Tommy Conlon was supposed to be your past. But when he re-enters your life years later, you realise he never stopped looking for you.
✦ warnings — angst, smut, complicated love
✦ status — completed
just finished reading lucky star and i’m OBSESSED are you working on anything rn for tom? there’s been such a drought recently and you’ve fed me THANK YOU
omg i am SO late answering this 😭 i’ve been basically MIA for the last few months because life got really busy and writing had to take a back seat.
BUT i’m alive!! and i’ve finally got a very long, very angsty, very filthy alfie one-shot that’s basically finished, so fingers crossed it’ll be up tonight/tomorrow 🤞
thank you for this though 🥹 genuinely made me smile.
summary — the first rule of sleeping with your attending was to make sure it meant nothing. you’d been very good at that right up until you weren’t.
warnings — 8.1k words. 18+ Minors DNI!! (explicit sexual content, oral [m! recieving], unprotected p in v, power imbalance [attending/resident], friends with benefits dynamics, mild dom/sub dynamics, hair pulling, a lot of talking during sex, can be read as slightly coercive maybe?), hurt/comfort, commitment issues, fear of emotional intimacy, lightly implied widower undertones, age gap (jack’s 50/reader’s a resident, implied to be late twenties), jack jokes about paying for sex, alcohol
notes — this one started light in the beginning and ended pretty heavy like idk where all that came from i wrote the first half when i was in a better mood and finished it when i got this request and i guess i was just feeling like i wanted to make it hurt even more
Jack Abbot came with his perks. He’d taken you under his wing when you first joined the PTMC as a second-year-resident, and somewhere over the space of a year, he’d taken you to his bed. You’d built him as a man who lived in a sad bachelor pad with the way he’d taken you to his house after a shitty shift; no preamble, just a jerk of his head toward the parking garage and a raspy ‘come on’ that you’d followed like he was still your attending after-hours.
And fuck, you couldn’t lie and say it didn’t feel slightly good to see a floor-to-ceiling windowed penthouse and drink something amber and expensive after you’d spent the last few years of your life not seeing the other end of what your work could bring you. It was grim and improper, you knew, fucking your attending in the early hours of the morning before the sun fully rose, but you knew it was coming; half the ED had placed bets on it and Cassie and Javadi were yet to know they were right.
He’d taken you against the window the first time.
“You afraid of heights?” he’d asked, and the question moved through you like warm liquid rather than reached you. You’d shaken your head, or tried to. “No,” he’d murmured, your jaw in his hands. “Didn’t think so.”
He’d taken his prosthetic off after, wryly claiming that the position felt good but the leg disagreed. That had somehow lead to another round, slower the second time with him on his back and you set over him.
A part of you wondered often the sort of impression you’d given Jack, what he’d seen, exactly, that made him sure he could have you like this and keep it weightless. Whatever it was, it had to have been right to some degree because you’d spent more nights in his penthouse than your own apartment for the past six months without ever calling it anymore than what it was.
He was a better lay than you’d ever had. He was probably the best option around to get steam off while you worked your way through residency. It helped that he was your attending and you shared the same strange hours.
You kept the books carefully and columns balanced. Sex, sleep, the occasional terrible four a.m. meal that didn’t count because eating was maintenance, not intimacy. You never stayed for coffee — you took it to go — and you didn’t learn his middle name on purpose. You’d never seen the inside of his closet. You left before you could risk having to go to work together. A woman in trouble would linger, and you did not linger. Therefore.
But the stupid books had started running a quiet deficit you hadn’t accounted for. You knew exactly how he took his coffee. The toothbrush in the second drawer that you reached for now without looking, muscle memory in a place you’d sworn was temporary.
And even though you could admit that Jack knew his way around you and never made you ask twice for anything in that bed, that wasn’t the line item that worried you. Bodies learned bodies. It was that you’d stopped taking your coffee to go some mornings without ever noticing the change; you’d sit at his counter with a mug that was somehow yours now, and drank it there while he read something on his phone and never told you to leave. You’d started to become a woman that lingered, and even worse, one who liked to do so.
And that had to stop, because Jack had told you point-blank what this was on the first night while you were still putting on your shirt with his mouth print blooming under the fabric.
This doesn’t have to be a thing. I’m not looking to make it one. Is that alright?
He’d said the words while putting on his briefs, and you’d agreed too fast, because at that time, it had cost you nothing. You’d wanted a body and a break, and he was offering both. He’d been more honest than any man you’d let touch you. He’d told you the terms up front and never moved them.
So, you simply had to put yourself out of the arrangement.
Jack found you by your car in the parking garage. He’d put on his coat a heavy thing that should’ve swallowed him but instead he was able to fill out almost perfectly.
“Jack,” you said, trying to find an even voice as he closed the distance between you. Before he could even ask, you forced out, “I’m not going home with you.”
His brows furrowed and he looked confused. For good reason, you supposed. Friday mornings had become sort of a usual for you, the easiest compensation in your life for missing Friday nights.
“You good?” He stepped close and tipped his head, and you watched him give you a complete once-over, eyes dropping to your hands and the set of your shoulders like you were a patient. “You looked a little out of it today. Come — I’ll make you soup.”
You pinched your eyes shut at his words. “What’s that even supposed to mean — I was fine.”
“Don’t take it personal,” he said. “Come on, soup.”
“Seriously, I was fine.” You were almost offended now, which was clearly his intent, the bastard. “I’ve been awake for nineteen hours, I’m not sick —” You caught yourself getting pulled into it, defending your honor, exactly the kind of dumb circular thing you’d let him rope you into a hundred times because arguing with Jack was sometimes fun. You shut it down. “I’m not going home with you,” you said again, this time with a sharper edge.
He pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest, giving you another once-over as he recaliberated the situation in real time. “Did I upset you?”
“No, it’s not a fight,” you said fast. You dragged a hand down your face. “I’m not mad at you, Jack. I’m done with this. The whole — all of it.”
He tipped his chin down when you gestured vaguely with your finger between the two of you, at the whole abstract nature of you. Then, he said, “You’re calling it?”
“Yeah, very much,” you said, voice dropping a register as you leaned against the driver’s side door of your car. Then, when you saw how his brows furrowed and how he looked just slightly caught off-guard, you added, dumbly, “Sorry. I guess.”
He held your eyes a long beat, something working in his mouth, and then closed the last of the distance between you. His hand came up to your jaw, and you felt your face turn to liquid as you involuntarily leaned into it; his thumb dragged slow along your cheekbone and his gaze followed it, and you stood pinned to your own cold car door and let him, because telling him to stop would mean pretending you didn’t want it, and you’d never once been able to sell that lie for either of you.
“You mean it?” he asked, voice rough, and his forehead dropped to yours. When you nodded, he mimicked your movement. “Alright. Then let’s at least end it properly.”
When you showed no urgency to decline, his mouth found yours before you could decide whether you trusted yourself enough to end it properly. One of his hands stayed at your jaw while the other one fitted you back against the cold of the car. He smiled against your mouth, and you used your palm to push him by the chest.
He went back, just slightly, dropping his head to your forehead again. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?”
“One time,” you said quietly, almost in a whisper. “And then I mean it. It won’t change anything.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Last time, then. Make it count.”
Jack was making it obscenely difficult for you to make it count. The rhythm you’d settled into with him at around month two — the one where the two of you skipped the drink and went straight into his bed — had disappeared tonight. He just really needed a drink tonight, and then another, and then he really didn’t want to shut his mouth.
He poured the second one without offering you a top-up and stood at the window instead of coming to you, two fingers of amber catching the lamplight. You watched him and watched him, answering his questions until the two of you finally ended up in the bedroom.
He’d opened his mouth to argue something and you got his belt open instead slowly, and whatever he’d been about to say faded elsewhere. The city sat out past the glass, unblinking, that audience he never drew the blinds against. His hand found your hair, resting with his thumb at your ear, almost gentle and completely fucking distracting.
“Slow,” he murmured when you took him into your mouth, and the word came out scraped down to nothing. His head went back against the headboard. “Fuck.”
You went the opposite of slow; you knew that taking your time with it, acknowledging the last time of it all, would crack something open in your chest you couldn’t afford to have open. You did everything you knew undid him — six months of evidence, a body of proof — fast and certain, and the breath punched out of him and his fingers curled into your hair and the smug, talkative version of him went quiet for about four seconds.
“You — huh — last time. Really?” he managed to say, fingers tightening against your scalp, the blunt fingernails scraping against the skin. You slid your tongue down his length, and he let out a short groan, letting out a wrecked, “Good girl.” His hips lifted a fraction before he caught them, forcing himself still under your hands. “Good — yeah.”
You’d have smiled if your mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, so you settled on humming around him. You let yourself think you’d won the quiet, and then his thumb moved against your temple slowly, and he ruined it.
“You really mean it?” he asked quietly, words aimed somewhere at the ceiling. “You’re done?”
You ignored him and kept your rhythm. It wasn’t a question you were going to dignify with him in your mouth and your resolve already pooled somewhere on his bedroom floor.
His hands flexed in your hair at the silence, then tugged, a frustrated little pull that went straight down your spine and that he absolutely felt you react to, because his thumb pressed flat behind your ear like he was talking to your pulse there.
“Don’t go quiet on me,” he said, rasp going uneven, breath catching somewhere between the words, his whole stomach drawn tight. You watched the muscle there jump when you took him deeper as his jaw worked. “You hear me. I know you — shit.”
You’d found the underside with the flat of your tongue you slowly dragged, and the sentence collapsed. His head dropped back and your eyes caught the tendon at his throat standing out. One of his heels dug into the mattress and you felt the tremor run up his thigh under your palm.
You’d have been lying if you said this wouldn’t be missed. Not the talking, but this, the privilege of watching Jack Abbot lose a fight with his own body, a man who controlled every room he stood in coming apart by degrees because of what you were doing. You pressed your thumb into the crease of his hip and felt him shudder. You took him to the back of your throat and swallowed and he said your name that came out of his mouth breaking.
“You’re really gonna — ” He inhaled sharply, hand fisting tighter on your head. “ — gonna do this and walk, you’re — ”
You pulled off of him with a slow, wet, and deeply unflattering sound and sat back on your heels and looked up at him, lips swollen, thoroughly out of patience, your hand still working him just enough that his hips chased it. His eyes were closed, and he let out a large exhale.
“Are you kidding me?”
He cracked an eye open, then shifted his head to the side against the pillow. “What?” he muttered.
“Why won’t you shut up?” You squeezed deliberately and his jaw clenched against the noise that almost got out of him. “You’re acting like a child.”
“Acting like a child,” he huffed, head tipping back. “I’m pretty aged out of the tantrum bracket.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” You dragged your thumb up the length of him slowly. “You’ve been throwing one since we got off.”
His hand left your hair and closed around your wrist instead — the one still working him — stilling it, and then he was pulling with his unarguable strength, drawing you up over him until you had to crawl up his body or be dragged.
You ended up straddling his waist. He stayed flat on his back beneath you, one arm folding behind his head while the other spread warm and heavy over your thigh, and he looked up at you with his chest still heaving and the gray stark at his temples.
“Better,” he muttered. “Neck was startin’ to go, watching you be stubborn down there.” The hand on your thigh slid up slowly, settling at your hip, thumb working a lazy circle into the bone. He tilted his chin up slightly. “What’s this really about?”
You went still because you had too much of an answer, and it was the sort of one that you didn’t believe could survive being said out loud over a man who’d made it clear exactly what this was on day one.
“You know,” you said.
“Maybe. But humor me.” His eyes stayed on your face, looking patient as ever, as the circle of his thumb continued moving. “Thought we had something nice going and now — ” He tilted his head slightly against the pillow. “So, what’s going on up in that pretty little head of yours?”
“I want more than this,” you said plainly. “That’s what’s in my head. I want the whole thing — the relationship and dates and stuff. I think I’ve got enough time to — get into that.”
“Yeah?” he said, voice coming out in a breath His thumb stilled on your hip. He looked up at you and his other hand came up and pushed a piece of your hair back off your cheek.
You had to press your lips together, because you obviously weren’t expecting him to offer, and yet you’d been holding your breath anyway.
“Yeah,” you said. “I do.”
His hand stayed on your cheek a moment longer, the pad of his thumb resting just under your eye. Then his hand dropped back to your hip where it was safe.
“You should,” he said after a moment, swallowing. “Get into that. You’ve got the time.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?” His hands flexed at your hip, his hips still beneath yours and the want still humming under all of it. “Not gonna talk you out of one thing you actually deserve. Even I’m not that selfish.” His brows furrowed, like he’d just processed his own words. “Most days.”
His hand left your hip and found your waist, and then he was turning you, guiding you off of him onto the side on the mattress beside him, leaving the two of you laying facing each other in the gold dark. His thigh slid between yours.
This close, you could see everything you usually didn't get to study: the silver threaded through the stubble at his jaw, the small white seam of an old scar through one eyebrow, the way the lines around his eyes weren't from laughing. He had one arm folded under his head and the other draped heavy over your hip, fingers spread at the small of your back, and he just looked at you, the want and the conversation both still hanging in the air between you, neither resolved.
“S’it somebody at work?” he asked. “Has to be. You don’t have time yet to meet anyone who isn’t.”
You shook your head slightly against the pillow, and your brows furrowed together at the idea. “No — no one. I haven’t met anyone yet.”
He huffed. His eyes dropped from yours to somewhere near your collarbone, then came back up.
He turned his face toward the pillow for a second, as if to hide his face from you, then met your eyes again. “You’d rather have no one than me, huh?”
“Wow,” you breathed out in almost a gasp. You pulled back an inch against the pillow to look at him properly. “Now that’s mean, Jack. I can find someone, you know.”
“Yeah?” His brow lifted, scar catching the light. “Course you can.” His hand slid off your hip and down, palming the back of your thigh, drawing your knee up over his. “Always hear someone in the hospital talking about you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“M’not.” He hitched your leg higher, fitting himself into the space it opened, and you felt the blunt heat of him press where you were already aching for it, rubbing slowly against your folds. “I mean it. It’s about time you got out from this old man.”
“Don’t call yourself that.”
He dragged the length of him through you again, catching you over and over where you wanted him and not giving it. “It’s what I am. Fifty, boring life, no good to you past this.” His mouth ghosted the corner of yours, breath warm and uneven. “You should be out with someone who can give you the whole thing. I’ve already done my time.”
You could do it again, you wanted to say. You could be the whole thing. But the words sat behind your teeth, because you already knew what he’d say and do if you’d said them, and you couldn’t take hearing it kindly. Especially not with him notched against you like this when it was supposed to be the last time.
You let your hand find his jaw instead, the rough of the stubble, the silver, and you watched his eyes flicker at the touch, at how your lips moved from one side to the other as you tried to keep the words down. It seemed like he’d understood whatever you didn’t say.
“Yeah, baby,” he muttered and pressed his thumb to the back of your thigh, eyes fluttering shut at the touch of you. “I know.”
He pushed in then, slow, all the way, mid-breath like it was just the next thing between you. The shudder rolled clean through him as he sank into you, his exhale breaking ragged against your mouth. Your spine arched off the mattress. His arm hooked under the small of your back and dragged you flush, no space left, no air, the two of you pressed chest to chest in the gold hush.
“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth, holding there, buried to the hilt and not moving as he felt you clench around him. “Spoiling me rotten and then telling me you’re leaving.”
“Shut up now — ”
He drew back slow and sank back in deep, and the sound you made came out somewhere against his shoulder. Each roll of his hips pressed you up the sheets. “Get me used to this and then — what? Go hand it to someone who hasn’t earned it.” He laughed brokenly against your throat. “Selfish girl.”
You got a fistful of his hair and pulled, hard enough that his breath stuttered. “Go find — someone else yourself,” you said through your teeth, because opening your mouth seemed like something embarrassing would follow. “You’re not lacking options — ”
“But I like having my cake,” he breathed, and there was almost a laugh under it. “Eating it, too.”
“Gross,” you mumbled against him.
One month was meant to be enough time. Lying awake the first week, you’d assumed it’d take thirty days to unlearn a person. It had worked on the obvious things. You’d stopped reaching for your phone at the end-of-shift and stopped seeking him out by the lockers. You’d slept in your own bed and not found it lacking, mostly. But nobody warned you that being in a car for four hours would call it all into question.
One month of calling him Dr. Abbot across the bay, crisp and so weightless, handing him a chart without your fingers brushing his. You’d gotten good at it. Then Robby floated the conference. Some emergency medicine thing four hours upstate; a block of credits, a hotel with a conference rate, a chance to put PowerPoint slides between yourself and the actual work for two days. Dana volunteered the department van before anyone could think of a reason not to, already half out of her scrubs spiritually, determined to get a few days of being a person instead of a charge nurse.
Like these things usually did, the seating assembled itself, which was to say it was assembled badly. Robby drove while Dana drove shotgun. Trinity somehow won the entire back row. And the middle row was you, Dennis, and Jack.
You in the middle, because the universe worked in fucked-up ways. In this case, the universe was named Dana.
“You’ll fit,” Dana had said, and pressed a duffel of granola bars into your arms like a consolation prize, steering you into the gap between the two men before you could mount a defense.
You fit pressed thigh-to-thigh with Jack Abbot for four hours up interstate, his arm slung along the seatback behind you because there was genuinely nowhere else for a man his size’s arms to put it, the heat of him bleeding through your sleeve like a low fever. You knew that arm. You knew the weight of it, the places where his hand fell when it wasn’t thinking about where it fell. It was a quarter-inch from touching you, which was worse than actually touching you, and you suspected he knew that, too.
The van pulled out of the lot at five in the morning. Dennis had his headphones in before the drive even started. Up front, Dana was already arguing with Robby about the music. Trinity was sprawled in the whole back row to herself, scrolling on her phone.
Thirty minutes into the drive, Jack broke the seal.
“Excited?” he asked, eyes still out the window, profile flat and bored as anything. His voice was pitched low enough that it lived in the space between his mouth and your ear and nowhere else.
You kept your head tipped back against the seat. “More excited about sleeping in a comfortable bed than the conference.”
His brows narrowed as he turned to look at you. “Some Marriot-adjacent mattress? You’re aiming low.”
“It’s horizontal and not on-call. I’m easy to please.”
“Since when?” he drawled, bone-dry, eyes going back to the window. But his thigh had pressed a degree closer against yours, a shift you couldn’t call a thing without admitting you were keeping track. Up-front, Dana won whatever argument she’d been having and something with a heavy bassline filled the van. Jack let the noise ring and leaned half-an-inch closer that nobody would ever catch. “You used to say my sheets were scratchy.”
“For a man with that penthouse, they were scratchy — ”
“Finally,” he breathed out, satisfied, like he’d been fishing for exactly that and reeled it in. Something in his face eased and you hated, a little, how much you wanted to have done that. “I almost forgot you’d been in it.”
God. You hadn’t forgotten anything. That was the whole problem. You knew the place, the cold floor on the way to the bathroom, the exact freckles on his chest up close. You knew he wore a ring you had never once asked about and he’d never once explained, and that you’d both kept your eyes politely off the subject the way you keep your eyes off a wound that wasn’t yours to dress. You knew all of it, and all you could do was keep promising yourself it didn’t count anymore.
“Can we stop at the next exit?” Trinity said from the back. “I need coffee and the bathroom. In that order.”
Dana hummed. “There’s a Sheetz coming up in ten. That good?” She looked through the map on her phone. “Everybody go when we stop. We’re not pulling off twice.”
“Works for me,” Robby said.
Dennis plugged out one of his earphones and glanced over everyone in the car. “We’re stopping?”
“Yup,” Dana confirmed. “Bathroom, snacks, ten minutes, back in the van. Whitaker, you want anything, you decide now.”
Dennis considered, then put his earphone back on, apparently deciding the whole thing was beneath the commitment.
Jack leaned in from beside you, barely. “Single stall in the back of those places, you know?” he said, voice low, barely audible over the music. “There’s a lock on the door and everything.”
You kept your eyes on the windshield in front of you. “Weird thing to know off the top of your head.”
His thigh pressed warm against yours through the curve of an off-ramp that didn’t strictly require it. “How much would it take?” His eyes flickered back out to the window, even as his shoulder now pressed up against yours. “You and me in there. Ten minutes. Name a number.”
“Can’t be bought.” You forced your eyes to the windshield. “Sorry. Not for sale.”
“No?” His voice dipped, amused. “Everybody’s got a price.”
“Not me.” You turned your head and found him already closer than he’d been a second ago. “You really think you could afford me?”
“Could take a run at it.”
“Wouldn’t get far.”
“Fifty,” he said, and you could see the slight grin crawling onto his lips.
You let out a short laugh, then immediately pressed your mouth over your lips before it became any louder. “I don’t get out of bed for fifty dollars, Abbot, let alone on my knees.”
“Oof.” He winced, mock-wounded, dragging a hand over his chest. “Expensive date.”
“It’s never a date with you.”
He bit his lip at that, eyes raking over you, the grin caught behind his teeth. “Right. Hundred, then.”
“I’m gonna report you to HR. You’re my attending.”
“Good luck with filling out the history we have for that.”
You turned to look at him, and let your mouth curl. “You really think I’m the sort of girl to do it in a gas station bathroom?”
You watched the grin go still on his face, watched his eyes drop to your mouth and drag back up, the warmth in them tipping into something darker. “Would you?”
You scoffed, shaking your head. “In your dreams, Jack.”
“Frequently,” he said, not missing a second. “Vividly, too.”
You leaned in enough to feel his breath catch. “Keep dreaming, then. It’s all you’re getting.”
You sat back before he could answer, fingers playing with the seatbelt, sweet as anything.
“Christ.” He dragged a hand down over his jaw, his head tipping back against the seat and looked at you sideways through the gray morning light, and the bit fell off his face. “Missed you.”
Before you could even process the words with his attention on you, because he was who he was, his jaw worked once and looked back out the window, ending it himself before you could, handing the silence back to you to do with it what you pleased.
Your chest squeezed just slightly at that, and you had to be the one to force yourself to look away, catching sight of Dennis’s head bumping against the window as he soundly slept, oblivious, lucky.
At some point past the gas station you lost the fight with your own exhaustion. Nineteen hours of being awake before the drive, and the van was warm, and the bassline had mellowed into something Dana hummed underneath her breath, and the road had gone smooth — almost hypnotic — interstates often did when they’d gone out of the clutches of the city. You’d meant to stay awake. You’d made the small private rule about it, too; you went under anyway, somewhere between a stretch of dead farmland and the next, your head listing by degrees toward the warm solid thing on your left because your body, again, moving without giving a single shit about how you felt.
When you surfaced, it happened slowly. The light had changed; it was full morning now, white and flat through the windshield. Your cheek was pressed against something that rose and fell in a long, even rhythm, and your brain took its time arriving to the fact of it. You’d fallen asleep on Jack's chest. One month clean and your face was tucked into the seam of his jacket like it had never stopped being there.
You weren’t proud of how you didn’t want to move just yet, so you didn’t move.
You could feel his breathing under your cheek, slow enough that he might have been asleep, too. There was a smell to him you’d made yourself forget and were now remembering, completely against your will. It was nothing fancy, just clean cotton and something warm. The Gatorade bottle you’d been clutching was in the cupholder against your knee now, and you had no memory putting it there. Which meant there was a slight chance Jack had worked it out of your sleeping hand at some point so it wouldn’t tip into your lap, and set it down.
You cracked one eye to assess the damage to your dignity. Dennis had leaned in the same stretch of road, toward you, hood up and mouth open, gone to the world. And somewhere in all that, Jack’s arm, the long span of it along the seatback, had come down around you with his hand had ended up resting flat on the top of Dennis’s skull, holding it off your shoulder, fingers spread over the kid’s hair like a melon he was deciding whether to buy.
You’d furrowed your brows at the arrangement, reeling, when the camera shutter went off.
Jack came awake all at once. He always did; he was never groggy, never had a transition. It was like there was an off and on button to him, as though his nervous system had been trained somewhere that didn’t allow the luxury of waking up slowly. He clocked it in a half second: the phone, you against his chest, the unexplained weight under his own palm. He followed his arm down to where his hand was cradling a sleeping resident’s head and his face crumpled slightly.
He smacked it off, open-palmed, off the top of Dennis’s skull.
“Ow.” Dennis jolted awake, flailing upright, a crease pressed into his cheek from your sleeve. “What — Dr. Abbot — what —”
“Wrong shoulder, kid,” Jack said.
“I wasn’t —” Dennis took in the angle for himself and recoiled. “Sorry. God. Sorry.”
You’d started to sit up to peel yourself off Jack’s chest and salvage some dignity to sit back into the cold neutral air of your own seat where you belonged. His palm came up to your forehead and pushed you back down against him.
“Not you,” he said. His hand stayed flat on your forehead. “You’re fine where you are.”
You reached up and pulled his hand off your forehead, sitting up out of the warmth of him.
“C’mon,” he said quietly, under the music, softer than a command.
You paused with your hand still around his wrist and turned to look at him full-on. He was already looking at you, none of the previous needling present in his face.
You shook your head once, a small gesture. You didn’t trust the words to come out the way they needed to, so you let your face carry it instead.
He held your eyes a second, then his jaw shifted slightly and the corner of his mouth went to a worn-down half of a smile. He gave you the smallest nod. His eyes fell shut and he tipped his head back with a small shake of his head as he eased his wrist out of your hand.
You put your hands in your lap where they couldn’t get you in trouble, and stared out at the flat white morning coming up over the interstate, and made sure to not look at him again.
The conference threw a networking event the first evening, which meant a low-lit ball room, a cash bar charging eleven dollars for wine that came from a box, and a couple hundred physicians standing around in lanyards pretending they’d be here without the boxed wine.
You’d lost the group almost immediately. Dana was drawn to a cluster of people she knew in a previous life; Robby to someone he’d done a residency with; Dennis to the food; Trinity to one of her college buddies. It left you working the edge of the room with a plastic cup of wine, doing a slow orbit as you read badges, when a man peeled off a nearby conversation and aimed at you.
He was older. Closer to Jack’s range, give or take. He had silver coming in at the temples and an unbothered ease that made you wonder if he’d ever had it hard. His badge put him outside Columbus. He had a good face and seemed aware of it without leaning on it, and no wear that graced his features; a man who slept fine, you assumed, and didn’t own a single thing he refused to speak about.
“Pace yourself with that,” he said, tipping his own glass in the direction of yours. “It comes up to you pretty quickly.”
“Bit late for that,” you said, lifting the cup up an inch. “This is already number three.”
“Then I’m too late to save you and might as well make it worse,” he said, offering a hand. “Mark. Philly. I run the shop out there.”
You introduced yourself. He had a good handshake, dry and brief, none of the holding-on the men sometimes did at these things.
He tipped his head to look at your badge. “Pittsburgh Trauma. You like it?”
“Most days.”
He shrugged. “Anybody who says every day is lying or hasn’t been doing it long enough.” He took a sip and let his eyes come back to your face. “Let me guess. Senior resident. Somebody made you come.”
You were going to say something back—you had something, you’d half-built it—and then there was a hand at the small of your back. You knew the weight of it, the breadth, where the fingers fell. It settled low against your spine and stayed, warm through the dress.
“Mark,” Jack said from beside you. He had a club soda in his free hand and an easy nothing on his face. “Jack Abbot. Pittsburgh.”
“Jack.” Mark did a quick thing, the hand, the half-step Jack had folded into the space between you without seeming to take it, the way you hadn't stepped out from under his palm. Something recalibrated behind his face, pleasant and unhurried. He stuck the hand out anyway. “I think I’ve read you —” He referenced one of Jack’s studies you knew all too well, something he’d handed over to you once in his bed like it was a bedtime story.
“That’s me.” Jack took the handshake. His thumb moved once at your spine, where the angle hid it from the third person entirely. “Philly? You inherit the department or build it?”
“Little bit of both. Mostly inherited the problems,” he said lightly. “You enjoying the conference?”
“It’s a conference,” Jack said, lifting his glass half-an-inch. Then, his head tilted in your direction. “You know this one’s my best trauma resident? I’d put her on anything. Watched her run a procedure last month half the seniors I came up with couldn’t have called that fast.”
“That so?” Mark looked at you again, interest sharpened. “He doesn’t seem the type to hand those out.”
“He’s nice to everyone.”
“She’s underselling it.” Jack’s hand spread a degree wider at your back, the heel of his palm settling into the dip of your spine, fingers easy along your hip. “You’ll be reading her name in a couple years and remembering you met her here, of all places.”
It got the laugh Jack wanted it to. Mark took a sip, easy, regrouping, and you watched him do the math the way smooth men do—fast, behind a pleasant face—and land on a play.
“Well.” He tilted the glass toward Jack. “I won’t monopolize you. I’m sure you’ve got the room to work — everybody wants a minute at these things.”
The thumb that had been moving at your back stilled, and Jack’s features crossed into something amused as he narrowed his brows at the man.
“S’alright,” he said pleasantly. “Got everyone I need right here.”
Mark recaliberated again, watching him take Jack’s measure one more time; the hand, the half-inch of space that hardly qualified as space. You watched him arrive to the easy conclusion that whatever was happening here had been decided before he ever walked over.
“Fair enough,” he said, setting his empty cup down at the nearest high-top. “Pleasure. Good luck with the residency.” He nodded at you, then to Jack. “Abbot.” And then he was gone, folding back into the room, off to find the next conversation that wasn’t already spoken for.
Jack’s hand was still on your back, and you stepped out from under it. You turned to face him, and felt the thing that had been climbing in you all night finally find a target.
“Why would you do that?” you asked, shaking your head and pressing your lips shut to keep yourself from saying anything more.
“Do what?” he said mildly, the glass loose in his hand.
“Don’t.” You kept your face arranged for the room, tamping down your voice so it wouldn’t carry over to strangers. “You know what you did. You’re not stupid.”
“I said you were good at your job.” He had the gall to look reasonable. “Becuase you are.”
“That’s not what it was and you know it — thank you.” Your jaw tightened. “You don’t get to walk over and put your hand on me when I’m talking to another man and act like — ” Your fingers moved between the two of you, a small and sharp movement. “ — like you’ve got any claim. We agreed to this a month ago.”
Jack’s lips pressed in a thin line at the words, and his eyes raked over your face. “He’d have you in his bed by ten,” he said, calmer now. “Guys like that — it’s their whole game at places like this. One night, gone by checkout. You didn’t lose anything worth keeping.”
Your brows furrowed at that, and you felt something go hot in your neck. “Yeah?” you asked, voice going quieter. “Isn’t that what you were?”
He looked away for a second, one hand coming up to rub over the bottom half of his face. “If you can’t tell the difference between me and a guy like that,” he said evenly, and there was something genuinely stung underneath as his eyes met yours, “then I really don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.”
His face twisted at that, and he let out a disbelieved laugh. “That’s how you think of me?”
“That’s not — ” You stopped, because his face had knocked something loose in you and you had no idea what you thought anymore. “That’s not what I said.”
“It sounded a hell of a lot like it.” He shook his head. “Six months and you’re putting me next to a guy you met ten minutes ago. Alright.”
“Jack — ”
“You wanted it, too. Okay?” When you let out a small ‘what?’ he continued, “You heard me. You’re acting like you just went along with it, and you never once asked for more either.” His voice had dropped low, and he’d walked closer to you before you even realized. “You never once asked for more until the night you walked. So don’t put it all on me.”
“I asked,” you said, voice cracking just slightly, and you looked around the room to see if anyone was close to you. “You were the one who told me to go find someone else. You said you’re no good past what we were doing.”
“I said it because it’s true,” he said quickly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m not the guy you build the rest of your life around. I tried to do the decent thing.”
“Then stand on that,” you said. “You don’t get to tell me to find someone and stop it the second anyone shows up. Pick one. You don’t get to keep me in your life like this forever because you can’t stand to either let me in or go.”
“I’m trying to do right by you,” he said roughly.
You pressed two fingers above your eyelid, shaking your head. “Why are you doing this?” You shoulders came up to your ears. “I don’t — it was never going to be us, Jack. You said so yourself. I don’t get why — I need to move on.”
He closed his eyes at that for a moment. “I know you do,” he said quietly, the fight gone all out of him. His eyes flickered down to his hand for a second, then made a loose fist out of them. “I — can we go somewhere else?” He leaned in slightly, body stiffening up. Reading the hesitation on your face, he said, “Please.”
You’d watched him avoid the word in a dozen rooms, so you nodded slowly and forced yourself to not look too hard at why. You couldn’t, because if you stopped to let yourself consider it, it’d make your body hurt even more, and you’d still do it.
The stairwell was the only door on the floor that wasn’t a room or a lobby. It was fire-exit cold, raw concrete, a fluorescent light overhead. The reception came up through the floor as bass and nothing else, the words gone out of it. The door sucked shut behind you both and took the noise with it. You both walked four floors up, apparently neither of you being ready to do anything about it. And then there was simply the buzz of the bad light and Jack, six months and one month and four floors and a whole conference away from you, standing with his back to the cinderblock and his hands jammed in his pockets.
You crossed your arms and your eyes involuntarily flickered up to the ceiling because you weren’t sure you could talk. But when he let the silence drag on, too, you said, “Jack — ”
“Did you want it to be me?” he said immediately, like your voice had spurred him into action.
“What?”
“The whole thing you said you want. Dates, the rest of it.” His body was stiff against the wall. “Was that — did you ever imagine me, or just, someone else. Someone who would.”
You took in a shaky breath. “You.” It came out more plainly than you’d expected, like your body had been ready to be rid of it, to place it somewhere in the open. “I left because I wanted more — with you, and you made it pretty clear I could never have that.”
His hands jammed in his pockets. The light buzzed overhead, that sick fluorescent flutter, and somewhere four floors down the reception kept going, two hundred people who'd never know this was happening over their heads.
“I don’t think I can give you that,” he said.
“Okay.” You forced yourself to nod, and your eyes went hot. “Thanks for telling me that, then.”
He raised a palm just enough that it caught in your eyesight. “I didn’t — didn’t say I never wanted to. Don’t think that.” He tilted his neck up to meet your eyes properly. “Wanting you that way wasn’t hard. I’ve been doing that against my own advice the entire time.”
He'd come off the wall a step without seeming to know he'd done it, and his face had lost the arrangement it usually wore, the bored set of it, and underneath was something you'd caught glimpses of and never the whole of. His eyes shifted to the wall, the stenciled number, anywhere but you.
“I did years of this already. And it ended about as badly as it could end.” He laughed wryly, no humor in it. “I stopped letting myself want things — I thought it’s a lot easier to get through a night if there’s nothing you’d be hurt to lose.” His muscles tensed on his face, the lines deepening as he pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. “Feels like I’m losing you, and it hurts like hell.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when it happened. It wasn’t meant to.”
You pressed a finger against the underside of your eye then, determined to catch anything that could possibly leak out.
“But you don’t know if you can do it,” you said, words coming out shakily.
He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head slowly. “No,” he said honestly, and it was worse than any lie he could’ve told. “I don’t know.”
You nodded again, because there was nothing else for you to do.
“But — but, I don’t wanna lose what I’ve got with you,” he admitted, voice dropping into something shameful. “I know that the nights you’re not on are longer. And if I can’t have you, I want you to know you do that for me. It started being pretty serious a long time ago — for me, too.”
The light fluttered overhead and you let the finger drop from under your eye, gave up on holding it, let whatever wanted to come just come. Somehow, they were words you’d always wanted to hear and yet they arrived wrong, off-rhythm. You’d kept careful track of everything he wouldn’t give you, a whole running tally of it, and he'd just gone and paid the entire balance in one breath in the worst-lit room, and the awful part — the part that made your blood run even hotter — was that it counted. It counted, anyway.
“So what do we do with that?” you said. “I don’t — I don’t know where that leaves us.”
He was quiet for a moment. You watched him sit in the question instead of dodging it, which was new, which was maybe the most he’d ever given you in one night.
“I’d want to try,” he said finally, words careful, like he was setting something down that might break. “Not the old way. I mean the other thing. What you wanted.” He let out a breath. “If you still want it. I wasn’t very great the first time, and I’m out of practice, too.”
You wiped your cheek, and winced as you felt your hand scrub at your skin a little too roughly. “You were okay with it a month ago — ”
“It hurt,” he said immediately. “It hurt, you walking out. I didn’t have anything better than to let you, but don’t — don’t think it didn’t.”
He moved when you didn’t respond, stepping closer than the conversation needed. His hands came up and settled at your arms, just below the shoulders, loose, holding you in place or holding himself there, you couldn't tell which, maybe both.
“Let me try,” he said roughly. His thumbs moved once against your arms. “I want to learn this with you.”
You looked up at him. He held it — your eyes, the closeness, all of it — instead of glancing off the way he had all night. You realized distantly that this was a sort of contract you’d be signing, and he was laying out the option for you to not do so.
“You can’t disappear on me,” you said instead of considering the second option, “when it gets hard. I don’t ever want to feel like I made up something I didn’t.”
He nodded stiffly. “If I do, you can drag me back out.”
His forehead came down, to the top of your head, his chin resting in your hair, his arms folding the rest of the way around you like he'd finally run out of reasons not to. You felt him breathe out, the whole tense length of him going down an inch against you.
“Just let me try,” he said again, into your hair, voice a whisper. “Please. I’m asking. I don’t do that a lot.”
I am stunned😭 this is my first time ever reading one of your fics and your writing is heartbreakingly beautiful. The way you write Jack…the way you capture their love for each other is absolutely stunning. Thank you for sharing your gift with us🤍
Pairing: Boyfriend!Tommy Conlon x Girlfriend!Reader
Warnings/Tags: 18+ MDNI, mentions and depictions of a PTSD episode, mentions the death of a friend, mentions of friendly-fire bombings, brief mention of Paddy Conlon's abusive past, established relationship (girlfriend and boyfriend), no use of y/n, pet names used (baby, babe, my girl), fluff, caring for Tommy, slight angst but with comfort, not proof read!!
Summary: The city was getting too much for him. It caused an episode... So you decide to take Tommy out. Far out. To do an activity you haven't done since you were but a child.
Word Count: 2.4k A/N: This is part one of a series I am cooking up! if you enjoyed it and are interested in reading the next chapter, I'm happy to create a tag list for when it drops!! Pls comment below if you are interested!!!
"How close am I?
To losing you? " — About Today by The National
Tommy sat on the bathroom floor sweating up a storm as tears rolled down his face at fast speeds. You weren't home, busy at work, something, he didn't know. He couldn't even comprehend that the bathroom was the bathroom. All he could hear and see was the battlefield, Manny's body limp next to him. He could hear the bombs and his comrades yelling and screaming. He can hear the flag waving hard and fast.
Why are they bombing us? We're not the fucking enemy!!
"Baby?" His head shot up, his breathing was hard and ragged. Why were you here? You weren't deployed with him. You're at home. Safe. Though in a completely different city than his own and his late mother's, you were safe in Pittsburgh. He only received a letter from you 2 weeks ago. From Pittsburgh. "Oh fuck... Tommy!"
He then got pulled out of the hallucination, the bathroom fading back into existence but the screams and bombs were still loud in his head. But he felt warmth on his chest, his shoulder. Then his neck and face.
"Tommy, hey... Hey." He then felt himself gently get pulled to the side then turned around. He watched the bathroom ceiling become his new view as you held him to lay backwards on your chest.
His breathing slowed gradually. Slowly, but gradually. The tears were not falling anymore besides the spares that he blinked out, but he continued to sweat.
"Come back home Tommy... Come back to me. Okay? You're with me, safe."
"Baby..." He lifted his hand up and started to feel around before he grabbed your hand and held it tight.
"I'm here." You held his hand tightly in return, he matched it almost instantly as a large gulp went down his throat.
"They're going to get you too... Why the fuck are you here?! They'll kill you too!" You hid your head into his hair holding back your own tears as he started to produce more tears of his own.
Tommy repeated the same phrase for well over 2 and a half hours before he fell asleep in your hold. The exhaustion and what you could definitely smell of slight alcohol, finally took over.
You were beyond happy he wasn't an abusive drunk like his father. He was just brutally honest to the point he could get emotional. But this... You needed to get him comforted, enough where if he did have another nightmare, he'd wake up knowing he was okay.
So, you then gently stood up and used all your might and strength to pull him into the living room. Getting him onto the rug with the weighted blanket you bought him and a pillow was your top priority. Not the groceries, not your work report.
Tommy needed you, and you couldn't protect him from the first half. So you'll protect him now.
Tommy woke up to the sound of the TV softly playing above him and the smell of cheese and tomato toasties wafting through the air. He could briefly hear the theme song to 'The Nanny' playing from the television but he was still not sure as he felt half asleep.
"...Baby?" The television got turned down almost instantly as he heard the leather on the couch crinkle under movement. Tommy decided to slowly sit up and look over the coffee table to see you sitting up as straight as a meerkat. What had you so panicked? "Why am I on th' floor?"
"You don't... remember?" The way you slowly got up and made your way towards him almost made him... Feel scared of himself. Did he do something? Did he hurt you? He remembers drinking a little— Oh. Oh fuck.
"Shit... Shit shit shit." He then quickly got up, ignoring the slight stumble as the weighted blanket fell around his ankles.
"Tommy calm down—"
"You're not meant to deal with that! I can handle it myself I never want you to experience me like that!" You had already stopped in your steps as he began pacing back and fourth. His fingers were tight in his hair as he held back a punch to the wall. "If I fucking laid a hand on you I swear to God—"
"You cried in my arms." That made him stop. He didn't look at you, but the way he angled his head, you knew he was now listening. "...You cried and screamed that they would get me. And that I shouldn't be there because I was meant to be safe at home."
So he... didn't hurt you. That was good. He probably would've ended it all if he laid even a pinky on you.
"I've never had you hold on so tight before... But it didn't hurt. I think, in your head, you were trying to cover me from blasts." You swallowed a sob, and held back the tears that were threatening to spill out everywhere. "I found you on the bathroom floor like you'd seen a ghost, honey. It scared the shit out of me... I thought I wouldn't get you out of it."
"..." Tommy didn't know... What to say. All his eyes could now focus on was the blanket and pillow. You dragged his unconscious body all the way to the rug. And got him comfortable. Even though you had just worked a 19 hour shift because your boss can't take a fucking hint and let you off. This was meant to be an afternoon for you to relax on. Not take care of him. "I'm... Going out for a walk."
"Tommy wait—"
"No. I'm going out." He then walked past you and left the townhouse you both called home with a slam to the door. In reality, he didn't mean to slam it. But his emotions had taken over, the feeling like he was a burden came crashing down at an avalanche pace.
He didn't look back when he heard you calling out from the porch, but he heard your tone. How sad it was, how desperate it became when you saw he wasn't turning around. The urge to just do it. To turn around, run right back to you and hold you tight.
But he showed his true colours, he showed he wasn't as strong as he wanted to be. You didn't need to baby him through that, he can handle it. He can fucking deal with it.
But the voice in the back of his mind craved for it. The hugs you give him, the way your voice softens as you speak to him like somehow he is the most precious thing in your life. He loves it. He yearns for it. Obviously, all internally. If he externally shows it, it shows a weakness. A weakness he can't have anyone see.
Tommy doesn't even remember when the sun started to set, all he remembers is sitting on a park bench, listening to kids yell and play on the playground nearby. Dogs parking at pigeons and squirrels. The habits of citizens that he wishes to have and experience. But he feels way past that now.
Maybe soon Tommy Conlon will realise that he's really not as alone as he thinks and feels he is.
No, he doesn't remember coming home.
No, he doesn't remember getting out of his drenched with sweat clothes and then getting into bed with you.
And he really doesn't fucking remember gently pulling you into him and hugging you so tight it may just make you stop breathing.
But that was all very late last night, practically the next morning. Because what he does remember, as it is happening right before him, is you handing him a small bag with a sandwich and water bottle inside. Plus a large duffle that was sitting near the front door.
"What's all this?"
"Your travelling necessities."
"Uh, for?"
"I'm taking you whale watching." He blinked. Slowly raised a brow and then nearly scowled.
"Don't baby me."
"I'm not babying you Conlon. I'm giving you care, care that you deserve. And since you won't go to therapy, I'm getting you out of your head, out of this townhouse and out of this shit hole of a city. We're going on a road trip to go hopefully see whales." He didn't bite back, though the urge was there, he couldn't find himself too.
Because here you were, putting everything out there for him, to go see... Whales. An activity he knows you loved doing when you were younger with your mother. Something that would calm you both and take you far away from all expectations.
Maybe you thought it would help him too. And the small fucking part that hoped it would help him too was growing bigger by the second.
"I... Ok. We'll, go see whales." The entire sentence was said in a heavy sigh, one of relief? Or one of giving up? He wasn't sure. All he did know was that now maybe he'd finally get a break. No more fights. No more family matters. No more scaring his girlfriend by being on the bathroom floor.
A break he has been desperately wanting for ages and he's only just seen it becoming a reality.
It only took you both an hour and a half to pack the car, fill the bowls on the porch for the stray cats that would always come around just for you and make sure nothing was left behind. Because here you both were now, on the road, leaving all the negative emotions behind for a while.
Tommy sat in the passenger seat, his hood pulled up, a blanket over his legs and his fists clenched tight. He was still slightly apprehensive of this, but the way you started excitedly but gently started to talk about the last time you saw a humpback whale's tail? Well, how the hell could he ruin that?
"My girl, addicted to whales."
"Hey! They're super cool. All whales. Humpback whales, Southern Right Whales... Whale Sharks. Maybe not killer whales all that much... They're terrifying. Oh and Blue Whales. Also cool." Tommy couldn't help the scoff mixed with a laugh falling out of his lips.
"I got it... I got it." He watched the front window with all the interest in the world before his head lulled to the side to just stare at you driving. Tommy Conlon never usually lets himself go and be... Soft.
But today, today he'd allow it. The car was safe, you were safe. He was safe. Because he knew you wouldn't leave him behind; and he wouldn't leave you behind. You were in this life together, for the long run.
For eternity.
"Want to stop and get some drinks?"
He only had to nod to see you turn on your indicator on to the familiar street with the drive-thru. Same order, each time you both went.
One medium sized chai latte with extra milk and one regular black coffee, nothing added.
Maybe that's what he feels is living. All the small things...
The beach wasn't very crowded, probably as it was grey out. Maybe a few stragglers doing the same as you both or even just enjoying the breeze that likely meant a storm was on its way.
Tommy stood slightly behind you, his eyes locked on the back of your head as you talked his ear off about the experience you had last time when whale watching. You didn't see any, but you do remember seeing a turtle, so that was your highlight of that day.
"It was so pretty Tommy... I should've named it for good luck."
"Just name it now then?"
"16 years later? Seems a bit late, don't you think?" When you looked over your shoulder to give him a smile, he swears his heart stopped for a second. Tommy really wasn't sure how he scored a girlfriend like you. One that would take a whole week off of work just to drive him across the country to go see whales after an episode and still give him a smile like that.
"Fair, I guess." He then decided to step up next to you, his eyes locked onto the roughing up waves that were rolling over each other to reach the shore first. He wonders where they've come from. Where they will go next. The waves almost match yours and his relationship. Rolling over each other with each of your own problems, his more than your own, but you still stick together. Wondering which shore to crash upon again and again, not knowing where you'll be going before then.
You both stood still for at least 35 minutes before he felt your head drop onto his shoulder. You were tired, you did most of the driving all the way over and it probably didn't help that you were likely still coming down from all your emotions after his... incident.
"Want to go sit down on the bench? We can still... See the water from there." Your gentle nod against his skin was enough for him to guide you both over to the seat. It was worn from all the salt from the sea, but stayed true to it's structure. Tommy should take some tips...
"Hopefully some will be out today."
"Hopefully. What should I be looking out for?"
"A whale."
"Funny."
You snorted quietly before going back to watching, your head however still on his shoulder. That was until a distinct splash made your head shoot up.
"Tommy! Look! Look look look!" His eyes quickly went to where your finger was pointing and he also decided to sit up just a little. Because there it was. A large humpback whale peeking up out of the water before delving back down again. A smaller one then proceeded to do the same but much quicker. "Did you see them!?"
Tommy slowly nodded, but he was stuck in place watching where they'd both went down. Humpback Whales. He just saw two of the most majestic creatures this world has to offer, going on their way up North for feeding. Not a care in the world that it was stormy above, they had a destination and they weren't going to stop until they got there. Perseverance. A great trait to have.
"Babe." You turned back to look at him, your eyebrow raised ever so slightly.
"Yeah hun?"
"I love you. So fuckin' much." He looked down to see your pinkie intertwine with his thumb, he held on tight as a response.
"I love you too Tommy. Very, very, fucking much."
If you enjoyed, please reblog to help this reach a wider audience!! All types of support are welcome as well! Likes, comments or even a request sent in!
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While this was so heart breaking, it was so healing. The entire time I felt so much love reading this. From both Tommy and reader!
The small details you add make the relationship feel lived in and real which helps insert us more into the story! I love it! The toasties, The Nanny, feeding the stray cats.
Just the fic in general is so unique. A flashback that results in whale watching??? ORIGINAL AS HELL.
Fantastic job once again, Lottie!!!! 🩷🩷🩷🩷 you never disappoint!
OMG OMG😭😭this made me sob how fucking cute?? The way she helped him…the way she cared for him?? and the way he had to go on a walk because he felt so guilty BUT she pulled him out of his self-destructive thoughts because they love each other so much😭💔💔
Stop and then the way she was watching the whales but he was watching her😭😭this is so so cute…they’re so sweet I can’t believe how much I already care for them!
Pleaseee another part I adored everything about this and how you wrote Tommy and how good they are for each other🥹🥹
summary: an arranged marriage with John Shelby becomes something a little less unwilling than you expected.
warnings: smut, explicit language, power imbalance, possessive behaviour, mdni!
The door of John Shelby’s bedroom shuts behind you with a heavy click. It makes you flinch, but you don’t turn away from the window.
You’re still in your wedding dress, barely having time to come down from the night’s celebrations. And now here he is. Your new husband. One you had no say in. The one you had been wed off to so Thomas Shelby could strengthen business ties between your family and his.
You’d seen John before, of course. Hard not to. He didn’t blend into a room. But you’d never given him a reason to think you were looking. Never given anyone a reason to believe you’d appreciate being traded off to him like stock.
John stands behind you as he looks at the curve of your white dress. He isn’t subtle about it. That signature grin already forming as his eyes drag over you.
You hadn’t spoken a single word to him throughout the marriage celebrations. Just kept your head down. Letting the day pass as fast as it could. When he had asked you for a wedding dance, you’d said you weren’t much of a dancer and he had taken it as a hint to say no more to you and let you be. Drinking whiskey and smoking cigars with Isaiah and Arthur instead.
But his eyes hadn’t left you throughout the entire wedding. Not during the ceremony. Not during the reception. Certainly not as the evening celebrations lingered until early morning. What with the Shelby’s having invited almost all of Small Heath to send their perfect boy off.
But there’s only so many ways to avoid your new husband on your wedding. And sleeping in a separate bedroom during your wedding night was not something your father or Thomas Shelby would let you get away with. That much you knew. You could count yourself lucky that the Shelby brothers weren’t listening outside the door.
Still, you refuse to turn away from the window. As just to pretend you haven’t been married off for a few more minutes.
John lets you have it. Your moment of peace. There’s a pause where he just stands behind you, finishing off his cigarette. Then he stubs it, exhales smoke and moves towards you. “Not even gonna look at me?”
Your eyes stay fixed on the dark glass, the street below long gone quiet. “I’ve seen enough.”
There’s a low huff of amusement behind you. “Have you now?”
He’s closer now. You feel it before you hear it. His body behind yours. The weight of him moving into your space like it’s already his to take.
“You stood there all day…in that pretty little white dress, yeah,” John continues.
He stops right behind you, sliding a hand up your waist. Your breath hitches, but you don’t step away.
“Actin’ too good to even spare me a glance…” he breathes into your ear. “And now you’ve seen enough of me?”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“Yeah, well I don’t ask for things. Still get ‘em.” He smirks again. “So here we are. Carryin’ my name, sweetheart.”
His grip on your waist tightens as he spins you around. You keep your eyes on the floor, refusing to meet his.
He catches your jaw with his free hand. “Eyes on me now, love. Go on—spare your husband a glance.”
You hesitate, then make yourself look at him.
His eyes are an icy blue, fixed on you in a way that makes heat crawl over your skin. Up close, you notice the freckles on his skin, the way his hair sits rough from the night. There’s hunger there, and something close to fascination just beneath it.
“Knew you could,” he mutters.
Heat blooms deep in your stomach, completely unwanted as you take him in, Boyish, unwavering, and yet seen more than people his age should.
“Wouldn’t have gone through with it, would I? Not unless you were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.”
You try to turn your head away. His grip on your jaw only tightens. “Don’t be like that.” His head leans back slightly, taking you in. He nods, like something’s been confirmed. “Yeah.”
You frown slightly.
“You spent the whole night avoidin’ me,” he says, eyes flicking to your lips. “What, you won’t even dance with your husband?”
“You’re not my—”
“I am, though.” He pulls you flush against him. “You think I’m just gonna let that go?” He lets out an amused huff. “No, sweetheart…you owe me.”
And then he’s kissing you. There’s nothing gentle about it. Just heat and pressure stealing the breath from your lungs.
His lips are warm, softer than you expected. The way his lips press into yours…a little careless in how he presses closer, like he’s not asking, but deciding you’re already his.
You freeze for a second, and then you find yourself kissing him back. Wanting more of his touch. Of the way he tastes like whiskey, mixed with the faint lingering taste of smoke. You wrap your arms around him, deepening it.
When he pulls back, he presses his forehead to yours, his breathing uneven. “Funny that.” He brushes his knuckles along your face. “Kiss me like that… then pretend you don’t want it.”
Your lips part, but nothing comes out.
He looks at you for a moment, like he already knows what you’re not saying.
He kisses you again, rougher now. His tongue presses at your mouth, and you let him in. Your hands sliding from his shoulders to his neck as you nip at his bottom lip.
This time when he breaks it, his grip tightens slightly as he turns you—slow at first, giving you time to stop him.
But you don’t want him to.
Your chest meets the cool glass of the window, and he’s already there. Crowding you, one hand braced beside your head, the other pulling you into him.
“Do you want me, love?” he murmurs.
His eyes flick down to your neck, and he brushes away the layer of veil, bending to leave soft kisses there.
You let out a sound as he marks your neck. You nod, unable to stop the way your body leans into him. The way you crave his touch.
He continues nipping at your neck, slower now.
His hands slide down your waist, lifting your dress just enough to get it out of the way, mouth still moving over your skin.
“John,” you whisper.
“Yeah…” he breathes against your ear.
His hand finds your jaw again, turning your head just enough. He kisses you like that. From behind. Deeper this time. He’s got you exactly where he wants you now.
His hand moves lower, over your hip, down to the back of your thighs, his fingers slipping between them, thumb pressing between your legs as he finds you already soaked for him.
“Knew it,” he says.
He slides a finger into your pussy, and you whimper. Your hips arch as he adds another, pumping them in and out. “Hmm John,” you breathe.
He pulls his fingers out, leaving you at a loss. You turn towards him. “What...? I—"
He’s already unbuckling his belt where he’s rock hard. He slides down his trousers, freeing himself. You look down, and your breath catches. He’s bigger than you expected, veiny, already leaking like he’s been hard a while.
His hand slides up your spine, pressing you into the glass as he drags himself against your slick. You gasp when his tip brushes against your clit.
“You want me to make you feel good, hm?” he asks, still teasing your entrance.
“Yeah… please.” You arch your hips further against him, chasing the contact.
“Good.” he says, pushing into you in one smooth motion. The stretch makes you gasp.
He stays still, breathing heavy against your neck, buried inside you to the hilt. “Fuck, I was right about you.”
You don’t have time to think about what he means as he slides out, and pushes back into you hard, forcing you further against the window. You moan and he takes it as a sign, gripping your hips hard enough to mark. He moves again, harder this time, setting a rhythm that knocks the breath from your lungs.
Your pussy flutters around him, chasing the movement. You see stars as he slams into your g-spot.
Suddenly he pulls out with a frustrated groan. The loss hits immediately, your pussy tightening around nothing.
“I want more,’’ you breathe.
“Patience, love,’’ he says, grabbing you roughly and flipping you onto the bed. He crawls over you, immediately working on the dress corset, undoing it as fast as he can. “Let me see you.” He finishes unlacing it, your tits spilling out and he immediately takes one into his mouth, massaging the other. Your hands find his head, pulling him closer as he sucks greedily, then switches.
His cock drags against your slick again. “I want to see my wife when I fuck her,” and with that he pushes in again. He groans, brow creased in concentration as he moves immediately, fucking you hard.
You arch and take his head into your hands, keeping him close, this time making him look at you. And there’s something deeper in his gaze than lust. Something he hasn’t admitted, even to himself. He rolls his hips into you again, pressure building deep in your core. “You’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?”
You respond by pulling him closer, squeezing him between your thighs, dress fabric everywhere.
It builds too fast to stop. Your pussy clenches around him as you cum, pulling him with you as he spills himself inside you.
“Fuck…fuck you’re so perfect,” he groans, still moving as he fucks his seed into you.
You’re both on your back, panting heavy. John turns his head towards you, and you see it in his eyes again. Satisfaction, underneath something deeper. The same thing you noticed earlier. “Wasn’t chance, this,” he says.
You blink, still too close to him, hand resting against his chest. “What?”
John’s eyes stay on you. The blue in them makes heat crawl up your neck, and you look away. He places his hand in your hair, making you look at him again. That boyish face. Those intent eyes. The soft spot he only has for you. It’s all there.
“Saw you first,” he mutters. “Garrison. Years back.”
You crease your brows—and then you understand. Years ago. When your family first moved to Small Heath and you went out for drinks with your new friends.
He had seen you. He had been watching you since.
“And when they started talkin’ about marryin’ you off…your name came up in it,” he says, like it’s nothing. “I made sure it was me.”
For a second, you just stare at him. Until it all starts to make sense. He didn’t just agree to marry you. He made it happen.
“You—” Your hand lifts before you can stop it, right towards his face. Nothing hard. Just a quick slap.
He catches it faster than you can blink.
His fingers wrap around your wrist, holding it there between you, his grip firm against your skin. He looks pleased, like he expected this.
“You serious?” you breathe, anger flashing now. “You did that?”
“Wanted you,” he says, shrugging, as if that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Your mouth parts, you shake your head, trying to pull your hand free.
He doesn’t let you, instead, he moves closer against you, closing what little space was left, eyes dropping to your mouth like the argument’s already over in his head.
“You were gonna slap me for that, yeah?” he murmurs.
You glare at him. “I should.”
That only makes his mouth twitch.
“Mm.” His thumb presses lightly against your wrist, holding you there. “Or—”
He leans in, his forehead dropping to your temple, lips brushing just against it. “—you just want round two.”
Your heart speeds up in your chest. He sees it. The flicker of hesitation, mixed with want.
He kisses your temple, then your jaw, then your lips again. Slowly, like he’s memorising you. Then he starts working on the layers of your wedding dress, stripping you fully until you’re naked beneath him.
He kisses you again. “You’re beautiful,” he murmurs. And when he slides back inside you this time, it’s slower, like he’s taking his time now.
dividers: @dividers-are-us
tagging a few who might enjoy ♡ @opaliteraven @potter-solomons @tomhearty1 @maywritesromance @leereadsfanfiction @maywritesromance @sjuzn86 @theurbanmademoiselle @happy-booty
a/n: first time writing john shelby — i love this man🤭
"Robert Dudley was created Earl of Leicester, with great solemnity, at Westminster; “the Queen herself,” said the Scottish ambassador James Melville, “helping to put on his ceremonial, he sitting on his knees before her, keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour; but she could not refrain from putting her hand on his neck, to tickle him, smilingly — the French ambassador and I standing beside her." (x)
