Part 1 , Friends, Sick Days - Turntables - Needing - Cold - Silent - Recovery - Comfort - Movie night - Normal?
COD 141 Task Force x Reader (not a series)
Love languages - Injury - Nightmares - Period - Cooking for you - Helping you after a bad mission - Crushes - Work Stress - First dates - Deadbeat Boyfriend
Drabbles (Not Connected)
Perfume (Johnny x Reader)
Agender (141 x reader)
Bloody Noses (Simon Riley x Reader)
Slow Mornings (John Price x Reader)
Hungover with Ghost (Simon Riley x Reader)
Banter (Reader x Ghost)
Polaris (Ghoap x Reader), Starting point, Part 1
Worms (Fem!Reader x 141) Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2
Vile And Vicious (fem reader x Arthur Morgan), Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3
SUPERMAN 2025
Social media manager, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
THE BEAR
Acrimony
Berzatto Christmas
STRANGER THINGS
On My Nerves(Steve Harrington x Reader), Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
THE PITT
Trepidation (the pitt x reader)
Life's a Bitch and then we die right? (Frank Langdon x Reader) Part 2 Part 3
Damsel In Distress (Frank Langdon x reader) Knight In Shining Armor
Indulge me, please? (Frank Langdon x Reader), Part 2
ENDometriosis (Jack Abbot x Reader)
Am I Crazy, Jack? (Jack Abbott x Reader)
Motherly Love (Mom!Dana Evans x Reader) Part 2, Part 3
The Eye Of The Storm (Jack Abbot)
The Lake Incident (Jack Abbot x Reader)
Men of the Pitt When...You have a medical emergency, they wake you up, It comes to love languages, you're sick/they're sick, a bad shift happens
Guys, writing a fic about a reader with PMDD, researching for it, realizing you have it, going to the doctor and getting a diagnosis is deeply humbling.
Adrenaline (Jack abbot x Michael Robinavich x Reader)
CW: not smut but a whole lotta tension, Jack and Robby are married but its lowkey under wraps, Finger sucking, lowkey like domsub dynamics (please help I haven't written like this b4 im awkward), spit stuff I guess, competency stuff, food and eating stuff lowkey, reader is called superstar <3 MDNI 18+
AN: yeah first time writing anything like this so....be nice?
WC: 700 (short n sweet)
“Hey there superstar…” Jack and Robby carefully tracked your movements as you bounced around the ED like you were a bouncy ball slung at full force into a tunnel. “That was a uh- a tricky case- you wanna sit down for a minute…?” Robby’s hand pressed down in the middle of your back guiding you towards the breakroom as Jack caught a quick glance of your eyes, pupils blown wide, deep black dominating your eyes.
“No- no I- I just wanna keep going I’m in a flow state-” you attempted to turn back, to slip out of his arms- to get back to the action, a large calloused hand came down around your bicep, eyes travelling up and seeing the disapproving gaze of one Jack Abbot.
“Superstar…” His voice came through stern. His narrow gaze immediately sends a tingle up your spine, forcing your spine to straighten out as you stiffened. “Time for a break.” He pushed the door to the breakroom open, holding it for you and Robby to step in, Robby gently guided you to the couch then diverting to the kitchenette in search for a snack to curb the blood sugar crash. “You did great out there but you can’t take care of other people if you can’t take care of yourself-”
Robby snorted, bent to scavenge the (slightly grotty) fridge, “That sounds familiar-”
Jack ruffled his shoulders, his good leg moving to support his slight turn towards Robby, head cocking into a slight tilt, not like a puppy, rather a scolding commanding officer “Well if you listened to me I wouldn't have to repeat myself.” Robby averted his gaze, grabbing some random sandwich supplies to throw something together for you.
“I feel great.” your voice faltered, the tail end of the adrenaline starting to wane despite the bright smile you’d forced on. Jack scanned the room, slowly moving in on your space, that same slightly condescending but frustratingly suave smirk. “I do really Doctor Abbot-”
“-Jack…” He cut you off, watching as robby moved to place a sandwich in your lap, flopping onto the couch next to you, you wondered in the back of your mind if this was the most productive way for two attendings and a resident to be spending their time. Robby’s hand nudged yours, a reassuring smile as your fingers nimbly grasped the bread, constantly looking between the two men assessing if there was a need to ask for approval.
You bit down, humming slightly at the taste as your body relaxed back into the couch, the tension in your muscles finally releasing after a day of being constantly on the move. “I think its hitting me…” you mumbled, hand covering your mouth as you spoke, the ache in your jaw and lower neck becoming more pronounced with the burden of having to hold your own head up and chew.
“Let us help…” Robby’s hand moved to the back of your neck, carefully grasping into your hairline to hold your bowling ball of a head up on your shoulders, a small squeak escaping you as your eyes snapped to Robby’s. “It’s okay…don’t worry about it- we’re just looking after our superstar…” your heart (and something else) pulsed at his words.
“Those pupils for us now sweetheart?” Jack grinned at the interaction between the two of you, his hand reaching to cup your cheek as you swallowed. His hands were softer now, palpating around your mandible “Need to stop grinding your teeth, it's making you tense…” his thumb brushed over the corner of your lip, a dollop of sauce coming free sitting on his thick digit. “Open…” You sat shell shocked, mouth dropping open with surprise as Jack prodded at the gap gently, “if you’re uncomfortable we can stop…?”
Robby’s hand rubbed gently up and down your thigh, his hands were colder, but wider slightly squeezing the meat of your leg when he reached the top “He’s right…no pressure at all…we won’t talk about it-” Jack suppressed a groan as your hands clasped down around his wrist, pulling his hand towards your mouth, warm wetness surrounding his thumb as you tried to be the best superstar for your attendings. “That's it…let it all go…” Robby’s hand in your hair massaged softly, guiding you softly, a meek sound escaped you.
Distant words crackled over the intercom, a disgruntled huff escaping Jack as he slowly removed his hand, much to your discontent. “Sorry superstar…gotta get back to work since you two are officially done for today…” his non spit drenched hand came up to brush your cheek, tilting up your chin as you grinned lazily.
His eyes turned to Robby, a soft smile grazing his lips as Robby stayed infatuated with you, truly a vision of grace, his soiled thumb came down on Robby’s lips. RObby seemed somewhat more well trained than you had as Jack leaned down placing a much more domestic kiss on his lips, fingers curling slightly in his beard. “I’ll see you at home for breakfast slash dinner…” Jack mumbled against Robby’s lips as the man played with his wedding ring around his necklace. “You’re welcome to join…” Jack spoke as he backed out the door with a wink, tongue peaking out to kitten lick his thumb.
"God he's hot..." the two of you sighed in unison.
Hiii, I love your brain dumps!! Since you mentioned that you’d be willing to expand some of them into fics, I’d love to read one about the one where Jack thinks the reader made a joke about his dead wife (he’d better grovel A LOT, but I do love a happy ending hahhaha)
🤗
sure!! there you go <3
Summary: this brain dump
TW&tags: mention of sibling loss, patient loss (a child), medical inaccuracies, enemies to loves-ish, shit loads of swear words, angst, a somewhat okay ending i guess??
word count: 7.5k-ish
--
“Who is that walking through the door?” Jack stood next to Robby by the hub, watching a woman, dressed in black scrubs, hair tied back into a ponytail, eyes sharp and posture straight. He had not seen confidence like this in some time.
But you weren’t confident. It was all an act. You had to be a certain way — whether it was how you spoke, dressed, or talked, in order to survive this world.
You always thought of yourself as a prey, a weak one even, but when you got the job at PTMC, a place you dreamt about for so long, you decided that you were no longer a prey. Not a predator either, but someone who was not weak or hid from the world.
“Good morning, Dr Robby” you smiled as you approached him. He stood next to a man; incredibly handsome, curls falling perfectly on his face, standing up straight, shoulders wide.
“Thank you for coming in early” Robby said, smiling widely, “This is Dr Jack Abbot, attending physician. You will be working under him”
A nervous smile formed on Abbot’s lips, matching yours. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” The handsome doctor would be your new boss, and if you weren’t nervous enough to start with, you certainly were now.
Abbot was a creature you had never met before. He had incredible charisma with pretty much everyone he spoke with; he was authoritative, funny, clever but also… casual. None of it felt forced.
He paid attention to detail, whether it was staff, patients, or cases, all of it. You felt reassured to be working alongside him and found yourself thinking about him a lot, after only working with him for a few hours.
By your third day at PTMC, officially your second shift, Abbot was covering the full twelve-hours, and you found yourself incredibly happy at the thought. You reminded yourself to get it together, and that your residency was more important than some guy.
Abbot asked you to stick with him that day, “be my shadow” he said.
You nodded shyly and did as he told.
After each case, he told you what a great job you’d done. In each trauma, he didn’t need to correct you not once. You were on top of every task he had given you, and eight hours later, he walked over to you and handed you a granola bar.
You looked up from your desk, “thank you”
“I was going to make you a hot drink but i don’t know what you like”
“Oh, I’m… boring. I like a basic coffee black.” A lie. You liked iced coffees with extravagant syrups and whipped creams, but you couldn’t particularly tell him that.
“I’ll remember that” another nervous smile from him.
By the time you got home, he did not leave your mind once and you struggled to understand why he had some a huge influence on you in such a short space of time?
Maybe, not being a prey anymore attracted a dfferent type of predators. Ones that won’t hurt you or betray you. Ones you didn’t need to hide from.
It had been a few shifts since you last saw Abbot, and as you walked through one set of doors, he walked through triage, backpack slung on his shoulder. Your heart did a little flip, and you quickly shook your head and reminded yourself yet again to get it together.
“Morning, Dana” you said. ‘Who’s our attending today?”
“Abbot is; your other senior is Langdon. We’re running short on bodies today, so it’s gonna be a tough day.”
“Yeah no worries” you smiled, logged onto the computer but Dana quickly said, “Nope, ambulance is on it’s way so no time to sit.”
“Okie dokie.” you left your bag by her, grabbed a pair of gloves and walked outside to meet the ambulance but Abbot was already there.
“Morning, Dr Abbot” you said, smiling widely. But he didn’t match yours with one. He looked over his shoulder as you approached and replied quietly, “morning.”
Maybe he wasn’t in the mood to talk.
“32-year-old male, MVC, altered and awake, GCS 13. Open left femur fracture with heavy bleeding, which we’ve tourniqueted. BP 88/52, HR 128, sats 92%. Multiple facial lacerations and possible head injury.” Paramedics state quickly as they push into trauma room.
“Senior” Abbot said sharply, “what do we think?
Not even your name. He had called you ‘senior’.
You start the examination, stating what you see:
“Airway — i can hear gurgling, loose teeth too. Prepare suction.” you said looking at the nurse. “Breathing — Decreased breath sounds on the left side, possible hemopneumothorax. Circulation — bleeding is controlled around fracture—“
“That’s obvious” Abbot mutters.
Did you hear that correctly?
You continue with your examination, and start preparing for an intubation as you say, “we need a FAST exam, X-ray and a CT scan”
“So what are you doing first?”
Another rude comment.
“Sedation then intubation purely for—“
“Why.”
“Patient is agitated, and stats are dropping” you say, quieter now. The confidence was starting to wear off.
Abbot nodded, but you froze — was this a trick question? But as he gestured at the patient, you continued.
“Splenic laceration” you mutter as you look over at Abbot “we need an OR before he crashes, and we need a thoracostomy”
He ignored you, but did as you said anyway. To say that things were awkward would have been an understatement. He wasn’t in a bad mood; he was in an awful, painful, and fucked up mood. Because he gave you hell that shift. And every other shift after.
You began dreading coming into work, wondering if he would be on shift. And the days he was? You just knew he would be giving you hell for no reason.
“You” Abbot pointed “trauma”
You were now starting to take offence at the way he’d been speaking to you. He couldn’t even say your name, and you decided that one of these days, a confrontation was going to happen.
“What do we have?” Abbot said walking into the room.
“Helmetless motorcycle versus car at high speed.”
“Ouch. Senior?” Abbot looks at you, jaw shut tightly.
“Unresponsive, GCS 6” you said as you carried out your examination, “Unequal pupils and chest sounds clear”
He shot back, “That’s it?”
You glared at him, “I’m still going, Dr Abbot.”
“Needs a rapid CT — possible haemorrhage. So far stable for CT and hopefully for surgery.”
“Hopefully?” Abbot cuts in.
“Anything you would like to add?”
“What about transfusion protocol?”
“That’s on standby. Priority is CT, isn’t it?”
“But you gotta state all your options”
“That’s if you let me finish” you bit back. “I’ll get the CT ordered stat. The patient seems to be in good hands here.”
You left the room, hands trembling with anger, and you felt your eyes starting to stream before running into the bathroom and silently sobbing in the cubicle.
You were back to being a prey, and this time you couldn’t understand why. You ignored Abbot the remainder of the shift, or at least tried your best to. Because for someone he hated so much, he surely was around you a lot. Every shift he covered, he’d fire off some nasty comment or snap at you for no reason at all.
“Too slow”
“Wrong answer!”
“How about we ask the med student for their opinion, hm?”
But your final straw was when Abbot yelled at you in front of a patient, who was a child.
“Swap with Langdon!” he snapped.
“Dr Abbot I—“
“Now.”
“Outside, please?” you said, giving the patient and his family a small apologetic smile.
Abbot followed you outside the room, hands behind his back.
“Langdon is not in today. Mohan is stuck in a trauma call. Whitaker is covering triage, and McKay is on break. So the only option is me” you said calmly, despite your stomach twisting into a painful knot. “Please explain what I did wrong?”
“You should know” he snapped.
“This is a teaching hospital, isn’t it?”
But this time he didn’t reply. You watched his expression — he was angry and hurt, but you could not understand why. Why would someone like Abbot hate you so much?
You nodded slowly. “Okay then, case is all yours Dr Abbot. It seems like you can manage it all.”
You walked away from him, rushing into the toilet, but this time not to cry, but rather to vomit.
“You alright kid?” Dana walked into the bathroom.
You managed a weak “yeah”
She pushed the door to the cubicle open and found you on the floor, looking pale and clammy.
“Food poisoning or pregnant?”
“The first one, definitely.” It was neither; it was the anxiety that was eating you alive.
“Go home”
Without any protests, you went home that day and skipped the next three days from work. Abbot made you anxious and sad, in ways you didn’t anticipate. He crept up on you when you thought you were safe from him, with yet another comment.
A few days later, you pushed through the same doors you walked through every single day. But with each step you took, you lost hope of finishing this residency.
The dayshift staff gathered by the hub, having some type of meeting.
“Morning” you said quietly.
“Nice of you to join us” Abbot smiled; a predator’s smile you thought, “Meeting’s almost finished”
“It seems like my invite got lost in the mail” You matched his attitude with one. “Anybody want to fill me in?”
“I’ll fill you in later,” Langdon said, and you muttered a thank you before walking away from them and choosing your next patient, and another one, and another, until time passed and you heard his footsteps and sighed.
“You left the meeting”
Was it a statement? a question? Either way, you didn’t care.
“What can I do for you Dr Abbot? Did you lose your punching bag?”
He frowned and raised his eyebrows in surprise at your comment. “Excuse me?”
“I left the meeting because I was never part of it to start with. Because you did not send me the invite.”
“I forgot.”
“Apology accepted.” You gave him a small smile. “My next patient is here, so gotta go. Have the day you deserve, Abbot”
And with that, you walked away from him.
You had now finally understood that Abbot was bullying you and only you. You no longer cared why he did it — maybe it was a fetish. Maybe he loved you. Maybe he was jealous because you were better looking and had a nicer attitude.
You waited for one more comment to unleash that lava that had been bubbling inside of you.
“Ogilvie what do we have?” you asked, putting on gloves.
“3-year-old son, Liam, fever, awake and alert, playful but tired. Mild runny nose.” The boy was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, he was watching something on his iPad.
“Any rash anywhere?”
“None that I could see” Ogilvie replied.
“Let’s do bloods, keep monitoring stats. We need to rule out infections; we can give meds for the fever. Anything else?”
Ogilvie shook his head. You nodded and walked out of the room but not even minutes later, you heard screams.
The mom screamed as the little boy, Liam, convulsed on the bed. You rushed into the room, yelling for help on your way in, and, unlucky for you, Abbot joined. “Let’s move to the trauma room once the convulsion stops” you said.
Once they stopped, you picked up the child and pushed through the doors, mom following as she cried. You yelled for someone to get her out as you put him on the bed.
You cut the boy’s clothes open and his abdomen was covered in a pin-prick rash.
“Ogilvie, you said there was no rash!”
“None, that I could see!”
“You didn’t check for rash under his clothes?!” You yelled at him. “Fuck! Intubate, let’s call paediatrics, he’s in septic fucking shock! Someone call the lab for bloods!”
But you couldn’t do any of that, because the boy flatlined.
“He’s in PEA — starting compressions” you yelled in horror, “Call paeds for ECMO”
Moments passed as you counted how many compressions you had done. You refused to swap, maintaining perfect textbook CPR with each pump. The boy was eventually put on ECMO, and he was taken somewhere where you couldn’t see him, reach him, or know more about him.
You took off your gloves, threw them onto the floor, as you felt nothing in that moment. You had finally gone numb.
This was the job you signed up for but moments like this, reminded you why it was not worth it. The trauma, the death, the disasters that come with it. None. Of. It. Was. Worth. It.
You pushed past Abbot on your way out of the room, going through the ambulance bay doors, and walked down the street somewhere far away from the boy, but not far enough.
You lost track of how long you were gone for.
Abbot found you outside and the moment you saw him, you scoffed. “If you’re here to say a nasty comment, then please fuck off.”
“Wasn’t gonna”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“That was not your fault”
“Wow, are you trying to be nice right now?”
“Trying to but your attitude is not helping!”
“Jesus Abbot! Take a good look in the mirror at whose attitude sucks. Dude, you’re— you’re an asshole to me all the fucking time!”
“Just because the boy died doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me.”
“H-h-he died?” you choked out, “he fucking died?”
He nodded.
This was the moment you thought you were going to die. You were sure of it.
Abbot didn’t look real, your body didn’t feel real.
Your lungs had collapsed — you were certain of it.
Your first instinct was to grab your neck, hoping your airway would open up. You scratched it tightly, as you choked on your words. You saw Abbot approach you, but you stumbled back. You wanted to yell for him to get away, but you couldn’t breathe.
The boy died and you were about to.
Abbot grabbed hold of you and you tried to fight him off but your hands had gone numb, along with your face and legs.
“Breathe,” he said softly, “you can breathe, you’re fine”
You shook your head, scratching on your neck, drawing blood.
“Close your eyes and take a breath on my count”
You squeezed your eyes shut and you felt the earth shift beneath your feet. Abbot pulled you closer, holding you tightly so you don’t fall. “On my count, one, two, three…”
You did as he asked of you.
You no longer felt like you were dying, but you hoped that when the time came for your death, it would be quick and painless. Nothing compared to this.
“That’s it” he said gently, “you can breathe now, see? let’s go get your neck checked”
“No” you replied as you pushed him off and ran back inside, “get the fuck away from me”
Dana saw you rush through the doors, blood trickling down your neck. “Langdon — this one is yours”
“I’m fine” you said quickly. You did not look fine. You looked like hell.
“You’ve been missing for over forty-five minutes and you’re bleeding” Langdon said softly, “come with me”
That day, you stopped speaking to anyone.
You chose silence because that was the easy option. Abbot’s comments have gotten a lot less, but they didn’t fully stop. Maybe your panic attack showed him that you were human, with actual feelings, unlike him. The scratches on your neck reminded you every day that you were no longer a prey or a predator; you were nothing.
So when Robby said you were being moved to the night shift, you didn’t protest, cry or ask why. You nodded and got on with it.
The night shift meant you’d be seeing Abbot every day. It meant that he would be bullying you, every day. You no longer slept anyway, so it didn’t matter whether you did the day or night shift.
You no longer felt anything so Abbot’s words meant nothing to you.
Did the night shift go as you expected?
The staff were nice, for definite, but the favouritism was too obvious form Abbot. He cracked jokes with them, checked in on everyone but when it came to you, he gave you a simple nod.
You always returned it with a frown.
But what tipped you over the edge when Abbot tried to be nice. That you didn’t expect.
You didn’t expect him to try and comfort you. Was he playing mind games? Fucking with your head so he can destroy it? And to think you had a crush on him when you first started. That quickly died down.
“That teenager survived, thanks to you” Abbot said casually one evening. You looked at Ellis first, wondering if he was talking to her?
He pointed at you.
“Okay?” You said quietly.
“I’m trying to be nice” he leaned in and said quietly, “but you’re making it difficult”
“It’s a bit too fucking late for that, don’t you think?”
Ellis let out a whistle as she walked away from a potential argument.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Although you didn’t mean for it to happen, you raised your voice at him, “are you kidding me! What is your problem old man!”
Abbot was taken aback by your reaction, the way you had spoken to him. Incredibly disrespectful, and in front of everyone. He also tried not to think about the 'old man' comment.
“I heard you that day” he hissed.
“What day, Abbot?”
“Your second day here. The comment you made.”
“What are you even talking about!” You walked away from him and he followed, sighing loudly as you heard his footsteps.
“You made a joke about my late wife.” His voice shook.
You stopped still and turned to face him. “I would never do that” you said firmly.
“Someone heard you” he yelled.
You let out a chuckle. “You just said you heard me. So were you there or not?”
“Is this funny to you?”
You stepped closer to him, fully closing the distance between the two of you. You hissed at him, “Check the log sheet you asshole. I was in training upstairs on my second day.”
He stuttered as his eyes trailed down to your shaky lips, “what?”
“I didn’t step foot in the ER on my second day. Ask anyone you want, I wasn’t here. Maybe ask the person who heard me, they might tell you.”
He muttered, “fuck”
“Exactly.”
You brushed last him, pushing him away on purpose, finding a quiet room to let yourself cry in peace.
He was bullying you for a rumour he heard. He made your life hell because of a lie.
It was no longer tense between the two of you, it was awkward. Abbot didn’t know what to say or do, so he mainly mumbled things, stuttered, or forced a “well done.”
With every praise he gave you, you muttered a gentle, “fuck off.”
With every smile he gave you, you frowned and turned your back to him.
He even made you a hot drink one day — a black coffee just like you told him. You made sure it sat on the side until it went cold, and then you threw the coffee and the mug in the bin on purpose. In front of him.
You avoided him, but he was always there.
The buzzing of the fluorescent light above your head was making it incredibly difficult for you to focus on charting. You rested your head in your hands, rubbing your temples when you heard his loud breathing next to you.
“What now?” You mumbled.
“A snack” he handed you a protein bar.
“I’d rather choke and die, Abbot” you replied without looking at him.
“How many times do I have to say sorry?”
“When you start to actually mean it, not when you have to say it.”
“But I do mean it.”
You pushed off the chair and leaned towards him. “You’re only saying it because you know you fucked up.”
You noticed how he tensed up whenever you got too close to him. “How can I make it better?”
“That’s the problem Abbot, you can’t and never will be. So whatever this is between us, it’s here to stay.”
He didn’t leave the argument there. No, he followed you through triage as you tried to get out of the Pitt and into the fresh air.
Suddenly, you stopped in your tracks, and Abbot walked straight into you. You both stared at a little boy who sat in his mother’s lap. He looked just like Liam, the three year old that passed away from sepsis.
You stared at the boy as you felt your body begin to move. You didn’t mean to walk, but you did it anyway. You didn’t mean to cry in front of the entire waiting room. But you did anyway. Your hands trembled despite you not wanting them to.
You blinked and things were starting to look and feel disoriented. The next time you opened your eyes, you were standing by the road. You didn't remember walking to the road. You listened to the traffic, hoping it would distract the ache in your chest. But then your throat began to close up, and that’s when panic set in.
You clawed at your neck again, but this time Abbot was there pulling your hands away. You looked at him — eyes opened wide, dark, panicked. You tried to free your hands so you could grab your neck again but his grip was too tight.
“Breathe” he commanded, “you can breathe”
You shook your head as you felt yourself choke up.
“It’s all in your head, none of what you’re feeling is real”
You gasped then eventually he let go of you. You stumbled backwards but he steadied you pulling you away from traffic.
“Close your eyes” he said softly, “listen to the traffic. Focus on just that and nothing else.”
You nodded, entire body trembling. A car nearby honked, and you flinched in fear. You hated that Abbot wrapped his wraps around you and pulled you closer. You hated that you buried your face in his chest as you sobbed. Hated that he rocked you gently until you calmed down.
You hated him.
“Let go” you muttered, “you’re the last person I want to see”
The tension between the two of you was more than obvious at work, and it reached a point where people would be hesitant to work in a room you two were in. Abbot tried to be nice, but it didn’t seem genuine. His ugly words played on your mind over and over again.
“Abbot” you said firmly as you entered the break room, “we’ve been summoned for a meeting with HR.”
“Seriously? When?”
“Check your email”
“No I trust you”
You scoffed sarcastically.
“This is why we’re in this situation” he pointed at you.
“Put that finger away or I swear I’ll break it” you bit back.
He read through the email as you sat at the table, arms crossed over your chest. “So?
“We have less than ten days before we need to prove to everyone that we’re the bestest of friends”
“Ew”
“Do want to finish your residency, or not?”
“I am in this mess because of you!” You slammed your hands on the table. “You made me like this!”
“I said I’m sorry”
“Not good enough Abbot!”
He looked at someone behind you, and as you turned slowly, you saw Gloria standing by the door, shaking her head in disappointment.
“A fucking administration leave?” You hold the piece of paper in your hand, as you pace around Gloria’s office. “He bullied me!”
“It’s not administration leave” she said calmly.
“It’s a conflict resolution mandatory leave — at some sort of centre?”
“If you both want to keep your jobs, then you’ll be at this location, for one week. You better come back a new person.”
“I should’ve filed a complaint against his ass the moment he yelled at me!”
“This… isn’t helping your case.”
“Fine.” You spat out. “I’ll see you in a week’s time.”
Gloria said quietly, and much calmer than you, “I would highly suggest you and Abbot figure out what’s going on between the two of you. But just remember, you’re a resident and he is an attending. Only one of you has a future to lose.”
You let out a sad, small chuckle as you nodded and walked out of the door.
Later that day, as you rotted away on the sofa, surrounded by junk food and a sad movie, you heard a knock on the door. You opened it abruptly, too miserable to deal with whoever it was. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Jack stood by the door, holding his suitcase. “I’m here to talk”
“To apologise?”
“To clear the air”
“The air is clear, Abbot. I don’t need you here.”
But he walked inside anyways. You were too fed up to protest so you went back to your place on the sofa and turned the movie back on.
He paced around the apartment, looking at all your decorations, all the pictures hung on the walls. Pictures of you and your family, along with a young boy. But the young boy no longer showed in more recent pictures.
“Stop loitering” you mutter from the couch.
“Have you packed?”
“I’m not going”
“You’ll lose your job”
“What a shame…” you replied sarcastically.
Abbot stormed into your bedroom, opened your wardrobe and started laying things on the bed.
You yelled at him as you followed him in, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Packing”
“Don’t touch my underwear with your filthy hands!”
He frowned as he looked back at you. “Get me some tongs then?”
“Ha. Ha” you said slowly, nothing playful about your tone, “move!”
After so much yelling and arguing, you packed your bag and got in the car with him. It was a painful two-hour drive of pure silence and angry glances.
You pulled up to a rural cabin in the middle of the woods.
“What the hell is that” Abbot said as he parked up. “This looks nothing like the leaflet.”
“Did you drive to the wrong place because it wouldn’t surprise me if you did?” You said as you got out of the car.
“Will you just stop it!” You barked, “stop being so fucking whiney!”
“Hey!” you walked towards him, pushing him against his car, you leaned into him and said, “This is all because of you. You bullied me day and night. You hated me.”
“And I said I’m sorry.”
“Apology will never be accepted” you spat out. You walked towards the house, typed in the key code and entered.
It was a wooden cabin, warm and cosy, with thick blankets on the sofa and a stone fireplace in the centre.
“Great” you muttered to yourself. “Watch and see, there’s only going to be one bedroom.”
You walked upstairs and luckily there were two bedrooms. One had a double bed which you quickly claimed as yours, and the other had a singular bed. “The fucker can roll off this little shit”
“I heard that” he yelled from downstairs as he brought in the bags.
Later that evening, you stayed confined to your bedroom, put on a movie, ate food all alone and went to sleep. This was all too awkward, too forced and certainly not what you needed. You woke up in a puddle of sweat after yet another nightmare. It didn’t matter how much meditation you did, or therapy, the boy haunted you in the sleep. Every night he lay there lifeless; the mom’s screams echoing in your mind.
You got out of bed, trying your best not to make a noise otherwise Abbot would be on your case, and made a hot drink before sitting on the patio outside. The sun was rising across the horizon, and for the first time in a long time, you dozed off on the chair, without a nightmare interrupting you.
But your living nightmare was stomping on the patio.
“So, incredibly loud” you muttered.
“You slept out here?”
“Tried to”
“There are bears in the woods”
“Shame they didn’t get me” you said then laughed at your own joke but Abbot didn’t.
“What’s the plan for today?” He asked softly.
You sat up in the chair, and looked at him with piercing eyes, “hmmm let me see. Avoiding you probably.”
“I am sorry I was an asshole to you” he said voice gravely, “the moment I heard that you made a joke about my late wife — I instantly hated you. I should have never believed it.”
“Yeah you should have never”
“I’m sorry”
For the first time in months, he sounded genuine. “Thanks Abbot.”
“So are we good?”
You took in a deep breath, trying not to yell. “You made me cry, on daily basis. I vomited from anxiety everyday before coming to work because you bullied me so much. I can’t forgive you — I don’t know how to!”
“I’m sorry. I don’t think you should forgive me but we need to work together so you don’t lose your residency because of me.”
The calmness of the place made Abbot seem different somehow. He looked sad and sounded genuine. “Okay then. Let’s… uh work on whatever this is.”
“First on the list is wild swimming” he handed you a checklist.
“What the fuck is this?”
“A list to help us... work together. “
“By swimming in a lake full of bears?”
“Bears don’t swim—“
“It’s a metaphor Abbot!” You snapped. You read through the leaflet:
“Wild swimming. Supposedly meant to help you be in discomfort with each other and not fight. Great.”
“Forest hike — communication. Jesus!
Rowboat — Teamwork. That’s a no from me
Cooking together — Compromise. Maybe..
Campfire conversation — Vulnerability. Absolutely not. A trust walk?? Seriously? Blindfolded? This is the worse week of my life”
Wild swimming was worse than you expected. It was cold, the ground was slimy, And you squirmed every time something touched your feet. You didn't bring a swimsuit, of course, so you were in your bra and underwear.
Abbot on the other hand floated in the water like he had no worries in his life. You decided to tease him, swimming up to him underwater and gently pinching his leg. He freaked out, kicking and scrambling away, before you popped your head up, giggling at him.
“Bitch” he yelled before charging towards you. He got a hold of you and pushed you underwater, but you didn’t fight it off; instead, you stayed still. He quickly pulled you back up and rasped, “do you have any survival instinct at all?”
You smiled as you shook your head, noticing now his hands were still on your forearms.
A howl in the distance interrupted your staring competition, and your head snapped in that direction. “Nope, I’m getting out of here!”
As you swam away, he pulled you back in. “Shhhh, don’t make a noise”
You whispered, “are you crazy!”
“They won’t hunt in the water”
“What are you like — some sort of Steve Irwin?”
The animal howled again, and you squealed in panic. He scooped you up, one arm under your thighs and the other around your back. You buried your face in the crook of his neck, eyes squeezed shut. “I’m gonna die, it’s gonna be painful and in the arms of someone I hate, oh God”
“Okay, ouch” he whispered, “you’re not gonna die”
You stayed in his arms, longer than you should have, and you hated to admit but his touch was electric. For a moment, you didn’t feel hate.
“Let’s go” he ordered, once the howling stopped, releasing his grip on you. Your body grieved the loss and you closed your eyes for a second, hoping it would snap you out of whatever this was.
“Fire’s on” he yelled from downstairs, “I’ve made us hot drinks”
You walked downstairs, hair dripping wet, wearing a cosy, oversized knitted jumper and shorts. You sat by the fire, not wanting to admit how nice it was or even thank Abbot for his efforts.
“Can I ask you something?”
You glanced over at him as he lay stretched out on the sofa. His curls were still damp, making them look darker than usual. He looked different, more relaxed.
“Sure”
“Who’s the little boy in all of your pictures?”
You looked away from him and stared at the fire instead. You didn’t answer initially, not wanting to be vulnerable in front of him.
“Sorry” he muttered once he saw your eyes tear up.
“My brother. He uh... passed away. Car accident”
“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked”
You nodded, wiping your tears away.
“Tomorrow’s hike day” a small attempt at changing the conversation.
“Great, let’s hope I roll off the cliff.”
This time, he let out a loud laugh and you couldn’t help but join in.
He was finally looking like the Jack you crushed on. The Jack that was kind, and genuine. The Jack you met on your first day.
Hike day was interesting and exhausting.
“It says here we need to communicate, but you have not said a word” He said.
“I thought you would appreciate the silence”
“For the first two hours, maybe” he said “but it’s been close to four.”
“I’m tired and hungry and could do with a nap” you said breathlessly. Your legs ached, back hurt from the stupid backpack Abbot forced you to bring and your stomach growled in protest.
“Let’s set up camp”
“We’re sleeping here!?” You yelled in confusion.
“It’s a metaphor, chill”
You teased as you smiled, “Don’t tell me to chill, old man”
Abbot dropped his bag to the ground, charged towards you, grabbing both of your arms and pushing you ever so slightly towards the edge.
But instead of the reaction he was expecting, you grinned at him, “Abbot you don’t scare me anymore”
“My name is Jack, stop calling me Abbot” he blurted out as he moved you away from the edge.
Your heart hammered and not in fear, you were turned on by what he just did.
He lay out a blanket, and you sat under a tree eating the sandwiches he prepared. “Thank you” you said quickly, no wanting to mean it but you did anyway. “This is really nice”
“You’re welcome. Looks like we might be able to work together after all?”
“Don’t push it” you joked. A rustle of leaves from the woods made you both flinch. You whispered shakily, “Jack?”
He dropped his sandwich down, stood up quickly ushering for you to do the same. He pushed you against the tree, standing in front of you, arms wrapping around your waist. “Don’t make a sound” he whispered.
You rested your forehead against his back, as you took in his smell. He was sweaty, but his perfume lingered.
After a tense few minutes, he said “Let’s call it a day?”
You whispered sarcastically, attempting to lighten up a scary situation, “oh no what a shame”
Jack turned around to face you, pressing you harder against the tree. This time, you felt his cock pressing against you. You swallowed hard as your eyes trailed down to his lips. He murmured, “Do you ever stop teasing?”
You said shakily, “it’s a form of communication, isn’t it?”
He nodded, and you felt his warm breath on your lips before he pulled away “Let’s pack up and go”
You let out a shuddering breath, before packing your things and choosing silence on the journey back to the cabin.
You avoided Jack that evening, excused yourself for being too tired, and went to sleep. But soon, another nightmare haunted you; you yelled, screamed and tried to reach for the boy as he moved further away from you.
“It’s a nightmare” you heard someone say. “Wake up”
The voice was echoey and distant. You replied “no”
“Wake up it’s okay”
Your body jolted awake and your eyes opened wide as you saw Jack’s face hovering over you. You let out a small cry, “Jack?”
He whispered softly, “it’s okay”
You shook your head and sobbed, “he’s dead”
“Who is?”
“The boy is dead and I killed him” You choked out as you cried, but Jack held you tightly, wrapping his arms around you as he whispered over and over again, that everything was going to be okay.
Sleep came quickly, but the tears didn’t stop. You cried in your sleep until later that morning, when you woke up and found Jack still in your bed, one arm slung over you. You stayed exactly where you were, embracing the warmth and the company. How had you gone from hating him to catching feelings again in just a matter of days?
You heard Jack snore, and you let out a small giggle.
“Shut up” he muttered.
“You snore?”
“Piss off” he moved his arm away from you, and he turned the other way, face buried against the mattress.
You turned over and were mesmerised by the shape of his arms, the freckles that trailed down them. You felt heat starting to pool in your lower belly, and got more aroused as you thought of him.
You thought to yourself, ‘get your shit together, remember what he did’
“Are you ready for boat day?”
Jack snored in response.
You giggled again as you poked him. “It’s boat day Abbot wake up”
Another loud snore.
You poked his hip and in response, he twitched. You laughed silently as you moved both hands over to him and started tickling him.
“Stop it” he fought with the bed sheet trying to get you stop, “get away”
“The big and strong Abbot is ticklish?” You teased. “Who knew”
“Don’t ever do that again” he said firmly. His eyes were still half asleep and his curls had gone all messy. You didn’t notice you were smiling to yourself until he said, “do you like what you see, sweetheart?”
“A ticklish guy with a cocky attitude? Don’t flatter yourself, please”
Jack smirked and so you shifted off the bed, grabbed your jumper and headed downstairs.
Boat day didn’t go ahead because of the torrential rain and thunder outside. You stayed by the fire all day, attempting to read a book, but you kept getting distracted by Jack. “Will you just sit still!”
“I’m so bored!”
“Go to sleep, that’ll waste some time?”
He pulled a face and put both hands on his hips.
You groaned, “I’ll go get you another book from upstairs, that should keep you busy"
“I’m good thanks”
“Fuck me” you muttered to yourself as you walked up the stairs. “I’ll get you my iPad and put on paw patrol”
“A paw what?”
You yelled back, “it’s a show about the police, you’ll like it!”
As you walked down the stairs, the cabin lost power and everything went dark as thunder struck. You rushed down the stairs in panic as you screamed, tripping and falling down.
“Shit, are you okay!” Jack rushed over, turning on the torch on his phone.
“Ow” you mumbled, “I fell on my ass and it really hurts”
“Did you hit your head? Arms?”
“Just my ass”
Jack let out a laugh as he helped you up.
“It’s not funny” you whined, “it really hurts”
He lifted you up gently into his arms and took you over to the couch. You mumbled, not wanting to admit it, “you’re being nice to me”
“Gotta make up for my asshole behaviour somehow”
“It’s working” you said as you adjusted your position on the sofa, wincing in discomfort. “We have no power, who do we even call?”
“No clue. There’s no cell service, so we can’t call anyone. But hey, we have wine and a fire so it can’t be that bad?” He smirked.
You pulled the blanket higher up on you, looking at the fire. Jack walked back with a bottle of wine and two glasses. You drank it quicker than you should have. He noticed how you were shivering, how tightly you hugged your knees to your chest.
“Hey, shall I run you a hot bath?”
“There’s a bath here?”
“Actually I don’t think so” he tipped his head back and laughed, you joined in too.
“Thanks for nothing” you muttered, still smiling.
Without a word, Jack set his glass down and moved closer to you. He hesitated for half a second, then gently wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you into his side, a movement you didn’t protest. Instead, you let yourself lean into him, tucking your head against his chest as his other arm came around you.
After a few minutes, you looked up at him, “Hey Jack, I’m sorry about whoever made that comment about your late wife.”
Jack managed a simple nod.
“I promise it wasn’t me” you said “I would never do that”
“I’m sorry for everything I did”
“Why didn’t you ever ask me to my face? Instead, you just… treated me that way?”
Jack didn’t answer.
“The entire time, you knew you upset me. But you never confronted me?”
“I was a coward”
You hated yourself for forgiving him, and for feeling attracted to him. “I guess that’s our campfire talk is ticked off the list.” You chuckled. “And before you say anything, we are not cooking together.”
He smirked, “Why not!”
“Because you don’t want me holding a knife anywhere near you, trust me”
“Oh yeah?” He teased.
You talked for a while longer, both of you slowly opening up. The power never came back, so you decided to sleep on the sofa. But as always, the nightmares haunted you in your sleep once again.
This time it was the little boy, holding your brother’s hand. You heard yelling, but it was Abbot yelling at you, telling you that you messed up and did it all wrong.
“Wake up” Jack shook you.
The fire had died down and the cabin was pitch black. “Get away from me” you choked out but despite your words, your hands still reached out for him. You looked around confused by all the darkness. “I can’t breathe” you said breathlessly. “It’s happening again — it keeps happening!!”
You clawed frantically at your neck, nails digging into your skin. Jack quickly grabbed your wrists, pulling your hands away as he gently but firmly held you against the couch. “Shhh i've got you” He murmured as he lay next to you on the couch. “You’re hurting yourself”
He couldn’t see your neck properly but he smelt the blood.
You sobbed and you felt our airway open back up. Jack let go of your hands and you trailed your hand over your blood neck, as you cried.
“It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay” he whispered against your cheek as he he gently brushed his hand through your hair. “I've got you”
“You are the last person i want to see" you cried, voice breaking, "but you are also the only person who seems to calm me down!”
You cried out as you felt him pull you into his arms, you felt your anxiety wash away, your heart flutter at the way he took you in against him.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”
“I hate you so fucking much” but you meant the opposite. You cried harder because why the hell did you mean the opposite of what you just said?
Jack tilted your chin up gently, his forehead resting against yours. “I hate me too” he whispered, “so fucking much”
Jack indeed meant what he said. He hated himself for what he did to a person he loved so much.
Adrenaline (Jack abbot x Michael Robinavich x Reader)
CW: not smut but a whole lotta tension, Jack and Robby are married but its lowkey under wraps, Finger sucking, lowkey like domsub dynamics (please help I haven't written like this b4 im awkward), spit stuff I guess, competency stuff, food and eating stuff lowkey, reader is called superstar <3 MDNI 18+
AN: yeah first time writing anything like this so....be nice?
WC: 700 (short n sweet)
“Hey there superstar…” Jack and Robby carefully tracked your movements as you bounced around the ED like you were a bouncy ball slung at full force into a tunnel. “That was a uh- a tricky case- you wanna sit down for a minute…?” Robby’s hand pressed down in the middle of your back guiding you towards the breakroom as Jack caught a quick glance of your eyes, pupils blown wide, deep black dominating your eyes.
“No- no I- I just wanna keep going I’m in a flow state-” you attempted to turn back, to slip out of his arms- to get back to the action, a large calloused hand came down around your bicep, eyes travelling up and seeing the disapproving gaze of one Jack Abbot.
“Superstar…” His voice came through stern. His narrow gaze immediately sends a tingle up your spine, forcing your spine to straighten out as you stiffened. “Time for a break.” He pushed the door to the breakroom open, holding it for you and Robby to step in, Robby gently guided you to the couch then diverting to the kitchenette in search for a snack to curb the blood sugar crash. “You did great out there but you can’t take care of other people if you can’t take care of yourself-”
Robby snorted, bent to scavenge the (slightly grotty) fridge, “That sounds familiar-”
Jack ruffled his shoulders, his good leg moving to support his slight turn towards Robby, head cocking into a slight tilt, not like a puppy, rather a scolding commanding officer “Well if you listened to me I wouldn't have to repeat myself.” Robby averted his gaze, grabbing some random sandwich supplies to throw something together for you.
“I feel great.” your voice faltered, the tail end of the adrenaline starting to wane despite the bright smile you’d forced on. Jack scanned the room, slowly moving in on your space, that same slightly condescending but frustratingly suave smirk. “I do really Doctor Abbot-”
“-Jack…” He cut you off, watching as robby moved to place a sandwich in your lap, flopping onto the couch next to you, you wondered in the back of your mind if this was the most productive way for two attendings and a resident to be spending their time. Robby’s hand nudged yours, a reassuring smile as your fingers nimbly grasped the bread, constantly looking between the two men assessing if there was a need to ask for approval.
You bit down, humming slightly at the taste as your body relaxed back into the couch, the tension in your muscles finally releasing after a day of being constantly on the move. “I think its hitting me…” you mumbled, hand covering your mouth as you spoke, the ache in your jaw and lower neck becoming more pronounced with the burden of having to hold your own head up and chew.
“Let us help…” Robby’s hand moved to the back of your neck, carefully grasping into your hairline to hold your bowling ball of a head up on your shoulders, a small squeak escaping you as your eyes snapped to Robby’s. “It’s okay…don’t worry about it- we’re just looking after our superstar…” your heart (and something else) pulsed at his words.
“Those pupils for us now sweetheart?” Jack grinned at the interaction between the two of you, his hand reaching to cup your cheek as you swallowed. His hands were softer now, palpating around your mandible “Need to stop grinding your teeth, it's making you tense…” his thumb brushed over the corner of your lip, a dollop of sauce coming free sitting on his thick digit. “Open…” You sat shell shocked, mouth dropping open with surprise as Jack prodded at the gap gently, “if you’re uncomfortable we can stop…?”
Robby’s hand rubbed gently up and down your thigh, his hands were colder, but wider slightly squeezing the meat of your leg when he reached the top “He’s right…no pressure at all…we won’t talk about it-” Jack suppressed a groan as your hands clasped down around his wrist, pulling his hand towards your mouth, warm wetness surrounding his thumb as you tried to be the best superstar for your attendings. “That's it…let it all go…” Robby’s hand in your hair massaged softly, guiding you softly, a meek sound escaped you.
Distant words crackled over the intercom, a disgruntled huff escaping Jack as he slowly removed his hand, much to your discontent. “Sorry superstar…gotta get back to work since you two are officially done for today…” his non spit drenched hand came up to brush your cheek, tilting up your chin as you grinned lazily.
His eyes turned to Robby, a soft smile grazing his lips as Robby stayed infatuated with you, truly a vision of grace, his soiled thumb came down on Robby’s lips. RObby seemed somewhat more well trained than you had as Jack leaned down placing a much more domestic kiss on his lips, fingers curling slightly in his beard. “I’ll see you at home for breakfast slash dinner…” Jack mumbled against Robby’s lips as the man played with his wedding ring around his necklace. “You’re welcome to join…” Jack spoke as he backed out the door with a wink, tongue peaking out to kitten lick his thumb.
"God he's hot..." the two of you sighed in unison.
Inspired by this post I REPEAT SHOW @lunarayletters SOME LOVE!!!!
Summary: Reader is a veteran who is struggling to readjust to civilian life
AN: Uh tried some typography things so yeah, not proof read and this is rlly getting me back into writing again so...yippie
“Relax your shoulders or you’re going to get a migraine.” Abbot tapped your shoulder as he passed you at the charting station. After being discharged everything felt aimless, there was no goal, there was only your own autonomy.
While in service that was all you wanted, control back. The only feeling close was being back in the ED, a (mostly) controlled chaos which most days dictated your mood. It was in the way you’d held yourself, the way he’d catch you staring off into space sometimes the opposite way around. Whenever he moved into your space your body moved into attention as if it were memory. “Yes sir.”
“You can call me Jack…we aren’t out there anymore…” ‘we’ a simply devastating word, intended as a reminder that you were most definitely not alone but…part of you was still there. Not all of you had come back, in the same way Jack lost his leg in combat you’d lost a part of yourself.
“Sorry just…still adjusting…” you rolled your shoulders back carefully. “Um…” your mind drifted slightly, holding onto the keyboard beneath you. Your watch beeped with an alert, a high heart rate which your body refused to shake since waking that morning.
“Tough night?” He plopped into the wheely chair next to you, gripping the desk so as not to slide backwards. “I still have them…nightmares…”
“I don’t have nightmares,” you sighed, turning back to charting trying to ignore the suaveness of his care. “I’m not like…some stereotype of a veteran Abbot.”
“I told you to call me Jack”
“I dropped Sir-” you huffed.
“progress is progress” Jack joined you, speaking in unison. “Heard that one a lot down at the VA”
“I’m more than a fucking Vet okay?” you snapped, eyes flickering up to his, he was already in his civvies, shift having just started as you had only made it half way through your double. Working took the edge away, gave you an outlet for your hypervigilance, a reason to be overreactive and paranoid.
18 hours into the shift your hips began to settle into that familiar ache, the one that comes from carrying material which was far too heavy for your frame, from trudging through dirt and wind.
Using the on call room simply wasn't an option, there was a routine to your sleep or rather lack there of. Laying in bed, making up scenarios and stories, sometimes it was reminiscing on times in active service, others it was just making pretend. Then inevitably you’d fall into a fitful sleep, followed by startling yourself awake, then staying up for hours on your phone with the TV turned on and music in the background hoping to overstimulate yourself enough to tune everything out for once. You can’t do that in the hospital therefore sleeping and relaxing was not an option, nor was being alone.
“You should take a break…” Jack leaned over your shoulder, noticing how you held your hands against your lower back. “You’ve been on your feet for 18 hours straight you need to lay down for a bit”
“I’m fine.” Your brain stuttered as you refused to look him in the eyes, knowing that with a single glance he probably could have unpacked you. “I’m not fragile, I used to pull 48 hours when I was in service.”
“You aren’t anymore…” he moved his head to fit into your eyeline, forcing you to look at him. Fuck him and his pity sympathetic fucking eyes. You’d made it this far without needing any of his fucking help, Robby just let you do your thing but Jack felt the fucking need to be hovering. “In service- you know your body needs a break”
“I need a fucking break- from you so-” you pushed past him feeling the bile rise in your throat as you pushed past him, he struggled to regain his balance as you rushed away from him. Still he followed, the door to the on-call slamming shut in his fast, fist lightly landing on the door as he pressed his forehead against the door. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck” your shoulder throbbed as you weaved your hand up into your hair.
“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT!” your lieutenants spit splattered across your red cheeks, blood trickling down from your hairline, hands tight around your neck as you attempted to gasp for air. “SPEAK!”
“I didn’t mean it- I didn’t-” it felt like someone was trying to claw out of your ribcage, that emptiness from where you left part of yourself out in combat had grown into something ugly.
“Hey?” Jack knocked on the door as you crumbled next to the bed.
“No!” It came out raw and frantic, eyes scanning the room for a way out, a window to climb out of- something to get you out before jack came in and inevitably wrung you out for snapping at him like your old superiors would. “Please I didn’t mean it i’m sorry-” your knees huddled up to your chest, whimpers escaping and you slid under the bedframe. Most people hated small spaces, but for you it meant safety, no one could hurt you under your bed. It was the same in the army, being one of the very few women in your platoon basically meant you were the punching bag. No privacy with the exclusion of under your bed in the barracks.
The door cracked open, your eyes meeting the metal of Jack's prosthetic leg as he scanned the room. “You under the bed?” His voice was soft as the springs in the mattress creaked, his weight placing down on it. The only response was your heavy breathing, seeing the tension building in Jack's leg. “What's going on- come out it’s okay…”
Little cries escaped your lips as you gripped into your scalp, “can’t breathe- fuck please- sorry- i’m sorry-” your stomach flipped and toiled at the thought of him seeing you in this state, he sighed, bending to reach a hand down.
“I can’t get down there easily…” he waited awkwardly in the silence, finally removing his prosthesis and sliding onto the floor, scooching in next to you just outside of the bedframe, his body wouldn’t fit with yours. “Hey-” his eyes widened as he witnessed the state you were in. “breathe-” you flinched violently as his hand came down on your stomach. “I’m not- i’m sorry I’m not gonna hurt you-”
“Mpmh-” you choked on your words, hands shaking as they hovered over your chest and stomach.
“Shhhh” he dug into his pocket, retrieving a handful of skittles, the sour ones and placed them in front of your face. “Have these…” you hiccuped as he carefully placed one up against your lips. You carefully chewed the candy, the sour taste shocking your system back into gear. “You know…theres nothing wrong with you for having these moments.”
“Yes there is.” you curtly responded, picking at your fingernails, watching them begging to bleed. “Fuck I used to be like the- strongest- person- in the room and- this is kill- killing me-”
“You don’t have to be strong right now…i’ll be strong for both of us.” Jack's hand soothed over your head. The sobs spilled free from your lips, full body trembles over taking you as your fingers wrapped into the metal frame of the bed.
“I wanna go back- i fucking hate it here-!” you hiccuped going to bang your head back against the ground, a hand sliding under your skull to stop you. “Please just- i want them to let me go back I can’t take it out here- I can’t- please-” your legs curled upwards, Jack watching the slow crumble.
“You don’t want to go back you just want yourself back-” Jack's voice gently blanketed your frazzled mind.
“At- at least you- got- got sent home- for a real- re- reason-!” you bit, hitting your fist against the cold floor. “I saw one too many people die- and and and-” your throat constricted “we got ambushed- In a mudfield and- and I watched them- and I wasn't even hurt that bad!” your voice cracked as Jack blurred in your image. You were back in that fucking collapsed village, body trapped in an open field, unable to move as friend after friend, fellow soldiers were picked off. “I had a- meltdown- and they fucking kicked me out-!” your foot slammed against the door frame. Jack’s arms finally gripping under your elbows and tugging you out from under the bed.
“No more hitting- we’re not hitting anymore…” his hand carefully came down around your wrists. The same way you’d been dragged out of the ditch that day, choked out and beaten by your own lieutenant for being such a fucking coward. He tugged you up to sit between his legs, hands rubbing up and down your arms as he rocked you side to side.
“I’m not broken- please-?”
“No you’re not- you’re not broken…” his lips stuck to your temple, sniffing your perfume as he listened to your breathing beginning to settle. “You just need to take help when it's offered…” he smiled.
“I don’t want to have to ask…I don’t have anyone to ask…I’m fucking miserable…” your voice wavered once more but Abbot’s heart beat bounced against your back, an anchor in the chaos. “I want to feel normal again…” you whimpered.
“It's gonna be a long while until that happens…” Jack groaned as he readjusted himself to be a more comfortable pillow, arms strewn over the bed behind him “lay your head back…” you did as you were told, moving into his warmth.
“How long…did it take you to adjust…” you reached over to hold the prosthesis in your palms feeling the weight of it.
“I pretty much wallowed in self pity for the first few years while uh…finishing up my residency…” his hand played with a hair tie which sat around your wrist. “My wife…she was…diagnosed with breast cancer, late stage and she…she passed…” his throat bobbed. “I had to get my shit together for her- I…” his fingers tangled in the bobbin. “I still don’t know if I've adjusted…Part of me is still there…in Kosovo…” his fingers danced along your sleeves. “But you have to move on…”
Your body moved on instinct, head craning towards him, “I’m sorry…”
“We’re all kinda miserable…” he drew shapes on your wrist. “So how about lets be miserable together?”
I need all of the words. All of them. give them to me....NOW
I crave the feeling of looking at something and being able to understand the beauty so deeply upon first glance and I want that for literature, like a still life. The way it has such beautiful deeper meaning but is also aesthetically brilliant.
I want people to read an authors intentions and not just their words. WHY did they choose that adjective? WHY are they emphasising this moment? WHY would this action be important?
It is a genuine thirst to understand every facet and part of not only the english language but language as an entire art form.
CW: Sexual coarcion (Dickhead boyfriend), Abuse, Longing jack, Rabbot if you squint, Alcohol, manipulation, Biting (not in a fun way), Angry jack, fighting
AN: Trying to cure writers block with exposure, not proofread <3 Stay safe and protect yourself
Inspired by my fav mutual's brain dump here (SHOW @lunarayletters SOME LOVE!)
At first you had brushed off the lake house as another step in Robby’s midlife crisis, at least he had the sense to rent one as an airbnb before fully committing to buying one. You couldn’t hide the excitement when he invited the team away for a weekend WITH a plus one. (attempting to forget about the logistics of how he managed to schedule everything so that the main day and night shift could afford 4 days off). You were basically vibrating as you bounced home to Mickey, grinning from ear to ear.
“Baby- look- a long weekend away!” you perched onto his lap on the gaming chair, his hands moving to caress up and down your waist with a smile, it had been such a tough couple of months for him. He was working so hard to start up his new company, something related to tech and trading. It took up his whole day so you being the upstanding girlfriend you were picked up an extra job as a part time school nurse on the side. It didn’t pay much of anything but you were just lucky Robby had placed the weekend away perfectly so that you wouldn't have to take time off from there too.
“With all your colleagues?” his hair fell just perfectly over his face, a sweet (if not slightly condescending) smirk on his thin dry lips. “I don’t know sweetheart…” he squeezed your thighs, eyes grazing over you with a dark hunger in his eyes.
“Listen to me…” you tried to enter his line of vision where it was obviously fixed over your chest “please Mick?” a little squeak escaped you as he leaned in, nipping your neck, stinging lingering with his teeth marks. “Babe I've been working for like 20 hours straight…I’m not in the mood…” your hands pushed at his shoulders as he tightened his grip around your waist. “Babe-”
“If I say yes will you make me feel better…?” your eyes scanned over him, the hours of pure labor leaving you feel like a deflated carwashing advertisement machine. You silently nodded, it was just a simple fact of life now. You came home from one of your jobs, found him around the house, he’d talk his way into your pants and then leave you sticky in the sheets in search of his laptop to keep working. Sometimes he even made you get him food if he was particularly mentally exhausted.
—----------
“Are you coming on the lake trip?” Jack questioned as you gripped your tablet in between your hand and the crook of your elbow, hangnails plucked bare and bloody aching and throbbing.
“Uh yeah…” you forced a fake smile, the two attendings in front of you sharing a quick glance of confusion as you gave them pretty much nothing to work with.
“Well I need to find out who's bringing plus ones for the rooms so- are you?” Robby awkwardly broached the subject, trying his best to discretely be the best wingman possible.
“Yeah…i’m bringing my boyfriend…” you recited, eyes darting around the screen to memorise the details of the case you were about to walk into. “His name is Micheal too actually but he goes by Mickey-” you smiled slightly as you brought him up, eyes snagging on the men's slightly disappointed? Expressions. “I mean if thats okay- it’s okay i just-”
“No thats- it’s fine dont worry about it-” Robby patted your back and sent you on the way to your case, still with that unreadable expression on his face.
—-------------
“Babe?” you called out into Mickey’s home office from your shared bedroom, your hands tangled up in different swimsuit and bikini options (which you didn’t know were appropriate given you’d be tits out in front of your bosses). “I need help choosing what to pack- and you need to pack your bag!”
“God woman you nag me.” Mickey stomped into the room like a petulant teenager, hands once again all over you as you huffed. “You should try them all on and show me…” his tongue moved up your neck, a wave of guilt washing over you once more.
“I’m not-” “In the mood i know- you never fucking are anymore…” Mick bit down on your neck, a whimper escaping as he pulled away.
“That was hard babe-” you hand soothed over the bitemark, your intuition telling you it was already probably forming a bruise. He’d been doing that more recently, biting harder, especially when he wasn’t happy with you turning him down. That of course being when he wasn’t able to get you into bed anyhow. Your jaw and brain was starting to ache with the amount of orgasms you’d had to fake in the last month.
“Why do you wanna pack these anyway?” he held up a random pink triangle bikini top, flopping onto the bed with groan eyes moving over the flimsy piece of fabric. “Isnt everyone like in their 40s and they’ve got like mom and dad bods?” The disgust on his face sent a pang through you, hand shifting to conceal the slight pouch your uterus produced.
“Um…I wanted to feel pretty?” you sheepishly admitted, hoping for sympathy or even (however pathetic it may be) a compliment. Instead you were greeted by a loud snort, the man who was supposed to love you inside and out was laughing at your body. “Mickey, that's not funny.” you threw a pair of balled up socks at him.
“You’re that desperate for attention? You want to feel pretty in front of a group of fucking pensioners?” you swore there was a tear forming in the corner of his eye from laughter “fuck- pack the one piece, its not like anyones gonna be looking at you anyway.” he rose from the bed, pulling out random clothes from his wardrobe and throwing them into the suitcase without thinking about his words or lingering on the way you held your body. “Babe…” he kissed the crown of your head, “I'm just trying to save you from embarrassing yourself…” his pointer finger went under your chin forcing you up into a kiss, laying you back onto the bed.
—-------
The lake was something out of a 2000s teen movie, a glorious house with a dock overlooking the water, the place was fucking huge which you supposed did make sense given the amount of people that would be staying for the weekend. You grinned as the sun filtered through the dashboard, warming your knuckles which gripped the steering wheel at ten and two.
You pulled up to where all the other cars were parked up, stepping out and moving to the trunk to pull out the suitcases, greeting the others who were already acclimated up on the porch. You were late thanks to Mickey keeping you in bed far longer than you had planned, additionally leaving marks all up and down your neck and chest. There goes swimming…
The turtleneck itched and scratched, suffocating Robby sprinted down to you to help with the bags “so happy you came-” he was cut off by a loud splash, your eyes moved to the water seeing Mickey already soaked in the soothing lake while you and robby struggled to drag the bags inside. “You’ve got uh…quite the boyfriend there…” he tried his very best to sound sincere but it evidently wasn't his strong suit.
“You can take the boy out of the frat but you can’t take the frat out of the boy” you tugged at the neckline of the shirt.
“It’s hot out here, you should change.” Jack declared as he stood in the doorway “your boyfriend has introduced himself to the beers already by the way.”
Robby scoffed out a laugh “That has to be a new record.”
The men's eyes witnessed as your shoulders dropped, the idea of Mickey who was already way up on your nerves being drunk? Yeah no. This trip away was quickly becoming nannying your very adult boyfriend. The men watched as you rushed outside the doors, Jack's eyes tracking you as you scurried out to the porch, trying to take the beer from Mickey in as playful of a way as possible when he pulled you into a messy kiss. Dana and Mckay jokingly cheer from their tanning beds while Victoria, King, Samira and Frank all awkwardly avert their gazes.
“Looks like someone's got a crush” Michael slung his arm around Jack's shoulder staring at you and Mickey through the glass panelled doors.
“That obvious?” Jack groaned, his hand dragging down his face.
“You just asked her to take her shirt off” Robby chuckled, moving to face him with his back placed against the adjacent wall.
“I’m rusty…” Jack huffed, he had been out of the game for 15 years since his late wife passed, he’d had a hookup here or there but the toll of the last 5 years on his mental health had basically killed any reality of a functional relationship. “I just don’t understand what she sees in him…”
“You’re in deep shit…”
“I am not this- this is a harmless crush- calling it a crush seems juvenile we are grown adults”
“Whatever you need to help you sleep at night- hey maybe i should put you in the room next to the loverbirds- some exposure therapy.”
“This is why no one will marry you”
“I don’t need anyone to marry me- WE are going old and grey together and that's not up for negotiation.” Robby nudged Jack with his elbow, a weathered grin on his lips. “Look…” he sighed “I don’t see them lasting a long time and…”
Jack's eyes fixed on every movement, your laugh (not quite the real one, the one you would let people see), the way the sun caught perfectly on your skin. Utterly transfixed, it was the best term he could use for his feelings for you. From the moment he laid eyes on you, watching your competence in the ED, the way you held yourself, it stole the breath from his lungs and the oxygen from his blood. If you were a vampire he was your more than willing disciple. “I wanna show her she deserves more than him…”
……
The campfire sizzled and popped, alcohol and its warmth burning up your cheeks, the heavy arm of your boyfriend weighing you down. His pruned hands gripped at your waist, spilling beer over your skirt as the conversation roared, Mickey’s voice echoed and bounced on the lake water.
“How did you two meet?” Cassie cupped her sprite between her hands, twirling the straw with her pinky. The full group turned, eyes baring down over your curled body language.
“Oh um…” your eyes furrowed together, hand clenching around the red solo cup in your palm.
“A frat party!” Mickey cheered with a grin, mind rolling back to one of the worst nights of your lives. “Fuck she was so fucking drunk-” your eyes bore into the flames trying to separate yourself, “she had this boyfriend- and he was just like boring- so i got him to like breakup with her...” the group stayed quiet as you pretended you were anywhere but here usually just tuning out Mickey when he got like this. “So he dumped her and I was the shoulder to cry on!” He leaned to Frank expecting a fist bump but was instead met with a cold look.
“What?” your head tilted up, you had never heard this version of the story before. The guy you’d been dating was so sweet, which is what made finding him making out with some girl (whose name ended with Leigh) so fucking devestating. His laughs peetered out as he awkwardly played with the fabric of your shorts. Your head snapped up looking around at everyone's pity filled glances. “I’m…I’m going to bed…”
It was hours later when Mickey walked in, the smell of beer thick on his breath as he attempted to snuggle into bed next to you, pushing in when suddenly-
“Stop it” you snapped, actually snapped. Mickey was never used to hearing no. and for a very long time you simply allowed it because you feared losing him like you had your ex, of being too much of a prude.
“C’mon babe-” He whined pathetically, pawing at your PJs as you pushed him away.
“Please stop- mickey-” you pushed voice raising as you kicked at his legs which tried to restrict you. “STOP!”
The door slammed off the wall, Robby stood in the doorway, glaring down at the bed and the position Mickey had put you in. “You’re done. Pack you shit- right now-” You scurried up, moving to throw your toiletries in a backpack when Robby blocked your body. “Not you- you’re staying…he’s leaving-”
“He’s drunk he doesn't have a car- i have to drive him-”
Robby shielded you as he recognised Jacks familiar gait moving towards your room on the mo“I got him an Uber-”
“What the fuck is going on here-” Jack’s eyes skimmed over your neck, seeing the bites of his saliva souring. He strode over to the bed, ripping him from the sheets by the collar of his polo. Mickey sobering up with fear, the moonlight catching on the veins bulging in Jack's arms. “Get the fuck up now-” he growled as Mickey fumbled with his things, shoving them into a dufflebag.
You stood under Robby’s arm as Jack kicked Mickey out of the room following him out the Uber, slower than he wanted to be but just as intimidating. “Give me your phone…” Robby hummed, the sleep still present in your mind conceded, handing it to him as he systematically blocked Mickey on every platform. “It’s done…it’s done okay….” Robby's hand rubbed up and down your back as Jack returned, having offloaded Mickey with the intimidating talk of the century.
“Are you okay?” he climbed the porch steps, his big eyes locking onto you as cries finally broke through. You fell down into his arms with a helpless whimper, it was pathetic from the outside, needing to be saved by your bosses, the idea of having nowhere to go home to, not knowing what was going to happen with your things. Reckoning with the fact you needed to be saved.
The next day passed sluggishly, stuck in bed, trying to cover up the reminders of Mickey’s corrections on your neck. There was an occasional knock on the door, Robby or Jack usually, dropping off food from the barbeque.
In the early hours of the morning you stepped out of the front door, sitting down at the edge of the lake, letting water just kiss your feet as you embraced the cold air sending goosebumps over your skin.
Fabric came down on your shoulder, grunts and groans, the sound of scuffling dirt and sand reaching your ears as crutches clinked placing them on the floor. Jack, the smell of campfire and spruce filling your nostrils as he leaned back on his palms placed behind him. “I’m sorry…for last night…I was angry and…it was completely inappropriate.”
“He blocked me…” you threw a stone across the river watching it skip and ripple in the moonlight. “He actually blocked me he said- he put my things in storage and that I could pick it up when we got back…and then he blocked me…” you hiccuped, dirty hands swiping away the tears before reaching for the fabric. “What's this…”
“One of my hoodies…it’s cold out here…” He sighed, silver hair bathing in the moonlight. Watching as you tugged the hoodie over your body, Jack reached over carefully, wrinkles making themself known as he meticulously straightened it out. “It looks good on you…”
“How do you do that?” you mumbled pulling the neckline up to your chin, tucking your legs under the fabric and up to your chest. “Compliment me like that…?”
“It’s easy….you’re smart…beautiful…kind-” he was cut off by your chuckle, his eyes hardening, thinking you didn’t believe his words.
You calmed, eyes moving away from the water in favor of his face “Sorry…just the first thing you said was that I was smart-” an unexpected frog jumped into your throat.
“Cause you are…” His hand moved to your face, wiping away an eyelash with his thumb, smiling and placing it in front of your face, “make a wish…”
“You’re such a boy” the childish wave cast off the man, he was a puzzle you had not managed to solve, a knot you could not unfurl. At times he was one of the most serious men you’d ever met, pulling your boyfriend out of bed by the scruff of his neck because he hurt you then asking you to make a wish like this. Time may have aged him but the boyish wonder never left his features.
“A boy who is asking you to make a wish?” he smirked “fuck I havent been called a boy in decades…probably since before you were born” His eyes slowly admired your features. Your cheeks burned at that, you’d spent years wrapped up in the arms of an actual boy, one that was cemented in his college peak. And now an older man, a man who could be your father was paying full attention to him.
He watched the tear dry down your cheek, his thumb returning to erase it “don’t cry over him…you shouldn’t cry over him he never deserved you…” he moved closer to you.
“I’m crying because i’m fucking homeless-” you gasped, frustrated by the situation. The devil on your shoulder stared over at you, pushing your weary head down into the man’s palm, revelling in his warmth. “Stop looking at me like that…”
“Come live with me…” he grinned, rubbing his thumb along your tear streaked cheekbone. “Until you get back onto your feet…I can’t have one of my best residents living out of her car…” his voice was soft in the way it was when he walked you through procedures, bodies pressing into each other, warm breath on the shell of your ear.
“I can’t ask that of you…” the sound of the crickets and animals thickened the silence between you, feeling the obligation to whisper as not to defile the beauty of the moment.
“You didn’t ask…” he leaned in carefully, hesitating, staring into your eyes. “Let me look after you-”
Your lips crashed into his, tears flooding from your eyes, messily gripping to him as your lifeboat. A sigh of relief escaped him as his hands came around your waist, brows furrowing from the intensity. You exhaled shakily, his mouth moving away from yours as you smiled down at him, admiring the maturity of his face. “I’d do anything you told me to do right now-” Jack grinned like a happy german shepard.
I wanted to request a Langdon fix where he helps reader through a panic attack
If your not comfortable writing this feel free to just ignore this request
- 🪩
I'm sorry this took so long 😭
A temporary pause
Pairing: Dr. Frank Langdon x dancer!reader
Warnings: panic attack, hyperventilation, temporary injury (grade two ankle sprain), emotional distress.
Summary: When a severe ankle sprain threatens to derail your dancing career, the panic entirely consumes you in the middle of a chaotic ER.
Dr. Frank Langdon stood at the foot of your gurney.
"Alright, I've got the X-ray results back," Frank said. "The good news is there are no fractures. You haven’t broken anything. It’s a grade two sprain. We’re going to get you wrapped up, get some ice on it, and send you home with orders to keep weight off it for a few weeks."
Weeks.
Your chest tightened as your brain violently spiraled.
Weeks.
Not one day.
Few weeks.
You had rehearsals tomorrow.
If you missed a weeks of training, your placement was gone.
The routines you’d memorized until your muscles burned: all gone.
"I can't..." you whispered, the breath hitching painfully in your throat. "No, no, no. I have to... Dr. Langdon, I can't rest, I'm a dancer."
Frank paused, his eyes instantly dropping to your face.
He saw the precise moment the color drained from your cheeks. He saw the rapid rise and fall of your chest, and the way your hands began to tremble violently as they clutched the rough hospital sheets.
"Hey," Frank said, his tone instantly shifting. He set the tablet down on the bedside table and took a step closer. "it's okay, you just need some rest. Don't overthink it."
But you couldn't. The room was tilting. Your heart was hammering against your ribs so hard it felt bruised. "I can't dance for weeks," you choked out, a sob tearing from your throat, tears finally spilling over. "If I can't dance, I don't... everything is gone. It's over. I ruined it."
"It is not over," Frank said, his voice cutting through your panic. He extended a hand, palm up. "Listen to me, your body is going into overdrive, but you are okay. Match my breathing. Come on."
You tried to mimic him, but your lungs refused to cooperate, catching on a pathetic gasp.
"B-But my career..." you whimpered, your vision blurring with tears.
"You will handle the dancing. I promise you, you will handle it," Frank said, keeping his voice calm. "But right now, I need you to breathe with me. In for four seconds. Do it for me. One... two..."
You stared into his eyes desperately clinging to his voice like a lifeline. You forced your lungs to open.
"Good. Hold it. Now let it out, nice and slow," he guided, watching you intently. "Again. In... and out."
You repeated the cycle, your hands still shaking against his arm, but the roaring in your ears slowly began to recede.
Frank stayed right there. He didn't let go of your arm.
After a few long minutes, the hyperventilating stopped, leaving you weeping quietly from the sheer comedown of the adrenaline.
Frank gently squeezed your forearm before finally pulling his hand back, giving you your space again. He reached over, pulled a piece of tissue from the wall dispenser, and handed it to you.
"There you go," he murmured, his voice softening.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, feeling a deep wave of embarrassment wash over you. "I'm so sorry. You have other patients, I shouldn't have—"
"No, stop, It's okay," Frank interrupted gently. "Do not apologize for that. You just had a massive shock. You came in here in pain, and I dropped a diagnosis on you that threatens the thing you love most. You are allowed to react."
He pulled up a wheeled stool, sitting down so he was at eye level with you.
"Now, listen to me," Frank said, pointing a finger toward your foot to emphasize his point. "A grade two sprain is a setback. It is a painful, frustrating, incredibly annoying setback. But it is not a career ender. Ligaments heal. You are young, you are in peak physical condition, and we caught it immediately. You are going to do the physical therapy, you are going to rest, and you are going to get back on stage."
He paused, making sure you were truly hearing him.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better," you whispered.
"No, no, I'm not. It’s the truth. You haven't ruined anything. You just have to take a temporary pause. Can you do that for me?"
Looking at Frank, the future didn't feel entirely hopeless.
You swallowed hard, nodding slowly. "Yeah. I can pause."
Frank offered a warm smile. "Good. Let's get you that ice pack."
He stood up, but he looked at you for another long moment.
"I mean what I said," Frank added. He leaned against the edge of the bedside table, crossing his arms. "You follow my instructions. You rest, you do the physical therapy, and you don't try to sneak onto a dance floor before those ligaments are ready. You take care of that foot."
You looked up at him, a faint smile finally breaking through your tears. "And if I do?"
"If you do," Frank said with a genuine warmth in his eyes, "then you make sure to save me a few tickets. Because when you're back on that stage for your presentation, I'm going to take my kids to see it. I want to show them what hard work and a proper recovery look like."
The weight in your chest lifted completely, replaced by a sudden, deeply comforting rush of hope. It wasn't just a clinical promise anymore; it was something to look forward to. A goal at the end of the tunnel.
"Deal," you whispered sniffing, wiping away the last trace of a tear.
"Good," Frank smiled, giving you one last reassuring nod. "I'll be right back with the ice."
CW: injuries, description of wounds and after wound care , periods and mentions of sex but nothing explicit
AN: IK first COD content in months im sorry i had an infestation of the pitt brain worms i'm still wrestling
MDNI 18+
Ghost always knew when you were injured, you could swear that if it weren't for ghost being his actual call sign it would have been something like Bloodhound. You'd gotten back to base after a long mission you were not at disposal to tell anyone else in the group about.
The boys all agreed you seemed hollowed out, you’d been gone for about 2 weeks longer than was originally predicted but they tried to rationalize it with many of the other likely reasons that usually came about during a tricky mission.
That was until you were forced back into training, Ghost had you pinned down to the blue mats, your body straining and aching for reprieve from his grip. You tapped on his back, letting out a groan as he pressed down on your rib by accident. “What was tha’ for?” Ghost’s head tilted to the side, his hand moved to your shirt as if to ask for permission.
Your eyes moved to the ceiling as he inspected the wound site, peeling away the gauze to expose the over 100 stitch worthy wound. “What happened?” his finger traced along its side, seeing how it wrapped around your ribcage.
“Turns out bringing a gun to a knife fight isn't as effective as the cliche would have you think” you chuckled.
“You shouldn’t be training.” he started pulling you up to your feet, bracing a hand on your side.
Of course that was a big and apparently obvious injury, but it progressed into being the smallest of things. A trip while running with Gaz, skinning a knee and ending up confined to a bench for a couple minutes so he could clean it out. The group had their fun with that one, one of the recruits had the fucking gall to take a photo of it. The beautiful imagery of a man the size of a wall crowded over your little boo boo knee. Ghost had basically sniffed you out even if you had your pants pulled back down over your leg cornering you and forcing you into first aid.
A while later you were working through some old paperwork herded into a desk after ghost had decided you were too accident prone to be out and about while you were still healing. You flipped through the papers huffing at every mistake the stupid recruits had made. Perhaps moving a little too fast when god decided to smite you, a thin piece of paper slicing through your finger slowly and painfully. “Fuuuckk” you whined gripping your finger when three knocks responded on the door, light peaking through quickly eclipsed by Simon's massive frame.
“Can’t trust you alone for a minute eh?” Simon grabbed your hand, inspecting the cut and digging his hand into his pocket to retrieve a little dinosaur bandages. Which you’d mentioned about a year ago you’d found adorable.
“Kiss it better?” the quip left you before you could stop it, blood immediately rushing up to the tips of your ears, eyes darting down to the floor unable to make any semblance of eye contact with the man.
That was until you felt the brush of knitted fabric against your pointer finger, words spoken only loud enough for you to hear “don’t tell anyone, yeah?” you meekly nodded, he disappeared as quickly as he arrived, drifting out into the hallway leaving behind only the waft of bergamot and gunpowder.
You were holed up in your room, body curled up in attempts to dampen the agony of the cramps surging through your abdomen, hand gripping onto your pen so hard the inscribed logo ingrained itself into your fingers. The creak of the door alerted you, whining out a little “leave me alone-” only to catch that lovely citrusy scent once more.
His voice was low and gruff, clearly having woken up early to get in a work out while you’d been kept up by your evil fucking uterus “Are you hurt?”
Your eyes focused carefully on the man in front of you, compression shirt accentuating his ginormous pecs, fuck they’d probably make the perfect pillows right now. Fuck the period hornies have struck worst of all for your superior. “No, I just don’t feel well…”
“You’re holding your abdomen- is it that wound- is it hurting- let me look-” he charged forward trying to gently tug your hands away from the way you were guarding yourself.
“Simon, I'm on my period.” you huffed, seeing the way his shoulders sagged, hoping it was something he could fix, that he could take care of you, at least find a reason to touch you. A cheeky thought entered his mind.
The Men Of The Pitt After A Bad Shift (The Pitt x Reader)
WC: 6.6K
CW: school shootings, illness, emotional disregulation, poop pee and…other stuff….throwing up, most things you’ll find in the hospital, talks of sex, some kissing and touching but no smut (probably missed some protect yourself)
MDNI 18+
AN: not the bigger fan of this one but it took 3 days snd i’m kinda glad it’s over 😭😭😭
Summary: the men of the Pitt and how they act after a bad shift & how they act after you had a bad shift (scenario based like mini fics) (established relationships)
Michael Robinavich
When he has a bad shift:
The house was quiet, even after Robby had stepped through the door 2 hours later than he was supposed to, the dinner you had made cold on the table, a warm steamy shower having washed away any effort you had put in to look nice for him. The TV hummed low in the living room, your hair barely visible over the arm of the couch as supernanny burned into your retinas.
The clatter of his keys against the dish echoed in the empty room, the creak of the floorboards as his heavy feet moved across the apartment floor, the small grunts and groans escaping your husband. A warm hand came down on your head, a warm gentle weight as his finger traced down your cheekbone, hooking your chin to stare up at him with heavy tired eyes. “Hey honey…” he leaned down, placing a peck against you, a small huff escaping when you didn't return the kiss. Your eye lashes fluttered down against your cheeks, a fixed gaze on him, lips pressed together in a thin line. “I’m sorry…It was…it was so busy…”
“It always is Mikey…” your legs curled up to your chest, chin rested there, slightly wet hair falling over your face. “I was so excited for date night…” your whole body felt like molasses, eyelids heavy slowly blinking as the warmth of the couch attempted to welcome you back in.
Mike couldn’t meet your eyes, easing onto the couch next to you, fiddling with his fingertips, picking at the dried skin there, “i made it home as quickly as i could- there-” he held in a hiccuping breath “there was a women uh…around your age?” he leaned back staring up at the ceiling to hide the watery eyes. “C-car crash she- fuck she looked just like you-” his voice broke in a devastating crack “and i was so scared- that- that i could lose you like that?”
His head hung down as his shoulders shook, your fingers poked at his tugging at his fingers with your own, preventing him from causing further damage to himself. Your lips pursed waiting for him to show a sign to continue, his body laid back against the couch pulling at your thigh. You moved over to straddle him, hands coming up to his face in a gentle home, the saltiness of his tears graced your lips, stubble aching against your skin. “I’m sorry- I'm sorry just please…please don’t leave me…never leave me please…”
“I won’t…shhh shhh” your hand moved to the back of his neck, forcing him into a hug. Both of his palms pressed to his forehead, breaths rattling his ribcage as the oxygen snagged on his diaphragm. You settled like that for a while, you pulled back meeting his sad puppy dog eyes, but he couldn't quite attach to your own, flickering back up to the ceiling. “Look at me mikey…” he made no move to tilt his head back down.
Your hand moved to the back of his head, holding his hair in an iron hold and leaning over him, his hands gripped onto your waist cheeks flushing red. “Say you know I won't leave you.”
“Honey.”
“Say it Michael. I'm not asking, I'm telling…” his mouth parted pupils blowing wide, brows raised as he tried to ignore the rush of blood downwards, emotional whiplash overwhelming him.
“Dammit…” his hands petted down to your hips, a teary smile forming, “You’re not gonna leave me…” the words weakly left him, hands squeezing and grabbing. Your face ducked down into his neck, a rough groan escaping him as you kissed and nipped.
“Now apologise for missing dinner.”
“I’m sorry- I'm sorry…” he chuckled against you as you sunk down into him, playful licks and kisses tickling his nape. “I would say it won’t happen again- but uh-” he bore his neck “if i get this treatment every time-”
“Oh you won't- it’s cause you had a bad shift”
“Mhpmh i should have bad shifts more often…” you directed him into a short but deep loving kiss, your hips slightly shifting as his tongue prodded at yours. You learned a long time ago that Robby couldn't express emotion in the way most people can, for him it was painfully tied to intimacy. The few times you had seen him cry being in the late hours of the night after intimacy, so you comforted the way you knew how, giving him something to do to ease his broken heart.
You pulled away slowly, allowing him to chase you, his eyes fixed onto you as if you were an angel falling from heaven straight into his lap. “You need to eat, shower and sleep Michael…” your hands smoothed over his beard as he nodded.
“Yeah…yeah…” you stepped off his lap, moving to reheat his food as he snuck up behind you, placing a kiss to your temple “I love you…” he mumbled against your skin before moving to change out of his hospital clothes.
When you have a bad shift:
There was a numbness that followed you out of Presby, the elective wasn't worth it, but you only had a week left of the hell you had been subjected to. Constantly being overlooked in favour of your male colleagues, written off as being a nepo doctor just because your partner was an attending at another hospital.
Your body moved sluggishly, escaping the concrete prison of the building, slipping into the car and putting the keys into the ignition. The car spluttered a few times before finally giving out, the engine light taunting you over the dash board. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!” the guttural scream pushed out of you, hands crashing down against the steering wheel, arms and legs akimbo, all the anger and bottled up emotions flooding out of you.
The frustration settled, eyes moving up catching on your fellow resident smirking through the window as you slammed the car door shut behind you. “What are your panties in a twist for huh?” He followed as you moved towards the stairs of the carpark with your duffle slung over your shoulder.
“I swear not to god, not right now, Wilson." hands clenched at your sides as you marched through the sliding doors which lead to the lashing rain.
“What, you can’t take a little teasing?” he followed you out an umbrella opened above his fat dense fucking skull.
The muscles in your jaw clenched as the water landed like bullets on your skin, head jerking towards him “I’m tired of your fucking- attitude-”
“Awwww not used to being challenged up on your high horse over at PTMC- all cause you’re fucking the boss?” he snarled, moving closer to you, pinning you against the wall of the building. “You’re a shit fucking doctor- the only reason you have a career is because you’re getting dicked down by a superior-” spat mixed with the rain as it splattered over your cheeks.
A wet slap landed on his cheek, legs moving as fast as possible to escape him rushing down the street towards the bus stop. The water blurred your vision, seeing the bus cancelled glaring at you. Your hand rummaged in your purse, running under some cover to stop the water from dropping onto the touch screen, your foot caught on the uneven pavement, sending you tumbling down to the floor scratching up your knees. The plop of your phone into the water sent pure dread through your veins.
Tears bubbled up, heat rushing to your cheeks as you picked yourself up, snagged your phone and walked down the street.
“Hey Honey” Robby’s voice chimed from the kitchen, loud clattering followed you as your soaking wet sneakers hit the dry wall, tearing off your jacket, teeth clattering as wet hair plastered to your skin. “Hey- hey whats-” he was wearing an apron, obviously in the middle of cooking dinner on one of his few days off, his glasses hung low on his nose, PTMC snuggled up around his collarbones so cosy and warm. “What happened to you?” he placed down the pan of sauce moving over to you as your body finally gave out, crumbling down to the floor.
You threw your phone across the hallway, stomach turning, ragdolling forward. Exhaustion washed over you as you shivered. You babbled about your day, the shift that sucked the life out of you, the constant sexism, the interaction with Wilson in the parking lot. Robby crouched in front of you despite his aching back and knees, hand moving up and down your shoulder. “Let it out…it’s okay…”
The sobbing calmed to hiccups as he herded you off the floor, pulling you into him to place a gentle kiss on your forehead, smelling the petrichor on your skin, tasting its softness. “Let's warm you up and I'll put your phone in some rice…”
He did exactly that, warming your shower, placing out fresh towels on the radiator right next to a fresh change of clothes that would actually warm you. The food was waiting for you outside the door as you walked around the apartment with wet hair tied up in a towel, showing off Robby's sweatshirt with a pair of sweatpants which could never see the light of day outside the apartment. “Hey pretty lady…” he tugged at the laces of your sweatpants, forcing a soft huff from your lips as he smushed you in between the counter and his body taking your temperature. “I would offer to talk to your supervisor, but I think that might make it worse…i will if you want me to though…”
“No…it’s 5 more days…I can push through it…” your voice rasped from the tears of your meltdown. “Then I get to come back to PTMC…” he was like a human radiator, snuggling into his embrace.
His chin was to his chest, staring down at you like you’d hung the moon and the stars, tracing a finger up and down your nose bridge. “Lets watch a movie…forget about your shitty day and…maybe i can…help take your mind off things…” he pressed a kiss to your temple trailing down and nipping at the shell of your ear forcing out a laugh. “There she is.”
Jack Abbot
When he had a bad shift:
The pain from his residual had gotten to the point that it was radiating up his hip and into his back. His head ached from the constant overstimulation of the lights and noise of the emergency room, it had forced him non stop to use his leg. It was just his luck that there was a party bus crash which had taken out a whole road forcing him to stay in the ED for an extra 4 fucking hours to catch up with the charting.
Once he finally pulled up into the driveway he limped over to the trunk of the car, sitting on the lip to take off his prosthetic and moving inside on his back up crutches.
“Home…” he grunted as the door slammed shut behind him, carefully placing his prosthesis down by the shoe rack, pain striking up his hip. You were snuggled up on the couch in a ball, nose buried in a blanket which clung to the scent of his cologne. Your head snapped around, eyeline reaching just above the back of the couch.
“You look awful…” the blanket ended up sprawled across the coffee table as you kicked it off, walking to his side, pulling out one of the chairs at the kitchen table for him. He made a gruff noise, words no longer being an option of communication between the two of you.
You switched on the kettle brewing a tea as he stared out into nothingness. Silently moving around the kitchen grabbing some old chinese left overs and reheating them in the microwave, a hand coming down on his shoulder, gently massaging the tension from his shoulders. “Unclench your jaw…” your hand moved over his mandible rubbing your thumbs over it carefully.
His neck arched back to stare at you, a soft smile gracing his features. His hand moved atop yours, tugging on you to bring you up close, moving up to your head to pull you down into a kiss.
The beeping of the microwave broke your kiss as you smiled against his chapped lips “you need food…” he nodded, leaving a kiss on the corner of your mouth as you pulled back, kissing the crown of his head. Condensation gathered around the cup collecting on the table, the plate gracefully placed in front of him as you kneeled to massage his residual limb.
“You don’t have to do that…” his hand moved to your hair, you stiffened for a second afraid to scare him away from words again.
“I want to….do you wanna talk about today?” you climbed up onto one of the other dining chairs, knees huddled up to your chest, gaze given on him. Jack spoke avoiding eye contact as he listened to the horrors he’d seen throughout the entire shift. Hand fiddling with the placemats on the table.
“Did you go to the roof?” the question stopped his movements, fork halfway to his mouth, bicep deliciously flexed as he did so.
“No…” he ran a hand through his hair “no I didn't…” he got lost in his mind realising since being with you he’d only visited the roof once or twice, and of those times it was with you there, supporting him.
“Progress is progress Jack…” he leaned over close to you.
“Eat your food mister…”
“There’s a better meal right here…” his kiss latched to your hand going to the back of your head to keep you close. He still smelled of antiseptic and the staleness of PTMC, but it couldn't stop the magnetic pull into him.
You mumbled against his lips, “You want a bath honey?”
“Are you getting in with me…?” his lips went down your neck nipping.
“You’d think being elbow deep in some guy's abdomen would be a massive turn off…” he chuckled against the skin of your neck, feeling his gruff tone vibrate against your nape.
“Can’t help it with you pretty…”
“Eat your food and I’ll make the bath for you…”
The both of you slipped into the warmness of the tub, you followed Jack perching between his legs as he struggled to keep his hands to himself. He took time massaging the shampoo into your scalp, frothing the bubbles of body wash over your shoulders with a deep reverence and appreciation of your frame and body, letting his lips skim over after he washed the suds away.
“So the only thing that makes you feel better is looking after me?”
“Yeah…”
“But you spend all day working and looking after people” you drew shapes on his good thigh feeling the way it tensed and released under your touch.
“I’ll never be too tired to look after you…” he kissed your cheek softly resting his head on your shoulder. “You always make me feel better…”
When you have a bad shift:
“I thought we agreed we were going to stop coming up here…” Jack spoke, approaching you holding onto the roof’s railing, a cigarette dangling between your finger tips staring out at the sun rising over the Pittsburgh skyline. His trained slender fingers plucked the filter from your tired ones raising it to his lips, deeply inhaling the nicotine.
A deep sigh rattled your chest emptying your lungs “And I thought you were going to quit smoking…” that elicited a small scoff of a laugh out of him.
“A couple of hypocrites we are.” he passed the cigarette back into your hand, instead using it to run his fingertip up and down your spine. “Ready to go home…” the warmth of his palm landed on your lower back, his gaze trained on the way the smoke of your exhale twisted around your face.
You gulped at the idea of having to actually walk back into the building, the aching in your joints rejecting the idea of having to move. But the idea of telling your boyfriend, an amputee, that your leg hurts felt somewhat pathetic. “Okay lets go.” you put out the cigarette in the puddle by your feet. Helping Jack down the stairs and into the parking lot, a wince every time your ankle hit the floor, the cracking of your neck overdone enough to oh so graciously give you a horrific migraine you just needed to fight off until you got home.
Jack got into the car with a grunt, staring at you as you threw both of your bags into the drunk, seeing how you were carrying your weight, the tension up in your shoulders, the shortness of your replies. You sunk into the passenger's seat, eyes glued shut, head steered up at the roof of the car trying to ignore the agony of the pulsing in your skull as Jack drove through the streets. Your eyes flickered open as the turns began to turn unfamiliar and Jack rolled the window down.
The words blurred together but the next thing you knew a slightly greasy bag came down on your lap, the smell of fast food overwhelming you. “Diet coke baby, open” you let your mouth drop open, a paper straw pressed to your lips sucking gently, the coldness of the icy beverage overwhelming you for a few seconds, Jack's thumb coming up to soothe the furrow between your brows. “Have some salty fries sweetheart…” he pulled out heading back to your shared apartment.
Once you finally stepped inside he practically forcefed you your meds and put you into bed for a good old nap, folding himself in with you pulling your head to lay on his chest. He struggled to sleep, so instead of actually sleeping he tended to just watch you try to sleep away your migraine.
Once you opened your eyes, Jack was kissing the sleep away “morning pretty…” his lips moved to your forehead with a big smile. “Feeling better” you nodded, still disoriented from sleep as he ushered you up to sit. “Hows your ankle?”
You stiffened momentarily, “How did you know?”
“You were favoring your right side when we walked down to the car and…” he sighed “you only really ever smoke when your stressed out or in pain and given the migraine I am willing to bet its both…” he scooched down the bed feeling around your ankle waiting for the whine escaping you a stab into his heart at the noise. “Is it just unstable or did you twist it?”
“Unstable is everything on the left side…” you hiccuped, the constant standing throughout your entire shift had sent agony through your body. Despite being the younger one in the relationship it always felt like you were the one with the side effects of aging.
“Let me massage you”
“That literally never ends at a massage…” you giggled, hand moving over him as he felt up your hips and thighs.
“I’m sorry love…” he kissed your forehead, fluffing the pillows underneath you and building a small sanctuary in your own bed “you want snacks sweetheart? Anything to drink?” you nodded, you didn't even need to name them as he came back in providing you with an assortment of your favourite snacks.
“What happened on shift to stress you out that bad?”
“I got screamed at…by like 3 patients…” you huffed shoving some M&Ms into your mouth “and just i didn’t get to sit down or be alone for like 12 hours and i know thats a lot to ask and we work in a hospital but-”
“It’s a lot…” Jack’s hand ran through your hair, the softness in his eyes a tell tale sign of how much he loved you. “Constantly overstimulating you just need…a break sweetheart…” you nodded in agreement snuggling back up into him.
“Just cuddle me, Jack…”
Frank Langdon
When he has a bad shift:
Pain pulsed through his back, pinching at him every time he had the gall to try bend over, lift anything, help a patient move from a wheelchair to the examination bed. The pain meds he prescribed taunted him constantly, his focus blurring with the agony in his lower spine.
“Langdon!” Mckay hollered out for assistance on a case just as he was getting ready to sit down and take his first (and probably only) break 6 hours into his shift. Things blurred together from case to case, eclipsed by the pain in his spine.
A soft hand came down on his shoulders, looking up to see the curly updo of his attending “Would you like to go home, Doctor Langdon?” Al Hashimi spoke gracefully, care littered in the spaces between every word. “No need to be strong…you need to take care of yourself too…” she smiled as he nodded in return.
The cravings were too strong, overtaking his brain as he attempted to finish up the cases he had left, just tying the last ribbon. The words on the charts scrambled into chicken scratch as he wrote, clutching the ballpoint pen until he heard the plastic crack. He stumbled to the car, audibly grunting as his spine compressed, slipping in to place himself in the driver's seat. Electric shocks surging up and down his legs and pelvis as he moved to press down on the brakes or gas.
He finally got into the drive way, hand shaking as he reached for his phone, it only rang once or twice before you picked up with a hum. “H-hey babe- i need help- getting out of the car- the pain is really bad.” he heard you scramble down the staircase and out the door.
“Hey babe…” your voice reached him softly, he looked more disheveled than he usually did at the end of his shift, his face red with irritated veins popping out of his forehead. “Fuck sweetheart…” you pulled his arms over your shoulders, trying to function as a human walking frame for him, pausing every two seconds to lean against you and catch his breath through gritted teeth.
“It hurts-” his voice had pitched up a few octaves as his face buried into the crook of your shoulder.
“Just a few more steps and we can get you inside and to the chair.” You spoke, feeling the stubble scratch against your cheek. You and Frank had kept a wheelchair in the house for days like this, or in case you needed it also, while sitting still hurt standing was far worse to deal with. It took months to convince Frank to let himself use the wheelchair, years of macho man ingrained into him. You’d pulled it to sit in the doorway as soon as you’d gotten the call.
You managed to get him inside, allowing him to propel himself in the chair at his own wish and command. “Bed or couch?”
“Couch-” Frank replied, wheeling into the living room and getting ready to transfer to the couch with your help. Your heart squeezed at the grunts and whimpers of pain that escaped Frank as he tried to get comfortable. Your body moves to the kitchen to grab some heatpacks for him, returning to strategically place them on his back.
Gently you landed on the couch with him, smirking as he pulled your legs over his lap, staring into your eyes instead of paying attention to the supposed comfort show he had switched on, unravelling your hand to show the Advil in your palm. “I know it won’t help much but it’s better than nothing honey.”
He took it with a deep sigh, swallowing and turning back to you with a sweet sigh. “You make me feel so much better…not the medication…you…” he leaned over, ignoring the burning of his disks to place a kiss on the tip of your nose before pressing another to his hand and putting his hand to a picture of the kids.
“Do you wanna talk about the shift? The pain?” the words that fell from your lips fell upon frank’s deaf ears, his pupils fixed on the way your face contorted and shifted in worry for him, his hand flexed where it was gripped around your thigh.
“It’s okay…” he petted your knee “was just the pain, I overdid it-” he cut off the words before you could speak in retort “and I know- that I need to be more careful with my back but- i’m tired of watching everything move while i’m just…stuck.”
“You’re not stuck…you’re just as good of a doctor as you were before your back and the accident and rehab- fuck you’re a better doctor!” you sat up on your knees, seeing how his big blue eyes gazed up at yours, slightly flooded with tears. “I love you- but you used to be kind of a dick!” He snorted out a laugh, forgetting about his back. “Now you actually have empathy for others”
“You make me sound like some kind of asocial-”
“You were worse than oglevie-”
“You take that back right now!” he held his hand over his heart.
“Make me-” his fist balled in the front of your shirt forcing you down into a deep kiss, hand moving to hold you against him by the back of your head. “Frank-” you gasped against his mouth, feeling like hot breath seeking out yours once more, “no fun time when your back hurts-”
“I’ll be your pillow princess-”
“Fuck off-” you slumped back into the couch.
When you have a bad shift:
“Sir, let's just get you back to chairs , okay?” you attempted to usher the inebriated man back into the waiting room as he roughly leaned up against you, basically draped over your smaller frame. A feeling of warmth moved down your leg that was stabilizing him between his thighs. “Are you peeing on me?” you groaned putting him down onto a wheelchair graciously provided by one of the nurses about 20 seconds too late.
Just as you stared down at the dark pee stains on your front the man lurched forward, emptying the contents of his stomach over your lower body. “Are you kidding me!?” The ER stalled for a brief second hearing your yell, some even having the nerve to chuckle as you stepped away, the squelch in your sneakers following you out of the department. You kicked them off allowing them to land in a pile by the door of the showers stepping under the warm water for a glorious 5 seconds before your pager went off again.
You groaned before seeing a fresh pair of scrubs laid out with some hospital issued clogs by their side, the dirty clothes likely taken off to the incinerator. Including your stupidly expensive pair of dream shoes. Even if you had to throw them out given the fact they were filthy with vomit and piss you didn’t even get to say goodbye to them. Last time you let yourself have something nice in this pisspoor place.
You rushed back out onto the floor for a trauma, post seizure, alert but disoriented. You attempted to take his vitals, up on the gurney as it moved through the ED since his pulse had been coming and going since he got in the ambulance, a failsafe in case of the need for CPR. His hand flew up out of nowhere, pushing you off the stretcher, awkwardly falling onto the ground tailbone first.
“If one more thing goes wrong- I swear to god-“ you hissed to Dana as you pulled yourself up to stand.
“Don’t jinx it sweetheart…” you decided to switch to triage for you own fucking sake, less risk of injury there or someone excreting their bodily fluids onto you.
The front door clattered against the coat rack, kicking off your shoes and letting them slam against the adjacent wall. “Frank you are so fucking lucky you had a day off today- I need like 10 showers before I ever fucking feel clean again jesus-” you shrugged off your heavy jacket walking down the hall towards the living room. “Seriously there will be nothing going…on…”
Your eyes scanned the living room, a pillowfort where his couch usually was, project hail mary paused on the TV, snacks laid out perfectly on the coffee table, grunts penetrating the blankets as Frank carefully rearranged the pillows. His head poked out between the gap of the blanket and the couch.
An adorable smile bloomed on his face “surpriseee!” he stood, careful for his back, arms out wide. His joggers were slung low on his hips, an oversized hoodie from before his rehab days, hair messy in the way you never see while in the hospital. He moved quickly, arms moving around you, fingers splaying over your lower back pulling you in.
“Babe you don’t wanna touch me right now I smell awful-” he cut you off with a slow kiss to the lips, the smell of black cherry scented candles seducing your senses, mixed with Frank's natural musk. “Mmph” your body melted into his touch, revelling in the warmth of his embrace.
“Dana texted me…I heated up the shower… lit some candles and put out all your scrubs…” he pecked your lips after every sentence “go relax and then we have movie night out here okay?” your eyes watered slightly as you forced out a nod. “Do you need me to help you?” he pecked you once more, smiling as you gently declined.
“I haven't had a minute to myself in 16 hours…” you sighed against his lips.
“Good cause I need to watch the pot…” your eyes drifted over to your favourite food on the stove.
“Ugh i love you” you kissed the dimple in his chin before rushing off the bathroom. Once you finally stepped out, a plume of steam following you out, dressed heat to toe in Frank's clothes, the living room was there waiting. Lights on dimmer, food served up next to the snacks on the table. Frank lounged out on the mattress of pillows, his sweats sagging, chest open even despite your wet hair. He patted it down out of his view of the screen as you ate your favourite meal, resting his chin atop your head with a kiss.
Dennis Whittaker
When he has a bad shift:
There was a cold wave that settled over you, Dennis and Trinity's shared apartment as they entered, no words shared, not even a hello but immediately you could feel that something had gone terribly wrong. Reinforced by the fact that Trin went straight to her room with a slam following her, almost splintering the old apartment door.
Dennis stood in the kitchen, eyes fixated on the microwave, the food inside as it spun around and around. Shutting off his brain at least for a moment, the constant overstimulation of the ER finally catching up to him. Your body pressed against the doorframe, “do I need to go check on Trin?” you attempted to soften your voice, to comfortably soothe him back into reality. “Den?” you shuffled forward, watching him flinch just slightly as your hand came down on his arm. “It’s just me…what happ-”
His arms constricted around you immediately, heavy tears drenching your T-shirt as his body shook like a wet dog. Your hands immediately surrounded him, pulling his body closer into your own at the beeping of the microwave irritated your ear drums. 19:02 flashed on the microwave screen as his sobs transitioned into little whimpers, the clutched fists in your t-shirt softening into a loving hold.
After crying Dennis couldn't force himself to make eye contact with you, he was the same way after sex. A couple times you swore you would wake to him kneeling by the side of the bed asking for forgiveness, despite the several times he had told you he had lost faith. He was terrified God may punish him for falling for your sin.
“School shooting…” was all he was able to get out, a rush of air hitting your lungs as your fingers filtered through his curls. “It was awful…”
“I’m sure it was baby…” you moved his hands to your waist allowing yourself to pull out the reheated italian that even if it was gross wouldn't matter, the numbness in Dennis was visible inside out. “You don’t wanna talk about it?” you split the portion in two, one plate for den and one for trin. Something you knew she wouldn't eat but you needed to put in the effort with her. Dennis shook his head.
“Not right now…” he stared into the bowl of pasta like it owed him money, allowing you to usher him over to the couch, taking the remote and putting on the office, something to numb his mind and distract him enough to eat. You slipped away, knocking on Trin’s door, it cracked open just enough for you to hand her the plate. “Call me if you need me…” you spoke before moving back to Dennis.
You eased onto the couch, hands absentmindedly going to his hair as he slumped into the touch, a content sound escaping. Your nails moved down his back a bit scratching away as he pushed into your body, almost like he wanted to become one with you. “What's going on in there…?” you whispered tapping on his temple, his eyes snapping up to make eye contact with you, huge beautiful bloodshot eyes glued onto yours.
He sighed deeply “A lot…”
“I can tell…”
“Just a…” he could barely speak without his voice faltering “a really really bad shift…”
You smiled slightly pulling up his chin to make eye contact, “I have something that might take your mind off things for a bit?” he tilted his head, not nearly close to being in the mood, confused by the insinuation “I have a new shelf for our room that needs building…” he smiled slightly.
Back home on the farm there wasn't exactly an outlet for his emotions, fuck all to do in broken bow and there sure as hell werent any shrinks anywhere close. Instead if he was having a particularly bad day he would go out to the barn, fixing up what needed fixing, and simply turning off his brain for a while.
A habit which had not left him even after moving out of the big city you had found ways to make him feel better after shifts that wore him to the bone. When Trinity felt down to it the three of you would spend hours doing arts and crafts and making your way through 2 bottles of wine before the nights close, mostly split between you and Trin. His newest favourite being when you stuck him down to play house flipper for hours or even better yet the sims four where he got to live out an imaginary life as a simple farmer with you and Trin as roommates out on his farm.
You stood in the hall, head turning as Trin approached, stood in the doorway of Dennis and your own room fussing over some random Ikea instructions and insisting he could do it better without them. Feeling Trin’s soft smile as her head weighed down on your shoulder.
When you have a bad shift:
“I told you Dennis I just don’t wanna talk about it-” you’d been stuck on your ortho rotation, which meant you were at the full will and disposal Park the fucking Shark. It was basically a testosterone pressure cooker for 12 hours a day, you loved the specialty but all the fucking dudes were making it impossible to actually learn anything. You flopped down face first onto the mattress kicking your feet with a groan, Trin passing in the hallway in her very best going out dress, eyes snagging on Dennis and snorting out a “you’re on your own.”
Dennis smirked down at you on the bed, moving to change into his PJs while placing yours next to you on the bed. “I would insinuate you were being dramatic but I'm afraid you might gouge my eyes out…”
“I would, you midwestern bum.” you sighed moving your head so you could stare at his shirtless figure. “Ugh i’m so done with dudes for today…all it was at work as protein protein creatine-” you traced his figure as he moved to the doorway putting up his workout bar. “What are you doing…”
“Oh ignore me i thought you were tired of men-” he adjusted his grip pulling his body up and down grunts escaping his lips as he did pull up after pull up. You swore to fuck you drooled a little bit, the horrific day being left behind as you enjoyed the show in front of you. His smug smile rose onto his lips as you propped yourself up on your forearms to watch him work out.
“You know what you’re doing…” you giggle watching him lock in on the workout, turning on the TV and changing into the PJs he had left out for you, a cute matching set. Dennis dropped from the bar, pressing a kiss to your temple.
“Go wash your face sweetheart-“ he mumbled against the skin, moving out of the room quickly after. You shrugged, the tile cold against your feet as the lukewarm water washed over your face, a figure blurry in the mirror as water clouded your vision.
He handed you the towel, now changed into one of his older shirts and an old man night robe holding a glass of wine and a can of beer in each hand. Even though Dennis loved a cocktail, old habits come hard for him when it comes to drinking, and in everyday life, always coming back to a millers. He couldn’t stop the smile on his face when your eyes lit up in the mirror. “Grab some of those face masks things you like to do…c’mon…” he kissed your wet forehead before easing into the bed with a soft hum.
You jumped onto the bed, carefully using the applicator on his skin with one of those fuck ass headbands secured around his hairline. Sipping on his beer occasionally, keeping his eyes glued to the happiness in your face as the stress from the shift washed away bit by bit.
“You and Trin are just awful influences on me, you know that?” His hand found yours, fingers intertwining with yours as he pulled your hand to his mouth pressing a long kiss to it.
“So what you’re secure in your masculinity? Oh the horror” you giggled, eyes fixed on the trash reality TV on the screen hand dramatically resting on your chest.
“Oh come on…” his smile reached his eyes, his beautiful deer-like eyes as his curls spilled over the top of the hair band. You almost cried with joy the day Trinity came back with Dennis from the barber, a mullet on his beautiful head. The boy was damn near confined to the bed that night. “You love the rugged farm boy part of me…” his eyes squinted in that taunting way you often caught between him and Trin.
“Yes….but I also love my timid…loving…sweet Dennis…” you kissed his cheek “a guy who doesn’t feel the need to force his masculinity into my face like the guys in ortho.”
“Did this help? The mask and the wine and…everything?” His eyes softened as you let out a content nod, eyes drowsy and drooping as you snuggled into the blankets. It was only a few minutes until you’d fallen asleep. Dennis slips out of the warmth of the bed and returns with a warm wet towel, wiping the mask away and pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. “Sleep well baby…”
Pairing: Dr. Jack Abbot x Reader
Reader: resident/combat medic!reader, amputee!reader, ex-military!reader, widow!reader
Summary: After being honourably discharged from the Army, you arrive in Pittsburgh with a half-finished residency, a body you are still learning how to live in, and a past you have no intention of unpacking. Dr. Jack Abbot is supposed to be a professional contact, nothing more. But he notices too much, understands things he should not understand, and carries himself with a familiarity you cannot quite place. What begins as professional tension slowly becomes something harder to ignore.
Word Count: 13.5K (ish)
Masterlist
Warnings: **This chapter specifically has references to child death**
age gap, mentor/mentee relationship, medical trauma, military trauma, PTSD symptoms, grief, spouse death, widowhood, amputation, prosthetic limb adjustment, survivor’s guilt, emotional repression, panic/nightmare episodes, captivity/torture references, violence, blood/injury, medical procedures, concussion, alcohol/smoking, age gap, complicated healing, eventual smut, swearing
Author’s Note: I want to say thank you all for the positive feedback AND for your patience :) This chapter kind of got away from me. I could have kept going but it was getting pretty long. I have added those who asked to the taglist, please just lmk if you want to join in the comments--reblogs, and thoughts are welcome.
Anyways! Enjoy! <3
Fifty dollars in Ubers to retrieve a car that had cost you nothing.
She was sitting in the bar parking lot exactly where you had left her the night before. Patient. Indifferent to all of it, occupying her space the way things that have outlasted everyone who loved them tend to occupy space. Without apology, without urgency, without any apparent awareness that time had passed at all.
You crossed the lot toward her.
A 1971 Pontiac LeMans Safari. The body was long and low-slung in the way that station wagons of that era carried themselves, a different grammar of car from what came after. Wide through the shoulders, with a hood that ran out in front like a declaration, the full length of her stretching back to a flat tailgate that sat close to the ground. The bones underneath were something. Anyone who knew what they were looking at would know that immediately. Anyone who did not would see only what the years had done to her.
The paint had once been Lime Gold, a particular saturated yellow-green that had probably turned heads off the lot in 1971 and now turned them for different reasons. Now chalky at the edges, paint lifting near the rear quarter panel in pale dry curls where the elements had found their way beneath it. Rust had set in along the wheel wells, patient and thorough. The chrome had gone dull, the brightwork reduced to a suggestion of itself. And the body carried dents the way a person carried old arguments, some of them yours, some of them Hunter's, some of them belonging to the decade the car had spent in storage where ordinary settling and neglect had done what neglect does.
You ran your thumb along the deepest dent as you reached her. It had been there since you were seventeen, and without meaning to, you were back in your grandparents house.
You were small. Small enough that the chair felt large, small enough that your feet did not quite reach the floor, small enough that you still thought of him as enormous even though in photographs from this time he is simply a regular-sized man with grey at his temples and a way of telling a story that made the room pay attention.
He was leaning back in his lounge chair, the one he always used, something in his expression had changed, from how it was when he talked about most things, to a more energetic version of himself reliving something from the past. Warmer. Like the story itself generated heat.
"I was twenty-two years old." He touched the centre of his glasses, pushing them up his face. "Your grandmother had just told me she was pregnant with your father and I had a car but it wasn't a family car. So I went to the lot, and as soon as I saw her," he pretended to wipe sweat from his forehead, one broad swipe of the back of his hand, "a 1971 Pontiac LeMans Safari in Lime Gold." He bellowed a laugh, loud enough that you heard it echo through the kitchen where you grandmother shift behind you. "She was mine."
You asked why he called the car she.
He looked at you over his glasses with the expression of a man who found the question both obvious and charming.
"Because you have to treat a car like a lady." He pointed at you with one finger, the way he did when he was making a point. "She'll take you anywhere you want to go. But you disrespect her, she'll leave you on the side of the road."
"Anyways," he restarted, after allowing himself a detour, "I drove straight from the dealership to pick up your grandmother." The smile that came was slower now, the specific one he reserved for stories about her. "She was standing on the front step when I pulled up."
He paused for effect.
"Arms crossed."
From the kitchen, your grandmother made a small sound, the kind that was not quite a laugh and did not pretend to be.
"We had a plan," he continued, with the tone of a man who had made peace with having abandoned the plan and never once regretted it. "Something sensible. Something practical. A family car, room in the back." He spread his hands. "And I came home with this. Lime Gold. Long as a boat."
He refused to repeat verbatim what she said about it. Every time anyone asked, he just laughed and waved it off, the gesture of a man who had won and could afford to be generous about the rest.
"What I will tell you," he said, "is that she came around."
Behind you, from the kitchen, your grandmother laughed, a real one, full, the sound of a woman laughing at a story she had heard so many times it had become less a story than a fact of life, something as familiar as the kitchen itself.
You stood in the bar parking lot with your thumb resting in the dent and let the memory go.
He died of a heart attack the year after your grandmother passed from a stroke.
Your father said he died of a broken heart, that he had missed her so completely, missed her in such a specific and structural way, that the body that had been operating next to her for more than fifty years simply decided it was finished.
You are a doctor now.
You know that's not how it works.
You still believe it is true.
You opened the driver's door. It groaned, the way it had always groaned, like the low complaint of a hinge that had been in use for fifty-three years and had opinions about it.
The interior smelled like stale leather and time, the particular combination of dust and warmth that very old cars accumulated and never fully lost. Underneath it, something else that had no clean name, the residue of a family that had sat in this car together, of laughter and bad singing and your father saying, “we’re gonna arrive in style,” with the certainty of a man who meant it every time.
You glanced up at the sun visor before you sat fully.
The polaroid was still there. Tucked into the felt, held in place by decades of pressure, slightly yellowed at the edges and still perfectly itself: your grandparents standing beside the car, young, her laughing at something mid-sentence, his arm around her with the ease of a man who had already decided how the rest of his life was going to go. Your father was in her arms. Weeks old. Eyes shut. Entirely indifferent to the car.
You looked at it for a moment.
Then you looked at the gear shift.
Manual. Five-speed. The clutch pedal on the left, which had been a problem when you first got the car back, and then a different kind of problem after Washington. Left foot below the knee was functional for many things and for this particular mechanical action required relearning from the beginning--not the motion, but the feel. Feeling the bite point through carbon fibre was not the same as feeling it through flesh, and the first weeks back behind the wheel had been a specific and humbling education.
You figured it out. You always figured it out.
You turned the key. The engine coughed, rattled, and caught with the low grumbling roar that had always been hers, rougher now, the sound of a machine that had been idle too long and was still clearing its throat.
I know. I gotta take you to a mechanic.
You let her warm up for a moment, then put her in gear and pulled out of the lot.
At the first red light you checked the rearview mirror.
The back seat was empty, but you wouldn’t have said the car felt empty. That was not the right word for it. It felt like a room does when the people who filled it are gone but the impression of them hasn't fully lifted yet. Not grief. Something more specific than grief. The particular sensation of being in a space where laughter used to live, where it had happened so many times the walls remembered it even if no one was there to hear it.
Your ninth birthday was the last time you’d all been together in the Pontiac.
You had not known that then. You were nine years old and it was your birthday and were pre-occupied with being newly nine.
Somewhere in the echo of this car, a smaller version of you was making the case of her life.
“Pllleeeeaaaasssee, Dad! Hunter got to steer on his birthday!”
You were on your knees, which was both theatrical and strategic. You had been planning this argument for months, since Hunter's fourteenth birthday, since you watched your father cave to the same request and unknowingly set the precedent. You had waited for your moment.
Your father was crouched down in front of you and tried to look firm. He had the face of a man attempting authority but not convincing either of them. He had already decided the moment you asked, thats the way it always happened. Whatever stern architecture he maintained with Hunter, with you and those eyes, he never stood a chance.
He opened the door and sat down.
“Sit on my lap. I do the gas and the brake.”
You had climbed in before he finished the sentence. The fairy wings from your costume, bent wire, thin nylon, three weeks past their prime, had gone directly into his face as you settled onto his lap and gripped the wheel with both hands. He did not say a word about the wings. You had the complete conviction of someone who has been waiting for exactly this moment and knows what to do with it.
“Put the pedal to the metal!”
He laughed. He was still laughing when he put the car in drive and helped guide you off the driveway and into the road, your hands on the wheel, his covering yours just enough without making it feel like you were in charge. He let you feel the weight of the wheel. The way the car moved.
And you drove.
The light changed.
You pulled forward.
The back seat remained empty in the rearview, and somewhere behind you, the shape of that birthday, the last one, sat in the car the way it always had. You had not known at nine--that last was about to gain new meaning. That the word would start to arrive differently in you, weighted and specific, collecting things it had no business holding.
You drove home.
The apartment building had a handicap space with your unit number painted in it. The space had come with the lease, arranged without your input, and you used it the way you did most things you had not chosen and could not practically argue with--without enthusiasm and with a resentment you acknowledged was not entirely rational and did not stop feeling.
You pulled in. Cut the engine.
Upstairs, the apartment was exactly as you had left it. The bathroom door was still closed. The hole in the lower cabinet was still there, the ghost of the burst face wash still faintly marking the wall above the tub. You stood in the doorway for one moment and looked at both of these things.
Then you turned away, changed into soft clothes, and brought your laptop to the couch.
863 unread emails. Jesus.
Eleven months... approximately. Eleven months of the world sending things into a void and not getting an answer back.
You scrolled.
The first hundred were exactly what you expected:
A clearance alert from the tactical gear brand you had ordered from twice before everything happened SALE ENDING TONIGHT!
Presumably the fourteenth time they had sent that particular subject line.
Three alerts from a scrubs retailer whose clearance section you had browsed one sleepless morning in the spring of 2024 and apparently never unsubscribed from.
A TRICARE service notification, No Action Required.
The AUSA Weekly Newsletter, subscribed in 2019, read perhaps twice.
Fifteen Army Times Digests.
None of them consecutive in the inbox because nothing in an inbox was consecutive, each one separated by something else.
A VA Claim Status Update you had filed six months ago and forgotten.
Next to a LinkedIn notification from someone whose name you recognised without a face attached.
A follow-up from the prosthetics clinic in Washington: Socket Fit Check-In – Please Respond. Sent six weeks after discharge.
You had not opened it then. You did not open it now.
Two emails from a Veterans' Peer Support Committee, subject lines about connection resources and benefits navigation.
Another scrubs sale.
You kept scrolling.
Then, deeper: names.
Amber. Three separate threads, three different dates. The first sent four days after your discharge from the Army. You did not open any of them.
Benson. Twice.
Gomez. Once, a month since you left. Subject: Checking in.
And then, a thread that made you stop. Lukas. The first message sent the week you arrived in Washington. The most recent from five days ago. Every week between, consistent as a clock. Subject: Still here.
Just that, every time. No pressure, no escalating urgency. Just, still here. 47 emails in 47 weeks, none of them requiring anything from you in return.
You were going to respond to them.
Just not today.
Near the top of the queue, one day ago, from an address ending in @ptmc.org:
CONDITIONAL OFFER — Observer Physician, Emergency Medicine, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Centre.
You clicked it.
The language was clean and did not waste words:
Observer Physician, Provisional. Reporting structure: Dr. Jack Abbot, Senior Attending, Emergency Medicine. Minimum ninety-day observation period, subject to extension at departmental discretion.
Then the scope of practice during that period, laid out in plain terms.
Chart review and documentation: permitted, with required attending countersignature on every entry.
Patient assessment: permitted under direct supervision.
Procedural assistance: permitted with attending physically present.
Independent clinical decisions: none.
Independent ordering authority: none.
Prescriptive authority: none.
Great. I'm a fucking intern again.
Two and a half years in the field. Clinical decisions made in under thirty seconds with whatever was at hand. Bilateral chest decompressions in the back of a moving vehicle, damage control surgeries in a tent, keeping people alive with whatever was in the gap between what you needed and what you had filled entirely by stubbornness and field improvisation. And now you required a countersignature on your documentation.
“You have to follow the rules of where you are.” UGH!
You had met him once, properly, for less than an hour, and he was already getting to you.
You read to the bottom.
In-person signature required.
Contact Dr. Gloria Underwood, Director of Operations, at the number below.
Both Director Underwood and Chief Attending Dr. Michael Robinavitch would be in attendance at the signing meeting.
Please call at your earliest availability.
You set the laptop down.
Looked at the bookshelf.
Sawyer's letter was still there, still sealed, sitting where you had placed it the day the package arrived, the larger sealed envelope beside it. You had walked past both of them for too long.
You had not been able to open either one. Not because you were afraid, exactly. It was more specific than that, you had not been able to open them because doing so required something of you that you were not finished preparing for. The letter you wouldn't read until you'd gone through the photos first. All of them, the whole chronological box of them. You had only made it through perhaps a third of before you had to stop. You had not reached the end of it yet.
You looked at the envelopes a moment longer.
Then you picked up your phone, typed the number from the email, and pressed call.
It rang once.
Twice.
"Gloria Underwood." Clipped, efficient.
"Director Underwood." You kept your voice level. "This is Y/N Abbott."
A brief stillness on the line.
"Two T's," she said, and you could hear the smile in it.
"Two T's," you confirmed.
12 Days Later
The mirror in the front hallway was almost too large. It had come with the apartment and on most mornings you walked past it looking slightly to the left of your own reflection without deciding to. Tonight you were standing directly in front of it, which you were not finding pleasant.
Hospital-issue black scrubs. Off-white long-sleeve athletic shirt underneath, sleeves pushed to mid-forearm, which was where they were always going to end up anyway. The habit had calcified overseas. You spent years working in heat, in conditions that required rolling sleeves up dozens of times a shift until eventually you started every shift with them already rolled, a shirt that held the sleeve there without a second thought. You owned this shirt in six colours. The off-white was for tonight because it sat clean against the black.
Dark grey New Balances. Broken in. Quiet-soled.
Hair secured at the back of your head, relaxed but anchored, not a single strand given the opportunity to fall into your field of vision.
Eyebrows filled in at the ends. Mascara. The ring on its chain sat below your collarbone, just under the neckline.
You reached up and lifted it, dropping the chain beneath your shirt. Gone. Hidden for no one to ask about.
You bent over to adjusted the left pant leg, then turned your remaining limb through two rotations, checking the socket's tracking. Checking the drape of the fabric.
Nothing visible.
You straightened.
The apartment was quiet behind you. And then, without deciding to, you started to relive the meeting.
The conference room at PTMC had been ordinary in the specific way that institutional spaces were ordinary, a rectangular table, a ring of chairs, a pitcher of water no one had touched, fluorescent overhead light that did its job without enthusiasm. You had registered all of this and sat down.
Gloria Underwood had been exactly what you expected. Efficient. Warm in the specific way of someone who understood that warmth was professionally useful and deployed it with precision. She had looked at you when you walked in and said, with a smile that was controlled at the edges, she understood you had already made something of an impression on the emergency department.
You had not asked her to elaborate. She elaborated anyway.
“I hesitated, initially, when I received Sergeant Major Sawyer's request, because of the incident in the ambulance,” she said. “That cannot happen again. I want to be clear with you about that.” Then, in the same register, “But Sawyer explained the context. I understand what you came from. And I have a great deal of respect for both.”
Dr. Michael Robinavitch had been to her left.
He looked like a man at the far end of something long. Not burned out--that implied a flame that had extinguished, and this was not that. It was more that he had been running on will and commitment for so long that the two had become indistinguishable from each other, that the part of him that wanted to be there and the part of him that had no choice had merged into a single continuous motion he no longer examined. His eyes were attentive in the way of someone whose attention was not free, who had to choose where to spend it. He had looked at you when you sat down and not looked away.
"Call me Robby," he said, about three minutes in.
You nodded. You were not going to call him "Robby". He was your superior officer in every practical sense except the name, and you had been trained for the better part of a decade to address rank correctly, and a conference room in Pittsburgh was not going to override that.
He looked at you for a moment with an expression that was entirely unreadable and then let it go.
Gloria opened a folder.
She went through it the way she might go through a shipping manifest: name, discharge status, training history, deployment record, functional designation, each item in the same even register, without adjusting her voice to indicate that some items carried more weight than others.
Then the medals.
“Purple Heart. Prisoner of War Medal. Combat Medical Badge. Bronze Star with Valour Device.” She read the citation language, “For actions taken during captivity, demonstrating conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in the face of enemy action. 27 days of unlawful detention. Following escape, attempted treatment and extraction of two fellow service members under hostile fire. Sole survivor.”
The room was quiet.
You looked at the table and kept your face still.
Robinavitch had gone very still beside her, the attentive quality of his gaze shifting into something else entirely, something you could not name because it was aimed inward.
Gloria moved forward.
Dr. Osei's letter. Your PT's letter. Both landed on the same conclusion through different routes: "Re-entry, not immersion." "Structured, supervised, monitored." "She is not adjusting. She is functioning."
Then Gloria closed the folder, set it to one side, and looked at you directly.
"The details discussed today remain between the three of us," she said. "I also received correspondence from Dr. Abbot, who confirmed his connection to Sergeant Major Sawyer and has indicated he would serve as your direct supervising physician." She set her pen down. "I imagine having a supervisor who has navigated something similar will be a useful support. For the adjustment."
Silence arrived in the room.
Not a long silence. Just long enough.
You looked at Robinavitch. He looked at you. His jaw shifted, just slightly, in the way of someone who has specifically chosen not to respond. Neither of you said anything. Both of you moved on.
The second half of the meeting had been paperwork, HR protocols, a brief conversation with the accommodations coordinator about the locker situation and the parking marker. Robinavitch had been quieter through all of it, present but not leading, watching more than he participated. You had caught him doing it twice. That specific quality of attention, holding on you a beat longer than the content of the meeting required, as if he had arrived at something and was keeping the conclusion to himself.
When you stood to leave he stood too, looked at you one more time with those tired, careful eyes, and said goodbye.
Three knocks at the door.
You did not need to check the peephole.
You opened it and there was Kalista, oversized sweatshirt, hair loose, nose still bandaged, the bruising had gone yellow at the edges. She looked significantly more like herself. She also already had her arms open.
Oh no.
"I wanted to come and wish you luck," she said, and had her arms around you before you finished processing the sentence.
You stood there for a moment, arms at your sides, but then you raised them and held on. She was slowly and systematically making a “hug person” out of you, without announcing it and without asking permission, and you had apparently decided somewhere along the way to let her.
You pulled back first and pressed two careful fingers along either side of the bridge of her nose, checking the tissue.
Swelling resolving on schedule, alignment holding.
"It's healing well," you told her.
"I better be." She released you entirely and walked directly into your apartment, heading for the kitchen with the easy authority of someone who had stopped asking permission somewhere around the third visit. "I've always wanted a nose job. I just wish I'd had some notice."
You followed her. "Maybe I shouldn't have turned my head."
She opened the freezer, found the ice pack. "Then we'd be matching."
"Your face is proportioned correctly. You didn't need a nose job."
"Perfectly proportioned," she corrected, and pressed the pack lightly to the bridge with the resigned competence of someone who had done this enough times to have developed technique. "So." Her tone shifted to the mode that performed seriousness without committing to it. "Since my nose is broken, and it is at least partially your fault-"
"HA! You told him I could take him in a fight. Not me."
"He punched me because of you."
"He punched you because he was taking steroids. That anger was a character trait that was already present before you rage baited him."
She blinked at you. You looked at the bag of chips she had opened on the counter and took one.
"Duly noted," she said, already smiling. "Sooo. You are going to find me a hot doctor? That is literally the minimum you owe me."
"I am not Meredith Grey."
"You work in a hospital-"
"Yeah, a hospital is a place where sick people come to receive clinical care."
She raised one eyebrow. Just the one.
You looked at her. She held the eyebrow. You both said it at the same time, "So pick me! Choose me! Love me!"
Then you were both laughing, the kind that arrived before you could organise it and didn't stop cleanly. She slapped your arm. You let her. When it settled you were both slightly breathless and the tightness that had been sitting in your chest since you woke up had been pushed into a smaller space for the moment.
You had watched the show for the first time in her hospital room the afternoon she was allowed visitors, mid-season, no context, just sat in the bedside chair and started watching from wherever she was. You had spent the first few episodes pointing at the screen every time the medicine was wrong. When you got home you had started from the beginning.
Overseas, bandwidth on the base was allocated for operations and communications. Entertainment moved on hard drives, shared and copied, never guaranteed. You had mostly listened to music. You had never watched the show before and had not noticed the absence, not until you sat in a hospital room in Pittsburgh and discovered that it was the exact right kind of ridiculous for the moment you were in.
You were now 31 episodes in and had no intention of stopping.
"You're going to be great tonight," Kalista said.
The straightforwardness of it found a gap in your defences that you had not accounted for. You were still getting used to receiving things like that.
"I appreciate it," you said, and meant it more than it came out.
You returned to the front door and reached for your bag and ran through it: extra liner, backup shrinker, water bottle, the compact first-aid kit that had lived in every bag you owned since 2016 without requiring a conscious decision, granola bars, stethoscope. You found the ibuprofen. Shook a pre-emptive dose into your palm, a doctor's calculation, not a patient's. Getting ahead of the swelling before twelve hours on your feet made it a problem.
You had not been on your feet for twelve hours sin-
The smell arrived first.
Thick, humid, the stale damp air of an enclosed space not designed for people to stay in, that held the moisture on the floor and walls and never released it. You knew the smell before you realized you were remembering it.
Your arms were above you, tied tight. They had been above you long enough that the ache had become geography. Your tank top was soaked through. Your field shirt was gone. Your boots were gone.
You were standing on both feet. You could feel the grit of the cement and dirt against the soles of your feet.
A man in front of you was yelling at you in a language you could not understand. He said it again, the same flat cadence.
“Please,” your voice was unrecognizable, “I don't know anything, I don't know.”
His eyes moved downward.
The screw was large. Maybe six inches in length, an inch in diameter. The kind of hardware meant for structural things, for load-bearing things, for things that were not supposed to move.
You had felt every inch of it.
It went in slowly. One turn at a time, the way you turned something when you wanted to be certain it would hold. You could feel the pressure arriving before the pain did, the tissue giving way in a sequence your body reported to your brain in real time with a specificity that was almost clinical, almost, except that you were the patient and there was no anaesthesia. The sound that came out of you hit the cement walls and came back with nowhere to go. You heard yourself. You could not stop it.
"Pleeeeaaase! STOP! Pleaaaaaseeee!"
By the third turn it had gone through the arch. Rust against flesh, metal against bone. Both sounds at once, intimate and impossible.
By the fifth rotation, it hit the floor.
You were pinned.
You blinked.
Pittsburgh. Your kitchen. The ibuprofen in your palm.
You shook your arms out, hard.
Once.
Twice.
The ghost of sensation was moving through your leg, the echo of pain firing along pathways that led nowhere now. You breathed through it.
One. Your keys on the counter.
Two. The plants in the front hallway.
Three. The pairs of shoes by the door.
Four- four-
"Well, I know it's going to be a great night," Kalista said, from right behind you.
You turned.
She was watching you with the quality of attention that was not pity, not alarm, not the terrible careful gentleness of people who had decided to treat you like something that required handling. She had seen the arms shaken out. She did not say anything about it. Her eyes just said: I see you. We're still here.
Your pupils were still adjusting. You could feel it.
"Thank you," you said.
You took the ibuprofen. Dry swallow. Then shouldered your bag.
Kalista put her hand briefly on your shoulder as you passed. "Don't forget… hot doctors."
The laugh that came out was small and real. "Goodnight, Kalista."
"See you tomorrow!"
You turned toward the elevator and watched the numbers change.
You took the route that ran past the river.
It was wide and flat and silver at this hour, the sky behind it still holding the last of the evening light. A thin burnt pink sitting low at the horizon, the water catching the sun spreading it out in long flat reflections that moved slowly with the current. Something about a body of water that size did something to your nervous system that you had never examined directly, only relied on. In Salerno when the sun had set over the base perimeter and you had always loved it. But there was no water, just sand and distance and the way the sky shifted into a rich orange before the dark of night fell.
But this, this was different.
This was Pittsburgh.
You kept driving.
The staff parking at PTMC was a concrete structure, six levels, attached to the hospital. You turned in and came around toward the ground level.
The handicap spaces were there, well-lit, clearly marked, empty, close to the stairwell door. The placard was in your bag, you could grab it and put it in place before you finished parking.
Nope.
You drove past.
Took the ramp. Third floor. Fourth row back from the stairwell.
You cut the engine and sat with the ticking quiet for a moment. The Pontiac, your car looked like an old, beaten, lived-in station wagon that had been run into the ground. Faded and dented and not worth a second glance from anyone who did not know what they were looking at.
You got out of the car and made your way towards the entrance.
Locker 25. End of the row, bench angling away to the left before it reached you, sightlines of the room would not naturally fall to this corner.
Some small fortunes still remained in the world.
You had one earbud in. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head by Kylie Minogue came through low, the particular rhythm of it occupying the space where your thoughts would otherwise start running. Adam complained about this song every single time you played it. Too repetitive, he said. Always the same. You had played it specifically because of this opinion, which in retrospect was a slightly juvenile position. But now every song he had complained about was entirely yours, belonging to no conversation, answering to no one's preferences but your own.
The temporary code for your locker was 1-2-3-5-6-7.
Sawyer would have things to say about this.
You reset it: 0-8-1-2-9-6.
August 12, 1996. Adam's birthday. The same six digits you used for everything. Completely predictable to anyone who knew you. Sawyer would have had opinions about that too.
You loaded the locker. You keep the water bottle out, placed a granola bar into your left pocket and hooked your stethoscope around your neck. Then you checked your watch: 6:23 PM.
Nice. I got lots of time to look around.
You closed the locker and waited for the confirmation beep.
You made your way towards the door but it opened before you reached it, fast, full momentum, you had half a second before the impact. His chest met your face. Two hands caught the bend of your elbows, his grip certain and immediate, and you both stilled.
You looked up.
Tall. Fair skin, slightly flushed. Dark hair, almost black, and eyes that were a particular shade of blue that registered before anything else did, the kind that arrived in your visual field and simply sat there, certain of itself. He was looking down at you from a height that for a half-second, at this angle, in this light, was Adam's height.
Stop. Filed. Gone.
His breath was warm against your face. You could see a faint scar at the corner of his jaw, small, old, the kind that had been there long enough to be unremarkable to everyone but you in this particular second.
"Sorry," he said, on an exhale, and then he was past you. Three seconds to a locker across the room, something grabbed, three seconds back, clearing you without breaking pace, the door clicking shut behind him so fast you felt the shift in air pressure before the room settled.
You stood in the empty room.
Then you crossed to the full-length mirror. Just one final check, left pant leg, collar, ring tucked below the neckline.
You reached for the door handle.
It opened again.
Unhurried this time.
Dr. Abbot walked through with a small duffel slung over one shoulder, the strap held in his left hand, his arm carrying it with the particular ease of someone who carried things with intention. You registered the forearm, the clean definition of the muscle there, the line of a vein along the inside of it, the kind of detail that arrived without invitation, and redirected your gaze to his face in the same motion.
He met your eyes. The corner of his mouth moved.
"Abbott." He let the door fall behind him. "You're early."
"You told me to be on time."
That got a small, genuine smile from him, brief and contained. He punched his code into his locker, back to you, opened it, dropped the duffel in with the efficiency of a routine. Then he closed it, turned, and sat down on the bench facing you.
The expression that settled over his face was deliberate. He had something specific he wanted to say and had thought about when to say it.
"I want to tell you something now," he said, "so you're not carrying a question around all shift." He held your gaze steadily. "Sawyer told me about your leg. Left, below the knee."
Every muscle in your body now frozen in place.
He had said it the way doctors said things and the way soldiers said things, which were not always the same thing but in this case were, cleanly, directly, without softening it into something easier to hear than it was.
Your face did not move. Your mouth was closed. You were aware, distantly, that you did not have a response yet and were not sure what shape one would take.
"She told me because," He reached down. Rolled his right pant leg up in two efficient movements.
The prosthetic was functional and unornamented. A thing that had been integrated long enough to stop requiring adaptation, to simply be part of how he moved through the world. A mid-tibial right leg, the carbon-fibre pylon visible below where the suspension sleeve ended, the foot system built for long hours on hard floors. Not dressed up. Not apologised for.
In your apartment you had seen the hip compensation. The barely-there adjustment, the practised redistribution of weight when he turned in the kitchen, the quality of stillness that came from years of knowing exactly where his body was.
What. The. Fuck. Sawyer.
He let you look.
"Kosovo," he said.
One word. Carrying all of it.
He rolled the pant leg back down. Straightened. Ran one hand over his jaw, the faint rasp of several days' stubble, grown in rather than simply present, sitting well against the structure of his face in a way that was not your business to observe.
Not the time. Stop.
"So now you don't have to wonder how much I know," he said. "That's it. I don't know how. But I do know it was over there."
You nodded. Words still had not come.
He did not appear to need them. He tilted his head toward you, eyebrows lifting slightly.
"And because you're with me tonight, you're going to sit down when I tell you to sit down."
The eyebrows stayed up.
You nodded again.
"Good."
He stood up, looked at you a moment, then extended his arm--not a handshake, not the civilian version of it, but the other kind, forearm to forearm--a gesture that meant something specific between people who had learned it from the same source.
You took it. The grip, the brief hold, then release.
It was only afterward, when he had already let go, that you registered you had not hesitated to fill his grip with your own. You hadn't even thought about it. You simply took the grip the way you had taken it hundreds of times before, in places far removed from a locker room in Pittsburgh. You had not noticed the comfort of it until it was already over.
He tucked his chin, short, downward, precise. The greeting that was not a greeting, the acknowledgement that lived in a different register from anything civilian.
You returned it. And for just a moment you felt something click back into place, some recognition of yourself in a language you had not spoken in almost a year.
Then his eyes left yours and he moved to the door. You followed him into the corridor and under the sterile fluorescent light of a hospital.
He gave you the tour efficiently and without a single wasted motion.
The Pyxis unit, the automated medication dispensing system, “your ID badge accesses it, all pulls are logged, you are not independently ordering anything so anything your pulls needs my countersignature.” The crash cart locations, “north bay, south bay, trauma one, trauma two, know where they are before you need them.”
The supply rooms, the imaging order terminal, the on-call paging system for surgical and neuro and ortho consults. The board, which tracked every patient currently in the department and their status in real time.
You took all of it in the way you took in everything, quickly, without needing it repeated.
By the time you finished, the night team had gathered near the bay entrance.
Eight-ish people in the loose formation of a group that knew each other well enough not to need to perform it. They cohered when Dr. Abbot arrived without being asked to, the way groups shift around certain people naturally, not from authority alone but from something more specific to the person.
Dr. Ellis was there. You recognised her from South 7, the particular quality of her stillness that communicated more than movement usually did. She looked at you when you came in and the expression on her face became fractionally more specific, not quite a smile, not quite relief, something between them.
Beside her was a young man with shoulder-length curly hair who looked at your name badge, looked at Ellis, and then looked back at you with the undisguised expression of a man who had been waiting for this moment and found it did not disappoint.
Great. Everyone in this room already knows my fuckin’ name.
Dr. Abbot stood front and centre of the loose cluster. Weight distributed evenly, arms loose, the same quality of stillness you had seen in the trauma bay and in the locker room and in your hallway at six in the morning--the kind that meant he was entirely present and the room knew it.
He looked around the group and let a beat of quiet settle before he started.
"Alright, I see the eyes." He looked around with the dry acknowledgement of a man who found his team predictable and did not mind it. "I know what you're all wondering. So let's deal with it." He gestured toward you with a slight tilt of his head. "To my left is Dr. Abbott. Yes. Dr. Abbott. Two T's. I know. We will get to the implications of that in a moment." A brief pause. "She comes to us from overseas. Specifically a forward surgical environment, which for those of you who have spent your entire careers at institutions where the supply room has what's in the supply room, I want you to understand that she has been practicing medicine in conditions that would make most of your worst nights look like elective procedures." He let that land. "She is functionally an R3 and she is joining us tonight in an observational capacity. What that means is she is with me, she assists when I say she assists, and all documentation from her requires my co-sign. Shen, if I'm not available, she can go through you." He nodded to a man on the far side of the cluster, lean, attentive, holding a cold drink. "Clear on all of that?"
General nods.
"Good." His tone shifted, fractionally lighter. "Now. For the record. And I say this because I know one of you," he looked at the curly-haired man with something adjacent to patience "have already been thinking about this. If your documentation involves both of us, which tonight it will, you need to differentiate. The paperwork needs to be distinct. If I find a chart that has combined us because someone forgot a second T, I will be very disappointed and slightly impressed, but mostly disappointed."
A ripple went through the group. Ellis was pressing her lips together.
"So," the curly-haired young man said. "What do we call you?"
What followed was several seconds of people thinking out loud simultaneously, with the particular collaborative chaos of a night shift team that was comfortable with each other.
“Senior Abbot and junior Abbott?”
“Boy Abbot and girl Abbott?”
“Attending Abbot and resident Abbott?”
“Old Abbot and young Abbott?”
That one earned a brief silence and a side eye which everyone pretended not to notice.
Then the curly-haired one.
Mateo.
You read his badge, who had clearly been waiting for his moment "Generic Abbot and Brand Name Abbott. Jack is generic, same active ingredient, one T, no frills. She's brand name," he gestured toward you "full formula, two T's, premium."
Dr. Abbot looked at him with the long-suffering expression of a man who had made the mistake of encouraging this.
"Or," someone said, "Abbott 2.0."
That one settled differently. Landed cleanly. A few people nodded.
Ellis said it again under her breath, “Abbott 2.0,” as if trying the fit of it.
Dr. Abbot looked at you.
You looked at him.
You had given a quick "hello" to the group when he introduced you in the beginning, accompanied by a small wave that you were already regretting. You said nothing now but gave a small smile and the faintest nod.
Abbott 2.0 isn’t the worst.
"2.0," he said. "I like it. That works. Anyone who puts it in official documentation goes home."
"Noted," said Mateo, who clearly had no intention of following this.
Dr. Abbot looked around the group one more time, and something changed in his face. The lightness clearing, the thing underneath it becoming visible, the specific quality of a person who cared genuinely about the people in front of him and expressed it in almost no words at all.
"We are the nightcrawlers," he leaned in as he spoke, "we deal with the weirdest and the wildest. Because-!"
They came back at him together, without hesitation, "We are the weirdest and the wildest of them all!"
"That's right!" He clapped your shoulder once, firm, his other hand gripping the stethoscope around his neck. "And tonight they are reaaaaally going to be crawling. So." He looked at the group. "Go get some."
The room shifted. Something warm and specific moved through it.
Again, in unison, "HOOAH!"
You caught it just above a whisper, "hooah," the cadence already there in your chest from years of something similar, from circles like this one in places far from a hospital corridor in Pennsylvania. It came out quieter than everyone else's, a quart-second behind, but it came out.
He heard it. His eyes found yours for just a second.
The team dispersed with the efficiency of people who knew exactly where they were going.
Ellis passed close enough to nod at you with the expression of someone who had questions and was choosing the right moment for them.
Mateo fell into step beside her and you caught, just, the tail end of what he said to her, "so we are absolutely calling them Abbott squared, right," and Ellis laughing as they moved away.
Jack stayed where he was. You stayed beside him.
"Stay close tonight," he said, looking toward the board. "Don't go looking for something to prove."
"I'm not trying to."
He looked at you sideways.
Partially true.
"Mm," he said. And walked toward the board.
You followed, one step behind, his left foot leading, your right. Into the shift.
The first case he brought you to was a 30 year-old male, abdominal pain, presenting from triage.
"Good place to start," he said, outside the bay. "I can asses. See where you're at." He tilted his head slightly.
You understood “where you're at” actually meant he wanted to asses where you were beyond your clinical ability.
The patient was sitting up in the bed, arms wrapped around his midsection, the posture of someone who had been hurting for long enough that bracing had become automatic. He looked up when you came in.
"Hello, Mr. Ramirez." Dr. Abbot kept his voice easy. "My name is Dr. Jack Abbot. This is Dr. Y/N-" brief, unavoidable pause "-Abbott."
Mr. Ramirez narrowed his eyes.
"Unrelated," he clarified. "This is a teaching hospital, are you comfortable with Dr. Abbott assisting today?"
He looked between you both. "...Sure?"
You moved to his bedside. Started at the beginning, the way it always started: history first, presentation, onset, quality, radiation, associated symptoms. He had woken with the pain, four on a ten-point scale, which had climbed steadily. Nausea since this morning. Low-grade fever he had assumed was nothing.
You palpated his abdomen, beginning at the left upper quadrant and working methodically clockwise. When you reached the lower right quadrant--McBurney's point, two-thirds of the way between the navel and the right anterior superior iliac spine--he flinched hard.
You pressed the left side. He gasped from the right.
"We're going to get an ultrasound to confirm what I think is going on," you told him. "In the meantime, we can get you something for the pain." You glanced at Dr. Abbot, who gave the small nod of someone countersigning a decision he had already made himself. "Do you have any allergies?"
He did not. You ordered four of morphine with Dr. Abbots co-singing your credentials. He watched you administer the drug and the tightness across Mr. Ramirez's face gradually release as the medication reached him.
"Thank you," he said, on an exhale, and you could hear in those two words how long he had been carrying the pain before coming in.
You closed the bay door behind you.
"How'd I do," you said, without inflection.
He looked at you with the expression of someone who was choosing what to say from a longer list.
"You were good," he said.
He said it plainly, without elaboration, the way he said most things. But you had spent years alongside Sawyer, reading the space between what she said and what she was holding and you could feel the same shape in him. He was satisfied. He was also watching something more specific than your technique.
You filed it and moved on.
Jack's POV
The board was quieter than most days by midnight, which meant Shen, Ellis and Mateo had a few minutes to be themselves rather than purely functional. This meant they were standing near the north nursing station making the kind of conversation that only night shift people made.
I was across the bay with a chart I was not fully reading.
I was distracted watching her.
She was in trauma two with the latest arrival. I checked on her twice and she did not need me yet, her hands steady, her head down, doing the work with the quiet competence of someone who had done harder work in worse places. The version of her that existed in this room was already different from the version that had stood in my locker room two hours ago. Not more open, exactly, but more present. Like she had found a register she recognized.
She was working the patient with the kind of focus that didn't perform itself. No sideways checks to see if anyone was watching. No adjustment for the audience. Just her hands, and the work, and the thing underneath the work that she was holding back with everything she had.
That was the part that caught me. Not the competence--I expected the competence. It was the effort running parallel to it, invisible if you weren't looking for it, the quality of someone keeping two things completely separate from each other--what her hands were doing, and everything her mind was carrying while they did it.
I knew that effort. I had logged the same hours.
I had looked away twice. I was aware of having looked away twice, which meant I was aware of looking back, which was its own kind of information I was not particularly interested in examining right now.
There was something specific about watching her that I could not organize into a clinical observation and leave there. Something that went past what I was looking for, past the question of whether she was going to be alright in this room, whether the field training would hold or fracture under the particular pressures of a real facility.
Past all of that.
Something that was just her, the way she moved through a space, the quality of attention she brought to a thing once she committed to it. Its made something in my chest shift.
That's… new.
I was still looking at her when Shen said something across the bay. Ellis laughed. Mateo pointed at trauma two, then turned and pointed at me with the expression of a man who had caught something and was not going to pretend otherwise.
I looked back at my chart.
I had felt this before. I recognised what happened in a room when someone arrived and the room recalibrated itself around them.
I looked back at the chart.
Then, despite myself, despite the other eyes, back her.
Sawyer. What have you gotten me into?
Your POV
An MVC brought in three critical patients within four minutes of each other.
The third one was yours. 22 year-old male, ejected from the vehicle, chest trauma, compromised airway. You moved through the initial assessment fast: airway, breathing, circulation, in that order, A-B-C. Dr. Abbot was to your right, working the second patient with Shen, available without crowding you.
Henderson called out, “Abbot, I need you over here.”
Both your heads turned.
Henderson looked between you, recalibrated. "Uh- sorry. Dr. Abbot. Jack. The actual--” He pointed. "Him."
You turned back to your patient. Dr. Abbot gave your arm a brief touch before he moved. "You good?"
"Yes."
"You sure?"
"Yes."
True.
Your hands were in this man's chest and somewhere beneath all of the training and the months away, you felt more like yourself than you had in a long time. Practising medicine with your hands, a patient in front of you, a problem to solve. The rest of the world had gone quiet in exactly the way it needed to.
He moved to Henderson.
You kept going.
The bleed revealed itself under careful retraction, arterial, requiring immediate control. Your left hand found the angle and your right went automatically to the backpack, the Kelly clamps that lived in the left exterior pocket, the ones that had been there for two and a half years--
Wait.
You did not have a backpack. You did not have a kit. You were in a trauma bay in a hospital where things lived in specific places that were not on your body.
Your eyes went left. Right.
You needed a clamp.
The sweat was immediate and started at your hairline.
You needed a clamp.
You looked at the instrument tray, at the walls, at the absolutely extraordinary abundance of organised and catalogued supplies in this room that you did not yet know how to find.
You needed a--
"Hey." His voice came from directly over your right shoulder, low and certain, cutting through the sound of your own heartbeat. "We're gonna follow the rules of where we are."
You met Dr. Abbots eyes.
His hand came alongside yours, the other one extended. "Kelly clamp," he said, and the nurse from earlier, Mateo, expression entirely matter-of-fact, had it in his palm. Clean, uncapped, ready.
He placed it in your hand. His voice, still low: "Now ask for a--”
"Sponge," you said, the word arriving on its own.
A hand clad in the blue latex-free glove, appeared at the edge of your field of vision. The sponge was already there.
"Good. Now--”
"Bovie," you said, to no one in particular, or to the room in general, and the room answered.
It kept being true. Every time you called out a tool to be used the room would give it to you in a gloved hand, waiting, exact, as if the space itself had anticipated you.
Dr. Shen appeared at your elbow somewhere past two in the morning with a plastic cup, Dunkin' Donuts, orange and pink lettering across the side, with the easy manner of someone performing a welcoming gesture without making it feel like one.
"You drink coffee?"
"Yes," you said, and then registered what he was holding. The cup was sweating. There was ice in it.
He set it on the counter beside you. "Wasn't sure what you liked. It's got two pumps of vanilla, no cream."
You looked at it. "It's cold."
"It's iced coffee."
"Coffee is hot."
"Not always." He looked at you with the mild curiosity of someone who had not expected this to become a conversation.
"In Salerno there wasn't ice to put in water," you said. "The idea of putting it in coffee," you picked the cup up and looked at it, "why would someone do that?"
His eyes went slightly wider than the topic warranted. "You've never had iced coffee?"
"I've never had iced coffee."
"Try it."
You tried it. The cold arrived first, sharp and immediate, then the sweetness threaded through it, and then underneath both of those things the actual coffee, present and correct despite everything that had been done to it.
You held the cup for a moment.
Hm.
Shen was watching you with the satisfied expression of a man who already knew how this was going to go.
"Oh my god," you said.
"Yeah," he said.
The night moved in the particular rhythm of an ED shift: compressed and then dilated, moments of full-speed action followed by the strange suspended quality of waiting. In the intervals you started to know the room a little.
Cruz Henderson found you during a brief quiet stretch, leaning against the wall in your vicinity with the ease of someone comfortable in most spaces.
"Hey, 2.0." He was now committed to the nickname. "What do you do for fun?"
The question arrived and sat there.
Fun had a shape you recognised from before, from a version of your life that had existed prior to the last few years, but the specific contents of it had reorganised themselves in ways you had not yet fully mapped. You opened your mouth.
Before you could say anything, an ambulance pulled into the bay with a new case.
"To be continued," Henderson said, and was already moving.
Ellis found you near the end of an hour you would not have been able to number. She came to stand beside you with the deliberate intention of someone who had been waiting for the right moment.
"I didn't actually expect to see you here again," she said. Not unkind. The opposite actually, said with the warmth of someone who meant it as a compliment.
"You said you needed a change in conversation," you reminded her.
"When Abbot told me I went home and thought there's no way she's actually starting here,” She shook her head, smiling. "I have about 50 follow-up questions from that night."
"I'll answer some of them."
"Some."
"Probably not the ones about privileges."
She laughed. Behind her, Mateo arrived into the conversation with the timing of someone who had been waiting nearby.
"Abbott squared," he said. "That's what I keep calling you in my head. Or like… Abbot to the power of 2T." He looked at Ellis. "Is there a medical joke there? Like two T cells?”
"Please don't," you laughed.
"She said don't," Ellis smiled with you.
Mateo looked delighted by this.
At some point past the halfway mark of the shift, one of the radiology techs asked--not to you directly, but in your general vicinity, the way people asked things they wanted answered--"so both Abbots were military, right?”
The question landed in a brief quiet and Ellis picked it up. “Both Army,” she clairified.
Then someone else within ear shout but out of eyesight, “But… Jack was honourably discharged. Right?”
Dr. Abbot, a few feet away near the board, nodded once. Did not look up. Did not elaborate.
You noted the particular quality of the chosen silence.
Later, much later, in the quiet of a night that had opened into something more manageable, you turned to Dr. Abbot and just above a whisper you said, “you know what I can't get over?” you looked up into his eyes, “you say the word and it just appears," you flutter your fingers to make the word dazzle.
He looked at you with the expression of someone revisiting a specific memory.
“I know exactly what you mean,” his eyes glued to yours with a sparkle of recognition, “I remember the first time I asked for something and it just showed up. I thought someone was pranking me.”
“How long until it felt normal?”
He took a moment to think. “Six months? The asking. The trusting that it would come,” then, “but the medicine was the same. The medicine is always the same.”
You nod. You knew what he meant by that.
"You know what I didn't expect?" you said.
He looked at you.
"Iced coffee." You nodded toward Dr. Shen's half-empty plastic cup sitting on the counter. "Coffee is supposed to be hot. It has always been hot. That is the entire point of coffee."
The laugh that came out of him was real and loud enough that it turned two heads at the nursing station, the kind that seemed to surprise even him slightly.
"I’m still not used to that one," he said, when it settled.
The lull came around 4:40 brief and real.
You were on your feet, moving through it, when Dr. Abbot came to stand in your path with the deliberate positioning of someone who had thought about this.
"Sit down," he said.
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask."
You were amped, not manic, just fully alive in the way that twelve hours of useful work made you feel, like a circuit that had been open for months had finally been connected. You had not felt this in close to a year.
"Why don't you sit?" you challenged.
He looked at you.
You looked at him.
He sat down.
Hmm.
You sat across from him, because what else were you going to do, he'd let you win.
He extended his right “foot” and tapped it lightly against your right "foot" the prosthetic toe against yours, a small deliberate contact, not quite a knock, not quite a nudge.
You rolled your eyes a smirk tugging at the corner of your mouth.
He said nothing. Just looked at you with the expression of a man who had won without speaking.
Across the bay, you did not see Ellis nudge Shen. You did not hear what Mateo said quietly that made Shen give a tight lipped smile and stifle a laugh.
At 5:57 in the morning, you were standing in the ambulance bay with Dr. Abbot, debriefing a case that had closed well. The air was cool. The sky outside the bay doors was still dark but differently dark, the particular darkness that preceded the first pale edge of morning.
Something moved in your chest that you caught and examined before it could grow into anything larger.
Nope.
But it was there. The first fragile thread of something that might, given time and enough of nights like this one, grow into something you could trust.
Then headlights swung into the bay. Not an ambulance. A regular car, moving too fast, horn going.
You both ran.
The mother was in the back seat holding her son in her arms the way mothers hold things they are terrified will disappear if they let go for even a second. She was screaming before the car had fully stopped.
"Please! Please help him! He was fine, he was sleeping, he was fine!"
The boy, maybe eight or nine years old was grey, lips already bluish at the edges.
Secondary drowning, the diagnosis came fast, the way they did when the picture was complete before you had consciously assembled it. The child had been in water earlier and had come home, seemed fine because children after submersion often did. Then he had gone to bed. The water in his lungs had been working against him while everyone thought the danger had passed.
"When was he in the water?" you asked the mother.
"This afternoon-- the pool at the Y-- he coughed a little after but he was fine, he was laughing, I put him to bed and he was--” Her voice broke. "He was sleeping and I went to check on him and he wasn't--" Then she was wailing, like she had made a conclusion she wasn’t ready to cope with.
Now inside, youd started compressions by the time the gurney reached the room.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25-26-27-28-29-30. Stop. Two breaths from the ambu bag. Again.
You were sweating through the back of your scrubs. Your arms burned. But you did not stop.
The team moved around you.
Another 30 compressions.
A rhythm built and then changed.
Another 30 compressions, this time you felt his ribs break.
And as it did when the picture was becoming clear, you could feel it in the room, the quality of attention shifting, the quiet that came before the harder quiet.
Another 30 compressions.
"Another amp of epi!" you called.
No one moved.
You kept the compressions going and looked up.
"What are you doing? Another amp of--"
"We've given three," Dr. Abbot said calm and flat. Quietly, from behind you.
You did not stop.
"We've gotta call it," he said.
"No. He's coming back." Your arms did not stop.
"Come on." His hands were at your shoulders, not pulling you, offering a way out. "We gotta call time of death."
You felt his hands and you pushed them away then one hard shove centre-chest that rocked him back a step. You reached past him for the epi.
His hand closed around your wrist.
You stopped.
You looked at him.
He looked at you. And in the way that two people can have an entire conversation in three seconds when they have been paying attention to each other. You had him, you did not want to stop. Abbot was telling you that stopping was the only thing left. You didn’t want it to be. He knew that, and it made no difference to what was true, and he was sorry for that and you could see it.
Your hand loosened on the epi.
You stepped back.
He looked at you warily. Waiting.
You squared your shoulders. Breathed out once. Grabbed everything that had come up in the last few minutes and pressed it down into the place you kept things you could not afford right now, pushed it deep and locked it there.
Your face was still.
"Time of death." You checked your watch. "6:07 AM."
You left the room.
The family was in the corridor.
You walked toward them because someone had to, and the person who had been there at the end was usually the one who delivered the news.
The mother looked at you and knew before you said a word. The way mothers just... knew.
You told her. You said the words clearly and without softening them into something less true. Her husband caught her when her legs stopped working. She made a sound that was not language, that was below language, that belonged to a frequency of grief that no vocabulary had ever needed to describe because there was nothing to do with it but let it exist.
You stood with them. You stayed. For several minutes, you stayed, because leaving would have been the wrong thing and you had been trained long enough in the wrong things to know one when you saw it.
Then you excused yourself.
The women's bathroom near trauma one.
You stood at the sink and looked at yourself in the mirror.
There was a version of you that should have been here. That you looked for and could not quite locate. She felt very far away right now.
You could feel the tears starting. Not a wave, just the first pressure of them at the edge, the signal before the signal. You inhaled sharply through your nose, once, utilizing technique that had served you in many rooms with people watching--the sniff pulled the sensation back, reset the baseline, bought you ten seconds that became thirty that became however long you needed.
You closed your eyes.
The sun over the Salerno roofline. The specific quality of the morning light over the base perimeter, the way it turned the dust gold before the heat came, the few minutes of each day when even that place had been clean and quiet and purely itself.
You let yourself be in it for three seconds.
Then you let it go.
You opened your eyes.
You straightened your scrubs, pressed the back of your hand briefly to your face, and walked out.
Dr. Abbot was in the hallway.
He straightened when you came out.
"Hey." His voice was careful. Not careful in the way of someone managing you--careful in the way of someone paying attention. "You okay? I didn't mean to push you back in there."
The box inside you, filled with every emotion, held. Not a crack in it.
You rolled your shoulders back, "never better," you said. It came out with more edge than you meant.
"Hey," he stepped into your path lightly, not blocking, just present. His hand landed briefly on your shoulder. "You gotta be honest with me. That's the deal."
You looked at him for a moment.
Then you breathed out. "I guess... I haven't lost someone in a while. With the recovery, the time off. And it hits different when it's a kid."
It was true, and it was not the whole of it, and you both knew. He did not push further.
"Come on," he said. "Let me show you how we hand off."
The day shift charge nurse was at nursing station when you and Dr. Abbot walked up, already mid-handoff with the outgoing night charge Lena. Reading glasses on with the easy authority of a woman who had run this floor for long enough that the floor ran itself around her.
She looked up when you and Dr. Abbot were close.
"Dana, this is Dr. Abbott… 2.0." He said it with the particular dry affection of someone who had not chosen the name but had decided to keep it.
She looked at you over her glasses for a long moment.
"I finally get to put a face to the name," she said. "Been hearing about you since Tuesday, kid."
"Good things, I hope."
"Mostly." Her eyes were kind, "Dana Evans," her hand was stretched to yours, you shook it, "first shift?"
"(Y/n) Abbot, nice to meet you. And, yes, first shift," you confirmed.
"Likewise. How was it?"
You thought about it honestly. All of it. The locker room. The handshake. The clamp appearing out of nowhere. The iced coffee. The name debate. The child.
"It was good," you said. "It feels good to get back into the medicine."
That was true.
As true as anything you had said all night.
Dana looked at you for just a moment longer than the sentence required. Then she looked at Dr. Abbot, once, with the quick and knowing look of a woman who had noticed things.
She did not say whatever she was thinking.
She looked back at her paperwork.
Dr. Abbot glanced at the time. "7:13. Handoff's done. You’re good to get your stuff from the locker room." He stepped back. "I need to find Robby before I leave.”
You nodded.
You peeled away from the nursing station, already mentally in the stairwell, already halfway to the parking structure and the long drive home, when something stopped you.
Not a sound. A quality in the air had shifted in the light near the entrance, the particular stillness that preceded something that was not ordinary.
You turned.
Two soldiers were coming through the waiting room doors.
Army Service Uniforms--the dress blues, dark and precise, hats on, gait squared. Between them, held in both hands with the careful flat-palmed carry of something that was not to be dropped, was a folded triangle of fabric. Red and white stripes at the edges. The blue field of the canton visible at the apex, tight and even, the way they folded it when it came off his casket.
Every cell in your body came to a violent halt.
In the back of your mind you knew they were coming for you. Not today, not this specific morning, but in the general sense of eventual--you had known, and had been avoiding it the way you avoided things that required you to accept a finality you were not ready to accept. You had refused all visitors and had been difficult to contact and had let the distance between you and everything and everyone from before grow.
The soldiers were still twenty feet away.
And then you looked again and they were not strangers.
Amber, on the left. Taller than the image your memory had preserved, her hair shorter, a corporal's chevron on her sleeve. She walked with the particular straightness of someone who had been in dress uniform enough times to have forgotten they were wearing it. Her eyes found you immediately, the way eyes found people they had been looking for.
On the right, Lukas. His jaw was set the way it got set when he was working to keep something in. He had emailed you every week for almost a year. Every week, without asking for anything back. Subject: Still here. Every time.
The space had gone quiet in the way that rooms went quiet when something was happening that people recognised even without a program. You were aware of eyes at the nursing station. Ellis and Mateo, somewhere to your left. Dana. The incoming day shift who did not know you at all and were watching anyway.
The two soldiers came to a stop three feet in front of you.
Amber spoke, her voice was level and formal, "Captain Y/N Abbott." She held her gaze steady. "On behalf of the United States Army, and in recognition of the service and sacrifice of Sergeant Adam Handscombe," she glanced at Lukas, who transferred the flag to her hands with the careful coordination of something rehearsed, "it is our honour to present to you this flag, which flew over the base at FOB Salerno in his name."
She held it out.
At first you couldn't move.
The emergency department, this enormous loud functional space, suddenly contracted around you until it was just this. Two soldiers, a folded flag, and every eye in the room landing on you at the same moment. The walls came in. The sounds of the floor dulled. Your pulse, which had been steady, kicked, hard, like a door being tried from the other side.
Not here. Not now. Absolutely not here.
You could feel your hands wanting to do something with the type of alertness you couldn't put down, the kind that arrived before the spiral did. You breathed in through your nose, held it, then let it go.
Your face did not move. You had built that particular architecture over a very long time and it held.
Then you bent your elbows, lifted your hands, and took it.
The weight of it was almost nothing. A few yards of folded fabric, precise and tight. And it was the heaviest thing you had held in a long time.
You were aware of every eye in the room. You were aware that something had just been said out loud and answered questions everyone had been too polite or too busy or too uncertain to ask. You were aware of all of it and none of it mattered for the next several seconds while you stood holding a triangle of flag in a hospital corridor at 7:15 in the morning. You looked at your two closest friends from another life.
Amber raised her right hand.
The salute was formal and precise and absolutely personal at the same time.
Lukas, beside her, did the same.
You had not been in uniform for almost a year. You were in scrubs, with yesterday's mascara probably doing its own thing, holding a folded flag in a hospital waiting room. None of that mattered.
You raised your right hand.
The three of you held it for a full three count.
Then you lowered yours and Amber's face changed.
She stepped forward.
You were already reaching for her.
She put both arms around you, hard, the full grip of someone who had been waiting to do this for a long time, and Lukas stepped in from the other side, and the three of you stood in the middle of a room full of people who had stopped pretending not to watch, you pressed your face against Amber's shoulder and let yourself feel the specific relief of being found by people who had known you before you had to learn yourself again.
It was not a clean feeling. Nothing about it was clean. Happy and devastated and relieved and terrified all in the same moment, layered over each other, the sorrow running through all of it like thread.
But it was real. You were standing. All three of you were standing.
After a while the three of you pulled back enough to put your foreheads together, close, the way you had done a hundred times in a hundred different circumstances in a place very far from Pittsburgh. Lukas's hand at the back of your neck. Amber's at your shoulder.
"We're still standing," Amber said.
"Still standing," Lukas confirmed.
You breathed in and said it with them, "Still standing."
Jack's POV
I was standing at the edge of the corridor when it happened. About to turn toward the elevator when something told me to stop and look back.
I watched them come in. I watched her recognise them.
I had seen this before, a long time ago. Not this exact thing. The moment when the war finally finds the door you have been living behind and knocks on it in a way you cannot pretend you didn't hear.
I watched her take the flag.
But, the half second before she took it--the stillness, the quality of it, the particular controlled nothing of her face, that, I recognised as the opposite of nothing. I had worn that expression myself in rooms I could not afford to come apart in.
She thought she had hidden it.
She had hidden most of it, her face gave almost nothing. But I could see behind her eyes she was trying to contain something bigger.
Then the other two stepped forward.
The woman was a corporal, the chevron on her sleeve catching the light as she squared up. Her voice carried across the floor--clear and formal, “On behalf of the United States Army, and in recognition of the service and sacrifice of Sergeant Adam Handscombe.”
The name landed in the room like a stone dropped in still water.
I went stiff.
“It is our honour to present to you this flag.”
A husband? She had a husband.
Past tense, present weight, the specific gravity of a loss that did not get smaller with time, only more precisely shaped.
Sawyer.
I watched her face stay still in a way I now understood, watching it from the outside for the first time, was not stillness at all.
Then the corporal stepped forward and her arms went around you and the face that had been still stopped being still, and something in me flinched away from watching it-not from discomfort, from recognition.
She had a husband.
She had lost a husband. She had come to Pittsburgh with all of that packed down somewhere below the surface and had spent a full shift beside me moving through this floor like someone who had decided, somewhere along the way, that if she just kept moving nothing could catch her.
I knew that exact calculation. I had made it myself. I had made it for years.
My thoughts, now aimed squarely at Sawyer.
Of course you didn't tell me. Because if you had, I would have handled her differently. And you knew that handling her differently was exactly the wrong thing to do.
I stood there another moment.
The three of them had their heads together now, something passed between them too quiet to reach me. Something old and specific to those three people and no one else.
I thought of Robby. The particular tired quality of his face lately, the way he had been carrying the weight of the ED on will alone for longer than anyone had asked him to. I had been meaning to find him.
I turned toward the elevator.
The doors opened as I reached it. Robby was inside, coming down, coat on, the end of something written across his face.
We looked at each other.
He read whatever was on mine.
He stepped back. Stayed where he was as the doors began to close.
I stepped in.
Neither of us said anything.
The doors shut.
Your POV
You walked toward the stairwell unsure of the exact time, the flag tucked under your arm.
The stairwell door swung shut behind you.
You stood on the landing between floors for just a moment, alone, in the concrete quiet.
You looked down at the flag.
You had been carrying the absence of this for almost a year. The shape of what you had not allowed yourself to receive, what you had walled off and worked around and refused to acknowledge in the specific way you refused to acknowledge things that had the power to completely undo you.
It was in your hands now.
You pressed it once, briefly, against your chest.
Then you went down the stairs, through the parking structure, and into the early morning.
The Pontiac was where you had left her. You got in, put her in gear, and drove home into a sky that was beginning, very slowly, to go light.
AN: Thank you guys again for being so interested and so kind. I really really appreciate it! I've made a taglist for those who asked! If you'd like to be added just let me know and I'll do my best. Comments, reblogs, and thoughts are always welcome <3
CW: talks of sex, reader is on period, not proofread, Rocky not understanding how human menstruation works, accidentally pervy Rocky, reader is AFAB (has periods) but otherwise could be read ignoring gender (if that makes sense)
MINORS DO NOT INTERACT 18+
AN: awkward misunderstanding with wingman rocky. ALSO TYSM FOR 500 FOLLOWERS! PLEASE SEND IN REQUESTS FOR ANYONE ON THE MASTERLST :)
…..
“Human dying question?-” Rocky repeated over and over and over again bumping his bubble against your feet which hung off the edge of the mattress you were currently sweating into.
“No rocky i’m not dying-” you gripped the mattress, cramps wracking your body as you buried your face into the pillow. Space periods hadn’t been much of an issue since the ship was pretty stocked up with the pill, (not a surprise that they wouldn’t want space babies) but spontaneous bleeds happen and you had to go off them for a little while. “It’s my body punishing me…for-” you searched your brain for a word that wouldn’t feel absolutely vile. “Not having children?”
“Why body punish for not breeding question”
Your hands went to your face, “EW gross word-”
“Why gross question. breeding is normal-” you kicked his bubble sending him back a few feet before he rolled back up to you, this time on eye level. “Answer question”
Your finger poked against his little see through bubble, eyes narrowed into a glare “You’re a little space pest did you know that- can’t believe Grace let you in here-” Rocky pressed his head up against the bubble pushing a sigh out of you before you pulled yourself over to give him a rocky hug. “I’m sorry rock…i’m not trying to be mean i’m just in pain?”
“Explain.”
You sighed deeply “some humans have reproductive cycles of around 28-30ish days and then our reproductive organs shed their lining and we bleed for about a week-” you stared at the alien feeling the warmth seeping out of the bubble into your arms. “It’s normal…for us”
“So Grace will bleed question” that got a chuckle out of you, shaking your head before you placed your cheek down onto the bubble.
“No grace won’t bleed…it's only half of humans, different anatomy.” you explained “like adrian and you, different”
“So you and Grace are mates?”
“NOOOOO no no no no” you blushed “me and grace are not mates.”
“Why not, if grace can solve problem by enjoyable experience to replace painful experience-”
“Shutt upppppppp” you grumbled fogging up the glass.
“Rocky fix” he rolled off allowing you to slide down onto the floor.
“No rocky- no rocky fix-!” you stumbled up holding your blanket up around yourself, stumbling as Rocky rolled right towards Grace’s lab. Just as you jumped up over the door partition a cramp rocketed through your body, radiating agony from your abdomen to your toes. You keeled over pressing your overheated body to the cold metal of the ship.
“Grace Grace Grace Grace” Rocky rammed into Ryland’s ankles, waking the overworked scientist from his very brief slumber.
“Whhhatttttt….” He grumbled pawing for his glasses on the table.
Rocky ran around the room in circles frantically throwing around his arm legs in a frenzied panic “Your human mate not mate is dying-“
Grace’s heart dropped to his stomach “WHAT!” He scrambled up to his feet, “where are they- now- show me right now-!” Rocky leads the way, Grace sprinting to catch up with the alien. In all honesty it didn’t look that far off from what the creature had described. “Hey…..hey….what’s wrong are you sick?” Ryland’s slightly overgrown hair tumbled into his line of vision as he kneeled in front of you, sitting you up straight.
You tripped over your words, “No grace-“ Rocky rolled right into Grace’s ass, sending him forward into you, his hand resting up above your head to brace him from fully eclipsing you.
“Ohhh noooooo humans have moments like from romantic comedies that Grace makes Rocky watch!” The robotic voice was just dripping with sarcasm, both you and Grace’s head slowly turning to the alien who had his extremities up in a shrug like motion. “Now take your clothes off-“
“WHAT THE FUCK ROCKY-!”
“Humans must mate to make pain go away, Rocky will look away-“ the Alien rolled into a corner of the ship's room and plopped himself down.
“It doesn’t work like that-“ Grace slowly helped you up to stand, warm hands on your waist to support you and prevent you from curling up in pain. “Period?” He sighed as you nodded, guiding you back towards your shared room.
“Rocky doesn’t understand- Grace replied to me calling mouse human mate-“
“You did?” You gazed up at Ryland.
“He- he told me you were dying! What- what was I supposed to- to do!” He awkwardly defended himself as he took your temperature. “You just need some water and some rest…” he sighed.
“Rocky got over here.” He beckoned the alien over with his hands. “Lay here c’mon…” he patted the open spot in front of your pained form. “Lay down for warmth” Rocky nuzzled his bubble into your abdomen, little vibrations radiating into you with Rocky’s contentment.
Ry stood, moving to leave back to the lab, “Grace can’t leave ...someone has to watch us sleep!” Ryland dragged his hands down his face turning on his heel and leaning on the doorway. Seeing you laid there, in a ball with an alien cuddling you instead of him, fuck it was killing him.
“Well. I’m watching.”
“Watch closer.”
Grace took a step.
“Closseerrr” you chuckled into the pillow.
He stepped closer until his knees bumped against the mattresses “close enough?”
“Closer closer closer!” The alien chirped as Grace finally relented and sunk into the sheets cuddling up to your back. “Good.”
an: little brain worm that wouldn’t leave me alone hehehe
CW: nightmares? Other than that pure fluff,
WC: approx 700 words or smth
Grace…” you stumbled into Ryland’s room, seeing Rocky perched nearby. Early on you had insisted on sleeping on your own, Grace didn’t even know where or when you slept, he could only assume it was some hidden compartment you’d added when you designed the ship. But the nightmares had become too much and what was formerly branded as suffocating, the idea of rocky watching while you slept had become a necessary evil.
Your whole body trembled as you approached the bed, rocky perking up and rolling towards you. “Mouse hurt question.” An affectionate nickname Grace had assigned you since you spent most of your time scurrying around the ship repairing one thing after another.
“Shhh rocky-“ you were cut off by the rustling of Ryland’s blankets, his hair was tousled, stubble barely just growing back in, eyes squinted trying to make out the shape of you.
“What’s wrong-“ he sprang up, you had hoped it was for you alone but you knew in all honesty he was worried something had gone wrong.
“Don’t get out of bed no-” you pressed your hand to his chest as he tried to jump out of his bed, leading him back to lay down but making no move to join him “I just...I had a nightmare- and I- I-had to make sure you were okay…” you muttered embarrassed at the thought, ready to climb back into your whole for another night of restless turning.
Grace’s voice was gravelly and warm as he drew back the blanket making space next to him “C’mere…” your feet stayed cemented to the cold metal flooring of the ship.
“What?” The word caught, snagged on your vocal chords as your arms wrapped around your torso.
“Grace said that mouse should join Grace in bed. Statement.” The alien bumped the back of your calves, sending you stumbling into the bed, hands flying out to catch yourself.
“Jeez rocky- relax-“ you grunted climbing up onto the bed to avoid the attack. “Grace I just wanted to ask if you were okay I don’t wanna invade-“
His hand rubbed over his tired eyes, the other going behind his bed as he laid on his back, shirt rode up to expose a delicious sliver of his abs. “If I didn’t want you to join me I wouldn’t have asked. Get over here, now.” His hand moved to pat the open space.
You moved slowly, feeling the residual warmth he’d left there as you sunk down into the mattress, it was definitely nicer than yours. What you didn’t expect was how quickly Grace’s arms wrapped around you pressing your back to his chest, one hand slinking over your waist while the other bicep served as another additional pillow.
You could hear the clunks of Rocky's xenonite bubble as he climbed back up to his vantage point, plopping down next to you and Ryland. “Sleep.” Grace grumbled into your hair as you melted back into him.
“Don’t know if I can….I think I forgot how to….” You admitted, the thrumming of the ship creating an echo chamber of vulnerability.
“Let me help…” he shifted, rolling you to face him, your eyes flickered up to his face, it was strange seeing him without his glasses and like this, in such an intimate way, his eyes soft and delicate as the scanned over your features deftly memorising every freckle. His knuckle moved up, tracing up and down your nosebridge. Your eyelashes fluttered against your cheeks as you lifted your head placing it down above Ryland’s heart as he continued with his ministrations.
The tension of your muscles released as Ryland used his other hand to scratch along your back. “I care about you a lot…you know that, mouse?” Ryland whispered, not certain that you were awake until you let out a sleepy mumble.
“I care about you too Ry…” your eyes shut, too heavy to reopen as you eased into a slumber with both Ryland and Rocky there to protect you.
Hiiii how do you feel about writing a fic about Jack x reader/ resident or nurse. jack tries to make a move on her but she turns him down, he’s desperate to know why eventually she tells him she’s had her heart broken in the past etc… eventually she makes a move on him 🤭 pls only write if you’re happy with the idea!!
The Eye Of The Storm (Jack Abbott x Reader)
LOVE THIS! kinda took it in a weird direction but hope you enjoy!!!!
AN: PLEASE SEND MORE REQUESTS!!!! I love writing them!!! non proofread
“Fucking hell!” You grunted in frustration, damn near tearing apart the nurses station looking for your water bottle. You’d lost so many at this point that your pride alone was getting in the way of buying another. “You know what Shen. This is what I get for letting you convince me to get one of those expensive owolo bottles.” You got on all fours to search for the bright teal water bottle.
Shen didn’t reply, your eyes moved up and the shadow you had presumed belonged to your Dunkin’ loving coworker instead was your brooding attending. One Jack Abbott, not just Jack Abbott but Jack Abbott clutching your glorified sippy cup in his torturously slender fingers, crows feet crinkling just slightly with a smirk on his face. The awkward silence only filled by the unceremonious thunk of the metal against the charting desk. “I refilled it for you.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” You rose to your feet grabbing the bottle hearing the clinking. “You got ice?” His eyes met yours with a gentleness, one most had noticed he only shared with you.
“Well you always drink ice water so…”
“How do you know that?” Your shoulders tensed, knuckles constricting against the textured surface of the bottle.
“I just noticed.”
“Ask me next time-“
“Sorry I just thought-“
“I know what you thought. Just ask.”
”Here you go pretty” Marshall smiled, placing a baby pink water bottle on your desk, your own hand braced on your lower back trying to ease the ache of your back from studying for hours on end. “You know you shouldn't study so much…fries your brain…” the older man’s lips pressed against the crown of your head.
“Is that a medically accurate fact?” You tilted your head up to make eye contact with him.
“Mhm…you’ll know when you’re a real doctor like me MS4”
There were 3 things you’d managed to establish in your mind about the mysterious man that went by the name of Jack Abbott:
Jack Abbott was apparently a rather polarising figure, the night crawlers loved him as their pack leader. At least most of them did with the single exception of you. What was worse is that he had absolutely no clue why you hated him so much. As far as he could remember you’d never had an interaction where he’d committed a major social blunder.
Jack Abbott had a staring problem. Something you picked up on moving around the ER from patient to patient, he was too much like Marshall. Everyone just fucking loved him too. One of those effortlessly cool personalities which always had that tendency to pull you in, yet whenever you got close enough they’d burn you.
Jack Abbott was a perceptive man, he knew that you didn’t like him but for some reason you could tell it tore him up. You despised the way that he could read your mind during trauma calls, how he’d place Advil on your desk when he saw the tension building up in your shoulders, how he’d fucking remembered you liked ice water. He saw how much you needed the praise after a tricky call, the validation, and you knew that he knew something was the root cause of all this.
“Can’t you just- I don’t know?! Not be humiliated by me in public!?” you sobbed to Marshall, loose lipped from the alcohol.
“I am fucking embarrassed of you! You’re half my age and you think that- that-“
“I think what Marshall!?”
“You actually think you’re some sort of prodigy medical student, you naive fucking child!” You stilled as the iciness of his words washed over you in multiple waves, one overwhelming you just as you were about to process the one which preceded it.
“You don’t think I’m a good doctor?” Your voice wobbled as Marshall’s hands moved to either side of your neck, holding you gently.
“Look baby…” he sighed putting his chin on your forehead, “some people are made to be doctors, they just…have it and…and you don’t have it…” your heart dropped to your feet as your fists clenched in his shirt.”I don’t know what you’d do without me around…” he brushed an eyelash off your cheek. “I’m protecting you…no one would be able to teach you the way I know how to.”
“Okay and then we’re going to make a horizontal cut there….” Abbott’s hand guided yours as you performed your first ever solo crike. Everyone knew you had a thing about these types of procedures, your favourite shifts were the ones where you got to stick to triage, not having to cope with learning anything new.
“You’re doing great…” he spoke into your ear, steadying your hand as it shook, you trying to ignore the tears welling up at your eyeline. You found the difference between Marshall and Jack. Jack really cared about his residents….he cared about making sure you learned and grew. “And we’re in- good job- good-“ you descrubbed immediately rushing out of the room with one hand clutched around your other wrist.
“I fucking set you up for the perfect procedure! Fuck! You’re fucking useless did you know that!?” he’d been screaming for the last 20 minutes, since you got into the car, the two of you now stuck in the four walls of his apartment. He refused to go to yours, he said it “reminded him of your reality.” You hiccuped, wiping the tears from your cheeks. “Yeah- yeah cry again- because you deserve to cry- you have a good reason huh! You get to cry like the mother of that 18 year old boy we lost because of your FUCKING MISTAKES!”
Your hands trembled as you gripped at your phone trying to dial someone who you could talk to, but…Pittsburg was a new city, anyone you knew was at least a couple of hundred miles out of reach. You sunk down onto the cold linoleum steps of the stairwell 4 seconds in 6 seconds out that’s what you tell patients right? Fuck why the fuck did you keep going? Because Marshall didn’t want you anymore, no. That’s why you’re here, that's not why you kept going.
“Hey…” Jack stood in the doorway, watching you struggle to ground yourself, slowly moving down onto one knee. Remember. Jack Abbott was, of course, perceptive. He watched how your body recoiled away from him as he inadvertently blocked you against the wall. He moved shoulder to side with you instead. “What’s up”
You of course didn’t respond. Not until he sunk down next to you, a symphony of grunts and groans leaving his lips as he turned his head towards you. “...why don’t you like me?” it sounded ridiculous coming from his lips, sticky with vulnerability, viscous in your fingertips, gross and icky.
You sighed deeply, picking at the skin around your fingernails, “Why do you need to know?” you raised your eyes to meet him, chin still tilted down.
“Cause I care about you-”
Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, cutting him off “-Because you like me.” a heavy silence suffocated the tension between the two of you. “And you need to stop.”
His brows furrowed together, wrinkles between them deepening “Why?”
“Because!” you snapped, hands coming down hard against your thighs.
“See! This is why no one else could handle you! Whenever we argue you turn into a fucking child!” Marshall’s spit sprayed out onto your cheeks and you tried to become one with the wall you were pressed up against.
“Hey…” your eyes snapped back up to his chest heaving, tears collected on your eyeline without you even noticing. “I’m not mad at you…” Jack spoke gently, giving you space to breathe.
“I’m not ready…for anything like that i-” you let out a heavy breath, eyes tracing along the slope of the stairway. “I’ve got my own shit to figure out so-”
“I’ll wait.” A small smile made its way back to his face.
“Huh.”
“I’ve got time.” His hand went to your shoulder to push himself back up, pantleg riding up just enough with the action to expose his prosthesis. “I’ve waited this long…whats a while longer.”
…….
Since that day there was an unspoken tension between you and your attending. Nothing had changed in your actions, the flightiness remained no matter how hard you attempted to calm.
You walked into the ED through the ambulance bay, attempting to walk through to the changing room without the fuss of going through the ED. Your hand travelled down to your ID card, fiddling with it. Your body stopped as you crashed into a huge mass.
“Hey.” cold venom rushed through you, you didn’t need to look up to know who that low gravelly voice belonged to, one that used to be filled with so much warmth.
“LOOK AT ME!” Marshall screamed, gripping both of your upper arms, shaking you against the wall as helpless cries left you.
“Don't touch me-” you shrugged him off, moving back frantically. “What the fuck are you doing here-” you spat, hands moving around your ribs trying to quell the thundering of your pulse.
“Did you not hear?” he smirked, hands going into his pockets glaring down at you, "there's an attending position open” your feet moved before you could think, shoulder bumping his as you rushed off towards the bathroom.
Jack’s eyebrows smushed together as he approached Dr Mitchels. “What happened there…?” he leaned against the counter.
“Oh.” Marshall straightened out with a sadistic smile. “She never told you?” Jack shook his head, hands coming up to fold across his chest, he may not be the tallest man but his glare was enough to cast a shadow over the taller older man. “Remember the student doctor that ruined my marriage?” Jack nodded immediately, he’d been one of the few people that had discouraged Marshall's infidelity, an outsider in comparison to the normalisation of cheating in the medical field. “Thats her.”
Jack's heart dropped, his body moving towards the changing room without another word. Your nails clawed at your ribs through your top, eyes staring off into the distance, planted on the bench completely unmoving. The door cracked open, Jack's head gently poking through. The door clattered against the wall as he rushed over, sitting on the floor in front of you despite the pain and pressure it put on his leg. “Come back…hey…hey…” his hands patted your legs, he’d seen that look in people's eyes before, not one that classically comes from seeing your ex.
“Whatever he told you wasn’t true-” you hiccuped “i’m a good doctor- I am I promise I am-” you spluttered as tears started to fall from your cheeks. “Please- I like this place- I like it here. I don't wanna have to leave again- please don’t make me leave” your voice ripped through the room.
“Shhhhh…Shhh.” he pushed himself up, arms wrapping around you to pull you into his chest, your eyes wetting the crook of his neck. “You’re not leaving, it's okay…” his hand rubbed up and down your back.
“He- i can’t- work- with- him-” your breath came in sharp intakes after every word.
“You won’t have to- shh…i’m here- he can’t hurt you- i’m here-” his lips pressed briefly to your temple. “Has he hurt you? You can tell me- i swear to god if he hurt you-” the words while threatening in nature came out gently, drowned in concern.
“I don’t know-” you whimpered as he pulled back, your eyes meeting his. His heart melted at the sight of you, the whites of your eyes turning red, puffy, the skin around your fingernails torn just as he had found you months ago. “I don’t know-” you broke crumbling forward.
“You don’t need to- it’s alright…”
Jack held you there. Waiting for the room to stop crashing down on you, your ragged sobs to dissolve into sniffles. Your eyes scanned over him as he stared into your eyes, it was odd, sharing such proximity with someone, feeling the comfort which his hazel eyes provided you. You moved slowly, chapped lips catching slightly on the stubble of his cheek as you leaned in, placing a featherlight kiss on his cheekbone before nuzzling back into his neck. “Thank you-” his hands gripped you tighter.
….
“I’m gonna need you to leave…don’t think you’re a good match for my ED” Robby sized up Marshall, pulling him away from the brofest of a conversation he had pulled a couple cops into.
Marshall scoffed, puffing up his chest slightly, closing the gap between himself and Robby“Well it’s not your ED-”
“You should leave. Before Jack comes out here.” Robby gave him another warning as the pitt began to take notice of the interaction.
“You think I'm scared of him?”
“You should be. No leave before security has to make you leave.”
“Stupid bitch” Marshall spat under his breath looking around to see if he could catch a glimpse of you as you left the changing room with Jack.
“Get him out of here-” Jack spoke to robby and ahmad, Marshall was promptly shuffled out, shoving away the hands on his shoulders as he was forcibly removed from PTMC.
…
The shift was a complete blur, mistake after fumble eventually surrendering yourself to straight charting for hours, checking over your work a million times terrified that you were going to make a mistake, like the one that had lost you your first patience.
“Can I touch you?” Jack approached you gently, when you half haphazardly let out a nod his hands came down on your shoulders, leaning over you, “how come I haven’t seen you out on the floor…?”
Your hands shook slightly, freezing as you tried to come up with some kind of excuse, “Not in the right mindset…better to stick to Triage and charting…”
“Okay.”
Huh?
He was just fine with it? He didn’t try to push you back out onto the floor, his hands massaged the tension out of your shoulders. You'd noticed so many things about Jack Abbott in your two years of working with him, however this was the first time you’d ever realised that whenever he was around a wave of calm washed over you. It didn’t matter how bad the ER was or the chaos that existed, Jack Abbott was the eye of the storm.
“You’re not mad?” you tilted your head up to make eye contact as he stood above you.
“Of course not…you’ve had a shit day i’m not going to push you into something you’re not comfortable doing…we’ve got enough hands for tonight…” he smiled at you, fuck he’d gone soft, he waited. He said he would wait and the look in his eyes told you that he was still waiting.
“...you wanna get breakfast after this shift?” you couldn’t make eye contact as the words left you simply sharing down at the screen that had been burning into your retinas.
Jack was quiet. Fuck. fuck fuck fuck. You’d fucked it. Misread the situation and completely crossed the professional boundaries that existed between attending and resident-
“I’d be happy to.” Jack quickly pressed a chaste kiss to your temple before disappearing back into the throws of the storm.
Men of the Pitt when you’re sick & When they’re sick
CW: Emetephobia, migraines, severe sickness, a lot of fluff. Slight angst at times
AN: i know this took me like a month but exams actually sucked out my soul so here you go.
WC: 5.8 k
Michael “Robby” Robinavich
When you’re sick:
Doom washed over as soon as the dryness in your throat doesn't go away with a sip of water, or a second or a third. You’d had a sneaking suspicion that you were probably getting sick last night when you could barely sleep underneath the blanket cuddling with Robby, the duvet sticking to your sweat slicked legs.
Your breath fogged up the bathroom mirror as you tugged the bathroom cabinet open to pull out your paracetamol, hoping it was just a mild fever you could break in your sleep while robby was away with work, needing nothing more than a good long nap. Your body dropped onto the couch, the intent being to switch on a movie and mindlessly scroll until you knocked out. And while yes this is what ends up happening you barely realise the state you had entered.
The haze of the light through the curtains of your apartment, the only real idea you had of time in your deliriousness. The couch’s comfort was a far cry from the comfort you began in, the cushions damp and scratchy against your over sensitive skin. It creaked and groaned as you tried to roll over towards the coffee table for your phone, your blankets tented the heat in your face pushing bile up to the back of your throat, burning and sizzling.
The dampness from your fingers leaving marks on your screen as you pulled up the Roberto <3 contact. Your finger hovered over the call button, sluggishly dragging themselves upwards, catching on the small black numbers in the upper right corner 16:49. It was only a couple hours until the end of the shift, you could probably manage until then, so instead you texted the next best person. Jack
The phone rang a few times before his voice travelled through the phone “what's up you never call me?” you could hear the rustling from the other side of the line. Your mouth opened but only a raspy crackle escaped you, “hey are you okay?”
“Yeah um-” your croaked “I’m not feeling great i just- don’t wanna annoy Robby-” you coughed, feeling your organs rattle around in your ribcage. You listed off the symptoms, the lightheadedness, the fever, the sore throat and coughing.
“Okay it just sounds like you caught the flu,” he hummed, he knew you were a doctor, he knew that you knew all of this already but maybe at this point your mind was cloudy enough to remove all reason. He listed off the advice you already knew you needed. “Tell you what, I'm gonna head into work early, send Mike home, okay?”
“I don’t wanna be a burden-”
“Stop it. Breathe. Drink some water.” And with that he hung up, twenty minutes later you were dragged back into consciousness by the door rapidly opening and shutting.
“Sweetheart?!” Robby moved quickly rushing towards your shared bedroom until he found you laid out on the couch looking pathetically ill. “Hey you…” he sat on the coffee table pulling out his stethoscope and thermometer.
“Hey…” his lips pressed to your forehead, hand glued to the back of your head. “I’m gonna check your temperature, you feel kind of warm sweetheart,” your eyes slowly opened and sluggishly shut. You heard his grumble of disapproval, his hand wiping the sweat off your forehead. The contrast of the cold metal of his stethoscope against your sweltering skin forced a sharp inhale. “Sorry…deep breaths for me okay?” his face moved to concentration, you inhaled for him “attagirl…” his hand rubbed over your bare thigh, a smile moving onto his face, “hearts going pretty fast sweetheart, that the fever or me?”
“Both are pretty hot so-” you huffed, smushing into his hand. “Can you bring me some water?” you whispered, he frantically looked around for a used cup, a disappointed look forming as he noticed there was none.
“You've been sleeping here all day?” his voice dripped with concern, drowning you in his pity. You forced out a nod, he moved quickly, grabbing one of those ridiculously big water bottles that he’d bought you after noticing you never drank any water on shift in the Pitt. He switched on the TV, putting on some random western movie, pulling you to lay against him, under his arm. He pulls out his phone, pulling your legs over his lap as he opens uber eats.
“What are you ordering…” you spoke, riddled with sleep and fatigue, limbs heavy against him.
“Jewish penicillin…” he said, eyes fixed on his phone as he pressed his lips to the crown of your head, chuckling slightly at your confusion “it’s chicken soup with matza balls…my dad used to get it for me when I was sick.
“Oh ...m'kay…” you snuggled in deeper, you basically cried when robby had to detangle himself from you in order to retrieve the food.
“Sit up for me…” he opened the container, placing it on the coffee table, he sat with you, pulling you up onto his lap. Leaning over to grab the container and a couple napkins, he put the napkin into your shirt, holding a spoon and guiding the food into your mouth.
“You don’t have to feed me…” you rasped.
“Let me…it’ll make me feel better…” he used another napkin to clean your chin.
When He’s sick:
There were no words for how fucking annoyed you were at robby, you’d been planning your movie night for one of his favourite western movies for a whole week. The goalpost pulling you through the week, and then just an hour before, when you’d already started cooking, the outfit picked out that he sent a simple raincheck?.
You felt like a baby for crying about it but it had truly been one of the worst weeks of your career and the only lighthouse in the darkness of the sea of losses which had been drowning in the entire week. You replied with the thumbs up reaction, not even a separate emoji hoping that would communicate to his old man brain that you were fucking fuming.
It wasn’t until you stepped into the pitt and saw him that you realised what was really happening, palms pressed into the counter of the nursing bay. His body swayed with his head as he looked around, eyes tracking the patients with sweat slowly rolling down his brow, that vein poking out of his forehead, the one you usually only see when you’re arguing. You stalked over towards him only for him to walk off as soon as he saw you incoming, an exasperated sigh escaping you.
“He gets like this when he’s sick…” Dana didn’t even look up from her computer screen pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Really?” you crossed your arms leaning over towards her “how do I make him feel better?” you whispered.
Dana scoffed out a laugh “Couldn’t tell ya, we usually just wait it out.”
You however, were most definitely not patient enough to wait it out. You slowly follow him, watching when he stumbles, ready to step in and force him to sit down. Eventually you resort to just leaving things in places hoping he will pick them up and give in. And when all else failed you did what any rational person would do.
You shut the breakroom door behind you, the click of the lock echoing in the room. “Sit.” you state pointing at one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.
“I don’t need to-”
“Yes you do. Sit.” your hands went to his shoulders pressing him down onto the chair. Your hand pressed against his forehead feeling the heat of your skin as he looked up at you with glassy eyes. “You have a fever…”
“I’m fine…” he rasped hand wrapping around your wrist yet making no moves to pull it away.
“Is this why you cancelled last night…?” your hands ran through his hair pushing it away feeling the sweat.
“You shouldn’t have to baby me because I got a cold.” The words were nothing louder than a confession meant only for the two of you. You shook your head.
“I wanna look after you…I love taking care of you…” you pressed a kiss to his forehead, “you need to go home, Mikey…” you spoke letting him rise to stand, any illusion of personal space dissipating.
“It’s a head cold I’ll live-” he tried to walk past you, your hand moved to his wrist pulling him close.
“Please Mike?” your hand went to the back of his head, pulling him down, your nose bridges fitting together, giving him your best puppy dog eyes possible.
“...I’ll text Jack…but if he can’t do it I'm staying…” you smirked knowing you’d already contacted him and gotten his approval.
“I understand bub.” you smiled against his cheek before pulling away, “text me when you get home.” you let your hand linger on his arm before leaving the room.
Once you slipped through the doors, you found Mike in the kitchen, stood in his boxers and an old t-shirt he had managed to drench in sweat, you approached from behind carefully wrapping your hands around his midriff. “What are you doing up…?” you placed a kiss on his back.
“I want tea…” you smiled against his back.
“I’ll make you tea if you go to bed?” you grinned as his hands moved to interlock with yours as you sniffed him. “Maybe a shower first?”
“I don’t need you to mother me” he grunted.
“So that's what this is about…” you turned him face to face.
“Listen to me.” you smushed his warm cheeks into your palms “I know you aren’t used to being taken care of, but you better start getting used to it. Because unlike her I'm not going anywhere.” you saw the way tears bubbled up in his eyes as they diverted from you. “Now.” you leaned up to kiss him, not caring about infecting yourself. “Get in the shower, and when you’re out…theres gonna be dinner and tea for you okay?”
He quietly nodded, starting to move towards the bathroom as you approached the stove. A crushing weight embraced you as wetness coated the crook of your neck, your hand moving up to his hair. “Shhhh shhhh c’mere-” you turned pulling him in for a proper hug.
Jack Abbott
When you’re sick:
You know when you’re a little kid and you stare at the washing machine during a game of hide and seek and you just wonder what it would be like to get in there and have it slosh around. That would most accurately explain being on nightshift in the pitt whilst battling a bastard of an unidentified sickness. Everything began to blur together around hour 3, words stopped processing and you’d hidden yourself away in the on-call room, gripping the trashcan in your lap until your pager started obnoxiously blaring.
You dragged yourself off the floor back down to the pitt but you quickly went from perceived as the doctor to the patient as you stumbled holding onto the wall as you went. You felt warmth on your shoulders “what?” you mumbled, the world tilting on its axis as Ellis lowered you into the wheelchair. “No no nooo….” you whined as she wheeled you into North 15. “No i have- have a patient-” Shen and Ellis rolled their eyes transferring you up onto the bed and taking your vitals.
“You are so lucky we found you before Abbott,” Shen tucked you into bed switching off the lights, “I will be back to check on you oaky-”
“Noooo- shen pleaseee jack’s gonna be madddd” you hiccup as Ellis patted your leg slipping out the door. Your sleep was fitful, tossing and turning with scratchy sheets brushing like sandpaper against your skins, convinced if you moved fast enough you might be able to start a fire with the friction between the blanket and your scrubs.
The door creaked open with a flurry of voices but your body was unable to wake itself up, stuck laying on your side looking (and probably smelling like) death.
“No- abbott please-” Shen really did his best to stop him but Jack slipped in the room, confused at first until he fully registered that it was you.
“Hey- Hey-” he pulled you over to lay on your back as you whimpered out. “You’re okay it’s me…it’s just jack…” his palm cupped your cheek, shocked at the warmth of your skin. “I’m…i’m gonna take you home, you’re not gonna get good rest here…” he looked at shen who nodded ready to clock the both of you. You whined out as Jack moved you into the wheelchair, cooing as he tucked in the blanket around you. “I know…I’m sorry…”
The wheelchair eased off the pain from his leg, putting some of his weight onto the handles as he walked. Once you finally got home and laid on the couch you lost track of time. Your brain stirred awake with the smell of soup, you dragged your body up and into the kitchen smushing up against him.
“What are you doing out off the couch, missy…” his eyes were fixed on the soup he was making you, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “You’re still warm…” he pressed his lips to your forehead as if he was taking your temperature precisely.
“This is too much jack…” the whole room was filled with the aroma of expensive spices.
“No such thing as too much for you…” Jack's lips pressed to your forehead over and over, slowly moving all around your face.
“I’m gonna get you sick…”
“Worth it-” He grinned, pressing one long kiss to your lips pressing you back against the counter, his hips pressed yours, hands moving softly over your sides with a soft groan rumbling out of his chest as his lips moved down your jaw, skimming down your jaw.
“Where are we going?” you mumbled as he backed you up, leading you through the doorway and plopping you down onto the bed. The haze in your brain was either caused by the massive fever or the way Jack had just kissed you senseless and then put you in bed. Jack sat on the edge releasing the mechanism for his prosthesis and crawling up the bed to you. Your heart sped up until he just plopped down on top of you, setting an alarm on his watch.
“The soup needs to simmer for about an hour…” he said with his head in the crook of your neck “so we’re gonna nap together, close your eyes…”
“You’re an insomniac, you can’t nap.”
“I’ll just watch you sleep and cuddle you.”
“Freak”
“I’m your freak.”
When he’s sick:
Your phone rang on your nightstand, much to your discontent as you attempted to catch up on some sleep from the double the day and night before. “Michael, you better have a good reason for calling me this-”
“Jack fell.”
“What!?” you jumped out of bed rushing to pull on a pair of sweatpants that definitely belonged to jack, tying the draw strings and grabbing a hoodie which also probably belonged to Jack. “Is he okay? Is he- why did he fall?” you rushed towards the door, snatching up your keys from the little dish from the door, rushing down to your car.
“Exhaustion we think? He has a fever, labs come back clear for viruses.” Robby sighed, you could tell he was rubbing his hand against his forehead through the phone as you drove down to PMTC.
“Thanks for calling- um- lock the door, if he can get up he can escape-”
“Already did.”
You burst in through the emergency bay, in all honesty not really looking your best, face puffy from sleep with dried drool probably crusted up on your chin as you rushed to the bay with Jack’s spare crutches from the car under 1 shoulder in case he needed them. “Where is he?” for any of the med students who didn’t know about the two of you, things really started to click together.
Dana looked up at you in a snap leading you to the room where he was trying to pull himself up off the bed. “Jack Abbott” the room hushed into silence as he looked up at you, melting into the bed as you moved to his bed side.
“Hey you…” his voice rasped hand moving over yours.
“Hey…” you leaned over the railing “i’m taking you home…do you want the wheelchair or the crutches and where's your leg?”
“Amputated” he smirked staring up at you, hearing his heart rate speed up just slightly
“Are you being intentionally dense right now”
”Huh” you said in unison as you pulled down the bar and gave him his crutches, Dana picking up the prosthetic and handing it to you. “You two are made for each other, just as strange as each other.” she huffed.
“So what that we enjoy getting elevated and watching house md” you grinned helping him put on his leg, getting up and out, his bag slung over your shoulder
Once you two finally made it over the threshold of the door you forced him down onto the couch getting down onto a knee. “Take me to dinner first…” Jack reached out, wiping an eyelash off your cheek with his thumb. You scoffed out a laugh removing his prosthetic and the covering of his stump, hearing the loud and guttural sigh of relief as you massaged your hands over it briefly. Your lips connected to his upper thigh as you tugged down his scrub pants to change him into something more comfortable.
You let your cheek rest there for a moment, feeling his fingers trace down your nose bridge, the two of you settled in what would usually be an extremely sexual position just enjoying a brief moment of intimacy. “You’re running warm babe…” you sighed slowly lifting your head much to his protest.
“M’ fine…shen was being dramatic…”
“Lemme kiss you then…” you grinned moving to your feet, feeling the hesitation in his movements as you leaned in “ha. You are sick. You won’t let me kiss you.”
He huffed, leaning his head back “It’s a head cold at most.”
“Jack you fell at work- that's not just a head cold- take tomorrow off…we can just cuddle…” you laid on the couch tugging at his shirt to pull him to lay his head onto your chest. He complies with a soft grumble. His hands move to tug up the bottom of your shirt just to feel the cooling touch of your skin, pressing a small kiss against your collarbone exposed by the neckline of your shirt.
“I’ll think about it…” he nuzzled his head in, breathing in and out deeply, huffing when you don’t IMMEDIATELY wrap your fingers into his salt and pepper curls, lifting your hand to rest there instead.
“Mhm…” you grinned, pressing your lips to the crown of his head, tugging the throw blanket over Jack, reveling in how he was already letting out soft snores.
Frank Langdon
When you’re sick:
It started off as just a little bubbling in your stomach, something you were just going to pass off on the two coffees you had consumed since the beginning of the shift. Then the sweats started, again it was a warm summer's day, it hadn’t been long since Frank came back to the ED, nor had it been very long since the two of you got together so going to your brand new boyfriend about your nuclear stomach wasn’t exactly on your to do list.
Then the comments from patients started coming through, that your hands seemed shaky, you weren’t looking well. You pushed it down, there was only 3 hours left on shift and if you just sat down and did your charting you’d be able to push through. So you perched yourself at the desk, dictating the specifics of the case until a warm hand wrapped around your forehead.
“You’re running warm…” Frank grumbled, hand pulling your head back slightly to make eye contact, his pupils scanning over the glassyness of your iris. “You're feeling alright, you’re kind of sweaty too…” he grabbed a wheely chair, moving over to sit next to you.
“I think i might have eaten something a bit off…i’m fine…” his eyebrows furrowed at your reasoning, a pressure accumulated in your skull, saliva collecting in your mouth. “Frank-” he moved, grabbing the trashcan, his freehand collecting your hair out of your face with a practiced speed, slightly averting his head as you heaved into the bin.
“It’s okay…it’s okay- get it all out-” he cooed, watching as Baran rushed over, her warm hand coming down on your back as Dana rushed to get you a bed, Baran’s hand moved to hold your hair, allowing frank to soothingly run his thumb over your hand. His eyes fixed on your teary ones, big and worried like a puppy watching its owner leave for war. “You’re okay…i’m here i’m gonna make sure you’re okay” he moved with you to stand on your left, with baran on your right supporting you as you moved to the bed.
Emma placed the IV carefully as Baran took your vitals “just looks like a bad case of food poisoning. We’re gonna give you some fluids to make up for what you lost and we’re gonna send you home with frank okay?” Baran smiled down at you affectionately, the worry seeping into your features. Her hand went to your arm “don’t be afraid to come to me if you aren’t well in the future.” with that she left.
When you finally got cleared, Frank ushered you into the car, the throw up bag in your lap as a precaution, but it wasn’t like there was anything left to yack up. Frank’s hand moved from the wheel every minute moving to your hair to separate it from your sweat slicked face. “Why didn’t you tell me honey…” he whispered, trying to pretend seeing you like this didn’t get to him.
“Its gross” you wiped, forehead plastered to the cold glass of the window “I didn’t wanna tell my boyfriend it’s blasting out both sides” that got a laugh out of him.
“Baby i’m a doctor, you really think i’d care- i mean of course i would care but you really think that would gross me out-?” he chuckled.
“It’s different when you're in a relationship…” you huffed gripping the cold water he’d given you.
“So if I told you I was gonna blow up the toilet because I ate gas station sushi you would be grossed out?”
“Yes frank, I would be grossed out” you laughed, the first one since you’d gotten sick.
“Oh so you hate me”
“You’re such a drama queen."
When you finally got home, Frank fed you buttered toast and tucked you into bed, the angel pretending that the walls of his bachelor pad were thick enough to veil the sounds coming from his bathroom. Still cuddling up next to you at the end of the night.
When he’s sick:
“I told you you can’t just wear shorts year round, frank.” You sighed watching him sluggishly wake to you bringing him some bone broth, placing it down on his night stand.
“Hhmphmhm” he groaned burying his face into the pillows, your hand smoothed over the plains over his back, scratching gently, avoiding the most sensitive spots that could send him into a flare. You leaned over kissing at his sideburns as he slowly moved to roll onto his back to look up at you. He gripped at your hips, pulling you over him, hand sliding around the back of your neck and pulling your face down into the crook of his neck. “Stay…” his hands pawed and gripped at your thighs, holding you down against him.
“Fine. you’re lucky you’re cute.” you nipped at him and lulled back into sleep. You were only awoken by Frank almost throwing you off his chest onto the bed and rushing into the ensuite. It was gonna take a hot minute to unhear the sounds that came out of you. You launched to your feet rushing into the bathroom with him, patting his back as he winced and cried into the toilet bowl. “Did you tweak your back getting up so quick?” he nodded desperately, tears falling down his cheeks as he wretched.
Your hand petted back his hair, waiting for the throw up to stop, holding his waist as you cooed to him. Your nails scratched up and down his back pressing your forehead against his shoulder. Once he finally soothed you gave him some water and advil to soothe the agony yet you knew it wouldn't touch it.
You ushered him back into bed, grabbing a cold cloth to place over his forehead. You sat down next to him, concern baked into your stare as you patted away the sweat, trying to dodge the way his fingers were trying to trace along your lips and nose. “You’re the most beautiful- person ever-” he hiccuped slightly, no matter how long the two of you had been together he could never quite get over how he’d managed to bag you.
“You’re sick Frankie…” you kissed his forehead placing his hand back down on his chest only for it to travel back to your waist tugging you closer.
“You’re hot-”
“You’re literally burning up-” He huffed and pulled his body up to flop back over you, “Frannnnnkkkkk” you huffed pushing at his shoulders as he squeezed and cuddled into you.
“Too cozy” he moved to smush his face against your stomach, pushing the shirt up to nuzzle into it with a content sigh.
“You’re a fiend-!” you giggled, his breath tickling you as it eventually evened out, placing small kisses up your body to your jaw, spooning you. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“Mhm…madagascar…” he mumbled against your collarbone.
“Why do you always want to watch Madagascar when you’re sick?” your fingers raked through his hair with a small smile.
“It’s tanner and penny’s favourite…i miss them more when im sick…” your heart broke a little as you turned on the tv, swiftly putting the film on.
“We can facetime them later” you pressed a kiss to his hairline as the movie opening played.
Dennis Whittaker
When your sick:
You’d stayed over with Dennis after a night out with the day shift, it's not like it was the first night the two of you had spent together, nor the first time you’d woken up in his sheets so hungover you pretty much stayed bedbound all day. But this was a different kind of evil, you opened your eyes white dots dancing along your vision as you moved to sit on the edge of the bed, reaching over to Dennis’ trashcan pre-emptively. Dennis rushed over, moving to his knees in front of you.
“What's wrong? Can you tell me what's wrong?” you tried to force words out but all that came out were frustrated whining. “Migraine?” you nodded with a whimper. He moved you to lay back, shutting off all the lights as he moved to the kitchen, grabbing your ice water with the only medication that could even touch the pain.
Even with your eyes closed the whole room span around you, pounding on the left side of your skull, your fists balling up the sheets as they scratched against your skin painfully. Tingling moving up and down your body. You crawled over to his bathroom, laying down on the cold tile with a hum.
Dennis damn near jumped out of his skin when he reentered his room, finding you out of bed and unconscious on his bathroom floor. His hand wrapped around to your chin lifting it enough to pat you on the cheek. “Wake up baby…” he watched your eyes crack open, whimpering at the light he’d had to turn on to find you. “I’m sorry…i know…i know…” he sat you up, leaning you against his body as he fed you water and the medication. He fumbled for his phone, opening Trin’s contact since she was working that day telling her to prepare the cocktail for you. He lifted you with the kind of ease that obviously came from within on his farm his entire life.
He got you into the car kissing your forehead as he leaned over you to fasten your seatbelt despite your protests. These migraines come up more often than you’d like, and nine times out of ten you’d tell Dennis not to take you to the hospital because it would pass on its own. But seeing you like this made his poor heart explode.
He carried you into the ER, robby immediately catching on and following him into the room Dana had assigned grabbing his stethoscope to take your vitals. Most of the time this happened on the night shift after a particularly bad shift. You’d spent you and Dennis’ first Christmas as a couple in the ER trying to stabilize an ocular migraine which had made you non-verbal with pain.
“Heyyyyy…” Robby spoke softly, guiding Whittaker to take your hand gently to comfort you. “Can you smile for me? Smile?” Robby gently patted your cheek as he began to push the migraine cocktail. You forced yourself to smile so they could check there was no droop in your lips. “Do you know where you are?”
“Work”
“He needs you to say exactly where you are sweetheart.” Dennis squeezed your hand, you took a few moments to process before looking back at Robby, tearing up from the overstimulation. “PTMC Pittsburgh trauma medical centre” you rasped as doctors started to filter out. Robby shut off the lights, drawing the curtain for you leaving you and Dennis alone.
“Den…” you whispered, tugging at his shirt, he knew the drill, climbing up onto the bed avoiding your IV so lay next to you, waiting for you to cuddle into him in a way that's comfortable. You listened to his heart beat as the cocktail settled your system.
Once you finally got home Dennis was hovering around you, he knew that after a migraine you were slightly impaired. “I’m not made of glass Den…” you smiled, getting yourself a glass of water as he wrapped himself around you, breathing you in, pressing a small kiss to your cheek. “I love you” you mumbled as he pressed his cheek into yours.
“I love you too” he kissed your cheek moving away “you need food” it wasn’t a question, rather a statement as me moved into the kitchen, getting the left over take out from the day before. Heating it and moving you to the couch to eat together, pulling your legs over his lap.
When he’s sick:
“Freeze-” Dennis had one foot out the door when you called out to him from his bedroom doorway, dressed in his shirt and shorts as you stalked towards him, “you’re pale-” your eyes squinted inspecting his features and the slight sweat that clung to his hairline. “You’re sick- why are you trying to go to work-?” you closed the gap, placing a hand to his forehead.
“I’ve worked through being sick hundreds of times before on the farm…” he held your cheeks moving you back slightly, he obviously still thought he was going to work. “Really ill be fine, i don’t wanna let Robby down.”
“Why is it always about what everyone else thinks with you Dennis?” you huffed. “Have you even taken any advice? Paracetamol?”
“I don’t need it baby, it's a little cold-” he pushed his nose to yours, your hand wrapping around the back of his neck to feel the slickness there.
“It would make me feel better…” you whispered, noticing how his eyes scrunched when he pulled away, readjusting to the light. “You shouldn’t work like this Denny.” You followed him as he stepped away “you aren’t listening to me Den- i know that you grew up on a farm or whatever- but you don’t have to be all macho with me-” you blocked the doorway, preventing him from leaving.
“I have to go to work- I need to help these people”
“Oh but you can’t help yourself-” you snapped, he was always like this, no matter how much it wore him down he was never able to stop until he completely crashed. And you were always the one who had to pick up the pieces.
Dennis’s hands went behind his head clearly holding in what he wanted to say back “Can we please not do this right now I’m going to be late for work-”
“No we are doing this right now Dennis because I'm tired of watching you give, and give and give and never take-” your voice cracked betraying just how much you cared for him. “If i was sick you wouldn’t let me go to work so why should I let you? Be vulnerable Dennis- please just let me in- just let me take care of you for once!”
The room settled into an uncomfortable silence, Dennis’ jaw unclenched, the tense of his shoulders soothing out “fine…i’ll call robby”
“Really…?” you rasped moving towards him.
“Really…” his arms wrapped around you “i’m not used to…people wanting to look after me…” he spoke into your hair with a shaky exhale.
“I do…i want to look after you…” you felt him shake and the wetness hit the crook of your neck, he was crying. “Baby…” you pulled back to put your hands on his cheek, seeing the redness in his eyes as he hiccuped pressing his cheeks into your palms.
“I love you…”
“I love you too baby but you’re so warm…” you kissed his forehead, his hands gripping your waist and refusing to let up. “Lemme look after you…”
Dennis nodded urgently moving with you as he placed kisses anywhere he could reach as you lowered him onto the couch and stripped him of his scrubs and provided him with PJs instead. You helped him change into them, not being able to ignore the way that his eyes were glued to each and everyone one of your movements. You got him to nap on the couch, moving to the kitchen to cook him something basic that his stomach could handle, he moved like a cat quiet as he folded himself around your body, the sleep oozing off him as he sleepily kissed along your neck and jaw.
“Food..” his morning voice damn near turned your brain to goop. “You made me food” he started slowly laying his cheek on your shoulder.
“You’re supposed to be in bed…” you smiled against his hair.
