libs

libs : she/her : 20 : mdni

[libslovesworld]

about me!

✮ libs ✮ twenty ✮ she/her ✮ leo

✮ my blog is strictly 18+! ✮ minors and ageless blogs will be blocked!

✮ my masterlist can be found here!

✮ rafe cameron and steve harrington have my heart

✮ i don't have many, but my moots have my heart <3 and i'm always welcome to more!

✮ asks are open! pop in with requests or just conversation!

✮ much love, xoxo

[argillaforma]

ilya being in a period of Bad depression and between playing games and going to practice he doesn't really have the energy to do much else and he just kind of collapses when he gets home and he hasn't shaved in days and his hair is unruly and he just feels kinda gross and ugly but doesn't have the energy to do anything about it so shane is like Not On My Watch so he drags ilya into the tub and washes his hair with his special curly shampoo and carefully shaves his face and lathers him in too much body lotion which means he has to stand stark naked in the bathroom for 10 minutes before he can put clothes on and shane tries his best to do his curly hair routine for him he gets the special towel and the curl cream and his eyebrows furrow in concentration as he scrunches ilya's curls to the best of his abilities and ilya sits on the toilet lid with tears in his eyes

[argillaforma]

au where shane doesn’t like casual hookups because he knows he needs a lot of aftercare and he doesn’t think he can ask a stranger to do that because he might be Too Much™️ but rose forces him to go out with her and he meets ilya at a bar and they end up going back to shane’s place to have sex and afterwards ilya can tell there’s something that’s bothering shane and ilya is afraid that he hurt him or that shane regrets it but shane ends up telling ilya that it’s because his brain does this annoying thing after sex sometimes and the only thing that really helps is being physically close to someone like lay on top of me and crush me close and he’s like thanks for having sex with me i understand if you have to go and ilya’s heart breaks a little for this guy he just met with these beautiful bambi eyes so he’s like lay down i will lay on top of you and crush you for as long as you want

[anya-hollander-rozanova]

Ok but Cliff Marlow somehow managing to get into Ilya's phone after the Tunameltdown in the middle of the Hollandry crashout, and getting Montreal Jane's number.

The entire Boston roster piling behind Marly as he types, trying to decide what to say that could save them because their captain has been possessed by the spirit or a soviet military trainer with knife shoes and if they are forced to make double bagskates again they will either puke or die or both.

So Shane Hollander wakes up one day to a message from an unknown number like "Hello Miss Jane ma'am this is Clifford Marlow I don't know if you have heard of me I am sorry to be a bother I'm just wondering if you could give my good friend Ilya another chance, I promise that whatever he did he won't do again, we will help we will teach him to cook and clean and do laundry and he will cook you the best sandwiches ever if you only give him a chance only if you want of course if it's not too much of a bother Miss Jane please and thank you" and he goes through the seven stages of grief in like 4 seconds before it's even 7am. They manage to add the link to a very big spa gift card that they all chipped in to buy because at that point they're desperate.

[kassy-djomunson]

right right right

via sofyvisuals on insta

[tinylilhollander]

The night before Shane might win his third Stanley cup, Ilya sends him the clip of his Stanley cup win.

Confused, Shane immediately calls him.

"Is this some new and unique way to psych me out before the final, Rozanov? I didn't know you had money on Detroit."

"No, I am sending for a good reason," Ilya laughs. "I know it sucks for us that when you win all your team will be kissing their girlfriends and Pike will be making out all gross with Jackie, and we will not be able to. So, I wanted to show you exactly where I first kissed the cup. It was on the top, right over where it says Ottawa 1905, left of where it says 'Challenge Cup'. I remember because I did this on purpose. We weren't anything then, but I was thinking of you. I couldn't help thinking of you. So if you kiss the same place, it will be a little like we are sharing a kiss. And only we will know about it."

And Shane feels the air clean knocked out of his lungs and the back of his throat get tight, as he barely gets out, "Baby, that's... Thank you. I don't know what to say. I love you so fucking much. I'll make sure you see our kiss, okay?"

"I will be watching. I love you, My Shane. Go show the world why Shane Fucking Hollander is the goat, okay?"

On the night Shane wins his third Stanley Cup, he kisses their spot on the cup, thinking only of Ilya, and longs for a day where he can pull him onto the ice like Scott did with Kip.

On the night Shane wins his fourth Stanley cup, he hoists the cup into the air with his captain, they both kiss the same spot on the trophy, and then in front of the world, on his home ice, Shane Hollander kisses his husband, and it feels like a promise fulfilled.

[xxilya81xx]

Gorgeous artwork by kittymewes on IG. They sell prints of these beautiful treasures too. Ugh I love them ALL!

[lexicanons]

Post TLG Shane and Ilya have a huge fight, and Shane goes to the guest bedroom to sleep. He’s lying in bed, wide awake, when the door flies open and Ilya walks in. He silently climbs into bed, back to Shane. Shane turns to look at Ilya’s back but doesn’t say anything. He just gets out of bed with a huff and goes back to their room. If Ilya wants the guest bedroom, he can have it. Shane climbs into their bed and starts to situate himself when Ilya comes into the bedroom and gets into bed. Shane rolls his eyes, hops out of bed and goes to the couch. He’s pulling the blanket around himself when Ilya enters the room and sits on the other end of the couch. He grabs a blanket and puts it on himself.

“What is your problem?” Shane asks. “I gave up our bedroom and the guest room and now you’re here.”

“We sleep in same place no matter what.” Ilya says as he swings his legs into the couch. “So stay or I follow you around home.” His feet touch Shane’s but Shane pulls his legs away from Ilya.

“Fine, goodnight.” Shane curls up on the couch to sleep. He isn’t sure how much time has passed but he can tell Ilya is asleep by his breathing. Shane sits up and just stares at Ilya for a while before carefully getting off the couch. He goes over to Ilya and picks him up, carrying him to the bedroom. “Wha?”

“You can’t sleep on the couch. It’s not good for your back.” Shane explains as he lays Ilya on the bed.

“Do not go to couch.”

“I’m not.” Shane climbs into bed beside Ilya. He presses a kiss to Ilya’s temple. “Goodnight. Love you.”

“If I say sorry, do I get proper kiss and proper I love you.”

Shane kisses Ilya on the lips. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

[aerispilled]

clark kent, fem, suggestive, 0.5k — supa dupa old draft

Your (almost) first time with Clark, you can barely focus with the way he’s kissing and holding you.

His big hands creep up under your soft nightgown, accompanied by his quiet “Okay?”s or “May I?”s that make you shiver. He presses sweet kisses down your jaw, your neck, your collarbones, completely enamored by you. You feel all too comfortable on his not-quite-soft but also not-quite-firm mattress, propped up on his plush pillows, and the thought of going to fourth base with someone so dreamy tenses you up.

You haven’t gone that far in a while, and it feels like falling with no safety net in sight—and it is—which is why you stop.

“Clark,” you sigh. Your fingers suddenly curl around his shoulder, wrinkling up his cotton sleepshirt, and you squirm under him. “Clark, Clark, Clark—wait.”

He stiffens, lips hovering just above your sternum before he lifts his head of curls—glassy eyes meeting your wide ones. “Hmm?” He kisses your cheek, reassuring and present.

“What if I don't want to?” You ask, meeting his gaze. You look worried, and he wants nothing more than to press away the furrow between your brows.

He hums, propping himself up on his elbows above you—there it is, that curl again. You expected him to smile, laugh even, but instead he looks completely earnest. “Then we don't have to. We won’t do anything.”

“Clark,” you whine, turning your head into his pillows with embarrassment. You can already feel the warmth creeping up your neck, and his concern builds tenfold. “It’d be rude to blue-ball—”

“Don’t you worry about that,” he cuts in, leaning down to kiss your head before dropping onto the mattress beside you. He still feels your pout when he pulls you into him, so he presses, “Honey.”

“Sorry,” you blurt out, shaking your head. “Sorry, I—”

“You're not doing anything wrong.” His warm palm rubs your back, grounding you. Up, down, up, down. “And you're not blue-balling me. You could never, sweet girl. Look at you, it's already more than enough having you like this.”

Your cheeks burn hotter than before, and you wonder if he can feel your skin scalding his—it must be why he’s so warm, right? “Are you—are you sure? I can -”

He tuts, patting your shoulder like you’re an insolent child—but it’s packed with care, and Clark is never condescending to you, or to anyone, for that matter. “Nope, nope. Don’t do anything. Let’s do what you want to do, huh? I know there’s an idea in that head of yours.”

You roll the question around in your head; inspect it, dissect it, turn it every which way. But Clark never makes you feel less than worthy and beautiful, so why hold your tongue? Besides, his gentle hands are already unraveling the tension in your muscles, squeezing your forearms here and there. It’s profound yet simple, his love and care for you.

“Mmm…” You bite the inside of your cheek, pensive. “Love Island? I dunno, I’ve missed the last few episodes, and it's all Cat talks about.”

Tugging on his shirt, you add, “And we can make a cheese board.”

He smiles, nosing your temple. So much relief fills him when he knows you’re starting to relax again. “Sounds good to me, baby,” Clark says, already moving to sit up, and pats your hip for you to do the same. “C’mon, up. I need your opinions on it before you fall asleep.”

[stevenose]

to ease you (18+)

Steve’s afraid to hurt you. You just have to ease him into you it.

contents: steve harrington x reader; reader with a vagina and breasts; newly established relationship; boyfriend!steve; just the tip trope!!!; mentions of painful intercourse; reader is referred to as a good girl once!; hung!steve <3; sorta size queen reader <3

minors, do not interact!!

author’s note: short n sweet lil thing for u… hope you enjoy <3

“Can I be honest?” you murmur against Steve’s lips.

He’s half dressed under you, and you’re nearly nude on top of him. The bed dips under your knees as you sit prettily on his lap, your underwear turning translucent with each kiss you exchange.

Steve’s fingers adjust on your plush hips. He’s on Cloud Nine, hardly even listening. “Hm?”

You laugh a little, pulling back just a smidge. Steve’s eyes are unfocused as he opens them slowly to look at you.

“You’re much more patient than I thought you’d be.”

He grins lazily. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Think you’re a little too patient, maybe.”

He blinks, eyes still cloudy, love-struck and drunk on you. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You sigh, then lean in again. “Nothing,” you whisper, catching his lips in yours.

Steve doesn’t push it, though he makes a mental note for later. He’s a little too worked up to think clearly right now, anyway. You grind down on his pelvis, swallowing a moan that he can’t hold back. You’re patient with him as he redirects you to his thigh, and you placate him by riding it for a while.

Steve’s so kind, pressing kisses along the column of your neck. “Take what you need, honey.”

You pause. “You mean it?”

His tongue darts out to taste the salt on your skin. “Mhm.”

Gently, slowly, you pull his cock out of his underwear. It’s a shock that he even lets you.

Here’s the thing: Steve knows you’re going to break in two whenever he finally gets himself inside of you, and he’s simply not in the game of doing so. In fact, he’s always sort of diverting your attention to any part of him that isn’t his dick.

You’ve become intimately familiar with his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue. And he’s returned the favor — explored you all over with precision, not a spot left untouched, not a trick unlearned. He studies you, commits you to memory. He murmurs that he’s taking his time with you, that he’s in no rush.

You can’t really say the same. You’ve been with him, officially, for just over two months. He’s given you at least forty orgasms, and he’s let you give him zero in return.

Personally, you don’t think it’s very fair.

Steve’s whimpering as you stroke him, biting his lip and doing everything in his power to not bust just from a fucking hand job. It’s the first time he’s let you give him any attention, and it’s pushing him into hyper-gear. His whole body feels aflame, each tendon straining against the pleasure that every fiber of his being wants. He’s lost in you, his eyes drifting shut as you take care of him.

You manage to knock Steve out of his stupor by suddenly swiping the tip of him through your petal-soft folds. He gasps, his hands gripping your hips tightly. You both moan, ragged and rough, and it takes all of Steve’s self restraint to redirect your hips again. He opens his mouth to scold you, but you beat him to it.

“Jesus Christ, Steve, please?”

Your tone makes his cock pulse in your hand. Sweat beads at his hairline, his cheeks pink as he tries to steady his breath.

“Uh-uh,” he says. Calm. Measured. “Baby, you know I —“

“The tip, then,” you plead. “Just the tip, Steve, I swear. I know I can take it. Need it so bad.”

Your hand strokes him again and he moans, teeth piercing his lip.

“I —“

You press your lips against the shell of his ear and lower your voice just a tad.

“Steve, I can be so good for you if you’d just let me.”

His mouth falls open. His fingers flex against your hips. “But — you are so good for me.”

“Well, let me be good-er.”

He rolls his eyes, exhaling a laugh through his nose. “Got you that worked up, huh?”

You hum, kissing down his jaw. “Imagine how stupid I’ll go when you finally fuck me.”

Now it clicks.

“Is that what you meant when you said I’m too patient?”

You return to pumping him slowly, and he swallows hard.

“Mhm. Your worst quality.”

Steve forces himself to get serious. He tilts your chin up with the bridge of his nose, making you look at him, while one of his big hands covers yours to stop your movements.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

You’re so serious. “It’s going to hurt. And that’s okay.”

He frowns and cups your jaw, shaking his head a little. “No, it’s not.”

He sees that you’re getting shy, looking away from him. It takes you a moment to find your words.

“I want to be shaped by you. I want you to make it a perfect fit.”

Somehow, it’s all at once the most blasphemous and romantic thing Steve’s ever heard.

He’s stunned by it, in fact.

“I’m sorry,” you start, but Steve cuts you off.

“The — the tip? Only?”

You smile. It endears him. “I can settle for that. I just — I want you.”

Steve shivers. You’ve positively rewired his brain chemistry with a singular phrase.

You can hardly take two fingers while he preps you for it over the next twenty minutes. Praising you, always so kind and gentle with you as he works you through it.

“Taking it so good, angel… that’s my girl, yeah?”

He eventually fishes a condom out of his nightstand. You boost his ego, watching with wide, blown pupils as he rolls it on.

“It’s pretty,” you mumble.

“Pretty?”

You move to straddle him again, the head of him knocking into your clit. You jolt, and Steve’s cock kicks.

“Yes, Steve. You’re very pretty.”

He nuzzles his nose against yours and presses another gentle kiss to your lips. “You’re prettier.”

“Stop stalling.”

He runs his hands up your thighs and settles them on your hips again. He takes a deep breath.

“Relax for me, baby.”

By the time Steve’s popped inside of you, you’re both sweating, moaning, gripping onto each other tightly as you pant into each other’s mouths. Your hot, wet cunt strangles the tip of him, begs him to go in deeper.

“Feels so good.” His voice cracks from the exertion of keeping his hips still. “You’re so g— goddamn beautiful.”

You clench around him even tighter. He lets out a strangled yelp, burying his head into the apex of your neck and shoulder. He busies himself with sucking a hickey into your skin, savoring the taste of you and trying to stave off the overwhelming need to shove every last inch of himself inside of you.

And then — cruelly — you sink down further.

Steve’s eyes and head roll back immediately. His thighs shake, a needy, desperate sound finding his way past his kiss bitten lips.

“Honey — honey —“

“Can’t stop myself,” you whimper, rocking gently, managing another half-inch. “You feel so good, Steve.”

His eyes rake down your chest, doing a double-take at your tits before setting his eyes lower. The evidence of your struggle is clear, and Steve hates what the sight does to him. You’re so stretched out around him. He knows it hurts, yet you’re a mess between the legs, even soaking the part of him that’s not inside of you with honey-sweet arousal.

“Holy shit,” he mumbles.

You take advantage of his gaze to lean back in his lap, giving him a better view. Slowly, almost meanly, you fuck yourself on his tip.

Steve doesn’t know where to look. Your thighs and stomach quiver with each movement. There’s a wet sucking noise each time he pops out and pops back in. Your eyes roll, your back arching, tits sitting prettily at eye level.

“Gorgeous,” he moans breathlessly. One hand snakes between your legs, pressing his thumb to your clit, trying to soothe the pain. “Look so fuckin’ good like this —“

“I know,” you moan, pussy tightening from the praise. The ghost of a smile sits at the corner of your lips, all smug.

“Don’t get cute,” he groans, his hands moving to grip your ass. “Still just the tip, babe.”

You lean forward, pressing your dewy forehead against his. “Help me take the rest, then.”

Just the thought makes his cock throb, and you wince at it. Still, though, you keep moving, gently taking as much as you can — hardly over an inch — and pulling needy noises out of Steve.

“F— fuck — n-next time,” he pants, strangled moans interrupting him. “Next time, I promise —“

Your hand moves downward, gently wrapping around the rest of his shaft. Steve cries out, his body shaking, his hips accidentally jutting upwards.

“Shit!” you breathe, your movements stammering.

Steve’s heart shatters.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he coos, lifting you off of him. He tenderly cups your pussy with his hand, the warmth soothing it. “I’m so sorry, honey. Let’s stop, yeah?”

You shake your head adamantly, huffing at him.

“Steve Harrington,” you pant, settling yourself over his cock again, “I am making you come tonight, and so help me God, it better be from my pussy.”

His eyes widen and his cock kicks again as you slowly sit down on him. He simply nods, too turned on to speak and even a little breathless. You have him so whipped for you.

“You’re perfect,” he strains.

You kiss the tip of his nose. “Let’s make sure of it.”

[konoko]

[drawballa]

Sleepy boys 💤

[apocryphics]

oh ok

[gorps]

[trinidemgyal-deactivated2026051]

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION

[lovebugism]

BABY-SHARK ─── jack abbot

summary: it's well known across the ptmc that park the shark doesn't like anyone, except for a younger resident he calls 'crybaby,' who also happens to be jack abbot's secret girlfriend. (4k)

characters: jack abbot / sunshine!fem!reader, mentor!brendon park, whitaker & evil whitaker

contents: secret relationship, jealousy, age gap, humor, insecure!jack, not proofread cw for medical inaccuracies, allusions to smut 18+ (MDNI), and r getting turned out that jack takes viagra

( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )

Crybaby.

Dr. Park was the first to call you by that name — or Park the Shark, they called him, on account of his strong features, and the fact that he looked like he could swallow you whole without blinking. 

It was your first rotation at the PTMC, when you screwed up a simple tibia plate fixation. The reduction looked clean, in your defense, straight and stable. “You got it?” the attending had asked. And you’d nodded as you adjusted your grip on the patient’s broken leg — only slightly.

The imaging still looked clear from your angle, as the drill went into the bone. But then you looked down, realizing you had forgotten to account for rotation, and found the patient’s foot slightly turned. Your heart dropped to your stomach, and then to your ass at the look Dr. Park gave you when his screw went in off-axis. 

“Everyone take a good look!” he’d announced to the crowd of interns and med students watching after the fact. “If anyone here was wondering how to invent a new way to misalign a fracture, congratulations— You just got a live demonstration.”

Your eyes stung with tears, until your attempt to blink them back had failed. 

“If this is all it takes to rile you up, wait until something actually goes wrong,” Dr. Park had scolded. “Now do you want me to go easy on you, or do you wanna get better, Crybaby?”

You stayed. And he made you better. But the nickname stuck.

Crybaby became a term of endearment, a symbol of how far you’d come since your interning days, and was shortened to Baby somewhere down the line. “Baby, take this patient down to CT for me, will you?” and “Cut me an ET tube, Baby, six millimeters,” and—

“Good luck getting that consult, baby,” Jack Abbot says from the opposite side of the exam room, with his strong arms crossed over his chest. The nickname sounds different spilling from his lips. It always has. “The OR’s backed up with Westbridge patients. It could be hours before we get a room booked.”

“She doesn’t have hours…” you murmur under your breath, squeezing past Whitaker and Ogilvie as you part from your unconscious patient. “Excuse me…”

“W-What are you doing?” the former boy stammers.

“Getting us a consult…” you say, half-distracted, as you reach for the red telephone on the wall. You press the cool plastic to your ear and dial the ortho extension.

Jack watches attentively from the sidelines as you make the call upstairs. 

“You already sound like you’re gonna say no, so I’m just gonna ask quickly,” you say. “I know, I know— Terrible timing. But we both know I’m your favorite, so just hear me out.”

“Favorite…?” Ogilvie murmurs. “Wait— Who is she calling?”

“Park the Shark,” Whitaker answers solemnly.

“Or as I like to call him— Doctor Dick,” Jack says with a cynical smile. “On account of him being a dick.”

Whitaker nods in concurrence. “To everyone but her.” 

You hang up the phone and return to your spot at the patient’s bedside. “Ortho consult’s on its way,” you tell them, half-distracted, as you check the ketamine levels in her IV drip.

“How’d you do that?” Ogilivie squints.

“I asked nicely,” you shrug.

Brendon Park comes into the emergency department barely five minutes later, and brings a tense air in with him that matches the unsmiling look on his narrow face. The way his dark blue eyes lock on you the second he walks in can only be described as sharklike. 

“What do we got, Baby?” he asks you, and only you, utterly ignoring the other bodies in the room as he makes a beeline to your side. He smells of sea salt and sandalwood when he towers just behind you, standing several inches taller.

Jack swallows down the anger that swells suddenly in his throat like bile.

“Ten-foot fall onto a metal fence,” you tell him. “Tib-fib amputation— Pretty clean cut.”

“Sliced right through the bone like a guillotine,” Whitaker adds.

Park turns slowly, dark eyes zeroing in on the mulleted boy. “Was I talking to you?”

The boy’s cheeks flare red. He clears his throat. “Uh— No. No, sir.” 

“Let me see the X-ray,” the attending says to you, much softer in comparison, and follows you the short distance to the bulky machine in the corner.

“See?” you hum. “Not too bad, right?”

His eyes flit from the x-ray to your hopeful gaze. The corner of his mouth flickers faintly upward as he nods once in response. “Yeah. Should be pretty fun— Where’s the leg?”

“Double bagged on ice.” You motion across the room. 

Whitaker watches the older man walk past him with an unblinking gaze. “I didn’t know he smiled…” he whispers incredulously under his breath.

“Yeah, me neither, kid,” Jack mumbles, swaying softly in place, as he keeps his eyes locked on the two of you. 

His jealousy is misplaced, but inevitable. Everyone had a certain soft spot for you, but he couldn’t quite stand it from Park — the man who didn’t seem to like anyone or anything but his work and you. Jack knows it makes a part of you feel special, you are special, but he wants to be the only one making you feel that way.

“Tell him how we prepped the limb, Ogilivie,” you tell the MS3.

“Oh, please, not me,” the curly-haired boy mumbles under his breath, looking instinctively to Whitaker for assistance. He swallows hard when Brendon’s dark eyes snap to his. “Uh— Sterile saline in the inner bag, ice water in the outer bag. No direct ice to skin contact.”

Park nods and turns away, unwrapping the severed leg on the table below. “Good…”

“Thank you.”

“I wasn’t talking about you,” the attending snaps. His eyes soften the second he turns to you. “Let me guess— You wrapped this?”

“How’d you know?” you grin.

“Because it’s neat,” Park quips drily as he pulls the bluing limb from the plastic. “And I don’t think Abbot suddenly developed fine motor skills.”

“Stop flirting with me, Shark,” Jack monotones.

“Antibiotics?” the man squints.

“Cefazolin and gent,” you answer. “And we’re already cleared her chest, abdomen, and pelvis.”

Park nods to himself, examining the severed leg with his gloved hands. “Clean wound… No rush injury… Rapid transport time…” he mumbles to himself, visibly pleased in a way that makes your stomach do a backflip. “Replantation is a go. I’ll go ahead and book an OR, get it taken care of for you.”

“Thanks…” you say, smiling a little wider than you realize. Because ever since the day he embarrassed you in front of all your coworkers, you’ve made it your personal mission to impress him.

“What’s the catch?” Jack quips from across the room. “You already got a packed OR so… What? You’re just doing us a favor out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Hell, no,” Brendon scoffs. “Baby’s gonna scrub in with me.”

Your breath hitches in your throat. You’re not sure whether to be happy or horrified, ‘cause you haven’t done a surgery with him since you were an intern.

“Holy shit— Really?”

“Yeah. As long as you promise not to fuck up again,” Park deadpans, though there’s something distinctly soft in his eyes as he quips, “And if you can keep your guard dog on a leash for a few hours.”

Your eyes turn instinctively to Jack. You find his features slightly hardened but mostly emotionless. He shrugs despite the distant searing in his chest.

“She doesn’t need my permission.”

“Then why are you glaring like I’m about to steal your favorite toy, old man?” Brendon scoffs.

Jack’s eyes widen. His head swivels slowly over his shoulder, as if he were looking for someone standing behind him. “I know you’re not talking about me,” he quips drily.

“I would love the opportunity to scrub in, Dr. Shark— I mean, Park,” you stammer.

“Alright, then. Let’s go,” he nods, pulling off his gloves with a low pop as he storms back towards the door. “The rest of you, irrigate the hell out of this with three liters.”

“Wait— three liters?” Whitaker blurts.

Park glares. “Of saline, genius.”

“I… I knew you meant saline…”

You stop short in the doorway with Jack at your side, right before you turn to follow Park into the elevator. You flash him a wide-eyed look full of hope and distant worry, “You’re not mad at me, are you? For doing this with Shark?”

“I couldn’t be,” Jack scoffs.

“Well, then, I’ll let you know how it goes later?” you murmur sheepishly, shifting on your feet like a shy child. “Over dinner?”

“Sure,” he nods. “I’ll take you somewhere nice. You know, to celebrate.”

He gives you a soft smile that fades the second you’ve turned the corner. He feels the weight of his own insecurity sitting heavy on his chest. The notion that he’s much too old for you tends to follow him like a shadow, but it rears its mean, green, ugly head a little extra now. 

“Hey…” Robby greets, then slows his stride when he walks past the tree men leaving the exam room. “What’s the long faces for?”

Abbot flashes him an unamused gaze. “Shark attack,” he deadpans.

Robby nods sympathetically. “Yeah, that’ll do it…”

The familiar chaos of the ED wraps around you like a blanket when you come down from the OR — the beeping monitors, the rolling stretchers, the hundred different conversations. It feels welcoming, in a strange sort of way; it fuels you in a way it hasn’t in a long, long time. It feels less like you’re surviving your shift now, and more like you could solve every medical inquiry in this hospital if someone asked you to. 

You feel ten feet tall and lighter than air as you weave your way through the crowded emergency department. Jack can see it from where he watches you at the workstation with an eagle-eyed stare. Your scrubs are creased from your hours in the OR; your eyes are as wild as the distant smile sitting crooked on the very edges of your mouth. 

You plant yourself at the computer next to his, and Abbot pretends like he hasn’t been waiting for you this whole time.

“How’d it go?” he asks distantly, trying to be casual.

“Great,” you nod with a proud smile. “Like really great. There was a twisted artery, and I was the only one who caught it. I got to reroute it all on my own— It was crazy.”

Jack feels himself smiling despite himself, basking in the rays of your sunshine disposition.

“Really?” he hums, nodding once. “Good job, baby.”

You couldn’t possibly count how many times you hear that nickname on a daily basis, but it’s different coming from Jack. It’s warmer, more familiar — makes your stomach do backflips like it’s the first time you’re hearing the word from his mouth. You go dizzy accordingly, as your fingers flit across the keyboard below.

“I’m just glad I didn’t make a total fool of myself like I did the first time,” you scoff.

“Yeah, me too,” a familiar voice quips from behind you.

You glance over your shoulder and catch a glimpse of Dr. Park as he appears suddenly behind you, dropping a file on the desk next to you mid-stride. His sea salt cologne pervades your senses instantly, clashing with Jack’s softer, muskier scent.

“I thought I heard the Jaws theme playing…” the older man quips in a dry monotone.

“You should be proud, Abbot— Your resident was a star in surgery today,” Park says with a knowing smirk hinting at the very corners of his mouth, so subtle it’s barely there. “Can’t wait for her to be my protégé in the OR someday.”

Jack’s frown deepens when the man claps him hard on the shoulder as he walks back for the elevator, though not without tossing a “let me know when you need a letter of rec for that fellowship, Baby,” over his shoulder as he goes. 

He watches the younger attending until he turns the corner, and looks back at you with his jaw clenched a little tighter than before. His chest sears at the distant smile on your face, as the flames of his jealousy burn white-hot behind his ribcage 

“Well,” Jack hums drily after a beat of silence. “You guys are getting awfully close, aren’t you?”

You scoff like it’s funny to you, because the thought of Park the Shark liking anyone is funny to you.

“What? No,” you laugh, then shrug at the unconvinced look Jack gives you in response. “He’s just nice to me. That’s all.”

Jack lets out a sharp exhale through his nose in place of a laugh. He turns back to his computer and deadpans, “Yeah. Because he likes you.”

You open your mouth to argue.

Jack beats you to the punch. 

“And I don’t blame him, either. I think it’d make me a hypocrite if I did.”

Your face flares as a red-hot heat crawls up your neck. Your adrenaline-induced confidence fades into something softer as you struggle suddenly to meet the older man’s gaze. You glance down at the chart Park left, unable to hide the small smile on your mouth when you peer at Jack again from beneath your lashes.

“Where are we going for dinner after this again?” you wonder, half-sheepish.

The expression on his scruffy face shifts slightly, less tense but mischievous still. “We aren’t,” he says and logs out of the computer.

Your eyes narrow into a suspicious squint as you watch the man round the front desk. “What happened to ‘I’ll take you somewhere nice?’”

“Yeah…” Jack nods slowly, huffing sympathetically, as his hands curl around either end of his stethoscope. “I think we’re gonna miss that reservation, baby.”

Your stomach does a backflip.

By the time you make it to Jack’s place, the adrenaline has worn off just enough to leave you pleasantly exhausted. 

He can feel it in your kiss, as you straddle him on his sunken couch in the middle of his dim living room — so quiet compared to the ER that it feels like stepping into a completely different world. You prop yourself over his lap with your palms cradling his silver scruff and lick into his parted mouth in slow, languid motions. 

You’ve been at it for a while now. So long that Jack can feel your spit down to his chin. You could kiss him for hours and hours and never get bored — a testament to your youth, perhaps, because Jack doesn’t think he’s made out with someone this long since he was in college.

But, for you, he keeps his head tipped back against the sofa and his mouth obediently parted, letting you kiss him however you want — for however long you want. His wide hands fidget with anticipation on either side of your bare thighs, from where your shirt rides up to your hips. 

You’d changed immediately into one of his old tees when you arrived, after a shower your body had been craving all day. You smell like his body wash and lotion as you sit on his lap, running your hands down his clothed chest like soft drops of summer rain. 

Your fingers brush the tie in his dark navy sweatpants, and he tenses on instinct. You don’t seem to notice, though, as you leave a trail of wet kisses down his scruffy neck.

“Are you gonna fuck me tonight?” you mumble into his pulse. “’S why we didn’t go out for dinner tonight, isn’t it? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking about it all day…”

Jack goes dizzy at your words — at the otherwise innocent mouth they spill from. His stomach warms, and he jerks back from you before he means to; his mouth wet and rosy from the intensity of your kisses.

“Yeah, fuck— Yeah, I just…” he trails off, though it’s more of a dismissal than a true affirmative. “I just gotta go to the bathroom real quick, yeah?”

“Okay,” you smile politely, unaware of his subdued panic that he’s learned to keep well-hidden. You slide off his lap and onto the other side of the couch. “Sure.”

Jack rises from the sunken sofa with a low grunt in the back of his throat. There’s a slight limp in his step from where the long day has taken a toll on his prosthetic. “Feel free to make yourself at home while I’m gone,” he tosses mindlessly over his shoulder, before he disappears down the dim hallway, making an immediate beeline for his lamplit bedroom.

There’s a bottle of sildenafil in his nightstand drawer, with only one pill taken out of it — which he thinks is somehow even more embarrassing. He’d only taken it to masturbate once, after his SSRIs plummeted his libido and he was itching for a release after a long day. 

The small orange bottle feels strangely heavy in his hands now, as he tips his head back to shake one of the tiny blue pills into his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows it dry. The pills rattle faintly when he sets the bottle down beside him again. 

He drops onto the edge of his bed, mattress squeaking under his weight. He rests his elbows on his knees and hunches over to dig his palms into his eyes. He tries to will himself hard for you, even though he knows that isn’t exactly how that works.

He thinks of you — all young and pretty and waiting for him out there — wasting your youth on an old man who can’t get hard to save his life. It leads to a cycle of self-hatred that prevents him from getting turned on at all. And it’s maddening.  

The ajar door creaks quietly as you push it open without knocking.

You slink inside the dim bedroom and freeze at the sight of the man on the bed, like you weren’t expecting to find him there. Jack’s head whips to your form across the room and spins when he finds your underwear peeking out from the bottom of his shirt — a soft orange color patterned with dark black bats, several months out of season.

“What are you doing?” he squints teasingly, blanketed half by shadow and half by golden lamplight.

“What are you doing?” you retort. “I’ve been waiting out there forever.”

“It’s only been five minutes,” Jack scoffs.

“Yeah, tell me about it…”

You’re all but skipping to his side then, bare feet padding along the thin carpet as you go. The thin fabric of his shirt swishes around your thighs when you walk to stand between his. When you wrap your arms loosely around his neck and duck down to kiss him, Jack tips his chin back and opens his mouth to welcome you — until the open drawer beside you catches your attention, as well as the orange pill bottle sitting on the corner of the nightstand, as if he’d just pulled it out of there.

“What’s that—?”

“Nothing,” Jack answers, a little too quickly, and reaches less than casually around you to chuck the bottle into the drawer again. The pills rattle loudly in the quiet bedroom when he shoves it shut a second later.

He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’ve already gotten a glimpse of the label. Your gaze is soft with sympathy and glittering with something wild that he can’t quite place.

Jack says nothing for several long moments, and instead waits for your response.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed…” you murmur when you catch his scruffy cheeks flaring a soft pink.

“I’m not embarrassed,” he blurts, less than convincingly, eyes shifting away and back again. “I’m just… selectively unthrilled with this timing…”

Your nose scrunches at the shy smile you give him. His warm hands settle again on your waist while your fingers twist in the silver curls at the nape of his neck. Your eyes soften with something tender when you wonder shyly, “Is that why… Is that why you haven’t wanted to… you know?”

“No,” Jack answers instantly, then tilts his head to think for a moment. “Well, I mean— a little, I guess, but… I only take ‘em ‘cause of my SSRIs, you know? It’s not… It’s not because of you or anything.”

“Okay…” you nod and struggle to meet his gaze when you ask, “Do you know, like, how long it takes to kick in… or whatever?”

“Last time I tried, it took about twenty minutes—”

“Last time?” you echo with raised brows.

“I was just trying it out!” Jack defends with a crooked smile, slightly egged on by your misplaced jealousy after stewing in his own all day. “I was by myself when I took it, if that makes you feel any better.”

“It does make me feel better, actually…”

Jack’s light eyes narrow. “What’s that look for, huh?”

“Nothin’…” you lilt quietly, with a poorly hidden smile. “I just… I think it’s kinda hot… That’s all…”

His expression flickers in an instant — surprise first, suspicion second, then something darker third. A white-hot desire threads through the distant embarrassment still swimming in his stomach.

“Yeah?” he presses lowly, with a voice like honey.

“Yeah…” you nod once, unable to take your eyes off his prying stare. 

He studies you for another beat, before huffing a quiet laugh of disbelief. 

“You’re somethin’ else, baby, you know that?” he mumbles with a shake of his head, smoothing his calloused palms slowly up your bare thighs until they disappear under his shirt.

“I know…” you mutter on bated breath, trying and failing to be casual when you ask, “What do you wanna do then, huh? You know, for the next twenty minutes, anyway?”

You fight back a shiver when his thumb brushes over the center of the delicate mound peeking beneath the hem of your t-shirt, concealed by the thin cotton panties you wear. 

Jack hears your breath catch in his throat. His darkened gaze flits from your Halloween-patterned underwear to your heavy eyes, now glazed over with a layer of honeyed desire. 

A sly smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

“I think I have a few ideas…”

[lovebugism]

THAT FUNNY FEELING ─── jack abbot

summary: on your very first day as an attending at the ptmc, you're forced to navigate the chaos of the night shift, a code silver, and the fact that jack abbot would (and did) take a bullet for you. (7k)

characters: jack abbot / fem!reader, samira mohan, john shen, crus henderson, princess de la cruz, michael robinavitch, jack's dead wife also gets a wee mention

contents: friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, angst with a happy ending, heavily inspired by greys anatomy s6ep24, not proofread soz cw for so many medical inaccuracies (like so many), hostage situations, heavy mentions of blood and gore, mentions of trauma and grief

( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )

It was your first day as an attending, and almost your very last.

Other than your newfound position, there was little else different about this night compared to all the others. The late evening was filled with all the usual chaos that you’ve come to find a strange sort of refuge within. Your first patient of the day was a woman in a pretty sequined dress, who’d sustained a collapsed lung after screaming a little too hard to “Bohemian Rhapsody” during karaoke — something you’d only find while working the night shift.

“First needle aspiration as an attending…” Jack Abbot said with a nod of approval when the procedure was done. “How’s it feel?”

The simple question made you dizzy. It was as much of a reminder of your new ranking as the foil balloons in the break room, bobbing lazily against the ceiling tiles. Or the crooked banner strung above the coffee maker, reading CONGRATS in cheap gold letters. Or the plastic container of store-bought cupcakes someone definitely bought last-minute, with neon-colored frosting smeared slightly on the lid.

But what really sent you reeling, though, was the inadvertent acknowledgment of the simmering tension between you and Jack — which had always been there in some ways, but was much easier to ignore before now.

The constant will-they-won’t-they between you was buried under layers of hierarchy, rules, and morals — under the unsaid understanding that whatever this thing between you was could never be acted upon. Not while you were his resident, anyway. 

The obvious power imbalance was a line Jack Abbot would not let himself cross, no matter how desperately he wanted to.

Only now, that wretched line isn’t there anymore. For the first time since he met you, you’re both on even ground. The world is your oyster, as it were; all the opportunities lie now at your feet. You need only to reach out and take it.

“First intubation as an attending,” Jack hums from the opposite side of the hospital bed, eyes glittering with amusement behind his safety glasses. “How’s it feel?”

You scoff a quiet laugh and shake your head. “That question got old about the fourth time you asked it, Dr. Abbot…” you deadpan, sewing the trachael to the unconscious patient’s neck.

Reggie Brice; thirty-two-year-old male; exhibiting crush injuries to the chest and pelvis from a gnarly car pile-up. Seven people, including this one, were rushed in requiring immediate assistance. The rest were brought in with sustained head injuries, concussions, or minor fractures that needed tending to. You know that there has been at least one confirmed death.

“Well, it’s a big deal,” the man scoffs. “Why do you think we all chipped in two dollars to decorate the break room? Those grocery store cupcakes actually mean something, you know?”

“Well, I am honored…” you sigh in a distracted monotone.

Jack squints. “Yeah, I can tell. You look downright emotional—”

You take a step back to assess, gaze flickering to the monitor at your side. You find the man’s blood pressure continuing to climb, which is less than ideal for the injuries he’s sporting now.

“Pressure’s too high. We gotta fix that, or he’s gonna crash,” Jack announces in a sharper tone, though it never quite loses its laid-back edge. He always works best under pressure, in truth. “We could always crack the chest, cross-clamp the aorta—  buy him some time till we get him a room.”

“What about preperitoneal packing?” you suggest, gesturing over the patient’s lean stomach with gloved hands. “We do a simple midline incision below the umbilicus, pack like hell around the bladder, keep the bleeding in check until we get him upstairs.”

Jack’s silence is less than reassuring.

You peer at him behind the glasses sitting low on your nose, stumbling over yourself as you brace for an inevitable rejection. “I know it’s more of an OR procedure, and I’ve only done it once, but—”

“Hey…” Jack cuts in softly, brows raised to his hairline. “You’re the boss here, kid. Remember? We’ll do whatever you wanna do.”

Your eyes narrow, despite the funny feeling flaring in your chest. His voice, all deep and gravelly and gentle, has always had a way of piercing right through you.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Abbot,” you remind him. 

So there’s nothing standing in your way anymore, old man, you’re really saying.

Jack grins wide, like he can hear it in your silence.

“Force of habit,” he shrugs. “Now, c’mon. Let’s do it your way, boss.”

You’re wrists-deep in the conscious man’s pelvis, packing the blood clot around his bladder while Jack holds the Deaver retractor in a steady head. You fall into a strange sort of rhythm together, the way you always do, moving with each other without ever having to speak. Though, for some reason, you can’t seem to stop your hands from shaking.

“This is good, right?” you murmur behind your mask, shoving more gauze beneath the man’s sliced skin.

“You’re doing great,” Jack praises muffedly, without missing a beat, though he flashes you a stern look behind his glasses a second later. “You’re an attending now— You know what you’re doing.”

You swallow hard with an unsure nod. “Right… Yeah…”

Jack smiles at your sheepishness — a stark contrast to how methodically your hands move — though the expression gets hidden behind his blue surgical mask. “Don’t worry. It’s always a little weird at first. You’ll settle in in no time.”

You scoff a harsh breath through your nose. “You’ve been uncharacteristically sweet to me today. You know that?”

“I’m always sweet,” Jack squints. “But I can always get meaner, if you want. You know, if my kindness isn’t impressing you.”

“Hm,” you shrug and swipe your gloved fingers under the fatty tissue of the fleshy linea alba. “Jury’s still out.”

“Well,” his brows bounce. “I guess I’m just gonna have to try a little harder, then, aren’t I?”

“What can I say? I have high standards, Dr. Abbot.”

Your concentrated gaze flickers from the incision to the man standing across from you. Something mischievous glimmers in your eyes, crinkling at the edges with a smile he can’t see behind your mask. The air between you charges in a flicker.

“You doin’ anything after this shift?” the man wonders suddenly, passing you another stack of gauze with his free hand. “You know, to celebrate?”

“I don’t know…” you sigh and turn away again. “I guess it depends.”

“On?”

“Whether someone can give me something better to do than collapsing face-first into my bed.”

“I think I could make a pretty strong case,” Jack quips.

“Ooh…” you hum. “Do tell.”

“Something involving food. Definitely,” he starts. “Maybe something a lot more filling than two-dollar vending machine snacks.”

“Very compelling start, Dr. Abbot…”

“And maybe— if you’re so inclined,” he croons drily. “Something where we don’t talk about work for an hour. At least.”

You flash him a deadpanned stare. “Well, now, that’s just way too far.”

“Hm. It was worth a shot,” he shrugs.

“I guess we’ll just have to see how the rest of your performance goes...”

His eyes widen in amusement at your sudden teasing, not nearly as shy as he’s grown accustomed to. “Oh, so I’m the one being evaluated now?”

“Yep,” you nod once, popping the p.

“And what happens if I pass?”

You meet his gaze once more, with something a little shier around the edges. “Then I’ll… let me take you somewhere for breakfast in the morning,” you shrug, trying to be casual, though your wavering voice gives you instantly away.

A smile curls slow at Jack’s mouth behind his surgical mask. You can see it squinting the very edges of his light eyes as he nods in response. “Looking forward to it—”

The glass door across the room swings open without warning. 

Your heads whip simultaneously, half-expecting to find a grey-scrubbed nurse standing there, hopefully with some information about the state of the suddenly flooded OR. You find a strange man there instead — late fifties, bearded, tall but with a beer gut that hangs over the top of his baggy jeans. There’s dark blood on his t-shirt and the collar of his beige jacket, dripping from a cut on his temple.

His narrow face is strikingly hollow; his eyes are painfully empty. You figure he must be one of the victims from the pile-up. He wears the shock of it all over, no doubt.

“This is a sterile room, sir,” Jack tells him, authoritative but never unkind. “If you’re family, I’m gonna need you to wait outside. I’ll have a nurse give you the details— and maybe take a look at the cut of yours.”

“I’m not his family,” the man says in an even monotone, with a gritty drawl that insists he’s from somewhere further south. There is little inflection in his voice, the same way there is little emotion on his bearded face. He just lingers there in the doorway, frozen still in a way that feels almost uncanny.

Your wide eyes flit to Jack, glimmering with apprehension. Your stomach twists with it, too.

Jack’s firm gaze never wavers from the stranger across the room. “Either way, sir, you can’t be in here—”

The older man’s weathered right hand reaches slowly for the inside pocket of his jacket. Something silver glints beneath the bright white fluorescents overhead. It takes you a second too long to realize what it is — a gun.

The world narrows in an instant. The oxygen gets sucked out of the room all at once. Your chest hitches for a breath it cannot take.

You don’t realize until then that you’ve never seen a pistol this close before — or at all. Your brain detaches in an instant accordingly, protects you now by convincing you that this is no longer your reality. That you’re only dreaming. That everything around you is just a movie you’re watching from faraway.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Jack cautions on bated breath, bloodied hands raised in surrender. 

His wide eyes dart between the man and the glass door, where the stranger is just out of view of the hallway. He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, as he takes slow steps towards the assailant. 

“Let’s just— Let’s just take a breath here, alright, man?”

The monitor beside you begins to beep wildly when your hands freeze. Your body jerks when the sound fills the silent room. 

Your gloved hands move on autopilot, adjusting the Deaver retractor in Jack’s absence and continuing to pack the bladder with the remaining gauze. The work is the only thing anchoring you now — the glaring acknowledgment that, if you don’t finish up here, the man in the bed will die before he makes it to the OR.

“That man there…” the stranger says in a distant voice, like he’s not all the way here either. “He was driving the car that hit my wife… Blew a red light… Came out of nowhere…”

Jack’s expression shifts. He reaches for his jaw with slow hands, plucking the surgical mask from his right ear, and letting the left side hang by his chin — allowing the man to see his face. 

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“He killed her… On the scene…” the man continues, gravelly voice tighter now. “I was trying to scoop her brains back into her skull— Do you have any idea what the kinda shit does to a person?”

“That’s hard, man,” Jack nods sympathetically but stands his ground at the head of the hospital bed all the same, planting himself firmly between you and the stranger across the room. “I get it.”

“You don’t—” the man snaps, harsher now.

You flinch when his voice rings suddenly through the room, trying to pack the wound tight with half-numb fingers.

“You don’t just get to— to fix him like nothing happened. Like her life didn’t matter—”

“It does matter,” Jack assures with a rapid nod. “Your wife matters, I promise.”

“Then let me do something about it—”

Jack’s chest tightens when the man’s knuckles turn white around the gun. He holds it steady despite his troubled state, like he knows exactly what he’s doing with it. Jack understands, then, that if he lets that gun off, it’ll hit exactly whatever this man wants it to — wherever he wants it to.

“There are two other people in this room who had nothing to do with what happened to your wife, man,” Jack tells him. “And I know you don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I know that.”

“You’re right… I don’t want anyone else to get hurt…” the man nods, voice heavy and trembling. “So tell her to stop—”

The gun shifts over Jack’s shoulder, aiming right for your head.

A pained whimper sounds in the pit of your tightening throat. You can hardly see the incision below you as burning tears gather at your waterline. Your shaking fingers scramble for the sutures to stitch him back up again.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Jack blurts, stepping in front of the gun again without a second thought. He keeps his gloved hands raised, but his sympathetic stare turns stern in a flicker. “You’re talking to me right now, alright? So put the gun back on me— We’re gonna figure this out together.”

“I said— tell her— to stop!”

His thumb flicks the hammer of the gun with a daunting click. 

“I can’t!” you hear yourself whimper. “I can’t stop, Jack— He’ll die.”

“I know, kid…” he says without looking back at you, with a voice much more even compared to yours. “I know. Just keep going.”

“Stop!” the man bellows. “Or I swear to god, I’ll shoot you both in the goddamn head!”

Jack is not perturbed by his yelling. He wants him to yell, wants him to cause a scene so that someone’ll check in and call in a Code Silver. He just doesn’t want that gun to go off. So he keeps his voice calm as he counters gently, “And what happens next? If you kill us— If you kill him. What are you gonna do after?”

The man hesitates for a moment. His grip falters on the gun, as if he hadn’t considered the question until that very moment.

“I know you want your wife back… But this isn’t gonna make it any better.”

“Maybe not,” the man says. “But it’ll make it stop.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what ‘it’ exactly is, but Jack doesn’t need him to. He’s been where this man is standing — not physically, maybe, not with a gun in his hand; but in the deep, dark void reserved only for a special, gut-wrenching sort of grief. 

“It won’t. Trust me,” Jack says with a shake of his silver head. “I lost my wife ten years ago. Not like you did, but it still hurt like hell, man, I can tell you that…”

The man softens slightly. It’s the first time since the crash that someone’s tried to level with him, that someone’s actually understood. 

Jack takes a hesitant step forward when he catches the stranger’s resolve starting to slip.

“And I can tell you it doesn’t stay that way forever…” he continues. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, I know you think it’s never gonna stop. But it will. You just have to let it.”

Another step forward.

“You see the woman you’re pointing that gun at?” Jack wonders with raised brows, nodding his silver head in your direction. “I like her… I really like her. And I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anything again.”

Your chest aches at his words. Your glasses fog from the warm tears clinging to your bottom lashes. Your clammy hands fumble with the surgical needle.

The man’s finger loosens slightly on the trigger, and Jack takes another cautious stop. 

“And this is really bad timing, man, ‘cause I was gonna take her out after this,” he confesses with a not-quite smile. “But for that to happen, I need us to walk out of here. All of us.”

The beat of silence thereafter feels borderline suffocating. It wraps its cold hands around your neck and strangles you.

Jack almost thinks he’s gotten through to the man. He can see the cracks starting to fissure throughout his hollow face; the flicker of hesitation, the realization of what he’s doing — where his dark mind has led him.

“So you’re saying…” the man trails off and swallows hard. His drawl is much too soft for the words that spill from his mouth a second later. “…If I shoot her, you’ll understand how I feel?” 

Your blood runs ice cold in an instant.

Jack’s shoes squeak hard against the tile as he lunges for the man before you can blink. He pushes him into the wall with an aggressive thud and tries to shove his gun out of your direction. You bend over the bed on instinct, covering your patient without a second thought.

Two shots ring out.

You expect to feel both of them, or perhaps nothing at all, as your limp body hits the floor. You keep your eyes shut and your jaw clenched tight, bracing yourself for pain or certain death.

The harsh ringing in your ears is slow to fade. When your hearing finally returns to you, and your eyes peek slowly open, you find a sea of bodies crashing into the room like a tidal wave — and you, yourself, still standing.

Your head swivels on your shoulder, still half-hunched over your patient. Your gaze drags unwillingly past the blur of bodies and dark scrubs until it finds Jack, lying flat on the ground instead of you.

It takes your brain a long moment to make sense of it — the strangle ngle of his body, the stuttering of his chest, the tear in his shirt from the bullet, and the wet crimson darkening the tile beneath him. The sight doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong. Not to Jack, anyway; not to the man who’s far too steady, too solid, to ever look like this.

And the worst part of it all — the part that will follow you long after this moment ends — is that that bullet was meant for you, and that Jack didn’t even hesitate to take it instead.

The ED descends into a different sort of chaos than you’re used to. The PTMC fractures, splinters into something unrecognizable, as voices overlap and distort in your ears. “Gunshot wound— Attending down!” you hear someone shout, followed by a quieter, “Help me get him up,” and a harsher, “Someone get me a fucking line!” 

None of it feels all the way real. 

It’s like looking through the rest of the world through a fishbowl, where everything is blurred and warped and muffled. You can see armed guards detaining the crying gunman in the foreground of it all, along with Jack’s body being transferred to a stretcher, right before Samira ducks into your tunnel vision.

Her dark brown eyes are lined with exhaustion from her double shift as they dart attentively across your face — the first person to reach out for you in the midst of all the chaos.

“What do you need me to do?” is all she says.

Your voice comes out strangled. It sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else entirely as you choke through panted breaths, “F-Finish up his— his sutures, and… and get him to the OR... Walsh has a… has a room ready for him, I think—”

Your legs feel half-numb as you step back from the patient before you, left totally unaware of the chaos surrounding him. You stumble for the entrance, peeling off your stained gown and bloodied gloves as you go, and follow Jack’s body as they lead him out of the room. 

You migrate to his side like it’s muscle memory to you, struggling to find your footing in the midst of the growing crowd as the doctors rush the gurney to the elevators. For every step you take, Shen and Crus seem to take three more. It makes it nearly impossible to keep up in your stupor.

You crane your head to catch a peek of the man from behind the towering bodies before you. “I-Is he okay?” you wonder breathlessly.

The gurney jerks too hard around the corner, scraping the side of the wall.

“Motherfucker!” Jack groans.

“Well, shit— He definitely sounds the same,” Parker quips from beside you.

“How are you feeling?” Crus calls from the man’s side. “Talk to me, Abbot— You’re still with us, right?”

“Not unless you two learn how to maneuver a goddamn gurney,” Jack jokes through gritted teeth.

“Page Walsh,” Shen tells Lena with a stern nod, pushing the button for the lift. “Make sure she’s got a room open.”

The doors part with a ding. They wheel the stretcher inside, and you make sure to squeeze in with them, elbowing past the attendings and nurses to get to Jack’s side.

He’s clammy and pale when he comes into view, writhing in place as he clutches at his ribs. His black scrubs are stained a darker color from the blood spilling from the wound, which turns the white towel pressed there a deeper shade of scarlet than you think you’ve ever seen.

Your trembling hand reaches for him on instinct. You press your palm over his bloodied knuckles — keeping some pressure there, reminding him that you’re still here.

“Jack?” you call to him in a voice taut, as your teary eyes dart wildly across his scruffy face. “Jack? A-Are you okay?”

He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. His head turns slowly, just enough to find you, and he blinks wildly to clear the blur in his vision. The corner of his mouth twitches in a faint hint of a smile when he spots you standing over him.

He clears his throat, but his words still come out a little gravelly as he arches an expectant brow and says, “Told ya…”

You shake your head, features screwing in confusion. “Told me what?”

“That I’d make a good case…” 

Your chest flares. Something wells suddenly in your throat, though you can’t be sure if it’s a laugh or a sob. You just scold him instead. “It’s not funny, Jack—”

“Hey. You’re the one who said you had high standards, kid…” he rasps. 

His eyes fall over your form, trying to assess you despite his dwindling vision. You watch his scruffy features twist with concern a second later. His chest stutters as he questions breathlessly, “Whoa— Is that… Is that my blood? Or yours?”

You tilt your chin to follow his gaze. Only then do you feel the warm blood trickling down to your elbow; only then do you feel the white-hot, searing pain of the bullet that had grazed your shoulder. 

You feel very suddenly like the world is spinning around you. 

The stares you get return, as everyone else seems to notice too, only adds to the dizziness. 

“You’re bleeding,” Shen observes sharply. “Why didn’t you tell anyone you got hit?”

“I-I’m fine,” you insist despite the waver in your voice, shaking your head to fight the lightheadedness away. “I can’t— I can’t even feel it, okay? I swear.”

“Get someone to take a look at that when we get upstairs, alright?” Shen commands with a stern glare. “I mean it.”

Your wet eyes harden in an instant. “I’m not leaving—”

Jack’s hand, still weak on his side, twists over the damp towel to grab yours. His bloody fingers are cold and trembling as they struggle to find purchase on your smaller ones. You hold him with enough strength for the both of you.

“You got hurt ‘cause of me, kid. At least let someone—”

“Hey,” you snap, meaner than he’s ever seen you. “That was not your fault.”

“Let ‘em take a look at you, alright?”

You shake your stubborn head. “I need you to focus on yourself right now—”

“I am,” he insists. His gravelly voice never loses its humorous edge, and neither do his glassy eyes lose their tenderness as they flit back and forth between yours. “And I’m not gonna be okay if you aren’t, alright? So just… please.”

Your features crumple at the pleading look he gives you — with his eyes all squishy around the edges, and glazing over with unshed tears.

The elevator stills with a ding, shattering the tense moment. It jolts faintly, just enough to make your swimming stomach feel sicker. You catch yourself nodding despite your better judgment. 

“Fine…” you tell him in a fragile voice.

Jack tries to smile but finds the strength to slowly leave him, a little like the blood trickling from his side.

“I’m in good hands,” he assures you, then turns to the attending on his left. “Right, Dr. Shen?”

The younger man’s brows lower. “Didn’t you just call me a motherfucker?” he quips.

Jack’s weathered face twists as he’s wheeled out of the elevator. “…Did I?”

Your hand slips from his as you watch him go. Something about it feels wrong, though you can’t exactly place why. You just know it feels like something ripping in two — like the torn skin of your bloody shoulder, times a thousand.

The room they put you in is achingly quiet; the kind of quiet that makes everything else seem ten times louder. The green-white fluorescent bulb clicks and buzzes mercilessly over your head, drilling straight into your skull. The AC hums gently alongside it in a mundane sort of symphony that matches the empty room you’re in — where only one hospital bed sits beside a shuttered window, in front of a porcelain sink and mirror.

Everything smells like stale air, sharp antiseptic, and metallic blood.

You stand before the cloudy mirror with your scrub sleeve pushed up your shoulder, kept awkwardly in place by your chin. You struggle to do your sutures with a hand that won’t stop trembling. 

You don’t realize how ardently you’re still shaking until the needle slips across your skin — not enough to do any real damage, but enough to make you hiss through your teeth when it stings. You clench your jaw and pull the thread through, until the raging skin around the laceration pinches together again. Your features flicker as you try and fail to ignore the dull burn that spreads up and down your arm a second later.

The fiery sensation is the only thing keeping your mind distracted from all the rest of it — the way the gunshot made your ears ring; the way Jack’s body jerked before it hit the ground; the way the man called out for his wife when security pinned him to the floor.

You tug the sutures harder, relishing in the sting. You push the needle through once more, harder than necessary, and let it slip a little sloppier than you should — anything to take your mind off of it.

“Careful…” a voice cautions from the doorway.

Your head whips over your shoulder. You blink rapidly as your brain struggles to catch up — like you half-expect to find yourself back in that room; like you half-expect to find the man from before standing there.

You feel a little like the ground has been pulled from underneath you when you find Robby there instead, rubbing disinfectant between his calloused palms.

Someone downstairs must’ve called him about Jack, and about the Code Silver currently turning the PTMC to shambles. And, based on the surgical mask sticking out of his jacket pocket, you figure he must’ve just gotten back from checking in on him in the OR. 

His dark eyes flit from your face, to your shoulder, and to the supplies scattered across the sink before you.

“They said you were supposed to be getting looked at,” he says. “Not playing DIY surgeon.”

You huff out a breath that would’ve passed for a laugh any other time. 

“Everyone else is busy… At least I can make myself useful this way…”

You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze. You can’t stand the way he’s looking at you now. His gaze is too sharp, too focused. It’s like he’s studying you, cataloging, assessing — the same way you do with your patients. The thought of being so helpless makes your stomach twist. 

Robby doesn’t argue, but instead lets his eyes linger on the slight tremor in your hands. The leftover adrenaline is likely buzzing like electricity in your veins just now. You’re bound to crash at any second.

“I know you don’t want my help,” he starts slowly, sauntering further in with his arms crossed over his chest. “But at least lie and say I did your sutures— so Jack doesn’t try to kill me when he wakes up.”

“I think he’ll know you didn’t do ‘em when he sees how neat they are,” you joke drily.

“Rude…” Robby scoffs, sneakers scuffing as he plants himself at your side. You can see the leftover slumber in his swollen eyes more clearly now, as he ducks down to look at you. “Want me to get you something for the pain, at least?”

You shake your head instantly, not trusting your voice enough to speak without wavering.

“You sure?” he presses.

“I’m fine,” you snap. “I’m not the one in surgery.”

He is not dismayed by your anger. He knows it’s not meant for him. 

“Well, Jack’s doing just fine. Walsh is finishing up with him now,” he tells you. “Honestly, I think the hardest part is gonna be keeping him off his feet for the next little while…. ‘Cause there’s about a hundred percent chance he’s gonna want to come back to work when he’s discharged.”

You exhale sharply through your nose in place of a laugh as you tie the sutures and cut the excess with a pair of small medical scissors. 

You just barely catch sight of your delirious smile in the cloudy mirror before a chuckle sputters suddenly from your mouth. The sound of it fills the quiet room as you tumble into a fit of half-drunken giggles, bowing your head and propping your gloved hands on the porcelain sink.

Your shoulders shake as your laughter turns quickly into sobs.

Robby softens instantly. “Shit… I’m sorry…”

“I’m fine,” you blurt once more and shake your head. Your voice is strangled through the tears in your throat, but you dismiss him anyway. “I’m fine. I-I don’t even know why I’m crying, so..”

“You went through something traumatic tonight,” he coos. “Everything you’re feeling is completely normal.”

You shake your head again. “I should’ve gone with him— I should be helping in there—”

“You’d just be a liability,” Robby shrugs, a little blunt but not entirely unkind. “You’re still in shock. Your hands are still shaking— I wouldn’t let you anywhere near an OR like this… You’re better off here, and you know it.”

You turn your head to flash him a teary-eyed look. Your chin quivers as your taut voice trembles, “He asked… He asked me if I wanted to go out with him when we got off,” you confess in a strangled whisper.

Robby’s brows raise to his hairline. “Did he?”

You nod slowly. “And I was gonna say yes…”

“Good…” the older man nods, lip flickering into a smile beneath his beard. “About time…”

“So he can’t… He doesn’t get to…” You stumble over yourself to get the words out. “He doesn’t get to not come back after that.” 

Robby’s sympathetic grin widens at the stern, wet-eyed glare you give him. He takes a slow step closer and splays a warm, comforting hand along your back.

“Jack Abbot is the most stubborn son of a bitch I’ve ever met,” he tells you. “If there’s even the slightest chance of him coming out of that OR just to take you out, then… He’s gonna take it. Trust me.”

“Yeah,” you quip drily. “He better…” 

Jack wakes after surgery to a tingling ache in his side and a heart monitor beeping faintly overhead, pervading the strange silence surrounding him — a silence he doesn’t usually allow himself.

His eyes crack slowly open, dry and unfocused for several long moments. They dance across the ceiling tiles as he blinks the haze of sleep from his gaze. He struggles to recall how he got here — in this dim recovery room, which he had never seen as a patient until now. He remembers the stranger with the gun first, the warmth of the blood that came spilling from his side second, and the way you cried from him third.

Your name spills from his dry mouth like it’s the only word he remembers.

“Great. Now I owe Crus twenty dollars,” he hears a familiar voice joke from his side. Jack’s head swivels until he finds Princess standing there, checking the IV hanging by his bed. She smiles softly down at him and quips, “He said the first thing you’d do is ask for her. I thought for sure you’d want a beer.”

“Yeah…” Jack rasps, then clears the gravel from his throat. “I could go for that, too…”

“Want me to go grab her for you?”

He hesitates. “Is she… Is she okay?”

“She’s great. Last I heard, Robby was patching her up,” the woman grins. “And, for what it’s worth, she was asking about you, too…”

The anticipation of seeing you again was somehow worse than the pain, blooming something sharp in his abdomen, and only slightly ebbed by the morphine drip. 

The minutes drag on. The heart monitor at his side counts the seconds instead of his pulse. His fists curl against the stiff hospital sheets when he remembers the sticky red blood that had dripped slowly down your arm — the way you so easily brushed it all off, the way you so desperately wanted to stay at his side.

The door creaks softly open.

Something tightens in his chest.

You linger in the doorway for several long moments, as if you aren’t allowed to come any closer just yet. You’re bathed in the shadow of the lamplit recovery room and backlit by the too-bright hallway outside. He can only vaguely see the outline of your features from here — weighed down with fear and exhaustion and relief. 

The laceration on your arm has been cleaned and sewn. It’s still raging a little around the marred edges, but will heal into a thin scar in a few weeks’ time — a story you’ll tell for years to come.

Jack grunts as he struggles to sit further up on the raised bed, but hides it by clearing his throat. “You look good…” he observes in a rasp.

“Are you flirting with me, Dr. Abbot?” you joke with narrowed eyes.

“I am,” he quips back. “Thanks for finally noticing.”

You scoff a faint laugh and shut the door behind you with a quiet click. You can’t help but feel a little like the air has thinned as you walk further inside. You focus on your wringing hands the entire way to his bedside. You don’t have the strength to meet his unwavering stare, still puffy from a medically induced slumber, but never once straying from your face.

“You okay?” he wonders aloud, shattering the silence between you.

You huff a weak laugh. “I’m not the one who just came out of surgery, Jack…”

“Fair point…” he nods.

“But yes… I’m okay,” you add, if only to appease him. “What about you? How do you feel?”

Jack exhales a heavy breath, chest deflating behind his thin hospital gown. “…Like I got shot.”

That almost gets a real laugh out of you. 

“Yeah. That— That makes sense…”

You flounder in place for a moment, before reaching for the chair by the curtained window and dragging it closer to his bed. Jack is able to eye you more clearly when you settle into the cushioned seat by his side. He can see the redness in your eyes, the tension in your jaw, the way your clammy hands hover like you’re not quite sure what to do with them. 

Whatever closeness you had before those shots rang out is long gone now. You orbit around him like he’s a stranger to you, like you’re not quite sure what to do with him, like you’re too scared to get any closer.

He bows his head, made of mussed silver curls, in a feeble attempt to meet your stare. He silently begs you to look back at him, but you never do.

“I’m okay, you know?” he coos to you, equal parts because it’s true and because he knows you need to hear it from him.

“No, I know, I just—” You cut yourself off when your fragile voice finally breaks. You shake your head to yourself and swallow hard, picking at the skin of your thumb until it starts to bleed. The scratch there blurs as burning tears gather once more in your gaze. “I can’t stop thinking about it, you know? If you wouldn’t have— have gotten as hurt if… you know, if you weren’t standing in front of me like that—”

His chest twists at the thought of you blaming yourself for it. The burning sensation there hurts him far worse than the one at his side.

“You would’ve gotten it a lot worse if I hadn’t.”

Your eyes snap finally to meet his gaze, though your stare is much more hardened than he’d like.

“But what if something worse had happened to you? Huh? What if you died, Jack?” you scold in words that spill faster from your lips than you can stop them. “Were you even thinking about that?”

“No.”

His honesty stops you cold as much as his lack of hesitation.

“I guess I was just thinking about you…”

The room goes eerily quiet, saved only by the even beeping of the monitor at his side and the distant voices talking in the hall. 

Jack holds your gaze even as it weakens around the edges, even as it glazes over with burning tears you can’t seem to keep away. A rogue droplet clumps your bottom lashes together when your eyes flick down to his abdomen, to the place beneath the blanket where you know the damage lies.

“You’re not supposed to do that to a person, you know?” you whimper. “It’s cruel.”

Jack’s brows furrow. “Do what?”

“Make someone like you, and then— And then get yourself shot,” you stammer, gesturing wildly with your anxious hands. “Make someone almost lose you before—”

Your breath hitches.

Jack leans further in. “Before what?” he presses gently.

“Before they’ve even gotten to have you…”

His lip flickers with a weak smile. “You do have me,” he assures. “You’ve had me way before I ever asked you out— You know that.”

“Yeah,” you scoff with a grin of your own, much sadder in comparison. “So much for that date, huh?”

Jack’s eyes narrow in a challenging stare. “And what makes you think it’s not happening?” 

You blink owlishly back at him. “Do you want a list, or…?”

That earns a weak chuckle from him, until he winces at the ache it puts in his side a moment later. He cradles the bandaged wound with a grimace, and your chair scrapes the tile when you stand. “I’ll tell Princess you need more morphine,” he vaguely hears you say, though he reaches for your hand before you can stray too far.

You still in place. Your wide eyes fall to the fingers around your wrist, warm like a furnace, and calloused like softly textured velvet.  

“I’m okay,” he tells you, then takes a wavering breath in before repeating more firmly. “I’m okay— And you’re not going anywhere— And I’m not missing our date for the world, alright?”

Your features screw, hardly convinced.

“We’ll order something here,” he shrugs. “Hell, we can eat the cafeteria food for all I care, just… Don’t leave. I mean, I kinda got shot, so…The least you could do is indulge me a little…”

You cave instantly under the weight of his light-eyed stare. Your chest hitches with a quiet laugh. “It’d be a pretty grim first date…” you quip.

“Yeah, well…” he trails off, smoothing his thumb over your knuckles. “I plan on having plenty more, less grim ones with you, so…”

Your eyes narrow in a cynical squint despite the smiling tugging at the edges of your mouth. “That’s very presumptuous of you, Dr. Abbot…”

“Well, you could always so no,” he croons drily.

“Not a chance,” you argue without pause, gripping his hand with great strength — an unsaid promise. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“Getting rid of you?” Jack echoes with a scoff, wincing when it hurts him but smiling up at you anyway. “That was never a part of the plan, kid— I took a bullet trying to keep you, in case you forgot."

[lovebugism]

HEAD OVER FEET ─── jack abbot

summary: when jack abbot runs into you at a bar after your shift on the fourth of july, he teaches you what it means to unwind and you teach him what it means to feel loved again. (6k)

characters: jack abbot / fem!loser!reader, trinity and mel at karaoke, baran al-hashimi

contents: friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, jealousy, age difference, power imbalance, so much yearning, jack abbot hasn't had sex in eight years confirmed cw for mentions of trauma and grief, and smut 18+ (MDNI)

( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )

The bar pulses like a living thing with a heartbeat. The buzzing of a hundred different conversations and the wailing of a distant guitar sting overhead presses hard on either side of you. If you concentrate real hard, you think you can still hear Mel and Trinity butchering another Alanis Morissette song back in the private karaoke room — which isn’t nearly private enough, considering the way their drunken devotion bleeds out into the main hall.

You left them a while ago to order a drink, which melts slowly in the sweaty glass between your fingertips now. You bring it to your lips and try to take a sip, but something in your throat refuses. The taste feels wrong; the burn feels wrong. Actually, the more you think about it, everything feels wrong — like your body is still calibrated to the relentless rhythm of the ER, to the work you can never quite seem to leave behind.

Even now, as your eyes meet your reflection in the mirror behind the liquor bottles, you look like something you don’t quite recognize — dressed in a velvet red number pulled from Trinity Santos’ closet instead of your usual scrubs; with your hair done instead of carelessly shoved back. It’s like looking at a stranger wearing your own face.

“Long time, no see, Doc—” A masculine voice cuts in, so familiar that you wonder if you’ve been thinking about the PTMC so long that you’ve begun to hallucinate your coworkers.

Your head snaps over your shoulder. Your tired eyes widen at the sight of your attending sliding in beside you. Jack Abbot is still donned in his scrubs, you find, as he leans against the bar — black uniform, brown undershirt, and navy pants — like he dressed himself in the dark before he came into work. His freckled biceps strain against the short sleeves as he folds them across the polished wood. 

There are two glasses half-full of amber liquid before him. He lifts one in his right hand and eyes you over the top of it. “How long has it been?” he quips with narrowed eyes before taking a quick sip.

You blink away the shock of seeing him here, all casual, like he wasn’t just elbows deep in a trauma with you.

“About…” You lilt and glance at the clock behind the bar. “Half an hour ago, I think?”

His mouth curves with a slow, suspicious smile as his steady gaze refuses to waver. “What are you doing here all by yourself, huh? Gotta hot date I don’t know about?”

You scoff a quiet laugh and turn away, looking down at your untouched glass as you spin it in an anxious hand. “Yeah— If that’s what you wanna call watching Trinity and Mel butcher Alanis Morisette’s entire catalog…”

Your head tilts to your shoulder to flash him a lazy grin, which falters at the edge when you catch his unflinching stare. You clear your throat, remember that you’re talking to an attending, and stammer out, “Uh, what— What about you?”

Jack bounces a lazy shoulder and lifts the glass in his right hand. “This was the nearest place to get a good whiskey, so…” he trails off before taking another sip.

His eyes never leave yours as he peers at you from over the rim of the glass, studying you almost, analyzing you in a way that makes your skin feel too tight.

Your nose scrunches in protest of his staring. “Why are you looking at me like that?” you wonder through a breathless chuckle.

“I don’t know…” he admits, quieter now. “It’s just the first time I’ve seen you out of your scrubs…”

His light eyes flicker over your form again — from your bare shoulders and exposed chest, to where your dress clings to your ass and stomach. 

“It’s different…” he hums. “A good different…”

Heat crawls up your neck. You turn away on instinct, finding it very suddenly difficult to meet his stare, as a disbelieving laugh slips from your mouth.

“What are you laughing at?” Jack presses with a chuckle of his own.

“Nothing,” you dismiss with a shake of your head. “I just… I think you might be a little tipsy there, Dr. Abbot…”

“This is only my second glass, I’ll have you know,” he argues, playfully offended. “What? You think I can’t handle my alcohol.”

He straightens slightly and takes a step closer. Still leaving several inches of space between you, though it takes a lot of strength from you not to slide off your bar stool entirely.

“No! I just—” You stumble over yourself as the words tangle on your tongue. “I just feel like you probably wouldn’t be talking to me like this otherwise.”

“I talk to you every day,” he scoffs.

“Well, yeah, but you don’t flirt with me every day.”

His brows raise as something short of amusement flickers across his face. “Oh. So you think I’m flirting with you?”

An awkward silence drops like a leaden weight upon you, like an anvil in one of those ancient cartoons. It knocks the breath out of you accordingly.

“…No,” you answer after a few long moments. “Of course not.”

Your grip tightens on your drink as you turn away from him again. You hardly think twice before bringing it impulsively to your mouth, downing two long sips of the watered-down gin and tonic. Your face screws at the bitter taste and at the burning sensation on your tongue, which turns into a dull sparkle when it settles in the pit of your stomach.

“Well, I was, so…” Jack quips, too casual for his own good. “I guess I’m gonna have to try a little harder now, aren’t I?”

His eyes cut to you, expecting you to laugh at him, or to stammer out another one of your painfully shy replies. You forget to respond entirely, though, too focused on the way the alcohol singes your tongue. (You spend a long moment debating whether or not it’s numb or swelling in your throat with a thousand-yard stare.)

Your silence is not reassuring.

“Unless—” Jack’s voice tightens slightly as he clears his throat. His charming resolve slips as he stammers, “Unless you don’t want me to. Obviously. Then I can just, you know, fuck off—”

“No, it’s not that!” you blurt. “It’s just…”

He leans in, just slightly. “Just what?”

You hesitate for a moment, calculating the words, though they seem to slip off your tingling tongue before you can stop them.

“I feel like I haven’t… learned how to be a real person yet, you know?” you confess with a sheepish, lopsided grin. “Like… People my age are supposed to go out for drinks, and sing karaoke with their friends, and flirt with cute guys—”

You don’t notice your slip-up, but Jack does, and he hides his smile behind his glass.

“But I think I’ve just been working so much that… That I don’t know how to do anything but work, you know?”

“Yeah…” he hums softly. “Trust me. I know the feeling—”

There’s a distant call of his name. A faint “Abbot,” half-swallowed by the thrumming music and surrounding conversation. Your head turns in the direction of the sound to find Dr. Al-Hashimi appearing from the crowd. Her fluffy brown curls are out of their usual clip, languishing now at her shoulders. Her lavender jacket is gone, too, to reveal her lean body beneath her slim scrub top.

You blink owlishly at her for a few moments, unused to the sight of her outside the white walls of the E.D.

“You were supposed to be bringing me a drink,” the woman quips drily, smiling as she reaches for the touched whiskey next to Abbot. “Not holding it hostage.”

“Shit…” Jack exhales. “I’m sorry. I-I got distracted…”

“Dr. Al,” you greet with a waver in your voice. “I… I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yeah, well…” she shrugs. “I heard this was the best place to get a glass of whiskey, so…”

You nod slowly, suddenly unsure of yourself — of what to do with your hands, your voice, with Jack. You swallow hard as your eyes flit wildly between the two attendings standing before you. You struggle to shake the feeling that you’ve interrupted something.

“I’ll, uh— I guess I’ll get out of your hair then…”

You muster an artificial smile and abandon your gin and tonic as you slide off the bar stool.

Jack calls your name, but it gets lost in the crowd that swallows you whole as you disappear out of sight.

You stomach through one and a half more songs that Mel and Trinity shout into the void of the private karaoke room. They take a quick break from “You Oughta Know” to sing a strikingly heartfelt rendition of “Head Over Feet” that very nearly brings a tear to your eye. 

It’s not their sloppy singing, exactly, but rather the reminder of how alone you feel just now — the only audience member on the pleather sofa, bathed in the strobing neon glow from the overhead lights, watching the fun from afar while your friends forge an unlikely bond. 

While Jack and Dr. Al laugh over drinks together— 

You rise abruptly and catch them between verses to tell them you’re heading out for the night. Their protests come wrapped in song.

“But we’re having so much fun!” Trinity whines in drunken slurs, then locks in when the chorus hits. “You’ve already won me over, in spite of me! So don’t be alarmed if I fall, head over feet—!”

The song follows you the entire way out of the bar, where the night air outside washes over you like fine silk. You catch yourself humming the tune as you shrug on the brown bomber jacket you borrowed from Trinity’s closet — just in case you felt the need to hide. You falter when your fingers brush something in the front pocket.

You reach in with a pensive twist to your features, surprised to find a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter shoved inside. You stare at it for several long moments and wonder briefly what it would feel like to smoke one. (You’re unable to shake the impulsive thought from your brain until you’ve done it.)

You pull one cig free and stick the orange filter between your lips. You flick the lighter three times before it finally strikes. You hold your free hand over the flame like they do in the movies and inhale when it finally lights.

You regret it instantly. 

Grey smoke billows from your mouth as you cough. You double over on the worn sidewalk like a total loser, eyes watering and chest burning as your lungs rebel against your very poor life choices.

“Those things kill, you know—?” Jack’s voice cuts in again.

(He has a way of finding you in the most embarrassing situations, it seems.)

You blink away the tears in your eyes and turn to find the older man standing just a few feet away with his hands in his pockets. He watches you attentively, with something close to amusement twisting his scruffy face.

“I can tell—” you rasp as your coughing fit ebbs. “There’s no way this is enjoyable for people.”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “It’s not so bad when you get used to it.”

His sneakers scuff the cracked pavement as he saunters over to you, holding his hand out with a glittering look in his eye. “Can I?”

You don’t think twice before passing him the lit cigarette.

“By all means...”

Jack pinches the stick between his thumb and forefinger. He places his mouth around the filter, inhales once, holds the breath, and exhales through his nose a second or more later. 

You can’t seem to stop staring at the silver hair on his tilted chin; or the tendons in his corded neck; or the singular vein in his freckled forearm when he snuffs the cigarette out on the brick wall. He drops it into the receptacle there when he’s done.

“So…” He exhales the remaining smoke from his mouth, which leaves in grey wisps that hang in the air between you for a few lingering moments. “I guess you’re headed out now?”

“Yeah…” you sigh. “Guess so…”

He observes the empty sidewalk for a moment before wondering casually, “Want me to walk you home?”

“No, it’s okay,” you shrug. “You’re busy, and I… I only live, like, a block down the road, so—”

“So, then, it’ll be quick?” Jack presses with raised brows.

Your eyes narrow. “…You’re not gonna take no for an answer here, are you?”

Jack shakes his head, lips smoothing into a knowing grin. “Not this time, kid. No.”

The walk back to your place feels borderline suffocating, though you can’t exactly place why. The air is made of thick satin as the heat of the day washes away, leaving something silken and breathable in its wake, as the wind ripples in your dress. Everything smells very distinctly of summer — of dewy grass, and gunpowder from distant fireworks, and the faint sweetness of something that’s just been barbecued. 

You can hear the fireworks crackling somewhere in the distance, though you struggle to see them from the buildings overhead. You can feel each thundered boom in your chest, along with the heavy bass of a passing car playing music far too loud as it barrels by.

There’s something oddly peaceful about it. Intimate, even, as your shoulder brushes Jack’s broader one with each step. The silence is not particularly awkward, but you can’t shake the feeling that you should say something. You rack your brain for a conversation starter, and end up blurting out the one thing you didn’t want to say out loud— 

“So…” you lilt, tripping over the conversation like a loose wire. “You and Dr. Al…?”

“…Are very good coworkers, yeah,” Jack nods, silver curls turning gold beneath the amber streetlights. He catches your uncertain gaze and shrugs. “She had a tough first day, you know? Figured I’d treat her to a few drinks.”

“That’s nice…” you murmur with an averted gaze.

“It was nothing,” Jack assures you.

Your apartment building comes into view around the corner, painted a garish canary yellow with vivid orange doors, aptly named Sunset Tower. It used to be a motel, you assume from the layout, probably before you were born; and was renovated into an apartment complex likely not too long after you were born.

You don’t think twice before starting up the rusty staircase to your third-floor apartment — not until you notice the slight hitch in Jack’s step as he follows behind you, favoring his prosthetic limb more than he realizes. It must be hurting him, you figure, after being on it for hours at the PTMC. 

“Shit,” you huff. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

“Told me about what?” Jack scoffs despite his grimacing as he swings his leg another step. “I can handle a few stairs…”

“I can’t make it up on my own, if you—”

“Hey,” he snaps, a little harsher than he means to, as he glances in your direction. A far-off firework glimmers in your gaze, soft and sympathetic around the edges in a way that makes his chest ache. “I’m good. Don’t worry about me, alright?”

You continue the ascent despite your better judgment, despite the way Jack’s steps lose rhythm just beside you. You catch him stumbling in the corner of your eye when he steps up a beat too early. His prosthetic twists unnaturally, angering the already raging skin of his amputated knee. 

You’re at his side without blinking. Your hands reach for his arm, steady him with your fingers cradling his wrist and elbow. 

Jack nearly protests, but stops himself short.

You hold onto him the rest of the way up.

Your place is exactly how he imagined it would be — not that he’d been picturing what the inside of your apartment looked like, of course, because he’s not a total creep. He just finds a very apt representation of you wedged with the quaint walls of the old, old building. It’s cluttered but not messy; with numerous blankets and books and potted plants strewn about. There are half-used candles littered on just about every surface, filling the air with a sweet scent of musky-vanilla-raspberry.

The grass green couch pushed against the wall caves under his weight when you ease him down onto it. It smells like a mixture of your perfume and the side of the road you must’ve pulled it from when you moved in.

“Wow…” Jack hums, if only to conceal his wincing as he adjusts himself on the cushion. “Nice place…”

“No, it’s not,” you scoff an awkward laugh and stand to full height above him, adjusting the skirt of your dress from where it had ridden up. “Do you, uh— Need anything?” 

“No. I’m good.”

“‘Cause I have some first aid supplies if your prosthetic is bothering you—”

“Really. I’m good,” he echoes. “You don’t mind if I take it off, though, do you?”

“Of course not!” you blurt. “I’ll, um… I’ll go get you some water.”

You scurry the short distance to the kitchen. The hissing faucet pervades the silence as you fill two glasses at the sink, along with the soft clanking of the heavy prosthetic as Jack unscrews it from the limb. You find him massaging the scar when you return.

“Do you— Do you need me to call you an Uber, or…?”

Jack tilts his chin to smile up at you. A playful laugh tumbles from his mouth. “Wow… Trying to get rid of me already, huh?”

Your face floods with horror. “No! O-Of course not! I just— With your leg, I— I don’t want you to walk all the way home, you know?”

“I think I can make it, sweetheart,” he tells you, and only vaguely notices his slip-up. “I just needed a second… Thank you—” He nods in appreciation when you set the water down on the coffee table in front of him.

You keep several inches between you on the sunken couches as you sit gingerly at his side — very palpably tense, like you’re a stranger in your own home. You wring your clammy hands together in your lap as a long silence stretches thin between you.

“And I wasn’t— I wasn’t trying to… kick you out. Or anything,” you add, softer now.

“I know, kid,” Jack assures.

“Good…” you breathe a sigh of relief. “‘Cause I— I don’t want you to leave… Wait, that sounded weird— I just meant that… I like your company. I’m not, like, trying to hold you hostage or whatever, I swear.”

Another awkward laugh spills from your mouth.

Jack’s lip quirks with a smile as he sits up straight again. “I wouldn’t mind it if you were, to be honest…” he hums, only halfway joking. “But unfortunately, I do have SWAT early in the morning, so… If you could free me around 6 a.m,  that’d be great.”

“Oh, right,” you scoff and bring your water to your mouth. “The side hustle where you get shot at for fun?”

“It’s good to have a hobby,” Jack shrugs and leans back against the sofa, throwing a strong arm around the back of it, as he studies you with narrowed eyes. “What do you do for fun, hm? Outside of work, I mean.”

You think for a long moment, spinning the glass between your fingers. “…I once watched Love Island for thirty-one straight hours. That was pretty fun.”

Jack snorts. “So what I’m hearing is, you don’t have any hobbies?”

“Work is my hobby.”

“So what do you do to… unwind?”

“…Have panic attacks in the supply closet at work,” you confess. “What about you?”

“Get shot at,” Jack quips in the same gritty tone.

“Well, at least you get to do something outside of the E.D…” you monotone with a far-off stare. “This is the first time in months I’ve been somewhere other than here and the PTMC. I mean, I have my groceries delivered now— I’m too boring to even go shopping...”

“What do you mean?” he scoffs. “You’re young— You should be going out every weekend.”

“Well, I don’t…” you huff mournfully and slouch back against the sofa. The thin sleeve of your velvet dress slips off your shoulder, giving Jack a brief glance of the top of your breast before you adjust it back over your collarbone again.

“What about dates?” he presses with his chin to his shoulder. “You don’t go on any of the apps?”

“Well, first of all, no one calls it the apps. And second of all, god no,” you laugh drily, then flash him a sheepish look from the corner of your eye. “What about you?”

“Nah…” Jack shakes his head. “I haven’t been on a date in about… Eight years—”

“Eight years?!” you blurt before he can properly get the words out, leaning forward with wide eyes. “Jesus. How does a guy like you go around without getting hit on for eight whole years?”

(You’re starting to think those three sips of gin from before are getting to you now.)

“Well, it’s a lot easier than you think,” the older man deadpans. ‘Cause it’s not like he was actively avoiding dates; he just wasn’t exactly seeking them out. 

He lost the urge to after his wife died, and then, when the urge to live came back around, he’d catch himself flirting every now and then, but never wanting to do much more than that. Then he blinked, and eight years had passed without him noticing.

Eight years with nothing but his own hand to get himself off — though, it only starts to seem pathetic when you look at it that way.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” you scoff. “The last time a guy showed even a modicum of interest in me was… in med school, probably.”

“Okay, well, that’s just not true,” Jack argues. “That vitrectomy patient from earlier definitely had a crush on you.”

Your eyes narrow in a cynical squint. “He was drunk. With half a bottle rocket stuck in his eye. That hardly counts.”

“Well, I’ve had… About a whiskey and a half,” Jack calculates. “Do I still count?”

The air thins in an instant, or maybe his words have just knocked it all straight out of your lungs.

Your skin burns red hot beneath the dress that feels suddenly way too tight, ‘cause you think he must be joking — that taking the piss out of your obvious crush on him is his idea of playing around.

“That’s not funny,” you tell him with a wavering smile.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” the man insists with a scoff. “I haven’t been funny since 1994.”

Another laugh sputters from your mouth. A real one this time — not the fake ones you’ve been giving him just to fill the silence, or to try to seem less nervous than you really are. It makes him smile wider than he probably realizes.

“There you go…” Jack hums with a proud nod.

“There I go, what?”

“You’re unwinding…”

You scoff, still grinning wide despite yourself. “Am I?”

“Yeah,” he hums. “And you’re doing a great job so far— a solid B-minus.”

“B-minus?” you echo. “I’ve had a 4.0 GPA since I was in fourth grade.”

“Well…” Jack shrugs with a knowing grin. “Better step it up then, kid.”

Something inside you tips in that moment. It’s his teasing, maybe, or just the way he’s looking at you. Either way, you catch yourself leaning forward before your brain has properly thought it through. You close the distance between you in a flicker — brushing a chaste kiss to his mouth before pulling away just as fast.

You can feel your pulse pounding in your throat as you quip, “What does that get me?”

Jack blinks for a second, momentarily caught off guard. He fights the urge to lick his lips, to try and actually taste you. “Probably a couple HR violations?” he jokes after a few moments.

Your stomach drops. You find yourself praying that this old couch swallows you whole, or that the world would just end altogether, because even that would be a kinder fate than this.

“Oh. Shit. I-I thought that— I thought we were... Fuck, I totally misread this whole thing—”

You turn away entirely and drop your face in your hands, utterly mortified. 

His laughter doesn’t make it any better.

You feel the sofa caving beneath you as Jack shifts to your side. His hands are warm and softly calloused as they cradle your wrists in a firm and gentle grip, urging them downward so he can see your face again. He ducks his head to meet your wet eyes and flashes you a reassuring smile.

“You didn’t misread a damn thing,” he assures you with a shake of his head, voice lower and smoother than honey. “Of course, I want to kiss you— I always want to kiss you.”

The mournful twist in your features never wavers. “Then why don’t you?”

“Because it’d be wrong,” he shrugs. “I’m your attending. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that I— that I pressured you into something.”

“Well… We both know you didn’t, right?” you argue softly, eyes glittering with hope as they dart back and forth between his. “And, I mean… It’s not like anyone else would have to know. We’re not getting married, we’re just… unwinding. Right?”

“…Yeah,” Jack hums, softer now, with something mischievous squinting his gaze. “Right...”

You’re not making it easy for him.

Jack’s trying not to cum in his pants before you’ve ever even touched him, and you’re making it damn near impossible. 

He drags you into his lap when you lean in to kiss him again — for real this time, licking sweetly into his mouth so he can taste you truly — and you knee him right in the thigh before you can straddle him properly. You pull away with a smack when he groans in pain against your mouth.

“Shit…” you pant with his spit still on your lips. “I’m sorry.”

Jack shakes his head until the words catch up to him. “It’s okay,” he assures through uneven breaths, knotting his fingers in your hair to pull you into him once more. He kisses you again, hard, like it’s muscle memory for him — from a life he hasn’t let himself live in a long, long time.

He cradles one hand over the crown of your head and the other just over your spine, where your dress dips down in the back. He keeps your warm weight pressed flush against him while the kiss turns languid and heavy, full of tongue and teeth and spit. You curl your fingers into his greying curls to keep him impossibly close all the while.

You feel his chest hitch with a startled breath beneath you when you grind down over his lap. Your velvet dress rises over your hips from the angle as you move down his thighs and up again — you can feel the ghost of his erection hardening beneath his scrubs with every pass. 

There’s a noticeable hesitance in the way you move. It’s not graceful or entirely practiced. It’s laced with a palpable uncertainty, rather, as you struggle to navigate the honeyed moment you’ve stumbled so suddenly into.

And Jack can hardly take it. ‘Cause hasn’t let himself want like this in years; he hasn’t let himself reach out for anything other than his grief or his work. For so long, his life has been defined by restraint and the careful art of not needing anything. And now you’re here, moving clumsily on top of him, completely undoing him.

It hits him all at once, how suddenly sensitive he is, after so long ignoring the touch of another. The friction, the pressure; the smell of you, the taste of you. It’s all too much. He knows he won’t last long if he keeps going this way, so he pulls back.

And he hates himself for it.

“Hey—” He clears his throat when the word comes out a little rough. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. His glassy eyes dart back and forth between both of yours as he peers up at you through a layer of honey. “Hey, you… You have condoms, right?”

You blink back at him for a long moment, slightly dazed at the sight of your spit on his rosy mouth. You nod with a stuttered breath. “Uh, yeah. Yeah— I think— Somewhere…”

(There’s an unopened box collecting dust under the sink in the bathroom, but he doesn’t need to know that.)

He mourns your warmth when you slide off his lap, rushing off down the hall with your dress still caught around your hips. The sight of your plain cotton underwear cradling the curve of your ass makes his chest tighten as you disappear down the dim hallway. You toe off your shoes halfway down, and the sound of your padding footsteps echoes in the quiet.

“Jesus Christ…” Jack huffs and slouches further into the couch. 

He drags his hands down his face and tries to regulate his breathing, tries to think of anything other than the aching erection in his pants. He stares up at the ceiling and attempts to will his body into something resembling composure when you return.

Your dress has fallen back down over your hips, but the right sleeve is still slipping down your shoulder when you stand before him. You’re not sure what to do with the condom in your hand, so you toss it to him over the coffee table. Jack catches it against his chest.

“Take that dress off…” he tells you with a voice like honey. “I wanna see you.”

You try and fail to reach for the zipper, which Mel had helped you with at Trinity’s place before you left for the bar. So, instead, you worm your arms out of the sleeves and shove the fabric down your hips with trembling hands. It hits the floor around your bare feet with a dull thud, leaving you in a heart-patterned bra you’ve had since high school and a pair of plain pink panties.

You’re hardly a thing worth looking at, really, but Jack didn’t seem to get that memo.

He beckons you forward with heavy eyes. “C’mere…” he murmurs.

You take slow, tentative steps towards him.

His calloused hands are warm and slightly trembling when they curl around the backs of your thighs. He leans in to press his mouth to the silk bow in the middle of your underwear, and his mouth waters at the wet spot gathering in the center of the cotton.

His scruffy chin brushes your stomach when he turns to look up at you, lidded eyes glimmering with a desire you didn’t know you were capable of drawing out of a person.

“I wanna make you cum with my mouth,” Jack murmurs. “Can I?”

You nod wordlessly, and can’t shake the feeling that you’re dreaming when his pointer finger hooks through the hem of your panties. You feel a little cold when he slides the cotton to the side, only for him to press his warm mouth there a second later. 

Your knees threaten to buckle when his tongue slots through your silken folds, and Jack doesn’t miss a beat. He braces your ass in one wide hand while his other slips down to the bend of your knee, urging you to prop your foot on the couch beside him. Your moan swells throughout your empty apartment at the new angle, which allows him to lick at your sensitive clit with greater precision.

He forgets to take things slow with you, too busy trying to make up for this time. He drags an orgasm out of you like the world’s soon to end, and the last thing he wants to do on this earth is to taste you on his tongue. 

You cum on his mouth with your head tipped back and with your fingers knotted in his hair. He’s wearing your glittering slick down to his chin when he’s done with you.

You fall gracelessly into his lap when your legs turn to jell-o. You straddle his waist, ball his shirt into your fists, and bury your burning face into his neck — still whimpering as your high is slow to ebb. 

Jack cradles you against him the entire length of your comedown, running his warm hands up and down your spine. His scruff brushes the delicate skin of your shoulder when he presses a chaste kiss there.

“That wasn’t too much, was it?” he pants into your ear.

You shake your head until the words catch up to you. “No… No, it was— It was good…” you stammer through uneven breaths, and pull just far enough away to meet his eyes. “I wanna ride you now… Is that okay?”

And who is Jack to deny you of a damn thing?

You brace yourself on his shoulder with one hand and use your free one to line his bulbous tip at the entrance of your weeping pussy. His cock drools an embarrassing amount of pearly precum — he can feel it all underneath the condom — and he’s momentarily grateful that you can’t see any of it. 

You exhale a wavering, punched-out breath as you sink down over him and take a long moment to get used to the distant stinging sensation.

Jack’s grateful for that, too.

His jaw hardens to choke down the groan that rumbles in the bottom of his throat. He tilts his head against the back of the couch and squeezes his eyes shut to fight away the overwhelming desire to explode entirely. He holds you in place when you try to move again, with fingers that threaten to leave bruises on your thighs.

“You okay?” you pant, eyes darting wildly over the pained twist on his scruffy features.

Jack nods, jaw clenched tight. His words come out half-strangled. 

“Yeah, yeah. I just… I wasn’t lying about the whole eight-year thing.” He exhales a hard breath through his nose that’s supposed to be a laugh, though there isn’t really a smile to accompany it. “I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna cum too soon, you know? I wanna— make it good for you. That’s all.”

Your fingers brush over his temple and through his silver curls, in a touch so gentle it nearly makes him cum right then.

“It’s already good for me,” you assure him. “I want it to be good for you, too.”

You grind over him with the same hesitance from before, down his thighs and back again, slowly finding your rhythm. Jack’s hands grip hard at your hips, like it’s the only thing keeping him tethered. He can just barely find the strength to keep his eyes open to watch you chase your orgasm on top of him.

His eyes flit from your blissed-out features to where his cock disappears inside of you. The thatch of curls above his cock glistens with your honey — he can feel it wetting the hem of his scrubs from where they’re shoved beneath his heavy balls. You’re bound to cum just as quickly as he is, no doubt. 

He can feel it in the way your pussy flutters around his twitching length — in the way your pacing falters slightly on top of him.

“Nuh-huh. Don’t run away from me,” Jack mutters in your ear as he shifts underneath you, slouching further to hit somewhere deep inside of you. He cradles your head with one hand and grips hard at your ass with another, helping you move on top of him. 

Your whine gets buried in his sweat-slick neck.

Jack smiles into your hair. “Yeah. There it is, honey. There you go…”

He feels a little proud of himself when he manages to hold off just long enough to feel you cumming around him, twitching against his chest and tugging hard at his silver curls. He follows right after — going rigid underneath you a second later as his cock jerks wildly within your fluttering confines.

His groan mixes with your whining as you milk him of his orgasm, in a sinful symphony that swells throughout your silent apartment.

Then the room goes quiet, with only the sound of your heavy breathing to fill it. You rise and fall with each of Jack’s panted breaths beneath you. Your limbs are loose and borderline boneless; tension ebbs from your body like an unwinding thread. You think you’d turn into a puddle on top of him without his hands smoothing up and down your back, molding you back together again.

It’s the only way Jack can stay anchored, really — with his hands on you, and with your weight settled on top of him. It’s foreign and familiar all the same: the strange absence of urgency he feels underneath you. The way his body, usually wound tight with panic, dissolves in time with yours. For the first time in eight years, he feels his heartbeat finally steady.

Until a far-off firework rattles the walls and sends the two of you jerking against each other.

The honeyed moment shatters in an instant. Jack holds you tighter when you flinch on top of him, laughing through a grumbling moan as you clench instinctively around his softening cock. 

“You okay?” Jack mumbles against you, before pressing a brief kiss to your temple.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you nod, half-breathless, as you pull away from him for the first time in several minutes. 

You blink away the haze of your dwindling orgasm while Jack swipes drool from the corner of your mouth with his thumb. You lean instinctively into his palm and exhale a breathless laugh. 

“I just… I don’t know what normal people do in this situation…” you confess through uneven pants. “Like, I feel like we should… high-five or something.” 

Jack scoffs a tired breath but doesn’t say a word.

There’s a fleeting moment, then, where you worry you’re maybe being too much. Your stomach aches with it, too, because you think your stupid half-joke would’ve ruined the moment for anyone else. Anyone other than Jack. His hand slips from your back and lifts lazily for a high-five without a second thought. 

You cage your bottom lip between your teeth and clap your palm against his.

Your breathless laughter fills the quiet apartment.

“We make a good team, don’t we, Doc?” Jack hums with heavy eyes.

“Well, you make a good teacher…” you answer sheepishly, pulling at a rogue thread in his scrub top. “You know, helping me unwind, or whatever…”

“Right, well…” Jack trails off, mouth curling into a sly half-smirk as his eyes narrow into thin slits. Your stomach pools with red-hot warmth once more at the look he gives you, then, and at the words that spill from his lips like honey. “I think I still got a few more lessons in the chamber, sweetheart…”