friend, he listened to you and took notes mentally. “The guys an emotional wreck. You know that. I know that.”
“But I thought he was doing better?”
“He was- is. Since he started dating you,” he said. “You ask me he's dealing with some emotions he doesn't know how to process. Jealousy. Greed. What's the other deadly sin?”
You rolled your eyes playfully. “Lust?”
“Yeah. That.”
“So I'm supposed to what? Let him be a dick all over again?”
“Oh fuck no,” said Jack firmly. “Put him in his place.”
Admittedly you didn't want to. You wanted to go back to being whatever it was you had with Robby. You wanted to hold hands and share beers in shitty bars at least an hour out of town so it was kept a secret. You wanted the brush of hands between the rush of patients and the discreet meetings at his or yours.
But how far were you willing to bend before you broke?
“So who's everyone putting bets on anyway?” Jack asked.
“Frank.”
Understanding of the situation hit him. “Ah.”
“Yeah. Ah.”
Suddenly the wail of an ambulance cut through the quiet.
The doors burst open, Robby, Santos, King, Jesse all pouring out.
“GSW to the chest, forty-two year old male, weak pulse, un-conscious on the ride over,” said Robby tugging on his gloves as you and Jack jumped up. He spared a glance at the two of you before the ambulance pulled up.
You jumped into it, wheeling the gurney ahead into trauma two. Everyone working around the man.
“Okay we move him on the count of three,” said Jack as you all got a hold of the patient. “One... two... three!”
He was heavier than some, not that it would effect your level of care but it made moving him just that but more difficult. There was a breath of air and struggle from Jack and Robby, the noises you had to drown out.
“Lets get an intubation tray going!” called Robby.
The two of you crossed each other, swapping sides.
“Can we talk later?” he uttered as he paused for only a second.
“Whatever, Robby.”
He sighed heavy.
The rest of you carried on gaging the extent of his injury.
“So do you want me out the apartment tonight so your man friend can come around?” asked Santos at your side.
“I want you out cause I'm annoyed at you.”
“Ouch.”
“Okay we need to turn him to see if it went through, on my say!” yelled Robby.
The team had thinned as orders had been barked, there were two of you on either side of him: Robby and Jack, and you and Santos.
Robby passed a nod. “Okay, roll!”
You and Trinity pulled while the men on the other side pushed but maybe Robby didn't have a good grip or maybe he hadn't expected him to be so heavy.
Robby grunted and groaned. “Ah, urg-”
“Not through,” Jack grunted.
You tried to lower him as slow as you could but it wasn't slow enough as Robby's hand got trapped under.
“Oh! Fuck me!”
You and Jack lifted the body quick and Robby released his hand.
Santos was frozen.
The whole room seemed to pause for a second.
“Oh my god!” Santos cheered, arms thrown wide. “Oh my god, oh my god!”
What was wrong with her?
It took you a second to realise, memory of last night coming to you.
Robby over you, thrusting careful.
Your body moved with his thrusts but you wrapped your legs around him, pushing his pelvis in till you felt the length of him deep. “Deeper, harder,” you'd begged.
Robby had groaned out loud, just the way you liked to hear him. “Oh! Fuck me!”
He'd uttered the words into you as he pressed his weight down, squashing you onto your squeaky bed. He'd wrapped his hands around your neck, squeezing just enough to have your walls fluttering around his cock.
Santos had been home longer than you'd thought.
Now, she was practically jumping up and down, smirking. “Oh my god!”
“Trinity can I talk to you outside please?”
“It's- you- and-” her arms were waving around.
“Outside, please, Trinity!”
Everyone was staring.
“Trinity, outside!” You guided her out and she let you, abandoning the trauma and ripping off her gown. You returned, finding Robby's gaze and Jack's amused grin as he tended to the patient. “Sorry, Doctor Robby, may I talk to Santos outside for a moment?”
Robby must have jumped to the same conclusion as you. “Er yes, yes! Of course, go!”
You rushed out, nudging Trinity into an empty exam room as she laughed. You closed the door and pulled the curtain over the glass.
“It's Doctor Robby!” she said at once. “It's Doctor Robby! You're sleeping with Doctor Robby!”
“Can you keep your voice down?”
Santos laughed again, a full belly laugh. “Oh my god, this whole time I thought it was Frank. Oh, I'm so happy.” She wiped at amused tears.
“Hey!”
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
You shook your head, tugging off your own hospital gown. “It doesn't matter.”
Finally Trinity considered you. Her laughter died. “What-what do you mean?”
How could you explain that what she'd heard last night was over hardly twenty-four hours later.
The door pushed open and Robby stepped through, gown and gloves already gone.
“Is everything okay in here?” he asked, looking between the two of you.
“You and you?” Trinity confirmed, finger gesturing between the two of you.
Robby ran his hands through the back of his hair.
“I just can't believe it,” she said. “You guys are dating?”
Robby sighed out a “yes” at the same time you shook your head, “no”
Now, Robby looked at you.
Santos folded her arms over her chest, smirking and watching like the two of you were her favourite show. “Oh.”
Robby's hands fell to his hips as he looked at you. “What do you mean, no?”
“What do you mean, yes?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” he chuckled.
Your rubbed at your temples. “I'm so confused.”
“You're confused, I'm confused,” Robby scoffed.
“Wait- I'm confused,” said Santos. “You guys don't know if you're dating or not?”
Robby's eyes squeezed shut in frustration. “Doctor Santos, please. Go make yourself useful.”
Trinity didn't move. She looked at you, waiting for what you wanted. Because yes, Robby was her attending but you were her friend. When she was insecure about Garcia you were there telling her how much better she could do.
In the hospital Santos was guided under Robby.
At home, she was guided by friendship and care for you.
You gave her a nod and she dismissed herself.
You didn't know where to look, didn't know where to touch.
Outside the usual routine of the Pitt carried on.
Robby sighed, hands going into his fleece pocket. “You didn't know we were dating?”
No, you really didn't. “Was I supposed to? You never asked.”
He shook his head, looking down with a chuckle. He started to list things off, counting them off on his fingers. “Flowers, dinners, day trips, was that not enough?”
“But you never said!”
“I thought it was obvious!”
“Obvious to who?”
“To us!” His hands fell to your forearms.
“No to you maybe!”
“So the dinners... the flowers, you thought it was all just, just sex?” he asked.
You'd hoped it was more. You'd dreamt about it when his weight kept you down on his bed after you kissed and made love for hours. Love...
“I... yeah.”
How long had you thought him the bad guy? Were you the one that had been distant, pulling away?
You carried yourself away from him, sitting on the edge of the bed. You never realised how uncomfortable those things were.
Robby laughed to himself, standing for a moment longer. He checked that nobody was around through the curtain before he settled next to you. He shuffled, his bodies attention focused on you. He laid a hand on your knee, tilting his head to try to look at you. “I should have asked, properly.”
“It would've saved confusion,” you admitted.
Robby's hand came up, cradling your face and drawing your attention to him. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over your cheek.
You looked at him, finding nothing but warmth in his gaze. The only thing that had been there for three months. “But today, you... you could hardly look at me.”
He took in a deep breath. “I was...” his jaw ticked.
You smirked. “Jealous?”
His eyes flickered back to yours. “Nobody on that board thought I could be dating you.”
“Till about two seconds ago I didn't even know we were dating,” you joked.
Robby shook his head, wetting his lips. “We are.”
“You're not even going to ask me?”
“I don't need to,” he said. “We're dating, that okay with you?” His face inched closer.
“I don't know, I might have to ask Frank that one,” you teased.
Robby leant back, a dark look to him. The hand caressing you fell to your neck, keeping you looking at him. “You think that's funny?”
“Everyone else thinks so-”
He pulled you in by your neck and kissed you, hard, the imprint of his teeth felt through your lips.
You held onto him, kissing him with a new need. Kissing your boyfriend. Your hands wound around his head and you brought him down on top of you.
Robby climbed atop the bed that was not made for heavy make out sessions. He held the edge with one hand and the other fell down your body till it could crawl up your scrub top, un-tucking it and holding onto your hips.
He bit down on your lip and used the opening of your mouth to slide in his tongue.
“This is un-professional,” you said against his lips.
“I've been wanting to be un-professional for months.”
You were so lost in the feel of each other you didn't notice the curtain being yanked back until you heard.
“We got him stable,” said Jack, casually. “Oh and you've got an audience.”
You looked over Robby's shoulder as he looked back to see nosey nurses and night shifters along with half the day staff all looking at you.
You tapped his shoulder and though resigned to, Robby slowly climbed off you.
“Who put down Robby?” Ahmed called. “Did anyone bet Robby?”
The crowd that had watched you both suddenly rushed to the board, scanning the name.
Eventually you and Robby joined, waiting.
“Oh my god.”
“There he is, Robby, one vote!”
Robby's head perked in confusion.
“Who is it? Who?”
Ahmed collected the money and made his way through the people. To the one who had made a bet on Robby. “Doctor Robby, three months, and serious.”
He delivered the money- to everyone's shock- to Frank.
Your jaw hung open as Frank collected the money.
Everyone looked at him, silent.
You couldn't tell if next to you Robby was okay with it or angered.
Frank looked around at everyone. “C'mon, nobody else saw it? He's been happier for three months and can't take his eyes off her.”
Clealry, nobody had.
“I thought you didn't bet?” you asked him.
Frank shrugged, bashful. “Yeah well, couldn't help myself. Here-” Langdon held out the wad of cash to Robby's hand, practically forcing it in. “Take her somewhere nice.”
You wished you had a camera to capture Robby's shock.
“Okay folks! Show's over!” called out Dana. “Day shift let's pass on to night so we can get out of here to have some fun!” she winked your way.
Slowly the crowd dissipated, shaking their heads in disappointment.
Ahmed was already pulling off the notes and rubbing away at the board.
Robby waved the cash in front of you. “What do you say, you gonna let your boyfriend treat you tonight?”
synopsisyou and Robby have always had an un-spoken understanding, that if you were two different people you'd fall in love. but he was a mess and refused to bring you down. so instead, fate threatens to take you away forever
warningsANGST. so much angst. stabbing. blood. near death. operations. typical hospital stuff but a happy ending
authornotethis is just completely ripped from that episode of ER when John Carter gets stabbed, like the medical talk is all from that. I also feel like this may be slight ooc robby cause I have struggle with how this man would be affectionate. i had a hell of a lot of fun writing this, angst is by far my favourite, i hope you like too
Pitt masterlist. Other Robby fic!
You weren't sure if it was the thumping in your head or the drum in your heart but you watched Robby closely. It could have been the injury to your head or the closeness of him that had your heart reacting in such a way.
You blamed it on the injury.
“Give it to me straight, Doc,” you joked. One of his gloved hands cupped your chin, nudging your gaze up. The other dabbed gently at the cut to your forehead. “Am I gonna make it?”
There was a line of displeasure in his lips. “Not funny,” he mumbled.
“Sure it is.”
“No, it's not.”
You rolled your eyes before going back to focusing on him.
It was rare you got to watch him in his concentration. Usually you were in the middle of a trauma when he pulled out the serious face and things were moving too fast for you to even catch a glimpse. Now- his focus was all on you. You could study the creases at his brows and the flecks of grey in his beard.
“You ever notice you have these deep lines between your eyebrows when you're concentrating?”
“It's called age,” he said but there was the smallest hint of a smile there.
“Aren't you twenty-seven?”
This time he couldn't stop the smirk of amusement and finally you won.
Robby dabbed away the blood at your cut, changing the gauze. “Don't think you're distracting me.”
You hummed as he tilted your head into the light. “Distracting you from what?”
“Reporting him.”
You grew silent and looked away.
It was Robby's turn to stare at you, eyes without warmth, stern in ways he was with patients that didn't want to listen to good advice. You may be sitting on a bed in exam room four and you may have a chart written up but you were not a patient. “He was scared and confused-”
“ - he pushed you.”
“And I was the one that tripped and bashed my head.”
“He threw you down!”
You winced at his snap and then winced at the pain your wincing brought you.
Robby sighed with some sort of regret. His fingertips brushed your skin as he finished cleaning the cut and you couldn't help but think it was a deliberate move. He'd been so careful not to touch or apply pressure but suddenly the callous of his fingers were there.. “If we don't take care of ourselves nobody else will do it.”
It was the same thing Dana had said to you when she saw the patient push you down and run out the room in distress, hospital gown slipping on his shoulders. She'd taken you under her arm, stirred you to a chair. She was firm in both checking you were okay and that you were going to report him for hurting you.
You look past Robby, trying to see through the glass door. The Pitt carried on it's usual bustle but Dana kept a close eye out on you in the room. “Where is he now?”
“None of your concern,” he said. “The cut's clean, looks like you won't need stitches.”
“You've restrained him haven't you?”
Robby frowned. His head shook slightly in disbelief- like he couldn't believe you. “He hurt you. Jesus- you think I was gonna just tuck him back in bed- you think Dana was!”
You were used to the rise in Robby's voice, as attending it was his job to command everyone. You just didn't like to hear it risen at you. “He woke up, confused and startled.”
The patient was brought in un-conscious at the side of the road, a gash in his arm. Nobody knew his name but you'd admitted him and ran some tests while he was semi-conscious. He'd woken up as you were checking his IV and the next thing you knew hard hands were pushing you away. You'd taken the tray down with you and smacked your head in the process. Then he'd ran and then Robby had you in his arms, willing to pick you up and carry you off if it weren't for your insistence to walk to an exam room.
Robby's body heaved in a sigh as he put his hands on his thighs. “He hurt you,” he repeated, looking up at you through his eyelashes.
You slowly met his gaze as he got closer on the stall in front of you. “I've had worse.”
It wasn't supposed to be a dig but as his eyes met yours in a haze of dark anxiety you figured it came off that way.
Really what happened between you and Robby was ancient history. A whole six months since you'd stopped seeing each other; if that's what it could be called. It was really only one stupid kiss and several flirts that created the thick tension between you two. Nothing had ever been done to encourage it further, yet nothing had also been done to squash it.
Whilst his gaze remained on you, Robby got out his penlight and checked your pupil reaction.
“Any pain?”
“Well, the light's a bit bright.”
He put it down and with his gloved hands he slowly pressed around the small cut on your forehead, hands cupping your face tenderly. “Any pain?”
“No, you've done all this twice now.”
“It's procedure for any patient.”
“It's special treatment,” you grumbled.
Robby grabbed a bandage from the tray. “You're a special patient.”
The heat crept up your cheeks before you stared at the bandage.
“Robby-”
In one hand he held a bandage, in the other a small spider-man plaster that he so obviously got from pedes.
You stared at him. “Really?”
His cheeks tilted in a small teasing grin. “All we have, I'm afraid.”
You seriously doubted it but tapped the spider-man plaster nonetheless. “I'm sure I could have done this myself, you know,” you said as he peeled away the plaster. “Or at least got one of the nurses to do it. I'm sure you're needed somewhere more important.”
He frowned again. “More important?”
“There's a guy that came in with a GSW to the chest ten minutes ago and you're saying you don't need to be there?”
Robby's hands fell to either side of your face, gently taking your cheeks. His thumb brushed the curve of your cheek bone. He could feign he was checking your pupils but you both knew better. “There's nowhere else I need to be.”
Six months ago you'd kissed in a bar ten minutes away from the Pitt. Every day since- you'd been fighting the urge to kiss him again.
At that moment, with his gentle touch and soft gaze, you wondered if he'd been fighting to.
“Look up,” Robby said with a clear of his throat.
You weren't sure what he was trying to check for anymore. Maybe he was just looking for an easy way out.
“I still want you to get a CT scan.”
“Now that's dramatic, I didn't expect that from you.”
“Any nasuea?”
You shook your head as Robby steadied you, sliding the plaster in place.
“Have you been drinking enough today?”
“Two cups of coffee count?”
Robby gave you a plain look as he yanked off the latex gloves, throwing them into a corner of the room. “Ten minutes rest, I'll bring you some food and water.”
You sighed dramatically. “Robby!”
He pushed himself up from his stool. “As you're attending I'm not asking, I'm-”
“Telling?” you guessed.
Robby hovered as you pushed yourself up back on the bed. You wouldn't say it but your head was hurting from the fall. Nothing more than a headache that some painkillers couldn't stop. If you told Robby that yes, you were in pain, you were sure he'd pull the curtain, change you into a gown and play doctor all day.
You lied back on the pillow as Robby plumped it and smoothed out the sheets under you. He was lingering and for a moment you thought of asking him to stay.
Your mouth had opened to ask when the door was nudged open.
“Robby, we got a car crash coming in five,” said Dana. She looked at you then, eyes crinkled in worry. “How you feeling, hun?”
“I'm fine, thanks Dana.”
She nodded once, offering you a small smile before leaving.
You looked up at Robby as his body lingered over yours, one arm stretched high above your head, the other lower. Your gaze flickered up and you could feel the warmth of his breath fan over you. “Ten minutes?” you asked.
“On the clock.”
“Then I'm free to go?”
His head tilted, a sly smirk playing around his thin beard. “I'm not keeping you a prisoner.”
You folded your arms over your chest, glancing away. “Feels like it.”
He chuckled lightly. For a moment his breath lingered over your forehead, closer than before.
When you glanced up he froze, hands clenched on the bed, his jaw taunt. It was as if you'd caught him in the act.
Suddenly you wished you hadn't looked up. You wished you'd let him do whatever he was going to do. Because once he'd been caught he straightened up and threw you an awkward thumbs up. “Ten minutes.”
You trace your finger over the plaster as you slowly left your room, creeping out like you were a teenager sneaking out of your parents to meet a guy. Except you were trying to avoid the guy.
“That was eight minutes!”
You looked up and found Robby at the nurses station, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. “Were you timing me?”
Robby held up his phone, showing you the timer he had counting down as next to him, Dana snorted. “Have you had something to drink? Or eat?” he asked as you leant over the counter. He was still watching you eagerly, waiting for any sign you were in more pain then you let on so he could send you back to bed.
“Thought you were getting me a drink?”
He rolled his eyes before obliging, sliding away to get you a drink. He turned back only once. “Don't go near him!” he called, the both of you knowing who the he was.
You saluted him, watching him go before turning to Dana. “How is he?”
She peered at you over her glasses. “Terrible. He's been worried sick, was practically watching you through those windows. Didn't blink for a minute!”
“Not Robby, my patient. The John Doe.”
“Well that ain't your concern anymore," she said.
“I want to treat him.”
“He's awake now, we've restrained him in twelve but Robby wants you nowhere near him.”
“Robby is over-reacting,” you sighed.
Dana lifted her shoulders. “Of course he is, it's you. You think he's gonna react rationally?”
Nobody was supposed to know about you and Robby and the thing that lingered in the middle. But somehow, Dana always ended up knowing everything.
You backed away from the counter, assuring Robby was nowhere to be seen. “Twelve, you said right?”
Dana huffed but lucky for you there were a dozen more things she needed to do. “Fine! Go! But take security with you!”
You saluted and headed that way. Outside the door, Ahmed was already there.
“Hey, doc,” he greeted. “He's been asking about you, said he wants to apologise.”
You weren't scared like you thought you'd be, stepping into the room while Ahmed promised to stay outside, just a shout away of you needed him. Your heart wasn't pounding as you slowly moved the curtain, finding the patient lying on the bed, restraints around his wrists and tied down. He wasn't thrashing about. He was calm, clocking you as you walked in.
“You're the nurse?” he said.
“Doctor, actually,” you said, introducing yourself.
He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes or add colour to his face. There was nothing in his eyes anyhow. He was pale and the thin bandaging that had been done for his arm while he struggled was bleeding through. “I-I pushed you, I am so sorry.”
You were about to say it was fine, but it wasn't you shouldn't tell him it was. You could accept the apology but still acknowledge that whatever state he was in, you shouldn't have been hurt. “Do you know where you are?”
“The hospital?”
“That's right, PTMC. Can you tell me your name?”
He nodded, gulping. There was a thin layer of sweat over his skin. “David Brown.”
“And do you know what month it is?”
“M-March.”
“Okay, good,” you said, making a quick note of his name in his chart. You sat down on the stool, shuffling to the side of his bed. “Mr Brown-”
“David,” he corrected you.
“David,” you said. “You were brought in just under an hour ago with a pretty bad laceration to your lower right arm. You were found un-conscious. Do you remember anything?”
You watched the sweat bead at his forehead, his eyes scrunched as he tried to think. His breathing grew heavier, face morphed into pain as he tried to think. “It's okay if you don't.”
“I-I don't,” a stray tear fell down his cheek.
“That's okay,” you assured him. “I'm gonna order you a CT and a toxic screening just to rule out any drugs or alcohol in your system. Is that okay?”
David's head jerked in something like a nod before you door swung open, clattering on the other side of the wall.
Robby stood at the end of the bed, face red, hands at his hips. “What are you doing in here?” he snapped.
“Doctor Robby-”
He gave you no time to explain, jutting his head back. “Step outside please, doctor.”
You stood, slowly and walked out slower.
David called out after you. “I really am sorry!”
Robby looked back like he didn't believe him.
The two of you stepped out and you spoke before he could, beating him by a second. “I'm ordering him a CT and toxicity test. That gash on his arms needs to be cleaned and stitched up, it's bleeding out.”
Robby didn't care to hear it. He pulled the curtains over and closed the door as he followed you out. “What did you think you were doing in there?”
“Tending to my patient.”
“I told you to leave him.”
“He wanted to say sorry. Ahmed, didn't he want to apologise?” you said, looking to security for some help.
Ahmed held up his hands. “Oh- I want nothing in this!”
“If he wanted to apologise he could've wrote a letter. Told me to apologise to you,” he said, still holding onto his anger. “I told you to leave it, the guy attacked you!”
“Lightly shoved me from shock!”
“Have you seen what he did to your head?”
“Yeah, a small cut, doesn't even need stitches- that's what you said!”
“It's a wound! There was blood!” he yelled. “You are not to go anywhere near him from now on, do you understand?”
There was a new anger in Robby then, something you saw rarely in him. Dana had said he was worried about you but you saw none of that concern in him now, only anger. Anger because you hadn't listened to him not because of well fair.
“I'm a doctor, I'm supposed to be helping people,” you defended, your own anger not rising to his.
His hands balled into fists. “Help someone who's asking for it. I see you in with that guy again and you're on triage for a week, you understand?”
Where was that softness in his eyes? Where was that care he tended to you in the room all alone?
“You understand?” he snapped again when you didn't answer.
You knew if you turned there'd be several pairs of eyes on the pair of you. Watching, assessing, see how you reacted. Nobody had ever heard Robby speak to you like that because he'd never shouted at you before. “I understand, Doctor Robinavitch.”
“So you yelled at her.”
Robby thought he'd find solace on the roof, that with only him and the night sky he stood a chance at thinking things through logically, for once on the right side of the rail.
Then Jack's voice sounded behind him and the peace he was searching for fell further out of reach.
“Who told you?” he asked, head falling.
“Oh, you know,” he mumbled, shoes shuffling over the roof as he got closer to him. “Just everybody that was in attendance to your little show.”
Jack leant next to him on the rail, staring at him.
Robby could feel his eyes but looked out on the skyline that was more favourable to him. Jacks eyes felt like everybody else that watched him yell at you. He could call it worry- it didn't change the way your face dropped the louder his voice rose.
“You wanna talk about it?” asked Jack.
“No.”
“I heard she got attacked.”
“Or lightly pushed as she'd put it.”
“She's a soldier.”
Robby shook his head. “No, she's a doctor. Today she could have been neither if that man-” the words chocked in his throat. What if he had hurt you even more? Punched you? Strangled you? He'd seen it all in the ER and yes, you'd been hurt before but that didn't mean he needed to have you hurt again.
“I saw her when I was coming up, she seemed fine,” said Jack. “About to clock off, you sure you want to end the day on such a bad note.”
“She doesn't want to talk to me.”
“Come on, she always wants to talk to you,” said Jack. “And I only know that cause you always want to talk to her.”
Robby wished he could say that telling Jack about the kiss so many months ago was a mistake but he couldn't because that would mean kissing you was a mistake. The only mistake made with that kiss is that he hadn't pulled you back in, kissed you every day since. But he'd told Jack on one of those lonely nights when they'd each had one too many beers how much he missed you even if he saw you every day.
“I was so fucking scared, brother,” he admitted with a long exhale of breath. Robby slumped over the rail, catching himself. “Code hula-hoop was called and her name and I- I didn't know...”
Jack's hand was firm on his back. “I know.”
Robby nodded, head tucked down. He wouldn't cry, he wasn't sure how these days but he sure as hell felt like it. It had been a hell of day, worse when he couldn't join your side without you walking off.
“You were worried, you don't know what to do with that,” said Jack.
He could admit that much.
“You go home now, she goes home, you're carrying this weight to the next day and it'll continue,” he said, therapizing him. “You were scared you might have lost her?”
Robby glanced Jack's way. There was never any judgment, only a keen understanding he sometimes didn't like.
“You might lose her if you don't do something about it.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
Jack shrugged. “Apologise.”
Robby hesitated, the words 'I'm sorry' foreign on his tongue.
Jack chuckled low in his throat. “Is that really so hard for you?”
He nodded and Jack carried on laughing. By the end, even Robby was chuckling through watery eyes.
“Okay, okay, let's try,” said Jack, straightening up, encouraging him to do the same. “Repeat after me, I'm sorry.”
“Jesus-”
“Jesus, you can't even say it-listen we'll go slow, I'm-”
Robby's phone rung in his pocket, thankfully saving him from the embarrassment. “Dana-” he answered as he spotted Jack's phone going too.
“Get down here, now!”
“What's going on?” he asked, though his feet were already moving.
He didn't see the way Jack looked at him, he hardly heard how Dana said your name because when she did Robby dropped his phone and ran.
“Robby!” Jack called but he was off the roof and furiously pressing the elevator button. He managed to slide past the doors before they closed on him. “What did Dana say?”
But Robby couldn't speak. He heard Dana's voice re-play in his head again and again. That you had been attacked, that they needed him. He couldn't think beyond that. Beyond you and attacked there was nothing.
Jack was watching him closely. “Okay-” he must've known it was bad too. “Okay, Robby, we don't know what's going on down there but you gotta stay cool, okay? You gotta stay cool or leave us to it.”
He should've kept a closer eye on you, should've sent you home.
“Robby if you get in our way I'm taking you out of there, understand?”
The doors slid open and Robby ran out, Jack quick on his heels.
“Where?” he barked out. There were no faces around him he could figure out, no Dana, no Langdon- so everyone must have been in with you-
“Trauma one!”
Robby burst through the doors.
The chaos was everywhere and he paused. There were more bodies in the trauma room then he'd ever seen. In between them all a body that he could vaguely re-call as yours. Your trainers- usually white- were seeping in blood.
“Can you open your eyes?”
“No respond to command!”
“Two stab wounds to the left flank! First one L-two, second L-five.”
“Is it the spinal chord?” asked Whitaker.
“Can't tell it depends on the angle!” said Langdon. “Jesus- there's too much blood, I can't see a thing!”
You lied on the bed, blood splattered around your clothes, un-responsive to everyone around you. You were letting them prod, push and pull when you'd hardly let him asses your cut just hours ago.
Hours when you were teasing him and he was thinking about kissing you again.
What had happened.
If it was a papercut you'd be feigning death.
This was the closest you'd ever looked to dying and Robby couldn't feel his legs.
"Doctor Robby?" someone called in the room but it wasn't you. You weren't responding to anyone. “Doctor Robby!”
Jack moved past him, body knocking his. “I'm here!”
“BP seventy over fifty, pulse one-twenty.”
Jack moved around you, pressing the chest piece of the stethoscope to your chest. “Push in two litres of O-neg. Good breath sounds bilaterally.”
Robby's ears were ringing but he could feel himself shake his head. “She's not-she's not O-neg, she's B-positive,” he heard himself mumble.
There was a sharp beeping through the room and Robby thought it was a strange sound for his heart breaking.
“Pulse ox ninety-three!”
“Do we intubate?” asked Mohan.
Your body jerked and as if you were the puppet master tugging on his strings, Robby found his feet and moved to your side.
He moved around until he was the closest to you, replacing anyone else at your side. Others watched, un-sure if they should've told him to wait outside like he was family.
Jack gave them the nod and the room moved again.
“Give me ten by mask, no intubation. Send a trauma panel!” ordered Robby.
“We need X-ray for a chest!” yelled Jack.
“X-ray can come to us! I am not moving her!” he shouted. “Help me roll, let me see!”
The blood on the front of your scrubs was splashed but as they turned you, leaning you on your side Robby's body slumped, something like a chocked sob wracking through his body.
He couldn't see the puncture wounds through the blood that soaked you. Just as Langdon had said it was a mess. “Jesus chr- oh god.”
“Pressure's up to ninety palp!”
“Who did this?” he yelled out as they gently set you back.
“The guy who came in un-conscious earlier!”
Jack looked over at Robby.
Robby felt the muscles in his jaws work and he grunted. “I'll kill him,” he grumbled.
“Robby!” lectured Jack.
But he wasn't going to take back his words. “He's fucking dead.”
“He fled the hospital,” Langdon told him. “Left his knife in the room though, they'll find him.”
It couldn't have been a scalpel, it couldn't have been scissors. The guy came in, found a knife- or brought one from home- to harm you. If Robby ever saw him again he'd kill the guy and deal with the consequences that came.
“Toes are down going, no spinal injury,” said someone else in the room but he was losing all focus that wasn't you.
Garcia walked through the doors, joining the crowd of people around you.
“Tell me you've got an OR booked!” said Jack.
“With her name on it! How we doing in here?”
Santos pushed her way ahead, a small and un-characteristic tremble to her hands. There was another unit of blood pushed into your bloodstream and Robby was seconds away from hooking himself up and giving you his very blood. “Pressure's up!” she reported, lingering over you with a light. “Right pupil five millimetres and reactive -”
Suddenly your body jerked at the light. Your head thrashed side to side as you slowly returned to consciousness.
“Huh... I-wha-”
“Hey! Hey!” Robby pushed his way to you, looming over you and catching your eyes.
They were wild, looking around before settling on him.
“Robby?” you uttered, lips dry, dried blood at your neck. Your eyes were looking around like you couldn't quite see.
“Yeah- yeah it's me.” His hand flew to your hair, brushing it back as your eyes were going from him to around you, panic rising in your eyes. “Look at me, focus on me.”
“What-what?”
“You were stabbed,” he uttered.
Your eyes widened and he brushed back your hair again, doctors moving around the two of you. They could've been right on his back or a thousand miles away. All he focused on was you. Your hands waved around, getting in the way of tubes and the doctors.
Robby grabbed your hand, squeezing.
You focused on him and he tried to smile, tried to make himself convinced everything would be alright. He knew it was a grimace.
He'd never hated his medical training more. Because he knew this amount of blood loss was bad, he knew stabbing so close to the spinal chords was dangerous. He knew you were strong and hated staying still for too long and now you'd be forced to recover.
“My pressure?”
“It's up.” He watched as your eyes teared up, looking away from him again. “Good, that's good.”
Your hair sprawled out as you shook your head. “Am I gonna.... will I walk again?”
Robby hesitated. “Yeah- yeah we think it missed your spinal chord.”
Robby knew that but he couldn't help the tears that fell, couldn't help the small sob that ripped through his throat. You'd been calm at the cut with your head, damn right comedic. Now- you were quiet, whimpering and crying in pain and there wasn't anything he could do.
He was a doctor, he could help and check vitals and squeeze the bag of blood slow.
But he couldn't move from your side.
You nod before your back arched in pain and you yelled out.
“BP eighty palp!”
Robby got up, ignoring the ache in his knees as he loomed over you, trying to calm the pain. “Do something!”
“Robby!”
He looked.
You'd drained the blood dry.
“What?” you uttered, voice trembled in terror.
“Okay she needs to go up, now!” Jack called out.
“Let's get her moving!” yelled Garcia.
You groaned in pain. “What's going on?”
Robby didn't know what to do. It wasn't a conversation of telling a patient what was going on or what wasn't. It was telling you. He stuttered lamely, lost as another tear slid down his cheek. You hadn't even cried yet and he was close to blubbering.
His head bowed to you. He was mumbling, he thinks he was praying.
“Robby-” your hand waved out in front of him and he grabbed it, squeezing. “It hurts.”
“Okay, okay, we're gonna-” what was he gonna do? He pressed your hand to his lips, holding it there.
“Hey, honey,” Jack appeared at your other side and your eyes moved to see him but Robby didn't let go. “Hell of a way to get into the night shift.”
“Jack-” you winced.
Jack looked from you to Robby, the same way he looked at the family of unfortunate patients. “We're taking her up to the OR now.”
Your fingers wiggled in Robby's grasp and he looked back to you. “It's bad huh?”
“No, no,” said Robby smoothing back your hair again.
“Your losing a lot of blood, and your foley output is bright red,” said Jack. “But we're gonna sort it and you'll be fine. You trust me?”
Your breathing was shallow, hard breaths hardly coming out. Still, you tried to smile. “Do I- do I have a choice?” your voice came out through seethes of breath.
Robby closed his eyes tight, as if he could feel the own stabbing in his heart.
“Robb-Robby?”
He glanced at you, your eyes fluttering shut. The little hold you had on his hand weakening. He fumbled up, hands holding your cheeks. “Woah-woah- open your eyes! Look at me- look at me!”
You mumbled, head lulling.
“Going up!”
“Look at me, open your eyes!” he all but shouted at you as your eyes were still rolling to the back of his head, wavering between waking and whatever else was on the other side.
“Robby!”
Robby held onto the side of your bed as the team around you wheeled you away and through. There was a stutter of shock waving through the crowd, fear chocking them, shock eating at them. There was police around, all trying to get a look.
“Talk to her, Robinavitch!” said Garcia.
He didn't talk to patients, he evaluated them, stitched them up when he could.
Robby looked up at Jack, hoping for help. He looked grave, watching Robby un-sure but people came back from worse. You'd come back. “Hey, hey look at me,” he uttered and squeezed your hand. When that didn't work he pulled at your eyelids and finally you responded with a grumble.
The elevator doors slid open and you were hauled in, Robby squeezed in too.
“Wh-what?”
He got a flash of your eyes before they closed again.
Your lips were dry and chapped but Robby kissed you anyway, pressing his lips to yours soft, not pushing afraid he'd hurt you but he wanted you to know he was there.
He smiled. He'd never seen you first thing in the morning, he imagined this is what it was. Groggy eyes, words hardly there but with less pain and blood. Robby pulled back and ignored the blood drying in splatters on your neck. “Are you with me, honey?”
You blinked and groaned in pain. “I don't-I don't know.”
“You're with me, yeah you are, you're with me,” Robby mumbled. “You look very pretty, even covered in blood, you know that?” he mumbled, trying to say it so only you could hear.
There was a huff of a smile followed by pain.
“You can't flirt with me while I'm dying, Robinavitch.”
Your eyes fluttered shut.
Robby grabbed your face, smooching your cheek maybe a bit too harsh. “You're not going anywhere.”
“You've pushed four bags,” you whispered. “You're gonna push a five.”
There was a huff of laugh from Jack.
Robby sniffed. You were too good at your job sometimes, ignoring the ache in his back as he leant over you. “You shouldn't be counting.”
“What can I say I'm over-qualified,” your eyes shut again but your lips moved in mumbles.
“What is it? What are you saying?” he asked, a crack in his voice. “What? Tell me.... tell me.”
But you weren't really there anymore. You were incoherent, eyes not really there. None of you was really there. “Robby.... Rob.... please, Robby.”
“What? I'm here, I'm right here, okay? Okay, honey?” Robby felt his chest cave in. “What's taking this elevator so long?” he snapped.
“It's bad, I know,” you said, fingers drifting soft over his arm before it dropped. “I can't- I can't-”
The doors slid open, a team waited on the other side.
Garcia pushed you ahead into the team, spouting who she wanted to scrub in, telling them all who she wanted out front watching. Your condition was a perfect teaching sort.
You weren't for teaching. You were for saving!
Robby wanted to tell as much as the team wheeled you away and Jack's arm came out to stop him.
“You can't go in there man,” he said.
“Like hell I can't!”
“No, you can't!” said Jack.
Any other time Robby would have argued more but he had nothing to say. He needed to be there, he wanted to be there but as soon as they cut you open he'd break. As soon as he saw inside your body he'd tie himself to you.
He'd seen over a hundred bodies cut open in his time but yours might break him.
Robby nodded, hands going to the back of his head.
Someone in the room cried and it took him a moment to realise it was him.
“Hey-hey-” Jack embraced him and Robby couldn't reach to hug him back but he could let himself down. “I will go in, I will be there, you know I will do everything to save her. We will save her.”
To save your life, Robby let him go and stood alone. He looked down at his hand as if he could feel the ghost hold of you still there. When he looked down, all he saw was the hair on the back and the tremble of his fingers.
Robby- for the first time since he was a boy- learnt how to cry.
He tried- boy did he try- to get back into the swing of things. Robby walked into the Pitt with red, blotchy eyes and a waver in his voice. He looked at the board, picked up a sixty year old patient with migraines.
“Hello I'm Doctor Robinavitch, everyone calls me Robby. What seems to be the problem today?”
That was as far as he got before Dana walked in.
“No, no, no, no!” she said, putting the chart down and dragging him out. “I am so sorry Mrs Klepton, we'll get Doctor Shen with you in just a moment. Come with me.”
He was dragged out like a scolded child and shoved into the lounge.
“What do you think you're doing?” she'd snapped.
Robby had put himself in the corner, crowding himself in, arms over his head. What was he doing? Trying to be useful. You'd be up in the OR lord knew how long. If he sat and waited he'd go mad.
Dana leant on the counter. “What'd you think you're doing here, Robinavitch? Get outta here, go home! Better yet go wait for her.”
“I-I can't.”
“Robby.”
He could feel the tears start again. Didn't the human run out of tears eventually? They didn't teach that in med school. “I- I can't. I'm useful in-in here, I'm not- I'm not-”
“Right now there's only one person you can be useful to, so go to her.”
That's how he ended up in the OR waiting room, alone, not flicking through the magazines provided, not even watching the fish in the tank. He was just sitting.
Waiting.
At some point he'd taken the clock down to not watch the hands turn but eventually the sun rose and he was terrified like no other day.
It was going on 05:00 am when the door slowly pushed open. It wasn't with a rattle of relief or with a cheer, it was a slow push.
Robby thought his heart was broken before.
He was hunched over himself, elbows balanced on his knees as he hid his face in his hands and slowly rocked himself. “No... no... no...”
“Robby,” Jack said quietly. His steps were slow but he felt his hand on his back.
Robby flinched, shrinking into himself.
Where was the knife so he could stab himself?
“Robby- she's okay.”
There was a crack in his neck from how quick he looked up. It wasn't enough to convince him, his clinical trained mind wondering all the what would comes? Had it got into your spine? How much blood had you lost.
But Jack listed it off like he knew what Robby needed to hear first. It hadn't hit an aorta, it got an artery hence the bleeding but they'd stabilised it with more blood than they would have liked. But you were alive, though sleeping and they had no worries for you at the moment.
Robby nodded when Jack finished. He must have come right from the OR to tell him because he was still in scrubs and covered in blood. Your blood. “Can I see her?”
You didn't look peaceful. Robby had never thought how uncomfortable the hospital gowns must have been until he saw you lying in one. There was oxygen tube in your nose and an IV in your hand. There was some bruising he hadn't noticed before on your arms from the fall you took.
“What do I do now?” Robby mumbled. He was good at the saving lives part, he just wasn't sure what to do when they hung in limbo.
Jack patted his back, leading the way in the room. “For a doctor you're pretty clueless. You sit with her.”
Robby followed in, un-sure what to do with himself so he held onto either end of his stethoscope.
There was a chair already pulled up to your side as Jack busied himself on the other, checking your IV and BP- all looked good.
Robby had caught you napping at your desk once, fallen asleep while charting. He'd admired you for a moment before slowly waking you with a pen poked in your head. You'd looked so peaceful then- nothing like it now.
“Is she cold?”
“No- I don't think so.”
Robby slowly sank down in the chair and picked up your hand again. It stopped the trembling in his at once.
“I gotta get off, I'll cover the day, do something about the nights. Stay with her, call me if there's any changes,” said Jack.
“Thank you, brother,” said Robby.
There was a dull drumming in your head. Your back was aching and even moving your eyes hurt. Beyond all of that there was something else, something heavier.
Your eyes opened slowly and you found the lights ahead. They burned brighter than the sun, like every morning when you walked into PCMT. You tried to hide, to shield yourself with your hand but you couldn't move it.
Panic coursed through you. Why couldn't you move it? Why could you hardly feel your hand? Dear god-
“Hey,” a gentle voice greeted and you searched for them.
Jack stood over you, leaning at you bed.
Your mouth was parched as you tried to speak.
“You're okay,” said Jack in a whisper. “You remember what happened?”
Step by step you thought back. You were leaving, only checking on David once more before sharp pain hit you in the back and you were shoved. When you came too again faces blurred together and pain blinded you to them all.
There was Robby. Somewhere in all of that.
“I was... stabbed?”
Jack nodded, a small trembled in his chin. “Yeah you were. But you're gonna be okay, there was no injury to your spine.”
“I'll walk?”
“Twelve hours time we'll get you up.”
When you focused you could feel the ache in your arm as if someone was pulling it. There was something heavy at the end like someone was holding it, tight.
Robby was at your other side, lying on your arm and holding you down. His body was curved over, head turned away as his back moved in soft breaths.
“Thought I'd let him sleep. He's been up watching you since you came out the OR,” said Jack.
Robby. He'd stayed.
Had you asked him to? You'd wanted him to. Maybe he understood that.
“Thank you, Jack.”
Jack shook his head. There was no need to thank him, you knew that, but you were thanking him for the life you'd put in his hands and that he'd let Robby be at your side. “You want some time?”
You nodded stiff, feeling the ache in your back more and more. You knew you had months ahead of you of pain but you didn't want to dull it with drugs just yet.
Jack petted down your hair once before taking his hoodie off the back of the chair and leaving, closing the door gently.
In the silence you watched Robby a moment longer, matching your new breaths with his. The weight of him on your hand made you tingle as you slowly worked your fingertips back to life.
You tried to move your hand out from his weight but he stirred.
Groggily he turned and looked around the room, waking up more confused then you were.
“Robby?”
His eyes widened.
Robby moved up at once, looming over your bed as you tried to push yourself up. “Hey, hey, take it easy,” he fretted, eyes raking over your body like he was checking all of you were there. “Are you okay? Are you in pain?”
“Robby-” you tried to protest.
“BP is hundred over eighty.”
You tried to entertain him, just as you had with the cut on your head. If you let him go through the motions just might just end up holding his hand again. So you let him try your nerves, let him ask if you were in pain. You let him ask you to wiggle your fingers and toes. You let him lift one leg and the other as high as he could before you winced in pain.
“Can you stop being my doctor for a second and sit back down?”
Robby seemed startled but hid it quickly. He realised Jack was out the room. “He should've woke me, checked you over.”
“You were resting, he said you'd stayed.”
He looked at you, astonished you'd think he'd go anywhere else.
You watched him sink into his chair, clasping his hands together and wedging them between his knees. Your fingers ached to hold him but your body was weak even talking. “You look tired.”
He chuckled low and smiled. His face was pale, eyes red, hair a mess. His entire body was slumped. “I look tired?”
“A nice tired, a handsome tired.”
You focused on your hand, lifting it enough. You watched as Robby looked down and took it without hesitation, he held it tight, grasping it between his big hands and bringing it to his lips.
You felt him kiss your palm.
“I was stabbed?”
Robby nodded, slowly. “Two puncture wounds, missed the spinal chords, nicked an aorta, bled out. That was our biggest worry but-”
“But I'm okay now?”
Slowly, he nodded.
You groaned, shifting your head aside. You'd have rolled over to show your protest but you had a feeling you'd be putting as little pressure on your back for a while. “Is Mr Brown?”
“The police are looking for him,” said Robby, without letting you even work out just what it is you were trying to ask about.
You nodded slowly, looking down to where your hand disappeared in his. “I'll report him this time, I promise.”
Robby stared at you, eyes wide with something you couldn't name. “I just want you to focus on getting better. On coming back... coming back to me.”
You didn't think, even coming out of an op and the haze of pain, that you could ever be where he wasn't. You think, no matter how terrible it seemed, that it was meant to happen this way. The stabbing and scarring that would no doubt end up on your back might have been the best thing to ever happen to you.
“Robby,” you whispered.
He must have heard something in your voice as he slowly stood and hunched over you, a hand lying on the top of your head.
His eyes were watering with tears.
You could remember faint images of this happening before, as you were slowly lulled to sleep by drugs. His hand combing back your hair felt like it had always been doing it. Like you'd always woken to him.
“Did you kiss me?” You didn't know where the memory came from, or even if it was a memory. It could've been a dream.
To his credit Robby didn't startle or flinch. He slowly nodded, leaving room for objection. He leaned over close to you, another hand cradling your cheek. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
Robby inhaled sharply. “I wanted to. I wanted to kiss you months before I did. I wanted to kiss you last week and two minutes ago when you woke. I wanted to kiss you covered in blood and... I want to kiss you now.”
You smiled and it brought you no pain. “If my back wasn't in pain I'd be kissing you right now,” you chuckled and then the pain came.
Robby leant down to you, his eyes searching yours. Close enough you could see what was in his eyes, what he'd been hiding. Warmth. Admiration.
His large nose brushed yours as he kissed you slow with no rush of need. His hand was soft as he angled you so he could explore every line and curve if your lip.
Your own hand slowly wound up, around his head, stroking the back of his hair and resting there. He didn't mind the oxygen tube or that she couldn't reach up to meet him. In fact he kissed her like he'd planned it like this a hundred times.
When there was an alarming beep from the machines Robby pulled away quick, studdying them.
“It's just my heartrate,” you said. “Might have been beating a little faster there.”
He agreed but seemed solemn to do so.
You watched the crease between his brows appear again. “You know, if I knew I just needed to be stabbed to have you kiss me again I'd have-”
“Don't even think about finishing that sentence.”
For the sake of his nerves, you didn't.
“You know if I'd have known that it was just gonna take me getting stabbed for you to sell that motorbike, I'd have got stabbed a lot sooner,” you said teasingly as Robby pulled into his new designated parking space outside the ED.
It had been a month since the incident but you were still reaping the small benefits that came with it. Like Robby insisting you stay with him to get the best care, like him getting rid of his motorbike to get a better car that was more comfortable on your back.
Like having so much time with him.
Mornings where he dedicated time in messaging the sore spots of your back and spreading an oil that was going to help the scaring. Like the dinner times when you read him a recipe that he never followed to the t. Like the kisses you stole in the night when he'd watch you and kiss you without straining to go forward.
Robby parked the car and turned off the engine. “If I had a dollar every time you said that,” he grumbled, picking up his bag and exiting.
You were still moving slower, still kept a crutch with you to keep weight off your back. You were coming back to work with a much lighter work load and you were sure Robby would be glued to your side all day like he practically had the month you'd took to recover.
Even before you could open the door Robby was there doing it for you, your own bag in his hand.
“You think anyone's gonna want to see the cool scars I've got, they kind of look like stars,” you said as Robby stayed close by your side, walking in with you.
“You sent them all pictures,” he said, mildly irritated. You and everyone around you seemed to try to crack jokes about the thing. He felt sometimes he was the only one who saw the near death wound for what it was.
“Excuse me- most of them asked for pictures.”
“Completely inappropriate.”
A few ambulance workers saw you, greeting you with smiles you returned while Robby waited next to you, holding up a polite hand in greeting.
It dropped, grazed yours and picked it up, holding on as the two of you walked in.
Usually Robby liked to walk in through triage, get a feel of what was happening but he wasn't risking that many foreign bodies next to you even though they caught David Brown and he was being charged.
Robby had something to live for, had something to protect. Nothing was happening to it. To you.
“It's good to have you back,” said Lupe as the two of you passed her at the door.
“Do you think that was a pun?” you uttered to him, rewarded with the smallest tint of his lips as he pushed open the door.
Loud clapping greeted you with some cheap, paper, party poppers when you walked in. Thee was cheering to and a large banner was hooked up, saying 'welcome home!'.
A place that could have held such terrible memories was brightened up as you jumped from one smiling face, to another.
Next to you, Robby stepped back, blending into the admiring crowd and started to clap too with something more than fondness in his smile. Love. A word that had woven its way into your vocab since moving in with him to get help for your wounds.
A word that summed up so much of what you had.
“You did this for me?” you asked.
“It was all Robby's idea,” said Jack, leading the cheering.
You didn't have to even move. Like he knew what you wanted Robby stepped over to you and kissed you. He always kept his lips irritatingly light, encouraging you to stretch out muscles in your back to join meet him.
You grinned against his lips. “I should be stabbed more often.”
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