You need a fake boyfriend for a family wedding.
Chibs volunteers as a joke.
Unfortunately:
your family loves him,
he starts acting a little too convincing,
the club places bets on when you’ll realize you’re actually dating
The first mistake you made was answering the phone.
“Please tell me somebody died.”
Your older sister snorted on the other end. “Wow. Love you too.”
You groaned and dropped your forehead against the kitchen cabinet. “Megan, it is eight in the morning.”
“It’s eleven.”
“Exactly.”
A pause.
Then, carefully:
“You remember Connor’s wedding is next weekend, right?”
Immediately suspicious, you narrowed your eyes at the cabinet like it had personally offended you.
“…Yes.”
“And you remember Mum asking if you were bringing anyone?”
There it was.
There was always something.
You straightened slowly. “No.”
“She did.”
“She implied it,” you argued. “There’s a difference.”
“She specifically asked if you were still ‘seeing that nice accountant.’”
You gagged. “I went on two dates with Daniel.”
“Mum crocheted him a scarf.”
“Oh my God.”
“And now she thinks you’re heartbroken because you stopped bringing men around.”
“I stopped bringing men around because the last one cried when a barista got my coffee order wrong.”
“He was sensitive.”
“He was unstable.”
Your sister laughed outright.
You pinched the bridge of your nose and stared across your tiny apartment kitchen toward the pile of unfolded laundry waiting on the couch.
You loved your family.
Mostly.
In very carefully managed doses.
Unfortunately weddings turned all of them insane.
Your mother got emotional. Your aunt became invasive. Your cousins treated every gathering like a competitive sport where the objective was marriage, babies, and property ownership before thirty-five.
And you—
You were single.
Again.
Painfully.
Spectacularly.
“I can’t go alone,” you muttered.
“You absolutely can.”
“You know how they are.”
“Oh, I know exactly how they are,” Megan said sympathetically. “Aunt Colleen still introduces me as ‘the successful one.’”
You sighed heavily.
“You need a date.”
“I need witness protection.”
“Same thing.”
You rubbed at your eyes.
The truth was, you hadn’t realized how much the breakup with Aaron had messed with your confidence until the wedding invitations started arriving.
Three years together.
Three years of almost-engagement conversations and shared grocery bills and lazy Sundays and future plans.
Then one random Tuesday:
I think we want different things.
Translation:
He’d been sleeping with a coworker named Vanessa who did yoga recreationally and used words like journey unironically.
You’d survived.
Barely.
But now the idea of showing up alone to a family wedding felt like volunteering to be slowly eaten alive by judgmental Irish Catholics.
“Just bring someone casual,” Megan suggested. “Nobody has to know.”
You barked out a humorless laugh.
“Yeah? I’ll just pull a stable, emotionally available man out of thin air.”
Three days later, you made your second mistake.
You said all of this out loud at the clubhouse.
The SAMCRO clubhouse was loud tonight.
Music thumped through old speakers. Bottles clinked. Half the room smelled like beer, engine grease, cigarettes, and leather.
Comforting, somehow.
You’d been around the club long enough that the chaos didn’t bother you anymore.
Juice was sprawled upside down in an armchair playing some game on his phone.
Tig was arguing with Happy about whether raccoons could hold grudges.
Gemma smoked at the bar like she owned oxygen itself.
And you—
You were sitting beside Chibs complaining about your family while he nursed a whiskey.
“Sounds terrifying, lass.”
“It is terrifying.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
You turned to glare at him.
“I once watched my Aunt Colleen ask a cousin if her husband’s depression was because she stopped trying after childbirth.”
Chibs blinked.
“…Christ.”
“Exactly.”
“Still,” he said carefully, “can’t be that bad.”
You stared at him in betrayal.
“Whose side are you on?”
He grinned around the rim of his glass.
That grin should’ve been illegal.
You’d known Chibs for almost two years now, thanks to working at the automotive office across from Teller-Morrow and accidentally befriending Juice after he wandered in with a concussion and tried to pay an invoice with poker chips.
Now you floated around the edges of club life enough to be considered safe.
Protected.
Family-adjacent.
And somewhere along the way, Chibs Telford became your favorite person to sit beside.
Which was unfortunate.
Because he was charming in the kind of effortless way that ruined women permanently.
The accent didn’t help.
Neither did the smile.
Or the rough laugh.
Or the way he always looked at you like you were the only person in the room worth listening to.
“Maybe I should hire someone,” you muttered darkly.
Across the room, Juice looked up immediately.
“Oh my God.”
“No,” you warned.
“You need a fake boyfriend.”
“I absolutely do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
Tig pointed at you excitedly like a child witnessing violence.
“You need somebody convincing,” he continued. “Somebody protective. Somebody who can survive interrogation by old Catholic women.”
Everyone’s eyes slowly shifted.
Toward Chibs.
Chibs nearly choked on his drink.
“The hell ye lookin’ at me for?”
“Oh, come on,” Tig said. “You’d crush this.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re literally perfect for it,” Juice argued. “Older. Accent. Charming. Women over forty love you.”
Chibs looked offended.
“I’m not becoming some wedding prostitute.”
You laughed despite yourself.
“It’s okay. I’d never ask.”
“Thank Christ.”
“You’d definitely scare my mother less than Happy though.”
Happy nodded once.
“Fair.”
Gemma exhaled smoke.
“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “Chibs is the best option.”
Chibs pointed at her in outrage. “Why are ye all encouraging this?”
“Because it’s funny,” Tig answered honestly.
You waved a dismissive hand.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. No sane person would volunteer for this.”
Chibs opened his mouth.
Looked at your face.
Paused.
Then smirked.
“Ah, what the hell,” he said casually. “I’ll do it.”
The room exploded.
You stared.
“What?”
“As a favor,” he said innocently.
“You’re joking.”
“Mostly.”
“Chibs—”
“C’mon, lass. One weekend. I’ll wear a nice shirt. Charm your terrifying relatives. Pretend I know what salad forks are.”
The club was losing their minds.
Juice was fully crying laughing.
Tig was yelling, “KISS HER, YOU COWARD,” for no reason whatsoever.
You looked back at Chibs.
Still smiling.
Still relaxed.
Still looking at you with that warm amusement that always made your stomach weird.
And against all better judgment—
“…You’d really do it?”
His expression softened immediately.
“Aye.”
Your heart stumbled.
Just slightly.
“Why?”
“Because you asked.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Close enough.”
Gemma muttered into her cigarette, “Oh, they’re doomed.”
The third mistake you made was letting Chibs pick you up for the wedding.
Because when he knocked on your apartment door the following Friday, your brain stopped functioning.
You opened the door—
And forgot every language you’d ever learned.
Jesus Christ.
He was wearing dark jeans, boots, and a charcoal button-up with the sleeves rolled to his forearms.
His kutte was gone.
His hair was combed back neatly.
And he’d shaved close enough to show the scar tracing his face more clearly.
He looked devastating.
Worse—
He was holding flowers.
Your mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
“…Why do you have flowers?”
He glanced down.
“Thought boyfriends usually bring flowers.”
“This is fake.”
“Aye.”
“Right.”
“But your mother doesn’t know that.”
You stared at him.
He stared back calmly.
Then his eyes flicked downward.
Slowly.
Taking you in.
And suddenly you were acutely aware of the dress you’d spent an hour choosing.
The soft fabric.
The exposed shoulders.
The nervous effort you’d put into looking nice.
Something warm flashed across his face.
“Ye look beautiful, lass.”
Your pulse skipped so hard it physically hurt.
“Oh.”
Very smooth.
Real articulate.
Chibs smiled slightly.
“You ready?”
No.
Absolutely not.
But you nodded anyway.
The drive to the venue should’ve been awkward.
Instead it was… easy.
That was the problem with Chibs.
Everything with him became easy.
Conversation flowed naturally. Silence never felt uncomfortable. He rested one tattooed arm across the steering wheel while talking about road trips and old Glasgow stories and mocking Juice’s inability to cook anything without causing property damage.
You laughed so hard at one point your mascara nearly smeared.
Then you looked at him.
Really looked at him.
At the profile you’d accidentally memorized months ago.
Strong nose.
Blue eyes.
Scarred skin.
Silver threaded through dark hair.
And suddenly you remembered:
Oh no.
I have a crush on my fake boyfriend.
Fantastic.
The venue was a renovated winery two towns over.
Beautiful.
Packed with people.
The second you walked inside, panic returned full force.
You slowed instinctively.
Chibs noticed immediately.
Without a word, he reached for your hand.
Your breath caught.
Large warm fingers laced through yours naturally.
Comfortingly.
Like he’d done it a thousand times before.
“You alright?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Yer lyin’.”
You exhaled shakily.
“I hate this already.”
“Aye, well,” he murmured, squeezing your hand gently, “good thing ye brought backup.”
That stupid fluttering feeling in your chest got worse.
Much worse.
Then your mother spotted you.
“Oh thank God,” you whispered.
“What?”
“She’s power-walking.”
“Jesus.”
Your mother reached you in seconds.
Then stopped dead.
Her eyes landed on Chibs.
You physically watched her reboot.
“Oh,” she said faintly.
Chibs smiled warmly and held out a hand.
“Mrs. —, lovely to finally meet ye. I’m Filip.”
Your mother melted instantly.
Actually melted.
“Oh my goodness,” she breathed. “What a lovely accent.”
You closed your eyes.
Traitor.
“Call me Elaine.”
“A pleasure, Elaine.”
Your mother looked between you both with dangerous delight.
“Well,” she said slowly, “isn’t this interesting.”
You were going to die here.
Within thirty minutes, your entire family adored him.
It was horrifying.
Your cousins loved his stories.
Your uncles loved that he rode motorcycles.
Your grandmother kissed both his cheeks and declared him “a proper man.”
Even Aunt Colleen liked him.
Which honestly should’ve been medically studied.
And Chibs—
Chibs was handling it all like he’d been born for this.
He remembered names.
Helped elderly relatives with chairs.
Danced with your grandmother.
Complimented your mother’s earrings.
Listened attentively to your father’s long stories about fishing trips despite clearly not caring about fish whatsoever.
Everywhere you turned—
There he was.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Touching your lower back gently when he passed behind you.
Looking at you with soft familiarity.
Too convincing.
Way too convincing.
By dinner, people had started asking questions.
“How long have you two been together?”
You nearly inhaled wine.
Chibs answered smoothly before you could panic.
“About six months.”
Your cousin sighed dreamily.
“You’re disgustingly attractive together.”
“Thank you,” Chibs said politely.
You kicked him under the table.
He didn’t even flinch.
Underneath the tablecloth, his hand settled casually on your knee.
You froze.
He continued talking to your aunt normally.
Your brain short-circuited entirely.
Because the thing was—
Chibs was a physically affectionate person.
You knew that.
He hugged people easily. Slung arms around shoulders. Touched casually during conversations.
But this felt different somehow.
Intentional.
Careful.
Like he was hyperaware of you.
And every time he looked at you tonight—
Really looked—
Something hot twisted low in your stomach.
You were in trouble.
Serious trouble.
Back in Charming, the club had become invested to an alarming degree.
“Ten bucks says they hook up before Sunday,” Tig announced.
You're on a terrible, god-awful date, in a pathetic attempt to get over Happy.
Desperately, you Juice a message to save you. It's dramatic and a little pathetic.
Unfortunately for you, texting under a table never goes well, so you accidentally message Happy. A fact you do NOT realise until he's walking into the restaurant like the grim reaper.
fun fact: this is based on a real date i went on. i did not have a happy unfortunately. but i did have my own version of juice, who did in fact call me and loudly declare that my dog had exploded. thank you for that dempsey. i owe you my life.
The date is already going badly before you even send the message.
Not bad in the way people politely describe a mediocre evening to their friends later, with a shrug and a we just didn't click. No, this is the kind of bad date that should be studied by scientists, documented by historians, and perhaps sealed away in a government archive so future generations can learn from your mistakes.
The guy across from you has spent the last forty-five minutes talking exclusively about himself.
His job.
His ex-girlfriend.
His cryptocurrency investments.
His gym routine.
His theory that women secretly find confidence intimidating.
You have spoken approximately twelve words.
Five of them were "Could you pass the salt?"
The remaining were variations of "Wow," and "That's crazy."
At one point he actually checked his reflection in the back of a spoon while talking about emotional maturity.
You wish that was a joke.
The restaurant itself is nice enough. Too nice, actually. Soft lighting. Expensive wine. Tiny portions of food arranged like modern art.
Which means you can't even fake a medical emergency and sprint out without causing a scene.
So instead, you sit there.
Nodding.
Smiling.
Dying.
Across town, somewhere in Charming, Happy Lowman is completely unaware that you're currently experiencing what can only be described as psychological warfare.
Or maybe he isn't.
It's hard to know with Happy.
The man somehow knew things he shouldn't know.
You'd once mentioned wanting coffee while standing on the opposite side of a crowded clubhouse lot, speaking quietly to Gemma.
Five minutes later, Happy had appeared beside you holding a cup.
No explanation.
No conversation.
Just coffee.
Another time he'd shown up outside your apartment building because he had a feeling something was wrong.
Your car battery had died.
You still didn't know how he'd known.
Happy existed outside normal human rules.
Unfortunately, the reason you're sitting across from Mr. Cryptocurrency tonight is because of him.
Because you've spent nearly a year being hopelessly, painfully, embarrassingly in love with Happy Lowman.
Which is stupid.
Objectively stupid.
The man is forty-nine years old.
He's terrifying.
He's emotionally unavailable in ways that should probably be illegal.
Half the town crosses the street when they see him coming.
And somehow your heart still decides that's exactly who it wants.
The worst part?
You're pretty sure he cares about you too.
Maybe.
Possibly.
Potentially.
In the way a wild bear might care about a specific park ranger.
There are signs.
Small ones.
Tiny ones.
The kind of signs that make you question your sanity.
Happy always notices when you're cold.
Always walks on the side closest to traffic.
Always appears whenever somebody makes you uncomfortable.
Always remembers things you've told him.
Things you forgot mentioning.
Your favorite candy.
The book you hated in high school.
The fact you sleep better during thunderstorms.
He remembers everything.
But he never says anything.
Never crosses that line.
Never touches you longer than necessary.
Never lets himself.
And after months of staring at this impossible situation, you'd finally decided to move on.
Hence:
The date.
A decision that now feels like divine punishment.
The man across from you is currently explaining why women don't understand financial markets.
You haven't heard a single word.
Instead, you're staring at your water glass and contemplating whether drowning yourself in three inches of ice water is medically possible.
Then your phone buzzes.
You glance down hopefully.
Nothing.
Just a promotional email.
Your soul leaves your body.
The guy keeps talking.
You reach for your phone under the table.
If anyone can save you, it's Juice.
Juice is compassionate.
Juice is kind.
Juice has rescued you from terrible situations before.
Juice owes you approximately seventeen favours.
You quickly type.
HELP.
Then another message.
Worst date ever.
Another.
He's talking about crypto again.
Another.
If I die tell everyone I fought bravely.
You can practically hear Juice laughing already.
You keep typing.
Seriously. Please call me. Pretend there's an emergency.
Please create an emergency.
Fake your death.
Start a fire.
Tell the club I got kidnapped.
Actually kidnap me.
Tell them my dog exploded.
Pause.
I don't even have a dog.
I don't care.
Just get me out of here.
JUST HELP.
You hit send.
Relief floods through you.
Finally.
Rescue is coming.
You slide your phone away.
The date continues.
Ten minutes pass.
No call.
Fifteen.
Nothing.
You frown.
That's weird.
Juice usually responds immediately.
Another five minutes.
Still nothing.
Your date has somehow transitioned into explaining protein powder.
You consider walking into traffic.
Then the restaurant entrance opens.
You don't look up at first.
Until the room changes.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
The atmosphere shifts.
Conversations lower.
People glance toward the door.
A server nearly drops a tray.
And suddenly every instinct in your body is screaming.
You look up.
And nearly choke.
Happy.
Happy Lowman is standing in the doorway.
Wearing jeans.
Boots.
A black shirt.
His kutte.
Expressionless.
Completely expressionless.
Which somehow makes him look even more terrifying.
The man beside you is still talking.
"...and honestly, most people don't understand discipline—"
You stop hearing him.
Because Happy is looking directly at you.
Not searching.
Not scanning.
Looking.
Like he already knew exactly where you'd be sitting.
Your stomach drops.
Your brain short-circuits.
What the hell is he doing here?
Then a horrifying realization crawls slowly through your mind.
Phone.
Message.
You yank your phone from your purse.
Open your texts.
And immediately want the earth to swallow you whole.
Because the conversation isn't with Juice.
It's with Happy.
The messages stare back at you.
HELP.
Worst date ever.
If I die tell everyone I fought bravely.
Tell them my dog exploded.
You don't even remember breathing.
"Oh my God."
Happy starts walking.
Not quickly.
Not slowly.
Just with that steady, predatory confidence that always made people move out of his way.
Tables part.
Servers step aside.
Conversations stop.
He reaches your table.
The date finally notices.
"Uh..."
Happy looks at him.
Just looks.
The guy immediately forgets how language works.
Then Happy's gaze shifts to you.
His voice is low.
Calm.
"You done?"
You stare.
"What?"
"You done."
Not a question.
A statement.
As though the answer is obvious.
The guy beside you laughs nervously.
"Sorry, who are you?"
Happy turns toward him.
The silence stretches.
The poor bastard visibly regrets existing.
Happy just stares.
Nothing else.
No explanation.
No introduction.
Just stares.
Your date swallows.
Hard.
Happy looks back at you.
"You asked for help."
You want to crawl under the table.
"I thought I texted Juice."
"I know."
The fact that he sounds completely unsurprised somehow makes this worse.
Your date glances between both of you.
"Wait."
Pause.
"You're leaving?"
Happy answers before you can.
"Yeah."
Again.
Not a question.
The man sputters.
"She can answer for herself."
Oh so now I can talk.
Happy slowly turns his head.
The guy immediately stops talking.
You should probably feel bad.
You don't.
Mostly because you're too busy staring at Happy.
Because underneath the usual stoicism, something feels different tonight.
Sharper.
Tighter.
Like a wire pulled too far.
You stand.
Mostly because your survival instincts tell you it's the correct choice.
Happy reaches for your chair automatically.
Pulls it back.
Waits.
The date watches all of this happen in complete confusion.
"So you're just leaving with him?"
You blink.
Then look at Happy.
Then back at the date.
Then back at Happy.
The answer feels embarrassingly obvious.
"God yes."
The guy looks offended.
Happy looks pleased.
Not visibly.
Not for normal people.
But you've spent enough time around him to see it.
The tiny relaxation around his eyes.
The slight drop in tension.
Victory.
God help you.
Happy is winning a competition nobody told you existed.
The ride back is quiet.
Mostly because you're dying.
Happy drives.
One hand on the wheel.
The other resting beside the shifter.
The familiar scent of leather, smoke, and motor oil fills the cab.
Because obviously he drove his truck instead of his bike when he assumed you'd be in a dress. Of course he did.
Finally, after several miles, you groan.
"Oh my God."
Happy glances at you.
"You texted me."
"I KNOW."
His mouth twitches.
Actually twitches.
Which means he's basically laughing.
You point accusingly.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Enjoy this."
Too late.
He's absolutely enjoying this.
You sink lower in your seat.
"I told you my dog exploded."
"You don't have a dog."
"I know."
Silence.
Then—
"You were dramatic."
You stare.
"Happy."
"Hm."
"I was suffering."
Another twitch.
You can't believe this.
The man barely smiles twice a year and somehow your humiliation is funny enough to crack the code.
Eventually the amusement fades.
The quiet settles again.
Comfortable.
Familiar.
Dangerous.
Because being alone with Happy always feels dangerous.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
After a while he says, "Why were you there?"
You know what he means.
Not the restaurant.
The date.
You stare out the window.
"Trying to move on."
The truck goes very still.
Happy doesn't react immediately.
Which is somehow worse.
Finally—
"From who?"
You laugh once.
Disbelieving.
"You serious?"
His jaw tightens.
And suddenly you understand.
The idiot genuinely doesn't know.
Your heart aches.
Because of course he doesn't.
Of course the man who can track you across counties from a single text message can't see what's right in front of him.
You look at him.
Really look at him.
The scarred hands.
The tired eyes.
The stubborn mouth.
The man you've loved for far too long.
"You, Happy."
The truck falls silent.
Completely silent.
His hands tighten around the wheel.
For several seconds neither of you speaks.
Then—
"You were trying to move on from me."
Not a question.
You laugh softly.
Painfully.
"Yeah."
Silence.
Another mile.
Then another.
Then Happy abruptly pulls into an empty overlook above the highway.
Parks.
Kills the engine.
The world goes quiet.
Your pulse pounds.
Happy stares through the windshield.
Then finally speaks.
"You shouldn't."
Your breath catches.
"What?"
"You shouldn't move on."
The words sound difficult.
Like he's dragging them from somewhere deep inside himself.
"I tried staying away."
His voice is rough now.
Honest.
"I tried giving you room."
You can't speak.
Happy finally looks at you.
And for the first time in your life, he looks uncertain.
"I know how old I am."
Your throat tightens.
"I know."
"I know what people think."
"I don't care."
His eyes lock onto yours.
Dark brown.
Steady.
Terrifyingly sincere.
"I care."
The confession sounds almost angry.
Like he's spent months fighting it.
Maybe years.
"I care because you deserve better."
You shake your head immediately.
"No."
"You do."
"I don't want better."
Something breaks across his face.
Something raw.
Something vulnerable.
You don't think many people ever get to see it.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "That's the problem."
The words hang between you.
And suddenly you're crying.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
Just enough to make Happy immediately look alarmed.
Which would be funny under different circumstances.
"You crying?"
You laugh through the tears.
"Maybe."
"Don't."
"Great advice."
Happy curses softly.
Then reaches over.
Slowly.
Giving you every chance to pull away.
His hand cups your face.
Rough.
Warm.
Gentle in a way nobody would ever believe.
Your eyes close instinctively.
The touch feels like coming home.
"Baby," he murmurs.
You lean into his palm.
And that's it.
That's the moment.
The final surrender.
Because Happy Lowman looks at you like you're something precious.
Something worth protecting.
Something he never expected to have.
Then he kisses you.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like he's afraid you'll disappear.
And every impossible feeling you've carried for months crashes into reality all at once.
You kiss him back immediately.
Hands grabbing his shirt.
His jacket.
Anything.
Happy makes a rough sound low in his throat and suddenly he's pulling you closer.
Forehead against yours.
Breathing hard.
The stoic, terrifying man who scares half of California looks completely wrecked.
By you.
"You texted me."
You laugh.
"Oh my God."
"You asked for help."
"You are never letting that go."
"No."
His answer is immediate.
Certain.
You groan.
Happy kisses your forehead.
Then your cheek.
Then the corner of your mouth.
The affection is almost shocking coming from him.
"I got you."
Three simple words.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing poetic.
But they mean everything.
Because Happy always shows up.
Always.
You think about the restaurant.
The terrible date.
The unanswered text.
The way he'd walked in like death itself had decided to make a reservation.
And suddenly you start laughing again.
Happy watches you.
Confused.
"What?"
"You know you looked insane, right?"
"No."
"You absolutely did."
"Hm."
"You walked in there like you were collecting a debt."
A pause.
Then—
"You needed help."
Like that explains everything.
To him, maybe it does.
Your smile softens.
Happy reaches for your hand.
Threads your fingers together.
Keeps them there.
And for the first time since you've known him, he doesn't seem interested in letting go.
Neither are you.
So when he starts the truck again and drives back toward Charming, your hand remains in his.
And somehow, after months of almosts and maybes and things neither of you were brave enough to say, that feels like the easiest thing in the world.
The date ends exactly where it was always supposed to.
Not in a restaurant.
Not with cryptocurrency lectures.
Not with some stranger desperately trying to impress you.
But with Happy Lowman's hand wrapped around yours, his thumb brushing across your knuckles as he drives through the California night, and the quiet certainty settling between you both that neither of you would ever have to look for a way out again.
Because when you'd asked for help, even by accident, Happy had come.
I've been thinking about the number of posts a while back that claimed VTMB2 took a pro-Camarilla stance. I don't think that's necessarily the case. Compared to Bloodlines 1, it's definitely way more sympathetic towards the Camarilla and presents "true believers" of the system like Fabien, Ryong, and Tolly as people to root for.
BUT unlike Bloodlines 1, it also shows how the (Seattle) Camarilla are the reason for its own downfall. The sects were beseiged by external threats in BL1; they were warring with each other. But in BL2, it's not the Anarchs or the Sabbat or even the SI that takes down the Camarilla. It's ex-Camarilla that were radicalized by their Princes' abuse of power. Fabien destroys Campbell. Safia destroys Ryong. Phyre destroys Lou. Always, the Camarilla lops off its own head.
it wasn’t technically a vacation. your company had decided to send everyone to a retreat, one big one to boost morale or whatever. it was just across the country and four days on the beach, truly an excuse for a getaway on company dime. you and robby hadn't been officially dating yet, but three months of constant attachment possessed you to insist his presence.
laying between your legs, robby had been reading some new medical study on his phone. you were sitting upright against his pillows, scrolling on your own phone. head resting on your stomach, his glasses were tilted down on his nose as you raked a hand through his hair.
"robby?" you hummed, shifting up to see his face.
he kept focus on his phone but hooked an arm around your leg and surfaced a hand over your thigh, "yeah, sweetheart?"
you were aware of robby’s workaholic state, the main cause of cancellations being picked up shifts or extended ones. you were also painfully aware of the casualness of the relationship, but when you had him like this, it was almost impossible to deny his boyfriendability.
“you know how i’m going on that retreat next month? in san diego?” you asked meekly, like you didn’t want to erupt anything in him.
you ran a hand over his chest and he gave your thigh a squeeze, “yes.”
“i know you hadn’t had a vacation in awhile, and i was wondering if you,” you shook your head at yourself, feeling stupid for bringing it up like a proposal. “do you wanna come with?”
the air went still for a moment as you felt yourself involuntarily tense up. your fingers stalled in his hair and your phone had shut off on its own. he was thinking, you could tell by the way his lips pursed.
after a moment, he inhaled sharply, "i don't know, honey. the ed gets busy in the summer."
"s'only four days," you murmured, sounding more defeated than you meant to, "c'mon, baby. always overworking yourself."
your hand ran over his shoulder tiredly as he thought to himself. you felt a bit whiny for pleading, but you really didn't get to spend outside time with robby. at this point, your relationship had culminated to half-asleep booty calls, late drinks at the bar, and maybe a few days of sun.
"you need a vacation... and i wanna spend time with you." you said. "sun will be good for us."
saying that made it seem like there had been something wrong with your relationship. robby and you were good, sweet and cozy, but that wasn't necessarily 100% false. you felt like you hit a wall with him, constantly finding yourself in the confines of his home. mixing it up would be nice.
leaning his head back to look at you, he asked, "it means that much to you?"
"yeah, i want you there." you ran a hand along the middle of his chest, coaxing him up to you. he maneuvered himself up to you and pulled your legs onto his.
finding himself cuddled to your side, he sighed, taking you into his arms, "let me see what i can do. no promises."
a smile grew on your face, your hand rubbing along his beard, "really?"
he nodded, "wanna make my girl happy."
leaning his head down to kiss you, he reached his hand to remove his glasses. you stopped his wrist softly, shaking your head with an uh, uh before pressing your lips to his. he chuckled into it, pushing his body flush against yours.
the vacation was so good to you.
it was sunset walks on the beach. bare feet padding on the sand as the waves swept by, your hand would be intertwined in robby's. you'd gossip about your coworkers, and he'd comment on how interesting your work environment sounded. a kiss to the top of your head, he'd mumble some random fact about seagulls he remembered from when he was younger.
it was drinks at the pool. the shimmer of the afternoon coating your skin, you were dipped in the three-feet zone, sunglasses on and daiquiri in one hand. robby's wet hair dribbled onto his tummy and his prescription sunglasses were perched on his nose.
he was sitting on the ledge, propped up on his hand and legs surrounding you in the water. he had a book in hand, some modern tragedy you urged him to read. every few minutes, he'd steal a sip from your drink, after he had complained that it was too sweet for him.
your head rested against the inside of his thigh as you kicked your legs in the water. humming along to the song that played from the speakers, you grazed your fingers over the hair on his legs. he'd said he wasn't ticklish, but he flinched each time your fingerpads met his skin.
it was sunbathing, falling asleep on the cushions of daybeds with your hand lazily grazing robby's near the ground. robby rubbed suncreen across your back when you were too lazy to do so, mumbling importance of uv protection. you'd kiss him lazily as a thanks, and he commented how he could taste the chlorine on your skin.
"'cause i'm a mermaid," you gave him a big smile before burrying your head back into the towel.
it was a warm bath, where robby had dozed off behind you while you watched some old reality show on the bathroom tv. his pruning fingers stayed intact with yours, refusing to let go under the warm water as snores came from his mouth. you'd snicker, old man, while snapping a photo of his agape mouth and head rested against the porcelain.
it was slinking around in the plush hotel robes. leaning against the railing of your room's balcony, robby and you shared a bottle of cabernet sent by your boss. the sun had already set but the night was still creeping up on you, light blue becoming cerulean against the yellow lights of the resort.
his arm around you, you pressed kisses to his cheek while discussing the optional company events. his hair messy and a goofy grin on his face, you'd insist on taking a photo of him.
and you'd eventually find your robe being slipped off when your bottom hit the bed.
it was meeting your coworkers, ones robby had only been familiar with as characters. your friends were sweet to him, introducing their own significant others, or whoever they had brought.
the "office asshole" made a joke about how robby could've been your father, which you responded to with a quick kiss on robby's lips and an excuse us.
your boss, very intoxicated, had squealed when she saw you and robby. arms wide open, the bright fuschia of her dress hung off her sunkissed arms as she ran to you, her quiet wife trailing behind her.
"the famous dr. robby!' she practically yelled. robby had nodded his head bashfully, taking her hand into a delicate shake. before another martini was calling her, she pointed a red-manicured finger at him, "do not hurt her, i mean it! she's my best team player."
it was, of course, taking advantage of the huge, fancy hotel bed. air conditioning chilly and comforter fluffy, robby and you spent mornings and evenings wrapped up in each other. hands touching every inch of you, he took every move slowly and followed the same pace each round. kisses turned into laughs as time was forgotten, locked behind the door with the rest of your worries.
on the final night, the company was hosting a grand dinner event. robby was more excited than he led on, asking your opinion on different outfits. you were too lazy to properly get ready yourself, doing makeup in bed with your phone as a mirror while offering him critiques. you stayed in your robe while you did your hair too, not bothering to change until the last minute.
by the time you did have to dress up, robby was facing the mirror, fixing up his shirt. glasses still on, the crows feet by his eyes were pronounced as he squinted to see the little cream buttons. smiling, you moved towards him.
“look so handsome with your glasses, honey.” you mumbled, hands surfacing over his back. you pressed your face snug against his neck, tip-toeing to press kisses against his skin.
“mmm,” robby nodded, reaching over to wrap an arm around your middle, “don’t get started, baby. you still have to change.”
"won't." you shook your head, a coquettish smile on your lips. as he reached his head down for a kiss, you tapped his shoulder, "keep 'em on," before leaving to slip on your dress.
balancing against the bathroom door, you pulled your shoes on and asked, "ready?"
robby was on his phone, leaning against the dresser in front of the mirror. a soft uh, huh left his lips before he tilted his head up to you. eyebrows raising and mouth falling slightly agape, he put his phone away and smiled at you.
you looked up from your shoes to see robby with his hands in his pockets and a wide grin on his face. catching him checking you out, a smirk played at your lips before slinking over.
your hands reached to rest on his shoulders and your arms rested against his. you observed the crinkle of his eyes and the haze that overtook him. his fingers found your hips, studying the thin fabric of your dress.
"look so beautiful, sweetheart." he said before pressing a kiss to your lips. his warmth overtook your body, just enough for you to sink into him. hovering near your mouth, he mumbled, "i don't tell you that enough."
"don't get started." you mocked him in a whisper, running a hand along his neck to the back of his head and down.
the dinner was exactly what you expected. fancy menu, open bar, your boss getting far too wasted. robby stuck by your side, not even bothered (like he’d usually be) when every other person fawned over the fact that he was a doctor.
a few times, he'd find himself in seemingly incessant conversations with your coworkers' boyfriends and husbands about pain in their back or soreness in their feet. you'd then sweep in with a kiss to his cheek and a honey, come be with me, saving him. with a grateful smile, he'd kiss you on the head as you made your way miles away from them.
there was even a small jazz band, playing standards for the few tipsy middle-aged couples on the dance floor. when the night wound down, slower songs started playing, inviting everyone to the floor with open arms. the string lights overhead and the classy embellishments of the hotel made the scene picturesque. it seemed as though the atmosphere painted smiles on faces and dusted love everywhere.
whimsy in his eyes, robby nudged his head to the dance floor with a hand out for you to take. the gesture astounded you, bringing a wide smile across your face.
"robby, is that you?" you'd poke, taking his hand and following him to the dance floor.
he took you into his arms, like it was the most natural thing in the world. swaying back and forth, his eyes never left you. even when you were pressed to his chest, he couldn't help but fawn over your sheepish smile. hell, he even spun you around a few times. the glimmer in his eye shown so bright and his smile was so wide that you could've mistaken him for a man with joy in his life.
the night ended quietly in the lobby hotel— a nightcap, robby had suggested. a lull fell over the hotel and lights dimmed. you settled into a red velvety booth with robby as mellowed-out guests made their way upstairs.
your leg was lazily swung over robby's knee, and you tilted your head against the soft cushion of the booth. sprawled across the big cushion, you swirled your prosecco in one hand, relaxing as robby massaged a hand over your leg.
"you have fun, honey?" you drawled before taking a sip of your drink.
when you turned towards him, he had been staring at you, stars in his eyes. he had a cheesy smile on his face, one you seldom caught, and the warmth of the lobby lighting made him look so romantic.
"of course." the vacation did something to him, obvious on his face.
"good vacation?" you teased, a quirk of your lips.
"couldn't have been better."
coming closer to him, you placed your flute beside his lowball on the table. your arm leaned on your knee and your chin rested on your hand to get a better look at him. the smile never slipped, and neither did his eyes. in the light of the lampshade, something daring played on his face, but you couldn't quite catch it yet.
"you happy?" you tested.
"always." he nodded once.
eyes gliding to your lips, he indulged for a moment, as did you. he looked so good like this: sitting back, shoulders relaxed, glasses on the bridge of his nose, and a proud smile on his face. your brain whispered husband material. for a moment, and only for a moment, you let the daydream play out.
“i love you.” he whispered softly.
taking a second, you blinked at him. you thought it was part of your reverie, that you hallucinated it. shit, you weren't even sure if he was your boyfriend before this point. the way his breath fanned across your face told you it was real.
robby wasn’t the type of guy who slipped up or made mistakes, so this coming from him was serious. besides, the way his softened eyes looked at you was so intentional and composed.
when you hadn't responded for a while, he continued delicately, "you don't have to say it back or anything. i just... wanted you to know." his hand squeezed on your leg, like he was waking you up. "i know it sounds intense, but you make me feel... good. i haven't felt that way in a long time."
"robby," you murmured, face softening in relief, "i love you too."
another giddy smile played on his lips as he reached his head down to kiss you. lips plush, the kiss was slow and sweet. though it was something you felt before, the kiss felt as if it was molded specifically for this moment.
“what do you say we take this upstairs?” he mumbled, tilting his head away.
“eager, are we?” you raised an eyebrow playfully.
“hey, i’m on vacation. let me savour it.”
with another kiss, you knew you'd be repeating i love you again and again that evening.
this went wayyyy longer than i meant it to but my internship is so fucking boring so ive been doing a bunch of this instead. #glassesstayon! those photos of hunter biden at the chateau marmont actually haunt me... heavyyyyy robby vibes
Jack Abbot x IT!worker Reader
Pittling Tech Support: Fueled by Red Bull
Summary:
Navigating the bitter aftermath of a workplace layoff, you struggle to ignore the blurred lines between Jack’s protective care and his escalating possessiveness. A rain-soaked, emotionally charged encounter in the parking garage pushes the two of you dangerously close to crossing a point of no return. But when a sudden crisis at the hospital violently unearths a ghost from your hidden past, the fragile walls you’ve built shatter, forcing you to push Jack away just when he tries to hold you together.
Word counter: 11k
- Tags:
Mutual Pining,Heavy Angst,Protective Jack Abbot,Jealousy,Age Difference,Older Man/Younger Woman
- Content warning:
Grief/Mourning,Dissociation,Denial of Feelings,Touch-Starved,Unhealthy Coping,Mechanisms,Emotional Hurt/Comfort,Rejection of Comfort
-Editorial team and beta readers for this chapter:
@aubrazilla @kdcollinsauthor @theariespov @yulesinla @ktarima
Masterlist ALT Masterlist Subscribe to taglist!
After the night Jack spent at your place, you both came to an understanding.
You agreed it was time for therapy, admitting you hadn’t been taking your medication as prescribed. You promised you’d start taking your meds properly—both for Jack’s peace of mind, and so you could meet with your doctors and hear their thoughts. You also clipped an AirTag onto your belt loop with a carabiner so Jack could keep track of you, though he didn’t appreciate the “dog tag BARK BARK” label showing up on his phone.
“What should I name it? ‘Snoopy’ or something?” You joked after handing his phone back once everything was set up. You kept telling yourself that letting him track you—even when your phone wasn’t in your hand—was just practical. Thoughtful, even. A small, harmless gesture for the sake of convenience; proof you had nothing to hide. If something happened, he could find you. If you were late, he wouldn’t be left wondering. That’s the version you repeat. The reasonable one. The calm one.
He doesn’t pretend. He’s clear about wanting to know where you are, about needing that access, about how it makes him feel better. He doesn’t dress it up as anything else.
But you do.
You insist it’s about convenience, about transparency, about being considerate. You refuse to call it what it is. Because doing so means admitting this isn’t normal. That you’re shrinking yourself so you fit inside his fears. That you’re bending so he doesn’t snap. You tell yourself it’s easier this way—no tense pauses, no sharp questions, no heavy silence that makes you feel guilty for simply existing.
And when the doubt surfaces, you push it back down. What kind of friendship—or whatever this is—needs constant proof of loyalty? What kind of connection requires surveillance disguised as care? He doesn’t hide his expectations. He doesn’t deny wanting control over the uncertainty.
You’re the one pretending it doesn’t mean something.
You keep calling it trust-building. Calling it harmless.
But deep down, you know.
Stop lying to yourself.
You get called down to the nursing station at The Pitt just as the late-night rush is beginning to build. The overhead lights hum softly, phones are ringing off the hook, and a steady stream of staff weave in and out of the corridor with urgent expressions and half-finished conversations. At the center of it all, the wall-mounted monitors are flashing erratically—screens blinking to black, then bursting back to life in jittery bursts of color and static. A few of the nurses glance up at you with a mix of relief and impatience as you set down your toolkit and step behind the counter.
Dr. Crus is already there, arms folded, watching the chaos unfold on the screens. He gives you a quick rundown: patient charts flickering in and out, seconds before reappearing. You crouch down to inspect the cable connections, suggesting at first that it might just be a single HDMI issue—a loose connection or a frayed cord causing interference. It wouldn’t be the first time a simple fix solved a dramatic-looking problem.
But as you start tracing the cables and swapping ports, it becomes clear this isn’t just one bad line. Two of the monitors refuse to stabilize, their displays stuttering even after you reset the connections and test them with known-good cables. One screen fades to black entirely, emitting a faint electrical whine before going dark. The other flickers stubbornly, colors washing out as if the life is draining from it. You straighten up, sighing quietly as you realize that these monitors haven’t just glitched—they’ve chosen this exact moment, in the middle of a busy shift, to give up for good.
“No, like, I love being Chief,” you say, your voice dripping with irritation as you push your glasses up onto the crown of your head, giving yourself enough room to pinch the bridge of your nose. “But who’s supposed to tell me I now have to call maintenance, who never gets here on time? Or do I have to go up there and yank that thing off the wall myself?”
The fluorescent light above you flickers again, as if mocking you, buzzing with that faint electrical whine that has been drilling into your skull for the past twenty minutes.
Dr. Crus laughs, the sound low and warm, and pats your shoulder. “Occupational hazard,” he says, clearly amused by your slow descent into exasperation. He looks like he’s about to add something—probably a joke about leadership or budgeting—until the double doors burst open and a trauma case rolls in.
The energy in the hallway shifts instantly. Nurses move fast. Voices sharpen. The gurney rattles past.
“Coming,” Crus mutters, already stepping backward as he shrugs into motion, leaving you standing there alone beneath the rebellious light fixture.
You glance back up at the monitor. It flickers again. Once. Twice. A dramatic pause. You narrow your eyes at it like you’re in a standoff.
“Are you planning to kick it, or just stare at it until it falls off?” Jack calls out as he walks past you to join the trauma case, not even slowing down. He’s already tugging on a pair of gloves, snapping them against his wrists.
You don’t bother turning around; you just flip him off in his general direction, your arm raised lazily without breaking eye contact with the ceiling.
“Careful, kids around, Snoopy!” he yells back, grinning as he pushes through the doors into Trauma 1.
You sigh and let your hand drop. “I hate all of you,” you mutter, though there’s no real venom behind it.
As you wait for the maintenance team to arrive—after being transferred twice and assured someone is “on their way”—Dr. Toomerian swivels slightly in her chair. She’s charting at the computer next to you, but her attention is entirely focused on your profile. She tucks a stray, dark curl behind her ear, her gaze lingering on you just a second longer than necessary.
“Wait,” she says, her voice softening, her brows lifting in a way that makes her eyes look impossibly wide. “You’re the Chief?”
You nod, devoid of enthusiasm. “Unfortunately.”
She shifts closer, her knee brushing the fabric of your slacks before she quickly tucks her leg back with a small, apologetic smile. The touch is brief—barely there—but something about it lingers. You notice the way she doesn't quite pull all the way back, the way her chair still tilts toward you. You file it away and focus on the conversation.
“I thought you were kidding earlier.”
“I wish I was.”
She leans back in her chair, her eyes tracking the tired line of your jaw. “How long?”
“Two weeks,” you reply, glancing at your watch as if that alone explains your exhaustion. “Feels like three years.”
Her lips part into a small, encouraging smile. “Wow. Well, congratulations?”
You huff a humorless laugh, looking away from her bright expression to the empty hallway. “I don’t like the reason I was promoted. There was a massive layoff in the IT department. We went from fifteen people down to just five, including me.” You gesture vaguely upward toward the sixth floor. “I lost ten friends in one afternoon. And as a reward, they gave me a title and an office that feels far too big and way too quiet. It wasn’t exactly a merit-based fairy tale. It was more like, ‘You’re still here, you’re cheap, and you’re technically qualified, so congrats, you’re in charge.’”
Dr. Toomerian winces, her hand instinctively reaching out toward your arm. She catches herself halfway, pulling back and settling for nervously twisting her pen instead. The aborted gesture is small, but you notice it—the way she wanted to close that distance. It makes something in your chest tighten. You’re not used to people reaching for you like that.
“That’s… really rough. I’m so sorry.”
She’s just a really empathetic person, you think—though even as the thought forms, something about it feels incomplete. Like you’re translating something more complicated into a simpler language because the alternative is harder to sit with.
“Yeah. Now instead of fixing servers and actually helping people, I’m approving budgets, juggling on-call schedules, and apparently managing old device replacements.” You point upward again as the monitor gives another theatrical flicker.
As if summoned by your sarcasm, the screen sputters violently, flashes bright white—and goes out completely.
You stare up at the dead monitor in silence.
Nazely slowly turns back to you, biting back a smile. “Well,” she says softly, leaning into your space again, “good news. It fell off on its own.”
You let out a long, defeated breath. “Fantastic,” you murmur. “Now I get to file the incident report.”
A half-hour later, a maintenance worker finally arrives with two new monitors and a small portable workbench. As you’re signing off on the work orders on their iPad, Dr. Toomerian watches you type.
“Wow, new equipment,” she says, a teasing lilt in her voice. “Isn’t that something to celebrate?”
“I’d love to,” you reply, handing the iPad back. “But it doesn’t feel like I earned the pull to get this done. It’s more like the hospital thought, ‘We’ve had a huge layoff—let’s throw the remaining five a bone so they don’t quit too.’”
Before she can answer, the pager clipped to her waistband goes off. She checks it, her shoulders dropping slightly. “Ah. My patient in bed four is waking up. I’d better go check on him.” She gives you a soft, lingering smile—something warm and almost wistful in it—before slipping away into the chaos of the hallway.
You watch her go. A faint pulse of something you can’t quite name settles in your chest. Probably just gratitude. She’s kind. That’s all.
“Wait, you’re the Chief?”
Dr. Crus’s voice cuts in from behind you. He’s wandering back from Trauma 1, looking entirely too energized as he spots the shiny new hospital ID clipped to your belt. He reaches out and taps the plastic badge with one finger. You know HR is already hunting you down to give you an even flashier one since you haven’t been at your desk all night.
Before you can explain, one of the maintenance guys clears his throat, clearly impatient. You pivot, instructing the crew to remove the old monitors, send them down to the basement, and install the new mounts. You assure them you’ll handle the cabling yourself. Thankfully, they don’t ask any questions, getting straight to work—mostly because they clearly don’t want to put in any extra effort.
“Don’t call me Chief, please,” you sigh, turning back to Crus.
But Crus is already enjoying this way too much. “Come on. Captain, Chief—you’re collecting ranks like it’s a video game.” He grins, leaning against the counter with an ease that makes it look like he has nowhere else to be. “You practically live here. You married to the job or something?”
It’s a throwaway line. Casual banter. But something in your expression must shift—just a flicker, there and gone—because Crus’s grin softens. His head tilts.
“Wait.” He straightens slightly, eyes dropping with unsubtle curiosity to your left hand. “Seriously? You’re not—”
You follow his gaze to your bare ring finger. “No,” you say, simply. “I’m not.”
Crus blinks. For a moment, the playful edge in his expression gives way to something more genuine—something almost puzzled, like he’s trying to solve an equation that doesn’t add up.
“Huh.” He studies you, and there’s a warmth in it that you’re not sure what to do with. “You’re smart. You’re funny. You keep this entire department from collapsing into chaos on a nightly basis.” He says it simply, like he’s stating facts. Not flattery—just observation. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
Something warm blooms behind your ribs, unexpected and inconvenient. You open your mouth—probably to deflect with a joke—when Jack walks into the Hub from Trauma 2.
He arrives just in time to catch the tail end. You know this because his steps falter. Not dramatically—just a half-second hitch in his stride before he continues toward the nurses’ station. But his attention has already shifted. You can feel it like a change in air pressure.
Jack is still wearing his late wife’s ring. You’ve noticed it before—the thin band that has morphed from a vow into a quiet, permanent fixture on his left hand. You try not to look at it. You try not to think about what it means that you notice.
You turn back to Crus, aiming for casual. “Maybe I’m just too charming for my own good. Scare people off.”
Crus snorts softly, but his eyes flick past you—toward Jack—and something sharp and knowing surfaces in his expression before it’s gone. “Or maybe,” he says, his voice light, “you haven’t noticed who’s paying attention.”
The comment lands strangely. You glance at him, but he’s already looking down at his iPad, the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s swallowing a secret.
You shake it off. “Okay, Dr. Henderson. Should I be taking notes?”
He grins but doesn’t elaborate, and you’re left with the odd sense that you’ve missed something important.
Now it's just you and the machines.
A small aluminum ladder stands between you and the mess of cables snaking down the wall. The ladder is too short—you can see that already. The monitors are mounted high, and even the top step won't quite get you there. You'll have to reach. You'll have to balance on the very top, the step labeled NOT A STEP in faded warning letters.
You slip off your cardigan and drape it neatly over the back of a chair. Then you roll up the sleeves of your white shirt, exposing your wrists, and let out a slow breath.
Climbing the ladder, you feel it wobble immediately—a cheap, lightweight thing that wasn't built for this. It creaks under your weight. You test it with a subtle shift of your hips and feel the whole frame shudder. Not ideal. Not something you'd bet your life on. But the cables need connecting, and you're the one here.
You reach behind the first monitor, rising onto your toes on the top step, fingers searching for the right ports by feel. The cables are stiff, new, reluctant to bend. You're stretching—too far—and the ladder bucks under the shift in your center of gravity.
For one lurching second, you feel it go. The world tilts. Your stomach drops. That awful, sickening lurch of gravity deciding it wants you on the floor—
A broad hand catches you at the small of your back, pressing you steady against the wall. Another grips the ladder frame, anchoring it.
"I've got you, Cap," Crus says calmly, right beside you now.
Your heart is hammering. You grip the monitor mount, knuckles white, waiting for the adrenaline to drain from your fingertips. When it does—slowly—you realize Crus hasn't moved. His hand is still firm against your back, his foot hooked around the lowest rung to pin the ladder in place. Grounding. Necessary.
"You okay?" he asks, and this time his voice is quieter, stripped of the usual ease. Just checking.
"Yeah," you manage. "Yeah. Ladder's shit."
"Agreed." He doesn't let go. "Want me to spot you for the rest?"
Part of you bristles at the offer. The other part—the part still vibrating with that half-second of freefall—knows he's right.
"Fine," you mutter.
He nods, settling into position. His attention shifts to his iPad, but his stance stays locked, his body angled to catch you if the ladder moves again. Professional. Reliable. The brush of his thumb against your shirt as you shift is incidental—you think—and you're not sure what to do with the fact that you notice it anyway.
"Thanks, Crus Control," you say, twisting the cable into place. It clicks. You tug twice to be sure. "You're very bossy for someone not technically my boss."
"Just part of the charm," he replies without looking up. But you catch the slight pull at the corner of his mouth—the quiet pleasure he takes in being here, doing this. It occurs to you, briefly, that he didn't have to stay.
You climb down, shift the ladder to the second monitor, and go up again. This one's mounted even higher. You have to stretch full-length, both hands off the ladder, balanced on that top step. The ER has gone even quieter, that strange suspended stillness that feels like the deep inhale before a scream.
Crus moves with you without comment, positioning himself at your right side again, one hand on the ladder frame, the other ready at your back.
Then—
"Crus."
The voice comes from across the nurses' station. Low. Flat. Jack is standing there, one hand on the IV cart, the other holding a chart he's clearly not reading. His jaw is tight. His eyes are on the ladder—on the way it shivers every time you shift your weight.
Crus glances over. Reads him in a second. Something flickers across his expression—not annoyance, not competition. Just recognition. Like he's been waiting for this.
"Cap," Crus says, looking up at you. "I need to finish charting on that pelvic fracture from earlier—attending's already riding me about it." He taps his iPad, already pulling up the file. "Give me a sec."
He doesn't wait for you to answer. He steps back from the ladder—and the absence of him is immediate, the frame wobbling without his weight to anchor it. You sway, and your hand shoots out to grip the monitor mount.
"Whoa—"
"I've got you."
Jack is already there. He moves fast—faster than you expected—crossing the distance between the IV cart and the ladder in three long strides. His foot hooks around the bottom rung, mirroring exactly what Crus was doing. One hand clamps onto the ladder frame. The other settles against your lower back, broad and steady.
The ladder goes still.
You look down at him, breath caught. He's not looking at your face. He's looking at the ladder, at the angle of your body, at the distance between your feet and the floor—calculating, assessing, like this is a trauma case and he's triaging the risk.
"You good?" he asks. His voice is clipped. Professional.
"I'm—yeah. I'm good."
He doesn't move. His hand stays flat against your back, warm through the thin cotton of your shirt, and you're suddenly, acutely aware of how much of your weight he's holding—not because you're falling, but because the ladder is that unreliable, and he's not taking any chances.
Across the room, Crus is leaning against the counter, iPad in hand, watching with an expression of calm, genuine interest. Like someone enjoying a play he's already read the ending of.
You turn back to the monitor. Focus. The cable is right there—you just need to thread it through the mount and click it home. Simple. You can do this.
But Jack's hand shifts against your back as you reach up—not creeping, not wandering, just adjusting his grip to follow your center of gravity as you stretch—and the awareness of it shorts out your brain for a half-second.
Your fingers fumble the cable.
"Sorry," Jack says quietly, like it's his fault. His hand steadies.
"It's not—you're fine," you manage. "Just—hold still."
"Waiting on you, Chief."
You reach up again. Left hand raised, fingers working against the stiff plastic. The HDMI cable resists, the angle awkward, and you have to lean further than you'd like—weight shifting, the ladder groaning beneath you.
Jack's grip tightens instantly. Not dramatic. Just certain. Like he's been doing this his whole life.
And he has, you realize. Steadying people. Keeping them from falling. That's the whole job.
You just never expected to be on the receiving end of it quite so literally.
What you don't expect is what happens next.
You reach up to thread the HDMI cable through the mount, left hand raised, fingers working against the stiff plastic—and Jack's gaze shifts. Not to the cable. Not to the monitor. To your hand. To the specific, bare expanse of your ring finger.
There's nothing subtle about the way his eyes track the movement. It isn't clinical. It isn't absentminded. It's searching. Like he's confirming something he overheard earlier—something that matters far more than he wants it to.
Your stomach flips despite yourself.
"Sorry," you say, tugging at the cable again, buying yourself a moment. "I swear this damn thing's too short. I just need to—okay—if I pull it like this and… we good?"
You glance at Crus, who checks his iPad and gives you a thumbs up.
"It's in," he confirms.
But you're not looking at the monitor anymore. You're looking down at Jack, who hasn't looked away from your hand.
You flex your fingers slightly—deliberately this time. Testing.
His eyes track the movement. Slow. Intent. Something flickers behind his expression—something soft and aching that he can't quite hide in time.
"See something interesting, Dr. Abbot?" you ask, keeping your voice light but letting the edge show.
Jack straightens too fast. His hand jerks back from your back like he's been burned. The IV cart rattles. His gaze snaps up to meet yours, and for a moment, he looks completely undone—like you've caught him somewhere he didn't mean to be.
"I—" He falters. His eyes flicker back to your hand once more before he forces himself to look at your face. "You should come down from there. The ladder's not stable."
It's not what he was going to say. You can tell. You can see it in the way his jaw works, in the faint flush crawling up his neck, in the way his hand twitches at his side like it wants to reach for you again.
From across the room, Crus watches this unfold with quiet, unhurried interest. He doesn't interject. Doesn't swoop back in. Just leans against the counter, iPad cradled against his chest, and waits.
"Come down," Jack says again, extending his hand toward you. "I don't want to see you in Trauma Two because you fell."
There's no room for argument in his voice.
You hesitate only a second before placing your hand in his. His grip tightens instantly, secure and unyielding. He braces the ladder with his other hand as you descend—first to the lower rung, then the floor. His hand doesn't let go until both your feet are on the ground. Even then, he lingers—a beat too long, his fingers wrapped around yours, his thumb pressed against the side of your wrist where your pulse is still racing from the ladder, from the height, from him.
Then he releases you. Steps back. Gives you space.
But the ghost of his grip stays, warm on your skin, and you can still feel the exact pressure of his palm against your back.
You're not sure what to do with that. So you do what you always do.
You brush your palms against your slacks and look between him and Crus, who's already wandering back over, iPad tucked under his arm.
"Don't you guys have better things to do?" you ask dryly. "Lives to save? Charts to sign? Brooding to accomplish?"
"Don't mind them."
The loud, obnoxious slurping sound of a drink echoes across the nurses' station. Shen is leaning back in his chair, iced coffee in hand, watching with open delight.
‘It’s a quiet evening and I am fully enjoying the show.’
"Jesus," Dr. Parker Ellis snaps, swatting at him like he's an overexcited child. "Shen, don't screw this up for us. Two hours before shift change and not a single major trauma. Do you know how rare that is?"
Shen grins unapologetically. "I'm just saying—"
The red phone rings.
The sound slices through the room like a blade.
Every head turns toward it.
No one moves at first. It rings again, shrill and demanding.
Several people mutter curses—some directed at Shen, some at fate.
Lena steps forward with Jack at her side. She answers on the second ring, her posture sharpening instantly. "PTMC, go ahead Medic Command."
The room seems to shrink as she listens. Her pen flies across a notepad, scribbling details in tight strokes. Her expression shifts—focused, alert, ready.
She hangs up.
"Trauma incoming," she announces, already moving. Then, with pointed clarity: "Assigned to Dr. Shen."
For half a heartbeat, silence.
Then chaos begins to bloom.
Shen straightens in his chair, nearly choking on the last of his drink. "You've got to be kidding me."
Jack is already moving toward the trauma bay. Crus grabs gloves. Lena starts issuing rapid instructions.
And you—still standing between the two newly lit monitors—feel the ER snap back to life around you, the calm shattered, the storm rolling in.
It’s 7 a.m. already, and both of your night shifts at the PTMC hospital dragged on far longer than they ever should have. You are waiting outside for Jack on the top level of the hospital's three-story parking garage. The weather has violently shifted from the sunny, warm days of earlier this week to a rough, relentless summer downpour, turning the rooftop asphalt into a sea of dark glass. In the distance, the wailing sirens of an ambulance and a fire truck cut through the noise of the rain; the city is beginning to breathe and live again, even in this chaotic weather.
His pickup truck and your car are parked right next to each other, but you’re currently leaning against the side of his truck, a cigarette already lit between your fingers, waiting like you’ve got nowhere else to be. The wind keeps trying to steal the flame, but you cup your hand around it, feeding it. Each time you inhale, the red ember glows brightly through the wet, gray air, anchoring you to the moment.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Jack jokes as he walks toward you. The sound of his voice is the only dry thing in the world right now. He cuts through the downpour—shoulders squared against the wind—walking like he simply doesn’t believe in weather.
He’s wearing a grey sweater, completely soaked through, and he clearly doesn’t care about the cold dampness clinging to him. But as he closes the distance, his eyes narrow, taking in your shivering form. He clearly doesn't like that you are getting soaked in this shitty weather.
“You've been standing out here alone long enough,” he says, his teasing tone dropping into something far more grounded and protective.
You don’t answer right away. Instead, you shift your weight, digging your free hand into your coat pocket. You pull out a spare brass key with a metallic clink, holding it out by the ring. A little Woodstock keychain dangles from the metal, swaying between you. The bright yellow plush bird looks entirely ridiculous against the bleak, stormy sky, but somehow it makes the moment feel softer—a reminder that you’re still holding onto something bright.
Jack stops. He notices it immediately, even through the driving rain. He steps closer into your personal space, ignoring the downpour soaking his shoulders. Without asking, he reaches out, but instead of taking the key right away, his cold knuckle gently nudges the plush bird, making Woodstock swing.
"This is kind of cute," he murmurs, a faint, lopsided smile catching the corner of his mouth as he studies the plushie. "Though if we're being honest, you're definitely the Snoopy to my Woodstock."
You let out a huff of smoke into the rain, trying to formulate a proper insult. "Woodstock is a terrible pilot who speaks entirely in chicken scratch. Are you saying you're—" You stumble over the comparison, the mockery falling completely flat as a small, betraying smile tugs at your own lips.
Jack laughs, the sound warm and low against the freezing wind. He reaches out and catches the keychain, tilting the little plush bird up so it's facing you. "Don't even try. I know you only remember this thing as 'the yellow bird.' I'm still butthurt about it."
You roll your eyes, but the tightness in your chest finally eases. You don’t pull your hand back. Instead, you hold the ring out a fraction further, pressing the issue. "It's to my front door."
Jack goes perfectly still. His gaze drops from the absurd little yellow bird to the cut of the brass key, and then finally lifts to meet your eyes. The last traces of his smile fade, settling into something brutally honest. He closes his hand over the key, his damp, freezing fingers deliberately brushing yours as he takes it.
“Are you bringing me good fortune out here,” he asks, his voice dropping lower, cutting right through the noise of the storm, “or just offering me something to keep you from focusing?”
His thumb drags over the jagged edge of the key, slipping it into his own pocket before stepping even closer. “Because I'll take it. I'll take whatever you give me. But how are you really holding up after what happened today?”
You take a drag, but the wind shifts, and the smoke drifts directly toward him before you can stop it. The rain hammers the world around you, cold and constant, but the thought of him standing in your secondhand smoke bothers you more than the storm. Without overthinking it, you reach out and grab his forearm, guiding him to switch places with you so the massive frame of the truck blocks the worst of the wind. You step in close. Close enough to feel the solid warmth radiating off him through his damp sweater.
It frustrates you sometimes—the fact that you’re the kind of person who turns even small things into a burden he has to accommodate. Still, he doesn’t pull away. He stays exactly where you placed him, standing tall in the cold, like your boundaries are always negotiable and he’s more than willing to meet you halfway.
"You don’t have to look for me. I’m already wherever you are," Jack murmurs gently.
Jack holds your gaze. He’s patient, but clearly affected by how exhausted you look. “Talk to me,” he says, his voice cutting clearly through the sound of the rain. “I’m right here.”
You exhale again, watching the smoke mingle with the rain before vanishing into the dark. Your fingers tighten around the cigarette like it’s a lifeline.
Jack takes your silence not as a rejection, but as a plea. In that slow, deliberate way he does everything when he wants you to feel completely safe, he raises his hand. Palm up. Waiting.
When you finally pull the cigarette from your lips, the wind catches the edge of your damp hair, blowing it across your cheek. You are suddenly, intensely aware of how close your faces are. The burning ember hovers in the space between you, fragile and romantic in the worst possible way—like a spark that could ignite something neither of you will be able to undo.
“You smoke?” you ask, your voice rougher than you intended.
“Rarely,” he replies. When he takes the cigarette from your fingers, his touch is gentle. Reverent, almost. Taking it feels less like borrowing nicotine and more like an unspoken permission to close the distance between you.
He inhales, slow and controlled, his eyes never leaving yours. As the smoke curls out between his lips, threading through the wet air, you notice it. Your lipstick—dark cherry—has left a faint smudge on the white filter. Jack turns his head slightly, and his eyes catch the mark too. Just a touch. A trace. A proof that your lips were just there.
You kind of hope it doesn’t look like you meant for him to wear you. But as your pulse spikes, you also can’t pretend you don’t secretly love the idea.
Jack’s eyes flick from the filter down to your mouth, and the heavy gaze lands like a physical touch. He doesn’t say anything at first. He just stands there in the freezing rain, close enough that your shoulders would brush if you just leaned an inch forward. The way he watches you is enough to make your chest tight.
“Do you even realize how you’re looking at me right now?” he asks, his voice dangerously low. “You want it back?”
You swallow hard, your eyes dropping to the cigarette he’s offering, then lifting back to his face. You legitimately can’t decide what you want more: the nicotine, or the excuse to lean in until the entire parking lot disappears.
Before you can answer, the summer storm intensifies, taking a sudden turn for the worse. Thicker, heavier sheets of water slam against the asphalt. In the nearby hospital building, blurred silhouettes of staff members move past the lit windows, distant and completely irrelevant.
“You should tell me what happened,” he prompts gently. But the way he says it makes it obvious he knows you aren’t just upset about an office restructuring. He’s watching you like he wants to catch you before you shatter.
You finally reach for the cigarette, but you don’t snatch it back. You take it slowly, letting your freezing fingers drag along his warm, damp skin. The contact is brief, but it feels heavy. It feels like a promise.
“You’re staring,” Jack murmurs. He sounds like he can’t help himself—like he’s teasing you purely to force you to admit that you want this as much as he does.
“I’m not,” you lie, but the breathy softness of your voice completely betrays you.
Jack leans a fraction closer. Tiny beads of rain cling to his dark eyelashes. “You are,” he whispers. “And you like it.”
You don’t have a defense for that. You just lift the cigarette back to your mouth—then pause, hovering a millimeter from the filter instead of taking the drag. Your breaths mingle, warm against the freezing air.
Jack’s hand comes up. Careful, certain, and completely unapologetic, his palm rests lightly against your waist. He doesn’t pull you flush against him; he just anchors you there in the storm.
“Tell me,” he says again. And this time, it isn’t about the hospital, or the layoffs, or the promotion. It’s about you. “I’m still here. I’m not going anywhere.”
The rain drums harder against the metal of the truck, like the sky is demanding honesty from both of you.
You finally exhale a shaky breath, pulling the words out like they’ve been lodged behind your ribs all day. “Something happened today,” you say, your voice trembling but determined. “And I didn’t know how to tell you without… I don’t know. Without making it a bigger deal than it is.”
Jack’s sharp eyes soften entirely. “Then make it smaller,” he says softly. “Make it mine for a second. Let me hold it with you.”
Your chest aches. The yearning burns through your veins—hot, helpless, and unmistakably mutual. You tilt your chin up, just a fraction, and suddenly the tiny distance between your mouths shifts from an accident to a deliberate choice.
Jack’s gaze drops from your eyes to your lips again. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Can I—” he starts, his restraint slipping.
You reach up. Your fingertip lightly brushes the smudged cherry lipstick on the cigarette filter, and then traces a path down to rest over his hand at your waist. “I want you to,” you whisper.
Jack’s smile is barely there, tight with restraint, like he’s terrified of ruining the moment by moving too fast. But instead of kissing you, he brings the cigarette back up between you and shares it one last time—taking a deep inhale, like the storm might steal all the warmth from his lungs if he doesn’t hold onto it.
When he lowers his hand, his forehead comes down to rest gently against yours. The air is thick with smoke, petrichor, and a desperate yearning. It’s tender, deep, and far more intimate than a kiss in the rain would have been.
After a long, quiet moment, you step back. You flick the dying cigarette butt into a nearby puddle, watching it skid across the glassy surface before it dies with a soft hiss. The rough weather is only getting worse, the street turning into a moving mirror of headlights and red brake lamps.
You look toward your car, parked right beside his truck, and wave a hand toward it. "Let's take my car," you suggest, raising your voice over the downpour. "We can sit there, get out of this shitty weather, and get dried off."
Jack hesitates for only a second before jogging through the rain beside you. When he reaches the passenger side of your car, you pop the lock and push the door open for him.
You slide into the driver's seat, shivering violently, and immediately reach for the climate control dial. You crank the heat to maximum. The engine turns over, and the heater kicks in with a low, familiar rumble. Hot air blasts through the vents, aggressively pushing against the bone-deep chill soaking through both of your clothes. The windshield wipers swipe rhythmically—thwack, thwack—clearing the blurred glass, while the radio automatically picks up a quiet, familiar indie song. As the cabin warms, the harshness of the outside world softens until all that exists is the drum of the rain, the hum of the engine, and the sound of Jack breathing next to you.
For a few minutes, the silence is heavy. Jack stares down at his lap, gripping his knees like he expects his hands to stop shaking now that he’s out of the wind. You can see him actively trying to project normalcy, acting like the raw intensity of what just happened outside hasn't completely knocked the wind out of him.
Finally, you break the silence. You shift in your seat and nod toward the center console. Folded neatly inside the cup holder is the HR layoff notice. The creases are worn soft from how many times you’ve nervously unfolded and refolded it today.
“I’m still just… really bitter about it,” you say, your voice sounding small in the enclosed space. “Administration is acting like this bloodbath is justified because we’re getting ‘structural upgrades.’ Like software makes it fair. Like the people they just fired are supposed to clap because some VP changed the logo on our email signatures.”
Jack’s jaw clenches. He turns to look at the folded paper. “Yeah. And that new Chief title they’re rolling out for you—what exactly was their pitch? Like slapping a new title on your door fixes the fact that your team is gone?”
“It’s a sick joke,” you say, resting your forehead against the steering wheel. “They put the word ‘strategy’ in every sentence, and suddenly it’s all about growth and synergy, but it’s just rebranding failure. They didn’t stop for one second to consider what this costs the people actually doing the bleeding work.”
Jack turns his head toward you. He searches your face, as if anticipating that you might backtrack or apologize for venting. “Even with all the corporate bullshit, I still think you earned that promotion,” he says firmly. Then he grimaces, as if the words leave a bad taste in his mouth. “It’s just… it came at the absolute worst time. I hate that you’re caught in the middle of this.”
You snort. Not because he's funny, but because you’re so incredibly tired. “No, Jack. It’s not like they handed me the promotion because I’m some prodigy who deserved it. It’s like—” You search for the right phrasing, finally settling on a hollow imitation of a cheerful HR rep. “‘Please don’t quit on us. We really need warm bodies to cover the gaps.’”
The blast from the heater warms your freezing palms where they rest on your thighs. The radio hums, a low baseline filling the quiet, while the wipers continue their relentless sweeping—pushing away a problem that just keeps washing right back over the glass.
You sigh, turning in your seat to glance into the back. Hidden behind a folded fleece blanket and a disorganized stack of mail is your gym bag. It’s been sitting there for three days, waiting for a burst of motivation that never came. But the thought of what’s inside pulls your mind away from the corporate anger, grounding you in something much simpler.
“You know what?” you say softly, talking more to yourself than to him. “Hold on.”
You twist around, grabbing the straps of the duffel and hauling it over the center console. You unzip the main compartment and pull out a clean, plush cotton towel.
You glance at Jack. You weigh whether you should just toss it in his lap. He’s currently rubbing his hands vigorously up and down his forearms, trying to generate friction. He’s shivering, and he looks vaguely embarrassed about how the rain has plastered his graying hair flat against his forehead.
You hold the towel out toward him. When he dutifully reaches out to take it, you pull it back just an inch—a gentle, playful denial. It’s enough to cut the heavy tension in the car without ruining the mood.
“Relax,” you say, a genuine smile finally breaking through your exhaustion. “I’ve got you.”
Jack blinks, his hands dropping. He looks caught halfway between total confusion and a deep, melting softness. “You’re… sure?”
“I’m sure,” you tell him. You unbuckle your seatbelt to give yourself room and lean closer over the center console. “Come here.”
He hesitates for a fraction of a second, shifting his weight toward you carefully, as if expecting you to pull away and say just kidding. But you don’t. You reach up, wrapping the soft towel over his damp hair. Your fingers are incredibly gentle as you begin to massage the towel into his scalp, blotting the freezing water away from his roots. You move slowly. Deliberately.
Jack’s breath catches in his throat. “You’re really doing this?”
“Yeah,” you murmur. You pull the towel back slightly to smooth his damp hair away from his face. “Because you looked completely miserable back there.”
“I wasn’t miserable—”
“You were,” you cut in, your voice warm with a grin you don’t even try to hide. The heater hums against your legs as you press the dry cotton against the ends of his hair. “And because…” You pause, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make the next words feel heavy. “Because I like taking care of you.”
Jack goes entirely still. His dark eyes flick up to yours, searching your face like he can’t decide whether to laugh to break the tension, or just give up and lean all the way into your touch. “You don't know how much this means to me,” he says softly.
“It’s dangerously effective,” you shoot back. You keep your hands moving—dabbing his forehead, drying behind his ears, ensuring the chill is completely gone.
When his hair is mostly dry, you don’t pull your hands away immediately. You drape the towel over your lap and look pointedly down at his soaked grey sweater. You raise an eyebrow, treating the next step like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “Alright. I’m confiscating that.”
Jack’s brows shoot up. “You’re taking my sweater off for me now?”
“For you,” you correct smoothly, your eyes bright with amusement. “Unless you’d rather sit there in a wet puddle and ruin my upholstery.”
He swallows hard. Then, moving at a glacial pace, he pulls the heavy, wet knit over his broad shoulders. He hands the soaked garment over to you with a careful, reluctant politeness that only makes you want to push his buttons more.
“There,” he says. He sounds a little breathless. You pretend it’s just the cold getting to him.
You take the heavy sweater, tossing it into the back seat, and then turn back to face him. “Look at that,” you say, your voice dropping an octave. “No more wet clothes. No more freezing. And no more pretending you don’t absolutely love it when I fuss over you.”
Jack’s mouth curves into an asymmetrical smile, edged with a sudden, nervous energy. “I don’t pretend.”
“No?” You lean in, resting your arm on the console. You are close enough that he can feel the heat radiating from your skin, blending with the blast of the car’s heater. “Then tell me what you do like.”
His eyes drop straight to your mouth. The stare lasts for half a second—just long enough to be an absolute, undeniable answer—before he drags his gaze back up to meet yours. “I like…” He exhales a long breath, clearly steadying his racing heart. “I like that you don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” you say quietly. You lift your hand, your fingers gently catching his chin. You don’t force him; you just guide his face so he has nowhere else to look but at you. “Relax, Jack. I’ve got you.”
He lets out a low, rough laugh. It sounds like pure relief. It sounds like trust. It sounds like a man who is entirely fully falling for it. “Okay,” he whispers, leaning his cheek just slightly into your palm. “But you’re definitely going to owe me for this.”
“Oh?” you murmur. Your thumb brushes against his jawline, lingering at the collar of his dry shirt. “What’s the payment?”
Jack’s voice drops to a gravelly whisper, incredibly bold beneath the softness. “You start first.”
Outside, the rain continues its steady, drumming rhythm against the roof of the car. Somewhere in the distance, a heavy truck passes on the wet road, the sound rolling through the lot like distant thunder. But inside the cabin, surrounded by the hum of the heater, the radio fades into a slow, rhythmic acoustic track—a quiet, perfect soundtrack for the electric space between you.
Here’s something you didn’t account for when you engineered your own disappearance.
When you cut contact with everyone after your past violently unraveled—after you packed whatever fragments of a life you could carry and fled to Pittsburgh—you convinced yourself it was a clean, surgical break. You built a fortress out of a quieter city. You secured a job tucked deep within the labyrinthine IT department, a windowless sanctuary where the servers endlessly blink, the overhead fluorescent lights hum a steady lullaby, and absolutely no one asks personal questions. Here, your desk is just yours.
You legally changed your name. You scrubbed every digital footprint. You made an entire life out of absence.
But the past possesses a cruel, stubborn way of surviving erasure. It lingers in the quiet spaces, patient as settling dust.
You are halfway through a monotonous, highly technical discussion with a colleague about cascading system failures when your desk phone vibrates. The sharp sound cuts through the sterile air, far too intrusive against the muted hum of cooling fans. You almost let it go to voicemail. Your hand hovers over the receiver, a phantom instinct warning you not to answer.
Her voice is remarkably careful when you finally pick up. She states, with practiced professional neutrality, that you are listed as someone’s emergency contact.
At first, a wave of cognitive dissonance washes over you; you think she simply has the wrong file. It isn't because you don’t have the kind of life that paperwork can reach into, but because you have spent years systematically training yourself not to let people close enough to tether you. You do not belong on anyone’s “in case of emergency” line.
Then, she says his name.
Nico.
The conditioned air leaves your lungs as if you’ve been physically struck. It’s him—the man you loved with a desperate, all-consuming intensity before everything unraveled. Before the agonizing night that forced you to walk away from your career at the FBI, and from him, in the exact same breath. You disappeared so the toxic fallout of your fractured life would never spill into his.
It has been years of absolute, agonizing silence. Wouldn’t he have changed that damn form by now? Who keeps a ghost listed as their lifeline after all this time?
You don’t answer that question out loud. You begin to pace the gleaming hallway of the IT department while the charge nurse, Lena, explains in a measured tone that his condition isn’t good.
Not stable. Severe highway crash.
The edges of your vision begin to warp and blur. You frantically repeat a silent, desperate spell in your head: You’re not obligated. You built your entire life around not being obligated. But empathy and unresolved grief possess a quiet, immovable weight. Beneath the screaming animal instinct to run lies the memory of how he used to reach for your hand without thinking.
When your erratic breathing finally evens out, you push off the cold wall and step into the elevator. The descent to the Emergency Room stretches out into a localized eternity. When the metal doors slide open, you tell yourself you are only here for logistics. Just information.
But your traitorous feet turn toward Trauma One before your conscious mind can stop them.
The heavy privacy curtains haven’t been fully drawn. Through the narrow gap, you see a blur of frantic, highly coordinated movement—Shen, Nazely, and Jack working with the violent, bloody precision of medical professionals who refuse to let their minds wander. The scene is a terrifying paradox of chaos and calm.
Then, Jack glances up from the table.
He is masked, his eyes framed by his thick, black-rimmed protective glasses. Initially, his expression registers pure confusion at seeing you standing paralyzed in the doorway. But as he looks back down at the shattered, bleeding body of the man on the table, and then back up to your ashen, horrified face, the pieces violently snap together. He realizes exactly who this patient is, and exactly why you are standing there.
Simultaneously, the patient codes. The monitor unleashes a shrill, unbroken, agonizing alarm.
Panic and a fiercely protective instinct flash across Jack’s rugged features.
“Pull that curtain!” Jack barks, his voice erupting with a jagged, deafening authority you have never heard from him before. “Mateo, pull the damn curtain, right now!”
A startled nurse lunges forward, violently yanking the heavy fabric shut. The metal rings scrape harshly against the rod, instantly severing your line of sight. Jack disappears back into the desperate, failing procedure, leaving you staring at the swaying, opaque fabric.
And then—somewhere between the frantic shouts calling for another round of epinephrine and the endless, piercing drone of the flatline—the shouting abruptly stops.
The ensuing silence is infinitely heavier than the alarm. You don’t need to hear a doctor call the time of death to understand that Jack has just decided what you are not allowed to see.
Your mind instantly unmoors itself. The sharp edges of the ER soften into a thick, dissociative fog. The fluorescent lights hum at a frequency that makes your teeth ache. You drift back toward the main nurses' station, entirely disconnected from the feeling of your own shoes hitting the linoleum.
Lena is just lowering the receiver of the desk phone as you approach. She takes a slow breath, her expression shifting into that horrible, practiced gentleness reserved for the worst moments of people's lives. She opens her mouth to deliver the official words you just watched happen.
"I saw," you interrupt. Your voice sounds flat, hollow, as if it belongs to someone standing across the room. You can't let her say the actual words. "Can someone just... grab his belongings for me?"
Lena blinks, momentarily thrown by your eerie, vacant calm. "I... yes, of course," she murmurs. She looks down, scanning the top page of the file. Her brow visibly furrows as her eyes dart between the birthdates on the paper and your remarkably young face.
She stares at you, her professional filter slipping slightly. "Wait... you're the emergency contact. Are you family? His daughter, maybe? Niece?"
"No."
The single syllable lands between you. Lena's confusion only deepens—the easy explanation evaporating, leaving behind something far stranger. She glances down at the file again, as if the paperwork might offer some other logical answer.
"I'm sorry, I just—you were twenty, and he was forty-two," she says, her voice careful now, treading uncertain ground. "What does a twenty-year-old even have in common with someone that much older?"
You open your mouth, but the hospital noises buzz, rushing in your ears like water filling a sinking room. An image of Nico flashes behind your eyes—not the broken man on the table, but the exhausted, deep-set brown puppy-dog eyes you used to love.
"He was a widower," you manage, the words tasting like dry ash. "He knew what it was like to survive catastrophic loss. We—"
Your voice dies in your throat. The exhaustion of grief hits you all at once. How can you possibly explain the crushing gravity of a past life to a stranger? You focus entirely on a generic blue flu-season flyer pinned to the corkboard behind her head, obsessively tracking a small smudge of ink on the corner, letting the colors bleed into static. It takes far too much energy to make her understand.
Jack steps up beside you, having emerged from the trauma bay. His jaw is locked tight beneath the silver-grey stubble covering his jawline. He doesn't say a single word to excuse the intrusion; he merely meets Lena's questioning eye and gives a sharp, definitive shake of his head. No. Careful not to startle your fragile, dissociated state, Jack gently places a warm hand on the center of your back, much like a herding dog guiding you back to safety. His touch is light, utterly human, but it makes your skin burn. He steers you away from the desk, toward the family room, and you allow it, letting the steady current of his direction carry you when you have none of your own.
Inside, the family room feels claustrophobic. Jack guides you to a sofa and pulls a stiff chair directly in front of you. He doesn’t settle back into it; he leans far forward, elbows resting heavily on his knees, his large hands clasped tightly together.
“Mr. Solance was involved in a highway accident while driving home from work,” he says softly, his usually booming voice dialed back to a gentle rumble.
You stare intensely at a small crack near the baseboard. You blink, the dissociative fog parting just enough for the deafening silence of reality to rush in. “Can I see him?”
He shakes his head, just a fraction. He already commanded the nurses to clean Nico up a little, to wash away the worst of it, but clean is not the same as whole.
You wipe your leaking tears brutally into the rough denim of your jeans and reach out—a small, blind, helpless gesture. Jack does not hesitate for a microsecond. He takes your hand instantly, his warm, calloused palms wrapping securely around your freezing, trembling knuckles to ground you.
“Nico was my first real relationship,” you say, your voice cracking pathetically on the word first. “I was a late bloomer. We met at such a wrong time in my life, but he just... he kept showing up. He used to hold me and say, 'The past already took what it wanted, doll. Our job is to make sure tomorrow doesn't do the same.'”
Jack sits very still, his thumb moving rhythmically over the back of your hand. He listens intently, processing the shattered fragments of your past.
(She dated a widower? He was that much older? Has she ever actually been in a normal, age-appropriate relationship?) Jack keeps the barrage of internal questions locked firmly behind his teeth. He isn't judging you; beneath his composed, professional mask, there is a searching, profound sadness in his intense gaze. He just looks at your blank, tear-stained face, piecing together the trauma you've been hiding from him, genuinely wondering why you had been carrying the massive weight of an older man's grief when you were barely out of childhood yourself.
He watches your eyes glaze over completely as another wave of clinical shock pulls you under the surface. He lets the heavy silence stretch, giving you the space to just breathe, refusing to push for complex answers you are currently incapable of giving.
A careful, hesitant knock breaks the vacuum. Mateo steps inside carrying a clear plastic patient belongings bag.
“This is all I could get from the bay,” Mateo says gently.
You slowly take the bag. The abrasive crinkle of the cold plastic is violently jarring in the quiet room. Inside, folded haphazardly, is a dark blue long-sleeve shirt, stiff and ruined with dried blood. Beneath it sits a battered leather wallet. A small, worn flip notebook. An old, scuffed flip phone.
These mundane objects are undeniable proof that time did not ask for permission before it brutally took him. You pull the plastic bag into your lap. The sheer, physical weight of his ruined belongings finally anchors your floating consciousness back to reality, the grief settling over you in one agonizing breath.
“My shift ends in an hour,” Jack says, watching the ER lobby finally settle into that exhausted kind of quiet. “After I hand over everything to the day shift, I could take you home.”
The two of you walk slowly toward the elevator banks. You stand with your posture rigid, built like armor—your eyes fixed blankly on the reflective metal doors. You hold Nico’s plastic bag tight against your chest, obsessively adjusting your grip. The plastic creaks loudly. It’s an automatic, anchoring tick, giving your violently shaking hands something to hold onto so they don't fly apart.
“No need for that,” you reply, your voice stripped of all inflection.
As you stand there in the suffocating quiet, the doors of the adjacent hallway slide open with a soft swoosh. Cassie steps into the corridor, balancing a stack of patient charts against her hip. Her eyes casually scan the lobby until they land on you. She takes a quick, sharp breath, her expression lifting in recognition, and steps forward, her mouth opening to call out your name.
Jack catches the movement in his periphery. Without breaking his stride, shifting his stance, or letting you out of his protective orbit, he turns his head. He meets Cassie’s eyes and gives her a sharp, severe, incredibly dark shake of his head. He raises his free hand—a subtle but fiercely commanding gesture. Not now. Do not approach. Cassie freezes mid-step. She reads the violently protective, tense line of Jack's broad shoulders, looks at the bloody plastic bag clutched desperately to your chest, and her expression immediately drops into a mask of quiet understanding. She steps backward, melting into the hallway.
“YN…” Jack says your name, his deep voice pulling your fractured attention back before you even realized Cassie had been standing there.
“I appreciate what you and your crew did for Nico, Dr. Abbot,” you say. The formal title lands between you like a reinforced concrete wall—a shield of polite gratitude placed carefully on top of a volatile body of grief.
Right now, you know you need to travel down to the morgue. You need to gather every piece of clinical information that matters. You need to speak exclusively to people who will give you answers in sanitized phrases, because absolutely nobody in this hospital can give you what you actually want.
“I have to call his family and let them know,” you continue, each word perfectly measured. “After that, I have to report to my boss that I’m taking an unspecified leave of absence. If you'll excuse me.”
The elevator chimes and opens. You step inside the empty car, immediately turning and pressing the button for the morgue level in the basement.
The moment the doors begin to slide shut, Jack’s hand shoots out, his palm catching the heavy metal. The elevator shudders in protest and reverses. He steps fully inside the small, enclosed space just as the doors finally slide shut, sealing you both in.
As the elevator begins its slow descent, he effectively corners you—not with physical force, but with an inescapable, overwhelming proximity.
“I don’t want you to be alone tonight,” he says, his usually steady voice cracking slightly, betraying him on the word alone.
“You have work.”
“I can delay it.”
“It’s not your problem,” you reply, staring straight ahead at the mirrored walls, refusing to look at his reflection.
He sees the intense tightness in your jaw, the violent, rhythmic trembling in your hands that you are desperately trying to hide beneath the crinkling plastic of Nico's bag. “You’re shaking,” he whispers.
Taking a massive risk, throwing his professional distance entirely out the window, Jack steps completely into your space and pulls you into a firm, enveloping hug.
For a second, your shoulders lock into stone. His grip is careful at first, testing the waters, then it turns desperate, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm directly against your ribs. He clings to you as if he is terrified that if he lets go, you will simply vanish into the sterile hospital walls and never return.
And then the realization hits you, sharp, sudden, and deeply humiliating.
Nico used to hug you exactly like this. Nico’s deep, crushing hugs meant absolute safety after a brutal, traumatic case at the bureau; Jack’s hug, in this horrible context, feels like profound pity after a death. Nico was your past—messy, heavily traumatized, tragically flawed, but so deeply, genuinely loved. Jack is the present. He is safe. But accepting Jack's warmth right now feels like a sickening betrayal to the man whose blood is drying on the shirt in your hands. Worse, the heat of Jack's body makes you realize how utterly terrifying it is to risk caring about someone new, someone who could just disappear on a highway on a random Tuesday, leaving you shattered all over again.
The warmth is a violent, emotional trigger. It doesn't feel like comfort; it feels like drowning. If you lean into his solid chest, you know with absolute certainty that you will dissolve into a wailing chaos you will not survive.
Your breath hitches painfully in your throat. Gently, but with absolute, upsetting finality, you free your hands and place your palms flat against Jack’s chest, pushing him back just as the elevator car jolts to a halt.
He stumbles a half-step, looking startled, as if he just crashed headlong into a physical brick wall.
The heavy doors slide open with a dull chime, letting in the freezing, sterile air of the morgue level.
You step backward, out of the car and into the quiet, dimly lit basement corridor.
“You still have work,” you say, your voice taking on a clean, distant, icy edge. “I’ve got this. I’ll call you later.”
His intense eyes flicker with a helpless, puppy-eyed despair that he cannot hide beneath his competence. He knows *later* is a lie. He moves to step out after you, his hand reaching into the charged space between you.
But you reach right past him into the car. Your finger jabs the 'ER' floor button, then immediately presses the 'Close Door' button. You step back into the hall, severing the connection.
The heavy metal doors slide shut, cutting off his silhouette and his extended, pleading hand with a soft, mechanical finality, forcibly sending him back up to the world of the living.
As the mechanical hum of the elevator fades upward, you adjust Nico’s bloody bag against your chest. Standing completely alone in the freezing basement hallway, you successfully lock your feelings behind a towering wall that will not be breached until the paperwork is signed and the calls are made.
Pittling Tech Support: Fueled by Red Bull
(Jack Abbot x IT worker!reader)
Chapter 6
Word count: 5568
Summary:
Jack is discovering the hard way just how much you’ve been hiding. After all, you two are alike in certain ways… let’s see what that means for our beloved characters
Masterlist ALT Masterlist Subscribe to taglist!
Without hesitating, you pull Jack out of his car and bring him into your home. Clearly, he hasn’t slept at all; the bags under his eyes are more visible and purple-colored. His shoulders are sagging, and you notice he’s been cracking his neck, appearing stiff from sitting inside the car.
He has been constantly listening to the police radio from inside his car — quite the testament to how far he’s willing to go for you, even abandoning his own comfort to make sure you're okay. He’s like a dog eagerly waiting for its owner to come home. Unbeknownst to you, he’s struggling not to reach out for your hand, but he’s never been good at self-restraint. Instead, he settles on resting his hand on your back, like a herding dog gently guiding you as the two of you finally head inside.
There’s one thing Jack can be sure of: there’s a reason you get along with the pittlings so well. Glancing around your apartment, he notices it resembles what the typical university student might furnish their space with. Yet even those students usually find ways to add some color, but this place seems like you’d rather not live here at all. It’s tidy, but noticeably bare—no mismatched cups, pictures on the walls, or even a plant on the windowsill.
“How much energy do you have left?"
“Not much." He yawns as he speaks, stretching the words out. and stretching his arm upwards. While doing so, you notice he’s wearing his black scrub shirt underneath a gray zip-up sweater. The logo on the bottom of the scrub shirt is visible, indicating he hasn’t bothered to change since you left. The shirt rides up just enough to see a silver happy trail of his stomach. Trying to act like the view didn't affect you, you pinch the side of him, under his ribs, which makes him yelp.
“Rude, what was that for?”
“Go take a shower.”
“I don’t have the energy for that, sweetheart.”
“I’ll make a decaf for you; you can drink that while I get everything else ready.”
You gesture towards the kitchen and quickly prepare a decaf coffee for him. There aren’t many options to choose from—you have a capsule coffee machine, which you got secondhand from the marketplace for free. Your options are limited to some off-brand chocolate, an espresso shot, and decaf coffee.
He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, one hand resting on it while the other holds his phone. He’s not replying to anyone, just glancing at the messages quickly. As you walk beside him, your shoulders brushing, you stand on your tiptoes, open the cabinet, and grab a plain white mug. You ask, “You don’t need glasses?”
He seems offended by the question; he puts his phone back in his pocket quickly.
“Are you calling me old now?”
“No, you’re squinting at the screen,” you reply.
“I don’t squint.”
“You do—all the time,” you tell him as you place the mug on the coffee machine’s tray and insert the decaf capsule.
“You noticed?” You nod while watching the machine emit a steady stream of coffee, then reach out and gently rub his arm to soothe him while he talks. “I don’t like contact lenses, but I need to get a new prescription.”
“Hm,” you respond with a nod and a hum of agreement, but you keep rubbing his arm. This is inching toward the “I’m not letting anyone this close into my life” zone, yet your heart tells you to show more comfort to Jack tonight because of how much he’s sacrificed.
When the coffee is done trickling out, you ask him how he takes it, and he responds that he doesn’t like anything added. Carefully, you hand the piping hot mug to him, cautioning him. As he takes the mug, your hands brush briefly.
“I’ll get everything ready; in the meantime, finish your drink,” you say, gently rubbing his arm one last time before leaving the kitchen to prepare everything he needs.
You bring in a shower bench, a toothbrush, and orange-citrus-scented shower gel (you dislike vanilla-scented stuff, you prefer pine or orange-citrus).
While you’re running around making sure he has everything, he leans against the kitchen counter, observing your home more closely. Looking around, it seems like you’re either preparing to move or getting ready—as though you're days away from your lease expiring.
The apartment has a few rooms: a bedroom at the end of the hallway, an open-concept living room with the kitchen where he is now, and a bathroom. Many of the furnishings seem secondhand; the lack of matching colors suggests they’ve been chosen without much coordination. The walls are painted in pale tones. The home is well-kept and clean, but it clearly lacks details that would make it feel more inviting or personalized. Instead, this place seems more like a mere placeholder—somewhere to sleep, at least.
“Do you have allergies?” you call out from the bathroom. He responds loudly.
“No.”
“Then get your ass in here; I think I’ve got everything.”
“You think?”
“I do like when people assume 3-in-1 shampoo is the best option, but damn, at least let me try to be a good host,” you mutter under your breath, earning a warm smile from him.
“You know you don’t have to do all this for me, right?” he says.
“Yeah, but you also didn’t have to camp outside my home, so I figure this is the least I can do for you." You reply, leaning against the bathroom sink.
Your gaze drops to his leg before you look back at him.
“Did you just—”
“No, I didn’t check you out, so don’t start.” you warn him, then step out of the bathroom and switch places with him. Just before he closes the door, he turns back to look at you as if he’s trying to read your expression, to understand what you’re thinking.
“Do you need crutches?” you ask, tapping your foot against his prosthetic. He looks surprised that you actually know this; now it makes sense why you hurried to get the shower bench for him.
“Better question is: how come you have all this stuff?” he asks.
“My landlord is disabled and uses a wheelchair and other medical aids. This was before his accident—he had to move downstairs after cause he couldn't move like he used to." you explain, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. “He left some of his belongings here a few months ago after he moved. Had his nephew bring over more when I mentioned to him that I sprained my ankle after falling down the stairs at work.”
Both of you are just staring at each other, waiting. Jack seems to be studying you, while you appear to be waiting for something—perhaps a question or comment. Then he nods toward the locked door across the hall. “What’s with that secret door?”
“That’s where I keep all my dead bodies. Like souvenirs, you know.” For a moment, you can sense the hesitation in his eyes—he’s unsure if you’re being honest about what’s really behind that door. You respond too quickly, rambling the answer away. It might just be a closet full of secrets, but clearly, he doesn’t appreciate the questions. He’s trying to make eye contact again, but you try to avoid it. Then, he leans down to your level and pulls you back in with his gaze. Your defenses are down from exhaustion, and he’s feeling the same, but there’s a silent understanding—we’re not ready to talk about it right now.
“Later. After we’ve both taken a shower, because you smell like an old man,” you say playfully, bumping your fist against his shoulder. He tries not to startle you and gently wraps his hand around yours, as if to ground you—making sure that if he leaves to shower, you won’t have a breakdown or something.
“You can’t just let me in and then shut me out; that’s not fair, man.” He expresses his frustration with you. It’s like a game of tug-of-war—sometimes you give him too much, and he sees the whole of you; other times, he has to pull back and show you the truth that he’s choosing to stay. He would listen to you. If you would let him.
You free your hands from his grip and gently place your palms on his shoulders, guiding him into the bathroom—not forcefully, but more like guiding him along.
“Like I said, after you shower, I’m willing to confess all my sins.” You step back to the middle of the room, fold your arms in front of you, and watch him stubbornly refusing to take the shower. You sigh irritably and take off your sweater, then your white shirt you’ve been wearing. “What, you want me to join you or—” Before you can finish, you hear the bathroom door slam shut loudly.
You see it as a victory, while on the other side of the door, he struggles to maintain his composure and not appear upset. It’s impossible for him.
“Throw your clothes in the laundry basket,” you yell from behind the bathroom door. “I’ll get you something more comfortable in a minute.” As Jack strips off his shirt, he turns to check the healing progress of his bullet graze in the mirror. He flexes his arm slightly and notices a small shelf beneath the mirror filled with various medications. Recognizing what they are, he dislikes that many remain unopened. Alarms are ringing loudly in his head. Why are they prescribed but still untouched? There’s at least three months worth of medicine just sitting there, collecting dust.
He tries to push the thought away, to prevent his mind from drifting back to the medicine cabinet, but the weight of it lingers. Sitting quietly on the bathroom toilet, the water from the shower still running softly to warm, he’s struck by a quiet, haunting realization—you and he are taking the same medication.
Well, you’re prescribed to it, but you don’t take it. He attempts to piece together what he knows, connecting dots to see the signs he missed. He loves—he likes the sunshine, the torchbearer role you’ve taken in his life. He isn't blind to the fact that something is going on with you, and after seeing the full pill bottles, he can't ignore the situation.
He strips off all his clothes and places them in the laundry basket, then removes his residual limb sock and prosthetic leg, setting them aside but not too far away. Exhausted, he stands on one leg, using the bathroom sink for support as he gently hops around—though not too vigorously, since the bathroom is quite small. Finally, he sinks onto the shower bench and lets the hot steam wash over his tired muscles, seeking some relief.. For a moment, it seems as if a heavy burden has been lifted from his shoulders. He realizes he shouldn’t have worn his prosthetic for so long.
Only time will tell, he reassures himself.
He stops staring at the abandoned medication, and he starts using the shampoo and body wash that you left out for him, making him smell just like you. He tries to not overthink this. He's convincing himself he isn't. (He is.) While he’s in the shower behind the curtain for privacy, you knock and shout, “I’m leaving you some clothes; don't hog all the hot water, Jack!”
Jack leans back on the plastic shower bench, letting his head rest against the wall of the shower, and pulls back the curtain to look up at you. The fabric—one sheet of clear plastic paired with a bolt of simple white cotton—hides the majority of his body from you. Namely his right leg, the scars marring the nub where the rest of his calf and foot used to be connected to his body. You open the bathroom door, poking your head through the gap and locking eyes with him.
You don’t seem shy or embarrassed to see him like this—instead, you look at him with curiosity, as if trying to understand the reason behind it. You seem curious rather than shy, leaning forward with eyes fixed on him. He looks tense, worried about your reaction.
You can't really figure out what's with him.
Jack tries to hide his frown as he nods his head slightly, letting you know you're good to come in. Completely unbothered by the situation, not at all feeling shy like Jack is (not to mention completely worried about you), you step inside instead and quickly shut the door behind you. You must notice he isn't 100%.
"You know," you begin, setting a small pile of clothes onto the counter, "I'm here if you want to talk about anything."
“And you're the one who told me we talk after the shower, so…" he reminds you, his full attention fixed on you.
To soothe his mind, you pull out a foldable stool from beneath the bathroom cabinet. You chuckle softly at his comment, clearly noticing he’s tired, and it feels good to finally let those muscles relax. As you unfold the stool and set it down beside him, just outside the shower and less than an arm’s length away, you lean back against the bathroom tile wall, gazing at the yellow glow from the ceiling. The heat from the shower makes you feel warmer, even though you’re only wearing a black sports bra, jeans, and socks right now.
“I thought I took hot showers, but apparently not.” You say it with a playful tone, but his expression remains unchanged; he keeps looking at you, searching for the right words.
“No, I’m watching you like someone who doesn’t quite want to admit what they really want,” he says, nodding towards the shelf under the mirror cluttered with unopened medication.
“Tell me I don’t need to worry.” You appear confused, tilting your head slightly and narrowing your eyes. Where did the cheerful mood disappear to, and why does he behave as if you’re a child on the verge of being scolded? He gestures again towards the shelf, and you follow his gaze to the medication you’ve been avoiding for months, left untouched. Feeling like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar before dinner, you avert your eyes and refuse to look back at him.
He can see your walls starting to crumble, biting your lips. You realize you should have hidden those pills. You should have thought this through: this isn’t just a place to crash but a home, and it should be normal for people to enter your space and see through your facade. And it’s even harder to hide what those medications are when lying to someone who works in the ER.
“You know this isn’t right,” he says softly, gently trying to comfort you by cupping your cheek with one hand, even though both water and soap from his hand still cling to your skin. Yet, you seem to accept it and lean your head into it-
“I’m not giving up on you,” he insists, determined—as if he has already accepted his own fate to fix this chaos. It’s not about a white knight rushing in to save you, but rather about him extending his hands, offering a lifeline you can trust. One you can rely on more on others.
Frustrated, you close your eyes and rest your head on his shoulder—or at least attempt to. Instead, you bury your face into his neck, and he wraps his arm around you, holding you close. “I’m not giving up on you,” he repeats over and over, whispering into your hair as he places his head atop yours. "Tell me something you haven't told anyone else. I already know it won't change how I see you."
He hasn’t put his prosthetic leg back on and has been relying on the crutches you've lent him while he's over. He was even surprised to realize how much you’ve been taking care of him; he used to think he needed to look after you instead. While he ordered food, he caught sight of you running in circles around the house, searching for unscented lotion for his leg. When he asked why you went out of your way to help him with everything, you looked at him as if he’d asked the stupidest question. “This should be the bare minimum,” you replied, sounding a bit annoyed as you read the descriptions of two lotions in your hand, checking if they are truly fragrance-free.
"Are you going to sleep, or are you going to keep texting everyone?" Abbot says that as he is comfortably lying on his back on the foldable couch.
You shake your head in disagreement but continue reading messages quickly, replying to those that seem urgent, while leaving almost everyone else on read.
Knowing your room isn’t comfortable for Jack, you skip the usual “who takes what” game. A single bed with a worn mattress isn’t ideal for him. The under-bed storage has some clean blankets and pillows—though you’re unsure if he even likes pillows. You grab your favorite, pastel blue fleece blanket and a thick duvet.
Even though the weather outside is beginning to warm up again, feeling closer and closer to the average summer day, the inside of your home is freezing. Jack doesn't know how you manage it without air conditioning, but the place feels like the North Pole. He pulls a thick, brick-colored knitted blanket over himself, dragging it from its spot draped against the back of the couch.
"I'm sorry, but they keep blowing up my new phone because I only just connected it and all the notifications are coming in," You tell him, continuing to stand next to the couch and quickly typing away on your phone. Replying to and updating as many people as possible before someone thinks you're still missing and calls the police to knock down your door. However, Jack seems to have other things in his mind. He leans forward, grazing the outside of your left thigh with his hand, as much as he can from where he's sitting on your couch. The bare skin is cool under the warm touch of his fingertips, making you look away from your phone and down at him.
“Aren’t you cold out here?” He gestures towards the flannel lounge shorts you’re wearing, his fingers flickering just a few inches away as if a cat trying to scratch but holding back. You shake your head in disagreement. You don’t feel cold at all; this is the average temperature here; you're used to it.
He notices you’re dressed in a black oversized shirt adorned with colorful characters.
(Don’t make fun of him; he doesn’t know Hatsune Miku, okay?)
He furrows his brow, squinting at the shirt, trying to figure out if he has ever seen these characters before, maybe on a cereal box or something.
You tilt your head to the side and give him a look as if expecting a comment. “What, you don’t know the most popular girl on the internet, Hatsune Miku?”
“Uh… not really.”
“Okay, let’s revisit the past. What were your favorite things as a child?”
“Snoopy.”
“Snoopy was around even back then–”
“Hold on, you’ve got so many Snoopy things, and you don’t even know Snoopy was a thing when I was a kid?”
“How am I supposed to know?!” You exclaim warily.
He’s genuinely baffled, scratching his head. “You have a Snoopy mug in my emergency department breakroom!”
“Well, yeah, I spend my breaks there, duh! I needed a mug, so what?”
“And you left Snoopy stickers at the nursing station.”
“Oh, that? Those are for Dana. She’s into the yellow thing Snoopy hangs out with—" He’s just flabbergasted, not sure how you don't see why this is obvious.
“That’s Woodstock, by the way.”
“Cute yellow bird, whatever.”
“You make me feel so old. It’s confusing,” he says with an annoyed tone, and you shake your head with a smirk, trying not to laugh for his sake.
“Stop whining; you’re not that old. I mean, what was it like riding a dino to school?” You grin like an idiot as you poke his shoulder to tease him, but he growls, displeased with the joke, and swats your hand away.
You tug at your shirt and glance down at it. “I received this as a birthday gift quite a while ago from my mentor,” you remark. “She told me I needed more color in my life; I can’t keep being so emo.”
Still, you recall how she used to be this stunning gothic beauty. You shake your head with a smirk, reminiscing about the photos of Penelope when she first joined the BAU years ago.
Instead of standing beside him, you finally sit down on the middle of the couch. You return to your phone, quickly scanning through the incoming messages. Jack pats your knee, trying to get your attention. “Hold on, Shark was looking for me,” you say without glancing up from your phone, your brows furrowing as you type quickly.
When you put your phone down face down in your lap and turn to look at him. “Yeah?”
He watches you quietly for a few seconds until he gathers his thoughts.
“So… you used to work for the FBI? That’s quite different from being a cybersecurity IT worker at PTMC.”
“Yeah… it was risky but stable, especially when it’s so high-stakes all the time,” you reply, sounding a bit sad — like you’re reflecting on something that happened there. It’s not that you don’t love working at PTMC, but there’s a huge difference between making an impact by saving lives and ensuring a hospital isn’t targeted by cybercrimes or the highest of crimes.
“But PTMC at least doesn’t leave you like this,” he says, gesturing toward your bruised eye and nose. He had made you sit on the toilet seat after he was done in the shower, examining you to make sure nothing was more serious than it looked. It felt like he had been itching to do that ever since he saw you return, but he was trying not to overwhelm you right away.
Not to mention, you had already been patched up and cleared by Hotch and the Pittsburgh police. Lying about it would be difficult, but there’s a clear difference between Hotch’s touch—something you’d miss as a kid who yearns for their father's attention—and Jack’s, where you genuinely felt happy.
Sure, Jack didn’t approve and even recommended you improve your self-defense — even though he knows you have that “fuck around and find out” attitude — but still. This was so terrible, and he can’t believe you don’t even seem to care that this has happened. You’re trying to play it off as if it doesn't matter at all, like the whole thing is just one big inconvenience.
You shrug casually, pretending this isn’t a big deal, while Jack shifts to sit up further, trying to meet your eye on the same level. He leans in closer to catch your attention, but when that doesn’t work, he taps your knee again. You glance down at his hand, then back at him.
“Do I need to be worried? Is there a chance this could get out of hand?”
“I mean, it already has—” you remark, smirking proudly as he rolls his eyes at your joke.
He begins again. “I asked the woman who contacted me today—”
“Penelope texted you?”
He nods, but he doesn’t take his eyes off you. “Yes. I asked if they’re planning something with you. I would—” He stops mid-sentence, closing his eyes to collect himself. “The kids.”
“Pittlings?”
He nods again. “They’d hate to see you go—”
“You wouldn’t?”
“You think I would?”
“I mean, otherwise you would’ve already told me I’ve invaded your personal space.” You prove your point by placing your hand on his left side of his chest, which is so close it’s less than an arm’s length away, thanks to how close the two of you are on the couch. He tries to stay calm and hide his reaction—the way his breath hitches or how his ears turn red. However, he can't hide the way his heart is beating a little bit faster. Thank god you don’t own a stethoscope.
Even when you move closer, he still strives to maintain eye contact with you. He’s struggling to keep his gaze solely on your eyes, afraid to look anywhere else. He needs more time. He doesn’t want anything to happen just yet; he’s planning.He wants to convince himself he can have an actual relationship with you, not just be friends who flirt with one another.
.
He doesn’t see the full picture yet—like why you punched that guy yesterday. And why are you playing it off like it was nothing when he can clearly see you biting your lip and struggling to hold it together?
Not to mention the major alarm bells ringing in his mind about you missing months’ worth of medication, that you still manage to get from the pharmacy. How has no one noticed you’ve been slipping so badly?
Which therapist or psychiatrist has been signing off those prescriptions and basically handing you these medications—It's pure coincidence that you're both prescribed the same anti-depressants. And it's the biggest warning sign that you aren't doing as well as you appear - pretend really - to be doing.
Why haven’t the pittlings noticed it? Or is this just what the younger generation does? Laughing through the pain?
Was there ever truly someone there for you? Someone you can rely on emotionally, lean on their shoulder, and share your feelings with? Is he the first to notice the storm you keep hidden underneath all the chaos, even though it was completely unintentional? Has anyone ever held you and told you that things will get better? Is that the reason you’ve given up on yourself?
(Thinking about it, those kids have been assigned to work with Robby, whose motto is literally “Leave your baggage outside because it doesn’t matter,” and they drown in their misery in between Red Bulls and during trauma cases.)
“Jack Rabbit, come back to earth,” you say softly, gently patting his cheeks with both of your hands in an attempt to bring him out of his dissociative state right in front of you.
“You did not just call me that, did you?”
“Oh, so you don’t want to admit I give the best nicknames you secretly love?”
"It is a shitty nickname; I can come up with better ones."
“You might think it’s bad, but that’s actually what you’re saved as in my phone.”
He seems to drop the annoyed expression and instead looks somewhat endeared by it.
“But if you hate it this much, I can change it back to professional—” you start to reach for your phone in your lap to make the change, but he quickly snatches it away.
“Nuh-uh, I didn’t say anything about you changing it.”
He glances at your phone, which he’s holding in his hand, and notices the wallpaper: a photo from years ago showing you full of life and happiness, standing beside a blonde woman and a dark-skinned man with a charming smile, making peace signs with their fingers and bunny ears behind your head. He lifts his gaze from the phone to look at you, and you… you don’t resemble that person at all. Your bruised eyes and nose, the visible bags under your eyes, and your peaked complexion — caused by spending too much time indoors and not enough in the sun — makes you look like a ghost. Or like a toy left outside to be swallowed by the sun, which has drained all your colors by shining down on you too intensely.
“Alright, enough with the bullshitting. Why was the guy you punched so punchable? The video I saw online mentioned something…” His attention gradually drifts from what he was trying to say as you gently lift your hand from his chest toward the side of his face, causing him to flush even more. He shakes his head and catches your wrist to hold you back.
“Stop distracting me. Flirting isn’t going to save you this time.”
With a teasing smile, you try again.
“Why, don’t you want me to blow your mind—” you begin flirtatiously, as if you could rock his world with words alone, only to burst into laughter at how cheesy it sounds.
He leans close enough to place his forehead on your shoulder, his grip on your hands unwavering as he closes his eyes, a deep sigh escaping him.
“I don’t want to do this again if I don’t know what I’m signing up for.”
“Signing up for what? You don’t have to sign up for anything. You could just walk out the front door tomorrow and pretend this never happened.”
“And you think I could just do that? That I’m the type of person who can just walk out and forget everything?”
He lifts his head, gesturing to the lifeless home, to the bathroom with the abandoned medication.
“I can’t just forget everything I’m seeing here - your medicine cabinet is filled with unused prescriptions. How long has it been since you took them? Did you ever even start taking them?”
“It feels like a few weeks, but definitely several months.”
There is a beat of silence between the two of you until you begin to speak again.
"I have a lot of emotional baggage, Jack. I know you’re worried about my meds. The more you get to know me, the more you’ll see how fucked up I am. You shouldn’t feel responsible for fixing me; it’s not your job.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, his voice trembling.
A heavy silence falls between the two of you, thick and suffocating. You can’t find the words to say how desperately you wish you could wipe away the bad memories - the nightmares - scrub your mind clean of the past, and just have a truly fresh start. Instead, you hold onto him tightly, your arms trembling as you push your face into his shoulder, gently petting his curly hair, trying to find solace in the only way you know—through quiet, aching contact.
As you take a deeper breath to calm yourself, he gently holds you, one hand softly drawing circles along your back. You don’t look at him; both of you stay embraced, seeking comfort or figuring out how to comfort one another. Jack is trying to understand why you are the way you are while you take a deep breath and try to explain yourself.
“I did something in the past,” you begin quietly, your words muffled as your face remains pressed into the side of his neck. Jack nods, silent and listening. “I don’t regret my decision. But I need to tell you before the media does—before it’s too late.”
You pause, taking a deep breath as you summon the courage to continue.
“What I regret is surviving. How I was the only one left that day, and everything that followed—the media, the secrecy, how I’ve been used as a scapegoat."
You let out a bitter laugh, but your next words cut even deeper. “The guy I punched was making sexist jokes to provoke me, then blamed me for my team’s deaths, saying I shouldn’t have survived. And—” Your breath catches, tears slipping down your face. You had cried before, in Penelope’s arms, reminiscing. This time, the pain feels even worse. He gently hugs you tighter, if that’s even possible.
“Don’t you even finish that,” he hushes you. “We don’t have to talk about this if it hurts you so much.”
“But I can’t let you see me like this if it all comes out.”
“Do you really think something that happened in the past would change the way I see you? Sweetheart, I was an army medic - I saw my own share of chaos while trying to save lives—"
You cut him off as you lift your head, looking directly in his eyes. “I’m afraid that if the people I love knew what happened, they’d shut me out, and I’d be alone again.”
He’s genuinely stunned by this. How could you believe people would react so harshly over something that was always out of your control? He understands what you mean—people need context to grasp what happened. Still, you can’t keep picking at old wounds - the media is already doing that for you.
He gently cups your face with his hands, fingertips calloused from so many years of hard work. His thumbs rub over your cheeks, warmed from being shoved in his neck, wiping away the tears streaming down. His heart breaks at the sight of you like this.
“Whatever has happened in the past is just that—the past. Let’s bring you back to earth, sweetheart. Stay grounded, starlight. Life can be tough, but each experience shapes you. Change takes time and kindness. I believe in your growth. I’m here to support you, always."
“You can’t make that promise,” you interrupt.
“Why not?” he asks gently.
“Because I need to learn to do that myself first,” you reply softly.
He smiles warmly. “That’s okay. I will stand by your side every step of the way, and when you’re ready, I’ll be here whenever you need me.“
Please leave your @ in the comment section if you want to be added to the taglist!
@pixviee @cassierins @momdancingtomcr @theariespov @cosmosnkaz @chauchirem @malindacath @snack-at-midknight
Summary:
The Pitt is looking for you, beloved! 🫵 Where did you go, our beloved star of the show? Many viewers are guessing you took a longer nap than you were supposed to. Wake the fuck up, samurai—we have a friendship and a broken heart to heal.
Masterlist
ALT Masterlist
Subscribe to taglist!
You’re sleeping—or trying to nap—in the Pittsburgh police station’s “abandoned family room.”Your face still hurts like a bitch, but hey, at least Hotch confirmed with his very spectacular observation you were lucky the press guy didn't break your nose. Doesn't help the case; your head still hurts like a bitch after taking painkillers.
Yesterday was overwhelming; the press didn’t take kindly to you, and the authorities refused to let you stay close with your old family due to the case they are working on; you don't have jurisdiction to see it. However, because of your recognition and your past, they were kind enough not to kick you out in front of the press. Instead, they allowed you to remain in the old family room, though not close to the actual case.
You wake up to multiple coats being draped over you as makeshift blankets. Among them, a pink fluffy one stands out as the best, surpassing all the leather jackets you’ve been offered. That has to be Penelopes.
The door of the room opens with an uneven creaking sound, and you hear heels clicking on the floor, followed by a louder, more confident step just a little behind.
“Oh, now that’s a sight I forgot we used to see,” Derek says softly.
“Yeah, I remember she really has a terrible sleep schedule,” you hear Penelope reply, “when we had to go with you guys. Sleep mask, noise-canceling earbuds—I even bought her a neck pillow to prevent neck pain while sleeping in strange places.”
The third person, sitting among piles of files, has been reading across the room. (Since when did he come in? Did you also sleep over him bringing this much stuff into the room? Maybe it's quiet enough for him to be able to work peacefully.) He looks up at the sound of their voices, turning his head towards the pair.
“The average human needs 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night for optimal health and functioning.” Reid speaks in a tone that suggests everyone should understand, yet he also has a job that hardly allows him the luxury of freedom.
“And I don't even get any of those hours because you guys keep yapping my head off. " You tell him off, irritated from the shit headache, and flip him off. He doesn't even look up but does the same back to you. Like he has a 6th sense for when to be annoying little shit. You missed it; you have to admit it.
"How's your head?” Derek leans against the door frame with his arms crossed, admiring the view.
“Never heard a complaint about it. " You mumble under your nose, but Penelope giggles, proving your words were heard loud and clear. She sits beside you on the uncomfortable couch that clearly wasn’t designed for such long sittings and hands you your phone—its screen cracked and missing the vibrant yellow case it used to have.
“I managed to get everything off the phone and put it on a pendrive while Hotch handled … that.” she says, gesturing toward your black eye and bruised nose, which is covered by a bandage. Clearly the press guy's punch was …Punch-tastic!
“You really shouldn’t have done that—”
“I’m not about to let that sexist jerk try to talk you like that. He knew exactly what was coming for him.”
“Thats not what makes me sad, sweetheart–”
“He was making fun of me when he recognized me!He was making a joke of that fucking horrible day—the reason why I left!” You try to not get mad, but this was too much. You don't want to remember that day, the day that was the reason why the FBI BAU uses the nickname "Captain" on you as a derogatory term. Only somehow without your intentions this nickname has begun to formulate the past into something endearing from the Pitt doctors. Maybe a little bit; these hospitals love making jokes from one trauma case to another. (This doesn't apply to Dr. Robby's case; you tried to blow his motorbike tires when Samira explained drunkenly once she had explained that she hates how Robby calls her slow mo.)
Maybe you do share the same boat with Samira, nicknames being put on us like stickers that you just can't get rid of. Making a scene out of it would be obnoxious; you tell that to yourself.
“I still don't get how the press recognized me. They still assume I'm working with you guys?”
"Possibly," Derek joins the conversation. "But clearly he had a case on you and knows how to push those buttons. He knows about what to say and how to rile someone up.” He points at you, or more like he points at your face. He clearly doesn't like what the press guy did with it. You nod in agreement and reply to it.
“This is just a ticking time bomb then, when he is going to start pushing my old cases online more and more. Hell, maybe he just wanted a reaction out of me so he has a reason to publish that case story in the light."
Reid says, “And he understands his rights through self-defense and punching you back,” but he isn’t even glancing up from the files he’s reviewing; instead, he uses a highlighter to mark something in the document.
Penelope mimics a yapping motion with her hands toward Reid, then shifts her focus back to you.
“I’ve saved everything that I could; I’m sorry, but this thing is fully broken. Thank god I had everything here so I could pull the data off it.”
You remain silent for a moment, gazing down at your palms, clutching the bagged phone tightly. Penelope, offering a gentle, wordless look, seems to be asking what’s wrong. In response, you rest your head on her shoulder, like a sorrowful child apologizing to their mother for breaking her favorite vase. Quietly, you confess, "That was your phone, the one you gave me before I left the BAU." It had everyone’s numbers saved, even though Hotch warned you that it was risky. You assured me I could always contact you all, and you even had everyone’s contact details accompanied by those silly pictures!”
You tell her as tears stream down your face. This wasn’t just a phone; it was a pocket-sized home that Penelope crafted for you as a final gift, knowing she couldn’t persuade you after that incident on that cold winter night—the one that left you with a scar and required you to attend therapy and take medication.
Penelope quickly realizes what you mean and pulls you into a warm embrace you’ve been longing for.
“Oh, my darling.”
You notice another hand resting on your shoulder; Derek briefly places his there before moving it to the top of your head, softly petting and ruffling your hair.
“If you ever want to talk about anything, just give us a call—you’re always one call away, you know that.”
A few minutes pass as you, Penelope, and Derek soak in the freedom you’ve finally regained, even if only temporarily. Just as the silence is about to settle in, Penelope’s fashionable manner breaks it, though she still refuses to let you go.
“By the way, some handsome silver fox has been eager to get in touch with you. You forgot to tell us you have an admirer.”
“Oh shit no way–”
"Guys, guys, please don't ruin this for me."You hold up a finger as if to ward her off. You know her well—she probably already has him investigated, checked out his background, and maybe even looked into his internet history by now.
"You know me too well. It’s honestly terrifying."
You’re walking toward your battered car in the deserted parking lot of the Pittsburgh police station. Only the workers and FBI transportation personnel are present; the press has finally departed. The sun is rising, casting a dark orange hue across the sky.
As you are reaching for the door handle, you hear a fast footstep behind you. You turn your head back to be surprised.
“Hotch?”
“I didn't want to talk with the others surrounding us.” He stands with his arms crossed over his chest, subtly displaying some muscle. His suit jacket is absent, leaving only his white t-shirt which barely leaves anything to the imagination. But that’s not the main point.
“You never fully explained yourself. Why don’t you consider my proposal?” You glance away slightly, annoyed, then begin rummaging through your jacket to find a pack of cigarettes, pull one out, and light it.
“I’m really tired of this now. I used to enjoy being Penelope’s apprentice—that was the best part of the job. But you should've known why I am not running back home—the BAU, I mean, in any minor inconvenience.”
“Are you still blaming yourself?” He gets straight to the point, addressing the heart of the matter. As if he’s struck a nerve, you quickly look away.
"Sometimes it feels like you’re already halfway gone, even when you’re standing right here." He confesses it like this: this space, the empty parking lot, is a confession booth for two.
“I don’t know how much of my life was choice and how much was fear." You confess it.
”I learned how to survive by not needing anything from anyone. It’s okay if you don’t forgive me.”
He quickly moves closer, trying to meet your gaze and make eye contact, but you avert your eyes and instead grasp his bicep as a sign that you’re still present mentally; you can’t bring yourself to look into his eyes while confessing.
“I honestly feel that I shouldn’t have made it through. Being the sole survivor is unbearable for me. I kept switching apartments and cities because the relatives of those agents found me and kept holding me responsible–”
“You were loved enough to survive.” He says something that interrupts your confession, causing you to finally look up at him, and he sees your eyes starting to tear up. Still maintaining eye contact, you smoke the cigarette and then blow the smoke away from him, questioning him.
“Do you believe in second chances?”
"You're just swallowing your anger until it rots.“After a pause, he softly lifts your chin with his finger, making you meet his gaze, then confesses his final thought: “I miss you so deeply it hurts.”
A moment of silence hangs as you smoke your cigarette, as if the act of smoking might drown out the nightmares haunting you. Hotsh observes this—the way your eyebrows tighten and your eyes start to drift away, not focusing on him but seemingly dissociating to push away those dark thoughts. He doesn’t press you; that’s what you appreciate about him. He’s steady, like a lighthouse, always present when you need him.
“Have you gone to the therapist I recommended?”
“Four times a month. It definitely helped, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back to the BAU. More like it confirmed I love working at the Pitt. It’s a different pace, but I still follow Penelope’s footsteps—just with a different approach.”
You crush your cigarette on the concrete , extending your hand for a shake. He takes it firmly, and before you can say anything, he pulls you into a tight embrace.
"Even if you hate me, even if you never speak to me again—I’ll still be waiting. I’ll always be here."
You should have listened to everyone’s advice and gone straight home. But since your old phone was broken, it was time to buy a replacement anyway. Thankfully, the cashier didn’t seem bothered by the black eye and bruises you’ve been sporting.
You purchased a few items: the new phone, a simple red phone case, and some AirTags with keychains.
When you get home, you notice a car parked in front of your garage that you don’t recognize. Not wanting to leave space, you park behind it so they can’t leave easily. After all, it’s your spot, isn’t it?
You knock on the driver’s side of the car hood, causing the person inside to nearly jump out of their skin. “Hey, that’s my spot—Abbot? What the hell are you doing here?”
A palpable tension hangs in the air: he appears exhausted, with his curls unraveling all over the place, visible bags under his eyes, while a radio quietly plays inside the car—not music, but police reports detailing the current events unfolding in the city.
You lean in to the pulled-down window, and he’s gazing at your face, examining the extent of the damage that occurred. Before he can say anything, you hold his face in your hands, your cold fingers pressed against his skin, feeling like a furnace in this early morning. With this touch, you confirm that he isn’t seeing a ghost, keeping his eyes fixed on you, but you notice his shoulders visibly drop, as if he’s finally found his home.
You gently caress the lines beneath his eyes, the crow’s feet next to his eyes, and the creases on his cheeks. You can sense that he hasn’t shaved in a few days, but you find it quite attractive. Who knows, maybe your heart is a little overworked or tired, just like this weary Abbot. He seems to melt beneath your touch, as if this is where he truly belongs.
There is a moment of clarity that this is real, and despite any doubts, he pulls you into a hug awkwardly. He’s still wearing his seatbelt, and you’re leaning into the car from outside. He holds your back and rests your head against his neck.
“Never do that to me again. Do you understand?”
If you wanna be added to the taglist,please leave your @ in the comment section!
@pixviee @cassierins @momdancingtomcr @theariespov @cosmosnkaz @chauchirem @malindacath @snack-at-midknight
Pittling Tech Support: Fueled by Red Bull
(Jack Abbot x IT worker!reader)
Chapter 4
Summary: In short, I think some of you forgot that not everything is happy and sunny, so here comes the angst train. I hope everyone got their tickets!
Summary: Someone really should tell Shen being this nonchalant is downright dangerous. Especially with codes. Bringing some great news, using the company phone for texting a specific person, and someone is making a suspicious deal,,,🤨
titsay
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
areudirty
