Hello my loves!!! Welcome to my account it’s going to basically full of memes, art and writings from different fandoms. Here’s a link to my Ao3 account if you want, all the writing pieces I write here will be put into Ao3 as well.
Nachowifigorl….. is she/her, bisexual, multi fandom, uni student, loves tv shows & movies, reader, avid sports watcher, physically a virgin but mentally a slut. I’m at uni and I work part time so I’ll be writing whenever I can, I’ll do my best to post regularly.
౨ৎ Characters: Ski Instructor!Bucky x Snow Bunny!Reader
౨ৎ Word Count: <8.8K
౨ৎ Summary: Bucky Barnes likes order on the mountain: organized lessons, predictable guests, and smooth days on the slopes. Unfortunately, one woman spends the day unintentionally getting in his way. When they finally meet at an après-ski party, he challenges her to prove she’s more than just a tourist with a camera.
౨ৎ Content Warnings: 18+ {MDNI}, smut, strangers to lovers, instructor x student dynamics, pushing professional boundaries, grumpy x sunshine (kinda), mentions of alcohol consumption (not by reader), use of pet names (bunny, sweetheart), slow burn, praise (so much of it. Probably too much. I’m so sorry.), some fluff, consent king!Bucky, oral (f. receiving), fingering, unprotected p in v (wrap it before you tap it!), creampie, aftercare. Reader is described as being clumsy at multiple points. Bucky doesn’t have a prosthetic arm, I couldn’t get it to work :(
౨ৎ A/N: Hi, Barbie! Excited to share my part of the @stantastic-association Bucky’s Dream House collab. A huge thank you to @miraclediviner for setting everything up! I haven’t skied in probably like 15 years at least (which makes me sound so old), so please forgive me for anything that might be wrong.
Main Masterlist || AO3 || Bucky’s Dream House Masterlist
Cool mountain air kisses your skin the moment the lodge doors open. With a deep breath, you plant both boots into the snow, closing your eyes for a brief moment to fully enjoy the crisp breeze and the faint warmth from the morning sun.
A fresh blanket of snow drapes across the ski village and surrounding trees, the mountaintop looming high above the treeline. It's not the Swiss Alps, but the stunning view and relaxing atmosphere is exactly what Alpine Ski Resort is known for.
Phone in hand, you aim the camera and adjust a few settings before taking a picture…until the sound of a throat clearing gets your attention, snapping you back to reality.
Spinning around, a pair of steel blue eyes, hidden beneath dark eyebrows and a black beanie, meet your surprised gaze. He's staring down at you, something akin to annoyance etched in his features. An air of self-importance radiates from him, and without uttering a single word, gives you the impression he doesn't mess around.
It's then you realize people are moving around you like the water of a rushing river, brushing by with barely audible grumbles, while you stand planted in the middle of the doorway like a boulder that refuses to move.
"Oh!" You wince, chin dipping and offering an apologetic smile. "Am I in the way? Sorry! Let me just…" You quickly step to the side, phone clutched carefully in your hand.
He doesn't speak, simply nodding once before heading toward another building. The large INSTRUCTOR patch on the back of his jacket is impossible to miss. As someone who works with the public, he seems…pleasant.
"Grumpy…"
"Who's grumpy?"
Your friend, Lana, pops up beside you, head tilted in curiosity as she tries to follow your gaze. The man has already gone inside.
You shake your head and shrug it off, hooking your arm with hers and beaming brightly. "No one. Shall we?"
Lana returns your smile and pulls you away from the lodge, footsteps falling into sync.
When the day began, being a nuisance was not on the itinerary. You hoped the doorway would be the last time you were in anyone's way.
Yet not even an hour later, you accidentally wander into a training area, too focused on an evergreen tree that had just the right amount of snow on its branches.
"Miss," a deep voice politely sounded from not ten feet away, "Please give us some space."
You glanced up just long enough to see the same man from earlier, his arms crossed over his chest, while a student who couldn't have been more than six wobbled down the small incline.
You rushed away without a word, heat creeping up your cheeks.
By noon, you nearly lose your footing outside the rental shop, arms flailing wildly with a squeak and phone flying through the air before you manage to catch yourself. When you finally spot your phone half buried in the snow, someone is already picking it up. Only—to your utter dismay—to be met with those blue eyes that are growing painfully familiar.
The phone is open to one of the pictures Lana took where your foot was kicked up behind you like a Genovian princess. His gaze glances down at it before he places the device in your outstretched hand, and he looks like he's trying to fight back a laugh—or maybe just stop his eyes from rolling out of his head.
You try to laugh it off, thanking him quickly for the phone, before scurrying off in the opposite direction.
By the time the sun dips a bit lower in the horizon and the après-ski parties begin, you're more than ready for a change of outfit and a stiff drink.
Warmth spreads quickly across your chilled skin as you enter the lodge, the fuzzy oversized coat you slipped on doing little to protect you against the cold evening air after changing out of the snowsuit and into something cute. Though the day had been sunny and warm, the moment the mountaintops began to hide the sun, the temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees.
People are scattered throughout the lodge, some lounging on couches near a large fireplace while others gather around pool tables. Music is faint behind the chatter of guests. It's one of the calmer parties you've been too, but after the embarrassing day of the universe throwing curve balls in your direction, a relaxing night sounds perfect.
"I'm gonna find us a spot," Lana says, eyes already roaming the room for an empty seat. Then she points at you, eyebrows raised, adding, "Drinks?"
"Got it. Scotch on the rocks."
She gasps, eyes going wide, and you almost don't hear her protests when you start walking to the bar, a grin playing on your lips.
Sliding into an open spot at the bar, you wave the bartender down, nearly missing the loud sigh just off to the side.
"There is a line, you know."
Something about the deep voice sounds painfully familiar. A twinge of dread twists in your gut when you finally drag your gaze in the direction of the voice.
"I'm so sorry, I genuinely didn't even notice." You look at the man who spoke, eyes meeting his annoyed blue ones when it hits you—you've seen that hue far too many times today, and always when you're not at your best. Just behind him, there's a small line of patrons watching you; some annoyed, others too busy with wandering gazes to be angry.
Of course it happened again. Of course, despite the various bars and parties occurring all over the resort, the one you pushed Lana to go to for the quieter ambiance is the one where he would be.
"Aren't you that instructor guy I keep seeing today?"
He's changed, no longer in the standard issue red jacket and his perfectly styled hair no longer hidden under a beanie, but it's him. The crease in his brow deepens when confusion crosses his features briefly, then recognition flashes.
He sighs again. "Pink snowsuit."
You nod in silent confirmation, nose scrunching a bit. The way he said it does not bode well.
"You must absolutely hate me by now," you joke with a short laugh, leaning against the bar as casually as you can manage. "I swear I'm not doing it on purpose."
His eyes study you, and you swear curiosity appeared in them before indifference fills his voice. "Could've fooled me."
Lips pressed together and ignoring the inkling of offense tugging at you, you stand a bit straighter, forgetting about the line continuing to form behind him.
"Do you always think inconveniences are solely about you?"
"Considering you've spent all day being in the way and not even touching a pair of skis? Maybe a little."
Your lips part, brows shooting up into your hairline. "I—that's not—I was going to."
"Sure," he huffs.
He turns towards the bartender, effectively dismissing you as he orders his drink. The bartender gives him a nod, eyes flicking to you before getting to work. Chatter from the bar fills the tense silence. You don't move.
"Do you actually ski?," he finally asks, voice gruff. "Or are you just here for pictures?" His hand wraps around a glass of amber liquid as it's slid across the bar.
"I can ski! I was just…planning on doing it tomorrow. Today was recon day."
He lifts a single brow.
That's a lie.
You haven't skied since you were little, school field trips the only experience you've had. In fact, you're confident you'd land face first in the snow if you tried.
"Really?" He mutters with false intrigue, raising the glass to his lips. "I'd be surprised if you made it down the bunny hill without starting an avalanche. How many times did you nearly trip over your own boots today?" He watches you carefully over the rim of his glass, eyes twinkling. Is he amused by this?
"You don't even know me, sir," you retort, crossing your arms. "Skiing is like second nature to me."
Where the hell did that come from?
He smirks knowingly. "Prove me wrong."
You blink at him.
"What?"
"Prove me wrong. You said you're skiing tomorrow? Lucky for you, I just happen to have a free morning." He pauses, leaning forward. "Unless you'd rather stick to the camera."
Your eyes narrow, defiance growing with every second. This man doesn't know a single thing outside of your appearance and a bad day, yet something about the look in his eyes makes you want to dig in your heels.
"I don't just take pictures."
His expression doesn't change. Patience must be his biggest virtue as he takes another sip of his drink, silently waiting. Like he knows you're about to break.
A short scoff slips between your lips. "Fine. What time?"
The corner of his lips twitch, the glass in his hand finally lowering as he turns to fully face you.
"Eight. Think you can be up that early, bunny?"
Bunny. He says it like a taunt, as though you're supposed to be embarrassed that you enjoy cute outfits, snow, and the resort scene.
You force a smile, flashing your teeth and tilting your chin up.
"I have a name," you reply, offering it quickly before continuing, "I'll be there. And I'll look damn adorable, too, thank you very much."
Your feet are carrying you away from the bar before you even think about it, face warm, fists clenched with determination while the feeling of his gaze stays trained on the back of your head. The thought of drinks is long gone, and when you finally plop down on a couch next to Lana empty-handed, her expression shifts to confusion.
"Where's my cocktail?"
— — —
Morning comes far faster than you hope despite sleep evading you.
Tossing and turning didn't help. Neither did flipping the pillow to the cold side. You tried watching a bit of TV, grateful Lana has her own room so you don't bother her, but you ultimately end up pulling up instructional skiing videos on your phone—a futile attempt to reconnect with your memories of skiing as a kid. If you could do it then, you can do it now, right?
By the time your alarm goes off, the knot in your stomach that has been forming for hours is tighter than ever. Food is the last thing on your mind when you finish getting ready, but you shove a granola bar into your mouth anyway to ensure you have some sort of energy for the day ahead.
With one last glance in the mirror to ensure everything is perfect, you're out the door and tugging on your gloves before the sun has even fully risen.
You refuse to be late.
The rental shop is surprisingly busy this early. Gear is organized in perfect rows, employees are assisting guests in finding the perfect fit, and parents are doing their best to wrangle their kids into ski boots. One toddler manages to get a hold of a ski pole, swinging it around like a sword before their dad snatches it from their tiny fist. It's a brief, welcome distraction before a throat clears, pulling your attention to the employee behind the rental counter.
A few minutes later, you find yourself on a bench outside the shop, skis haphazardly laying on the ground as you fight to get the ski boots on your feet. The sun is no longer hiding below the horizon, casting bright rays that glitter across the fresh snow that must have fallen last night. Your fingers fidget with the buckles with no luck, becoming increasingly frustrated. How hard is it to put these things on?
"It's easier if you stand up."
Your heart drops. The voice is deep, a little rough from lack of use this early in the morning, but familiar enough to make you tense.
Eyes widening and gloved fingers freezing in place, you slowly look up to find the familiar deep blue irises staring down at you. A mix of amusement and annoyance dances in his eyes when he notices the skis on the ground. Using the toe of his boot, he gently nudges them closer to where you're seated. He's wearing the same red jacket as yesterday, finally giving you a clear look at the front where the name Bucky is embroidered on his chest, just beneath the resort's logo.
"You actually made it," he grunts, eyes on you again, lips turning up almost imperceptibly. The slight raise of his brows beneath his beanie make him look mildly impressed. You're probably imagining it. "Are you sure you got enough beauty rest?"
"Of course I made it." Your focus returns to the matter at hand, trying to ignore his comment and the feeling of his eyes watching every little movement you make. "Maybe you should stop doubting me."
"Maybe," he responds slowly, dragging the word out, "but we haven't made it onto the slopes yet, bunny."
You fight the urge to roll your eyes at the nickname he insists on using. When the buckles still don't easily lock in, you sigh, reluctantly standing and trying again. Sure enough, the buckles click tight without a problem. Of course they do.
Bucky doesn't give you a moment before he's adjusting his skis in his arms and turning away.
"Grab your gear, we'll start on the bunny hill."
You scramble to pick up your skis, immediately fumbling when one slips out of your grip and crashes back to the ground. Heat rushes to your cheeks before you're snatching it up again, rushing now to try and catch up with his long strides.
Only it's harder than you expect.
The boots are clunky and heavy, each step far more difficult than you remember. The skis knock against each other, clacking sounds ringing through the crisp air and only adding to the embarrassment creeping up the back of your neck.
He glances back once.
A few steps later, he looks back again.
"You ski often?"
You hesitate. "Obviously."
He blinks. "Mm. Obviously."
You can practically hear the grin spreading across his face when he faces forward again, his pace finally slowing down enough for you to catch up. Bucky stays silent, but the feeling of his eyes on you is unmistakable. Watchful. A little judgemental.
The ski lift for the bunny hill finally comes into view, making the knot in your stomach twist painfully now that reality and exposure are on the precipice. There's only one way you can imagine this going; a face full of snow, dignity gone, and a certain ski instructor watching it all go down. Where's Lana when you need her?
Bucky's gaze flicks towards you again. Lingering. Waiting.
He stops just shy of the line, popping his skis on like it's nothing. Simple. Easy.
Until you try to do it, of course. Heel then toe? Toe then heel? Which way is the ski supposed to face?
Bucky stands there quietly watching as you spin in place trying to figure out how to get it on. The smirk is infuriating, but you're trying not to think of it when you finally get one ski on, the other following suit after a shuffle of your feet has you nearly losing your balance.
"Good job," he says with a nod, a hint of amusement tugging at his lips. "Looks like the bar is starting high today."
"Don't you worry your grumpy head, Bucky." You wave him off, trying desperately to hang on to what little pride is still hanging on by a thread. "I'll blow that bar out of the water in no time."
By the time the two of you make it onto the lift—a miracle in itself after nearly running into the employee operating it when you forgot how to stop—nerves have settled fully into your bones. The sun is slowly warming the air, but the cold breeze blows straight through your coat. Or maybe it's the attitude coming from the world's most people-friendly instructor.
The silence is deafening for a few moments, long enough to feel deliberate. He shifts slightly in his seat before speaking.
"Make sure to keep your weight forward when we get off."
Your gaze, which has been focused on the pink knit fabric of your gloves, lifts to see him watching you carefully. There's something in his eyes you can't quite place.
"Yeah, forward. Got it."
His eyes narrow slightly, studying you. Silence fills the space once more.
You avert your gaze to the snow covered trees below, hoping he can't see the way your hands are shaking. The thought crosses your mind to snap a picture from this vantage point, but with your luck this weekend, it'll probably slip from your grip and bury itself in the snow to never be found again.
The lift arrives at the top, and you follow every move he makes as he prepares to dismount, scooting to the edge of the seat. When your skis brush the slick snow below, panic has you sucking in a sharp breath.
Bucky pushes off the seat with practiced ease, already gliding forward and leaving you alone. You don't hear him giving instructions, you simply lean forward and let gravity do the work.
To your surprise, it works.
You glide down towards him, arms out and wobbling only a little bit, before managing a successful stop directly in his path. His eyes flash with something like surprise—vanishing almost as quickly as it appears.
Your back straightens with a bit of pride, then—
"Don't get too excited," he mutters. "You still have to go downhill."
Your heart drops. He's right.
You glance over at the slope just a few feet away. It's not that steep—it is the bunny hill, after all—but the daunting task of staying balanced and sliding downhill without falling on your face or breaking something is suddenly hitting you like a punch to the gut.
All because of pride.
"No, of course," you mumble with a nod. Your throat tightens. "Downhill is the easy part."
A cool breeze brushes against skin that's becoming warmer by the second. Kids and parents ski by, heading down the hill like it's simple. Your fingers curl into tight fists in an attempt to hide the tremble threatening to expose your bluff.
Your eyes are glued to the line of skiers at the bottom, so you don't notice Bucky move closer.
"You don't know how to ski, do you?" His voice is low, warmer than you expected it to be with a hint of amusement. "I need you to be honest with me before I let you go down that hill."
Finally, slowly, you tear your gaze from the skiers to find his eyes in you. Always watching. There's concern there, a slight crease in his brow.
"I know how—"
He gives you a look.
You take a breath, shoulders slumping.
"I haven't skied since I was a kid."
Bucky rolls his shoulders. The concern in his eyes is replaced with amusement, and his lips flatten into a tight line like he's debating between scolding and laughing at your expense.
He settles on neither.
"Let's start with your stance," he instructs, adjusting his own and bouncing lightly on his knees. "Feet shoulder-width apart, not…whatever you're doing."
You blink at him in surprise. Every bone in your body would've bet on him leaving you stranded up here after lying about your abilities, not stepping in to help.
He nods once, silently encouraging you to follow his lead. "Try it. Stay loose or you'll go down."
With a sigh, you adjust your stance, but it still feels wrong. Unbalanced. Tight.
"Like this?"
Bucky looks at you, the corners of his lips twitching.
"…No."
You huff, heat crawling up your neck at his blunt assessment. "Excellent teaching skills, very encouraging." His lips pucker slightly and a muscle in his jaw ticks.
Looking down to avoid his gaze, you attempt to fix it, widening your stance and tucking your elbows in tighter.
"Stop," he grunts. Shaking his head, Bucky moves closer, closing most of the distance. His skis bump against yours. "Knees in."
You try again, overcorrecting so far it feels like gravity caught the hood of your coat and is giving one good pull. His hands shoot out, one landing on your elbow as the other finds the small of your back, catching you before your feet can slip out from under you.
Your heart skips a beat, though you're unsure if it's from the near fall or the sudden contact.
"Not that far." His voice is quiet, a little frustrated, but it almost sounds like he's holding back a laugh. "Shoulder-width," he reminds. His hands fall away, leaving you strangely aware of the space between you.
With a short nod, you find your balance, more aware now of where your knees are. It feels better already, steadier. He gives a grunt—something that almost sounds like approval.
"You're too tight. Loosen up a little," he instructs. "Fingers, elbows, knees…relax. When you go down the hill, you want to be loose. Work with gravity, not against it."
Relax. Got it. You can do that. With a roll of your shoulders, you loosen your fingers and give a small bounce of your knees.
He nods. "Okay, now show me a wedge."
You aim the front of the skis into a triangle, the stance needed to stop.
"Good," he says quickly. "That's perfect."
Oh.
Heat floods your cheeks fast—too fast.
The breeze picks up again just in time to use as a welcome distraction. You turn your face into it, and away from him, hoping to cool down despite the sun now beating down from a cloudless sky. If he notices your reaction, he doesn't say a word. Instead, he starts talking about the hill and how to go down safely, but you're not listening. Until—
"Earth to bunny."
Your gaze snaps back to him at the nickname, though the warmth accompanying it is new. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"Are you ready to go down? Can't stay up here forever."
Your stomach drops at the reminder. Of course, downhill. How could you forget? You swallow hard and brush him off with a dismissive wave of your hand. It's just skiing. Kids do it.
Bucky's eyes are on you, studying. Like he can see the false confidence waving in the air like a white flag.
He doesn't comment on it.
Instead, his voice remains low and steady, running through everything he just covered. You try to pay attention, but as you slowly approach the slope and the point of no return, the hill suddenly looks even more daunting than before. Steeper. Taller.
With a deep breath, and mustering all the courage you have, you begin the descent without waiting for him.
Something feels off immediately.
Gravity feels stronger. The skis feel like they're fighting to pull ahead.
You lean forward—but that suddenly feels like a mistake, and now you're moving faster. Your mind goes blank in the panic, the knowledge of how to stop or slow down flying out the window. The hill's slope feels as though it's pulling you uncontrollably down it.
Suddenly, Bucky's voice cuts through the noise closer than you expect. It doesn't register at first; too focused on watching your skis and the way they're pointing at two different angles.
"Eyes on me, bunny."
When your panicked gaze snaps up to see him moving in front of you, skiing backwards like it's the easiest thing in the world, something clicks.
He was ready.
His hands are outstretched, ready to grab you at a moment's notice.
"Heels out, slow down."
With your mind finally clearing, you adjust your skis until they're wedged, the speed immediately decreasing.
"There you go," he murmurs. "Just like that. You're doing great."
A breath.
It's not like you haven't heard it before. In fact, you've always thought yourself capable…with the unfortunate habit of not always paying attention when your phone is in your hand. But the way the words slip through his lips, warm with the slightest hint of pride, hits harder than it should.
When you finally reach the end of the slope and drift to a stop, Bucky backs off, and it somehow feels a moment too soon.
Everything feels a little strange. The sun is too bright, the air suddenly warm, the crowd nearby a little loud.
With a deep breath and a shake of your head, you force a smile and turn towards the line. "Come on, Bucky. Round two." His brows raise, but he doesn't argue, following your lead.
By the time you're on the lift, you're more determined than ever. It's you that pushes off first. It's you that moves toward that same edge, stopping just before the point of no return.
It's like riding a bike; the first time is a little rusty. Shaky. Every time you get back on, you get steadier and more confident.
Only, when you lean forward and start going down the hill full of confidence you shouldn't have yet, you realize quickly that staying slow can actually be difficult. The wedge isn't working quite the same. Panic starts, but you squash it down and correct. Except the adjustment is too much, and one ski bounces on an uneven dip, making you lose balance.
The world tips as your arms fly out instinctively to catch yourself, and you land in the snow with a soft whump, sending a puff of powder flying into the air.
Your heart is pounding, blood rushing in your ears and making the world fall silent for a moment as you catch your breath.
Then there's laughter. Deep but short, like it came out before he could stop it.
"Please let this be a stupid dream," you mutter, squeezing your eyes shut.
Bucky comes to a stop next to you, still chuckling. "Round two, huh?"
"Please don't."
There's a pause, and you open an eye to peer up at him. The corner of his mouth is still twitching. Then he's crouching down, voice lowering as the crease in his brow deepens.
"Are you okay?" There's a shift in his tone, a softness that definitely wasn't there before.
You don't answer at first, too embarrassed. But then his hand finds your arm, touching it with a gentleness you didn't think he possessed. And it makes your gut do something funny.
"Seriously, are you hurt?"
The genuine concern laced in the deep timbre of his voice is a welcome surprise. It's warm. And professional, you remind yourself.
"I'm fine. I just decided to check the quality of the snow," you say, patting some of the fresh powder. "It's nice and…powdery."
A moment of silence passes where his incredibly blue eyes are narrowed and staring at you, holding eye contact a little too well. Finally, he hums, seemingly satisfied before standing and offering his hand.
You hesitate for a second before taking it and letting him pull you to your feet. Your pride is well and fully bruised at this point, confidence dipping low. Part of you hopes this will just end here. That he'll decide you're not worth the effort when he's not officially your instructor, that his challenge proved him right—
"Let's try again," he says simply, cutting your pity party short. No hint of teasing, no smirk. Encouragement.
It takes only a heartbeat before you're brushing off the snow and nodding. This time, when he starts offering instructions in a low, calm voice, you listen.
"Slow, control your speed."
"Heels out, bunny, you can do it."
When the wedge finally works, not perfect but enough to come to a full stop, a small smile tugs at his lips. "Good. That's better."
The next run comes easier.
So does the next.
It quickly becomes a pattern. He follows closely at your side, eyes analyzing everything you do. Every wrong move is followed by a gentle correction. Every adjustment is followed with some form of praise.
"That's it."
"Yes, there you go."
"Perfect, bunny, great form. Keep that."
And every time you get it right, you can feel it. Your chest tightens. Your breath catches. Your cheeks feel permanently warm, but maybe it's just the sun.
Several runs down the bunny hill in, mistakes are becoming minimal and you find yourself watching him instead of the run. Waiting. Listening. Until nothing comes at all, and disappointment unexpectedly tugs at your gut.
When the sun finally reaches the highest point in the sky, the two of you stop at the bottom of the hill for what feels like the millionth time. Your legs are tired, a little shaky from the exertion.
"You're getting it," he finally says. Bucky looks at his watch before squinting at the sun, a bead of sweat glistening on his hairline. He turns to meet your gaze. "That's it for today."
"Wait, what?"
He nods towards your legs before speaking. "Your legs are about to give out," he says matter-of-factly, "and I don't want to have to carry you down the mountain." The warmth is almost gone, replaced with the same teasing tone he had earlier this morning, but now there's a glint of something in his eye you can't quite name. Lingering. "Besides, I'm sure you'll need your strength for après-ski tonight."
You blink.
"Who says I'm going to après-ski after that?" you ask incredulously, placing your hands on your hips. His gaze drops to the way your knees wobble beneath you, the corners of his lips curling almost imperceptibly before his blue eyes meet yours once more.
His head tilts slightly. "Get a drink, bunny," he replies, voice lowering, "you earned it." He smirks before turning and leaving you standing at the end of the run alone.
— — —
The White Wolf Lodge is crawling with people when you and Lana finally step inside later that night, busier than it had been yesterday. Despite her protests to "find something with more oomph", you insisted on returning…just in case. Lana grins with delight, bouncing in her heeled boots as she takes it in.
"I'm getting drinks this time," she says pointedly. You open your mouth to protest, but she shuts you up with a look before turning and winding her way through the crowd in a blur of hair and perfume.
It's busy. Too busy. And despite the insistence to your brain that you weren't hoping to see a certain someone, a wave of disappointment hits you all the same. Because there's no way he'll be here with this many people around.
By some miracle, two chairs open up just as you push through a small opening of people. You sit quickly and take in your surroundings. A DJ booth is set up in the corner this time, the music loud enough to rattle the seat, and the pool tables are completely surrounded by people either dancing or ignoring the game altogether.
When your gaze finally drags over to the bar where Lana is currently leaning over it and pointing at something to the bartender, your heart nearly stops.
Those incredibly blue eyes, the ones who have seen you hit too many lows for comfort this weekend, catch your attention like a beacon. The eye contact is brief. Too brief…yet simultaneously too long. He turns away, but not before you catch the way his lips curl up at the corners.
Damn it.
"One cocktail for you, madame," Lana announces out of nowhere and hands you a glass. "Drink up."
"Actually," you say slowly, already setting the glass down, "I think I'm going to get some air." Lana doesn't say a word, watching as you leave for the door that leads towards a balcony overlooking the resort.
The sun is beginning to set behind the mountains, casting a pink and orange glow over everything. Lights flicker on across the resort and slopes as the night skiers begin their evenings. It's quieter out here, only the faint thumping of music filling the air.
You take a deep breath and enjoy the serenity for a moment before the sound of heavy boots approaches slowly, stopping just off to your side.
"Still standing, I see."
There's a lightness in his tone—impressed and teasing. Your eyes roll.
"I told you, you don't know me." You glance over at him. "I'm adorable, but I'm not helpless."
Bucky meets your gaze for a moment before looking out at the view. He nods thoughtfully before he shakes his head with a laugh, a real one that catches both of you off guard. He steps forward and rests his arms on the railing, close enough you can feel the heat radiating from him.
"For the record, I never said you were helpless. You just seemed a little too attached to your phone for your own safety."
You scoff, annoyed for a second, before conceding. "Yeah, sure. I'll give you that."
He smirks. "I guess this means I was wrong about you. You proved me wrong, bunny. You successfully made it down the mountain multiple times. Well done."
There it is again. Two incredibly simple words that shouldn't have the affect they do, yet the heat rising in your cheeks is unstoppable. What is it about this man that his approval so addicting?
You release a breath you hadn't realized you were holding and turn to watch the ski lifts sway gently in the wind.
"Thanks," you mumble, trying to keep your voice steady. The world suddenly feels smaller than it should. His gaze doesn't leave your profile, like he's studying you again. Reassessing.
There's a pause in the conversation, allowing the hum of muffled music and the squeal of children throwing snowballs down below to fill the silence.
Several moments pass before he leans a bit closer and breaks the silence. "You're awfully quiet right now. It doesn't suit you."
You raise an eye brow and glance at him. "Maybe I'm just enjoying the peace and quiet."
Something flashes in his eyes too quick to catch.
"Mm. I'm not sure that's it." He turns to fully face you now, elbow resting on the railing. "I watched you today."
Your heart stops, but you try and brush it off. "You were instructing me, of course you watched."
Bucky laughs, a rumble that vibrates deep in his chest. "No, I mean when you thought I wasn't paying attention. You know what I learned about you?"
You don't answer, choosing to focus on the way butterflies are threatening to erupt in your gut.
"You get flustered pretty easily."
His gaze holds yours, searching for any reaction, any hint that his words mean something. When you still don't respond, his voice lowers almost dangerously.
"I think you like the attention."
Your heart skips a beat.
"Maybe I do." Your voice comes out quieter than you intend. "But you're still giving it to me."
The way Bucky is looking at you makes your stomach do a somersault. With a twinkle in his eye and a grin he's fighting to keep hidden, he takes a half-step closer, making your breath catch.
"Probably because I like giving it to you, bunny."
Smooth as silk, and it hits exactly how he wants it to—a sharp breath and the flick of your eyes to the door leading back to the party inside before finding that unwavering gaze again. The sun has slipped completely behind the mountains now, leaving the warm lighting of the lodge's balcony to soften his sharp features.
"You're ridiculous," you whisper weakly, but you both know the tension in the air is thickening fast.
He chuckles softly. "Yet you're still here."
"I was here first."
He hums, looking out at the darkened view for a minute like he's considering something. And then his focus is on you again.
"Do you want to go somewhere else?"
He lifts his hand palm up between you, a silent invitation.
Your gaze drops to it. It's large and unfairly steady compared to the way he just made your pulse flutter. But you don't take it. Not yet.
"My room isn't far," you say without thinking, looking back up.
His expression shifts with a blink—eyebrows raising a fraction as a small smile, warm and satisfied, forms on his lips.
You take that as agreement, and suddenly your feet are carrying you back inside.
Every step is unhurried as you move through the noise and chaos of the lodge. You don't even have to glance back to know he's right behind you, a steady presence.
Each hallway gets quieter than the last, the tension slowly increasing with every corner you turn until finally stopping at your door.
For a moment, neither of you move.
Your fingers are wrapped around the keycard already, and the silence is almost deafening. When you second guess yourself and turn to ask if he's sure, you find him leaning against the wall.
Too casual. Too calm. Too—
Bucky smiles. Slow. Devastating.
Your breath catches.
His eyes flick to your lips, parted with a question that won't come out, then back to your eyes.
That's all it takes before you step towards him. Not the whole way, but enough. He closes the distance.
His hands cradle your face before his mouth finds yours, lips moving at a languid pace like we have all the time in the world. Your hands find the soft fabric of his shirt as he tilts your face just a little.
A soft hum slips from your throat, which only seems to encourage him into picking up the pace.
You don't break apart until the sound of footsteps and laughter sounds from somewhere nearby, and you find yourself gently pushing him away to try and get the door open. He barely moves, watching as you struggle to get the card in the reader twice before it finally unlocks.
Bucky holds the door open for you to go through first, and when it finally closes with a click, he immediately backs you into the nearest wall.
His body is a solid mass against yours, pressing firmly against you. One hand finds your waist, tugging you closer, as the other cups your face with a slow brush of his thumb.
"Tell me to stop," he says, voice strained. "Tell me you don't want this."
His breath fans across your lips in ragged puffs, like he's desperately trying to stay composed. But when your arms encircle his neck and pull him in for another kiss, his restraint snaps.
It starts slow. Tasting. Exploring.
Then the kiss deepens—your hands in his hair, his holding the nape of your neck like he's afraid to let you go. When his knee slots between your legs, pressing right where heat has been pooling far longer than you realized, a small whimper pulls from your throat before you can stop it.
He freezes. A slow curve of his lips accompany a low chuckle, and suddenly his lips are trailing to your jaw and down to your neck, his hands beginning to explore.
"God," he mumbles against your skin, "you sound good. Wonder what other noises you make."
You huff a laugh, half flustered half amused, your own hands beginning to tug at his coat, but your mind is stuck on the hard length pressing into your lower belly.
Bucky doesn't waste another second. He shrugs off his coat before cupping both sides of your face and pulling you in for a searing kiss. Your hands tug at his shirt, more insistent now. He lifts his arms, only breaking the kiss long enough to pull it over his head before it's tossed aside and his mouth finds yours again.
The sudden movement has your head spinning, knocking you off balance when he begins to tug you by the waist one, two steps away from the wall.
You barely register each step as clothes begin to peel away, leaving a trail of fabric to the bed. When the back of your knees press into the edge of the mattress, he follows you down instantly, bracing himself above you with one hand as the other trails slowly down your side.
His eyes meet yours, pupils blown wide as he looks down at you, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Still wanting my attention?" he murmurs.
A soft laugh. "More than anything."
Bucky kisses you again with a low groan before starting a slow trail down your body, leaving kisses in his wake. He lingers too briefly at your breasts, kneading, sucking, and groaning softly before continuing down, ultimately settling between your legs with a gentle push of his hand.
You watch as his fingers play with the waistband of your panties, torturing you with a glance back up to your pleading eyes.
His lips part like he's going to say something, but then he glances back down at the fabric clinging to your wet heat and he groans instead. Slipping a finger into the gusset, he slowly peels it down and off your legs.
"Look at you," he whispers. "So pretty."
He starts slow, his thumb brushing carefully up your slit, gathering slick as he goes. Your fingers curls into the plush duvet when he licks his lips, looking like a starving man at a buffet.
And then his tongue is on you.
Hot, flat, and tasting you slowly from entrance to clit.
You gasp, your head falling back to the mattress. He squeezes his eyes closed, an "oh, fuck," slipping from his lips before he's spreading you open with both thumbs and licking again. The sensation has you tingling, fingers gripping tighter, and when his lips attach to your clit without warning, a strangled whimper fills the soft silence of the room.
He hums, seemingly pleased at your reaction. And then his tongue is moving again. Slow. Flat. Flicking your clit before circling it with expert precision.
"Bucky," you whine. Your hips buck up in a silent plea for more.
He chuckles, a deep rumble that sends vibrations through your core. "Oh, bunny, you taste incredible," he murmurs. Your chest heaves as he exchanges his tongue for a single finger, pulling back just enough to look back up at you, lips already glistening with your juices.
He's watching you carefully for every reaction, every hitch in your breath has he rubs tantalizingly slow circles on your clit with too-soft pressure. Seemingly satisfied, he licks his lips again and dips his finger into your entrance, curling it just right and pulling a soft moan from your throat.
Bucky grins like he just won the lottery.
He leans back in, continuing where he left off with unhurried movements as his mouth and finger work in tandem. Pressure is coiling low in your gut, tighter with every brush of his thick fingers against the soft spot deep inside. A second finger joins quickly, stretching you open. One of your hands abandons the duvet altogether, burying into his hair to ground you.
He grunts in approval, picking up the pace. His mouth is relentless, sucking and licking your dripping folds.
"Fuck," he murmurs, "you're squeezing my fingers. You close, bunny?"
You nod quickly, brows drawn together in pleasure as your fingers grip his hair a little tighter. He growls when he feels your back begin to arch off the bed.
"There you go—fuck, you're doing great. Just relax and let go."
You moan loudly when your orgasm crashes over you, a white hot pleasure coursing through your veins in waves. Your legs shake and squeeze around his head, earning a deep groan from him. Bucky keeps up his movements, prolonging the pleasure as he groans against you.
His tongue laps up the juices as you come down from your high.
"Good fucking girl," he mutters, pulling his fingers out. He presses a kiss to your inner thigh before moving back up and kissing you deeply, allowing you to taste yourself on him.
"You've got quite the mouth on you," you laugh breathlessly when he pulls away, lowering himself and pressing his still-clothed bulge against your sensitive folds.
Bucky chuckles.
"I've got more than that." He grins and does one grind against you to punctuate his point. Wrapping your arms and legs around him, your hips roll once with his, not caring you're soaking into his briefs.
"Do you have a condom?" he huffs, burying his face into the crook of your neck, his breath warm against your flesh. "I…wasn't planning for this or I would've stolen one from my roommate."
You shake your head. "I'm clean and on the pill."
He groans, kissing you again and silently thanking any god that will listen for the snow bunny beneath him.
Bucky slips the now soaked material off, his cock slapping against his stomach as he looks at you with a newfound hunger, precum already beading on the flushed tip. Your eyes widen when his hands wrap around the length, giving one slow pump. He's thick and you're already salivating.
He moves to bracing himself above you. His knee pushes your legs further apart before he's rubbing the length through your wet folds, gathering your arousal before lining himself with your entrance.
He stops for a moment, chest rising and falling. Then his eyes are on you. And before you can say a word, he's pushing in.
Slow.
The stretch is delicious, each inch splitting you open. His eyes don't leave yours.
When he bottoms out, your eyes flutter shut, feeling more full than you ever have in your life. You can feel him shift, his body warm and solid as he settles above you, one hand bracing himself as the other gently grips your waist and waits for you to adjust.
When your eyes open again, his blue ones are watching for any signs of discomfort or hesitation.
"You okay?"
You nod, your throat not quite working. He nods in response, doing one test roll of his hips and making you gasp.
He smirks.
"Don't fucking look at me like that." Your laugh comes out strained, your hands somehow find themselves in his hair again.
He chuckles and does another roll. Slower. Just to see if you'll make the same sound. He grins when you do.
"You're so tight," he grunts. "Fucking perfect."
Your cunt clenches around him, and he groans.
His hips begin moving more deliberately, pulling his cock almost all the way out before sliding back in. He moves like he's back on the mountain—controlled, unhurried. Every thrust feels like heaven, dragging against your sensitive walls with increasing ease.
"There we go, that's it," he mutters. His gaze flicks down to where you're connected and licks his lips. He slowly picks up his pace. His hand moves from your thigh to slip beneath you, lifting your hips for a better angle. You mewl helplessly at the feeling.
Bucky's eyes snap back up to your mouth where your lips are parted and panting, each thrust now pulling sounds out like a beautiful symphony.
"Fuck, bunny, you sound—" his hips snap once, harder, and you whimper. He grins. "I'm not gonna last if you keep—" He snaps his hips again and the same sound comes out.
His jaw tightens, like he's trying to hold himself back, but when he does it again, hitting that spongy spot perfectly and pulling a full moan from your lips, he loses control.
The pace picks up faster and harder until you're crying out his name with every thrust.
"You're doing so good, look at you. You're taking me so well, sweetheart, keep going."
The praise hits you hard this time, your cunt clenching around him like it's desperately trying to hang on. Bucky moans, a deep guttural sound as his hips stutter and slow to a near stop. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath.
"You—you like that, don't you?" he growls. His eyes snap open. "You like the praise. No wonder you wanted it on the mountain."
You roll your hips up in his in an attempt for more friction. His cock twitches deep inside you. And then he's grinning wickedly.
"Bucky, please," you whimper.
"Please what, sweetheart? You look so pretty like this, underneath me while I split you open."
His words have the exact affect he wants and he chuckles when your body uselessly tries to cling on.
"Don't worry, bunny, I've got you. You're so good for me, huh? Already came on my mouth, think you can come on my cock like a good girl?"
"Oh, fuck…" you whine. "Yes, Bucky. Please."
He leans down, and gently presses a kiss to your lips. It's soft and lingering as he finally begins to move his hips again.
When you moan softly against him, he pulls back just enough to watch your face. "That's it. Let's get you there again, yeah?"
You nod, brows furrowed in pleasure, the edge slowly creeping closer as he slowly picks up the pace again. His calloused hand finds your thigh again, moving it to wrap around his waist. The change makes him feel even deeper when he bottoms out.
Bucky is pounding into you now, the sound of skin slapping skin mingling with heavy breaths.
"Bucky, I'm—I'm close."
He's panting, hips stuttering with his own impending orgasm, his eyes still not leaving your face. He reaches down between your sweat-slicked bodies and finds your clit, rubbing circles with his thumb.
"Give it to me, sweetheart. Come with me."
Three deep thrusts and your back arches as you reach your peak for a second time. You fingers tighten in his hair, tugging the strands. Moans fill the room as Bucky fucks you through your orgasm until his own release has him spilling hot ropes of cum deep inside you.
Hips roll in-sync, each of you pulling every last drop of pleasure possible out of the other before Bucky slowly pulls out with a groan.
"Good girl," he murmurs before climbing off the bed and heading to the bathroom. He comes back with a damp washcloth, cleaning you up carefully before tossing it on a side table. The two of you move to slip under the duvet, a calm weight draping over your bodies. Bucky pulls you into his side before pressing his lips to your temple.
A comfortable silence falls in the room and settles into the sheets, only the sounds of synchronized breaths filling the space between tangled limbs. Bucky's chest rises and falls in an increasingly slower rhythm under your head. His hands, the same ones that spent half the day correcting every mistake, now rub soothing circles on your back. Combined with the day's activities, your body is relaxing faster than you can stop it.
Bucky must sense it because his arms tighten around you a fraction before he murmurs, "Get some sleep, bunny. You had a long day."
— — —
You awake the next morning in darkness—or, you think it's morning—to the sounds of rustling fabric and a zipper being pulled in the door's vicinity.
"Bucky?" you mumble sleepily.
"Hey," he whispers. His voice sounds distant and a little rough from sleep. Soft footsteps on the carpet tell you he's moving closer before the dimmed light of his phone flickers on, illuminating his face as he crouches near the bed. His hair is mussed from sleep, eyes tired. "I don't mean to leave you like this, but I have to get ready for work. Can I see you later?"
Something inside flutters at the thought.
"Of course. I'll be around." You offer a smile before blinking slowly. He chuckles softly.
"I'll find you," he says, pausing for a moment. "Just…don't cause any trouble today, okay?"
You wave a dismissive hand at him before your head plops back down to the pillow with a small "mm".
He laughs softly before leaving and plunging you back into darkness.
The room is quiet again, but it doesn't feel the same. Cooler. Emptier. Which should feel embarrassing, having only known the man for a day. But sleep overtakes you before you can think too much about it, pulling you back into a warm slumber with the promise of later.
back on my smut shittttt - based on this req hehe love me some sleepy somno and c-warming
w.c: 2.5k
Warnings: smut, 18+, MDNI, somnophilia (kind of cnc because somno is technically cnc), cockwarming, established relationship, downbad and desperate frankie, vague mission description, Frank still in his punisher era, not a lot of plot I can’t lie - everything is consensual!!
It’s almost 11pm when you finish up locking the house, sighing as you check your phone - no text from Frank yet. He’d been gone for the better part of four days now. And as much as you wanted to text or call him - you knew the rules.
“I’ll call you every chance I get, if someone asks i’m away visiting a friend, doors always locked, location stays on, always check the cameras before opening the door and never open for someone you don’t recognise”
He’d repeat it back to you every-time without fail before he walked out the door.
Frank wouldn’t really give you much to go on either, less you knew the better “devils in the details baby and i ain’t letting the devil get no where near you hmm?” he’d hum with his palms cradling your face every-time you’d try and press him. So, all you knew was that he’d got a call from Curtis, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Curtis.
“piece o’ cake sweetheart” he said with that stupid smile and two thumbs up when he saw your worried eyes. You knew what you were getting into when you and Frank has started dating, but it didn’t make it any easier when he would leave.
Frank lets out a sigh of relief as he pulls his truck into park. Looking up at your home, he sees all the lights off. He knew you’d be asleep, it was late but there was a part of him that was hoping you’d be up anyway.
But he missed you, four days was way too long without his girl. Four days of not feeling you in his arms as he slept, not like he got much sleep without you anyway. Not hearing your hazy croaky voice in bed whispering “morning frankie”, or the little chuckle whenever he nuzzled his beard into your neck or the way you sigh whenever you feel that first inch of him push inside of you.
And that last sound had been tormenting him for the last four days whenever he wasn’t elbow deep in someone’s guts that is.
He drags himself out of his truck, his body is heavy and exhausted. And after missions like this, his mind even more so. As much as he was made for the fight, he lived and breathed it - hell, he loved it. There was only one thing he loved more - you.
He softly clicks the door open, leaving his boots at the door. He makes his way to your bedroom
When he sees you sprawled out on the bed his heart feels lighter but more constricted at the same time.
You looked so peaceful, his sleepy little angel.
Always in awe of how soft you looked, his perfect opposite - to him and all the shit he’d been dealing with for the last four days.
His eyes trail down your frame, your hair strewn messily over his pillow, the thin straps of your silky little night slip clinging on for dear life as one falls down your shoulder. You knew what it did to him when you wore these to bed.
You had to be doing this on purpose.
Franks mouth starts feel drier than the Sahara when his eyes drop down to the way your breasts looked so perfect and sleepy under the delicate lace trim and the outline of your nipples under the silk. Each breath making your chest heave, peaking a little more of your nipple out through the neck line each time.
He starts peeling off each later of his own clothing till he's bare - desperate to feel you as his eyes continue their journey lower over each dip and peak of your curves. Over your hips and down to your thigh thats poking out of the sheet.
He stills when you start to stir a little.
Could you tell he was back?
Your foot slides up a little more, pushing the hem of your slip higher and your legs spread a little wider.
You must know he’s back, even in your sleep. He wonders what you’re dreaming of, he hopes it’s about him.
He feels a rush of blood straight to his already stiff cock when his eyes rake up from the inside of your thigh to right between your legs.
Oh
Now he's parched.
No panties, just your glistening cunt shining at him. Those beautiful wet puffy lips that he missed so much, beckoning him closer and the willpower he had diminishes. His hand drops to his cock and he can't help but stroke himself a little - he's so sorry, its just a little bit, but look at you how could he not?
Had you been touching yourself before bed? needy girl, it's okay baby, frankie's back now, he'll take care of you he thinks to himself.
Like there was some magnetic pull between your cunt and Frank, he drops down to the bed, so carefully peeling the sheets back to reveal more of you to him. The fresh cool air off the night causing goosebumps prick up along your body and your nipples get harder under your slip and god how he wants to run his tongue over it all.
He settles himself between your legs, so gentle as he pushes them further apart. Your scent sends him straight to heaven with a deep inhale that he may very well have breathed straight in from his cock with how hard he's poking against the mattress right now.
You had told him, you were his - whenever he wanted you - in fact, you liked it. And while it was hard for him to be okay with it the first few times - he liked it when you were there with him. He also couldn't deny the fact that he also loved you like this, loved how easily you’ll open up for him - so warm and pliant, what an honour it was to get to have you like this.
His kisses are featherlight, dotting from your inner thigh and he gives a testing little lick up your pussy. He waits, no stirring, just the soft hum of your breathing filtering through the room.
He spreads your sticky lips apart with his fingers, like removing the cloche to the 5-star meal he's about to have. Leaning into your heady scent he takes one last inhale.
And, truly, like a parched man wondering through the desert, your pussy was his oasis. His broad tongue licking a fat stripe from your hole up to your clit and he melts at the first drop of your nectar.
He tried to be quiet, he really did but he can't help the way he groans into your cunt "fuckkk taste so good baby" and he smiles at the way your legs unconsciously splay a little wider for him
Even when you're asleep your body knows what you want.
“yeeeah attagirl" he hums before his tongue starts lapping away, savouring your taste.
Frank had gotten into the habit of talking to you when you had started your foray into sleepy sex - initially it had helped him feel less shame for the way he would have you like that. But now, well now he just hopes he's giving you the best dream he could possibly give you.
He stays there between your legs, eyes closed making out with your cunt - his tongue tasting that divine sweet and salty concoction. Better than anything he's ever tasted in his life. He can feel two wet patches forming on the sheets beneath you both. One from the way he's slobbering all over your pussy and the other from the way his cock is dripping from just eating you - he'll clean it up later don't worry.
There's a pause in his movements when he feels your hips twitch, he looks up at you - your eyes still closed but chest heaving as your breaths get deeper.
So, he continues, licking up and down before pushing his tongue into your hole - and his cock is practically crying with how bad he wants to be inside of you.
"mmmmhhuh" he hears the faintest little whimper from you and your hips move in the slowest sleepy circle on his face. "there she is" he smiles to himself as he greedily laps your juices a little more before kissing his way up your body.
His mouth detours on its journey once he reaches your tits. Your nipples hard under the silk of your slip. He just wants to taste you.
He licks your peaked nipple over the silky fabric before latching on. Gentle sucks that let another light airy moan leave your mouth and he starts sliding his cock up and down your wet, slippery slit and he doesn't miss the way your hips grind up and down in response.
Moving to your other breast he starts sucking on your nipple again creating a wet patch on your slip over both of your tits. Your breathing picks up a little more, at the feel of the wet fabric grazing against your sensitive nipple under his tongue and thumb.
Your start to move, limbs still heavy as your hands trail up his arms and your fingers push into his hair.
"hiii baby" his voice is low and gravelly in your ear as he kisses up your neck.
"f-frankieee?" you croak, your body still so heavy with sleep and your eyes still closed.
"yyeahh s'me honey, it's frankie" he whispers when you feel his lips on yours, wet with his spit and your slick.
Unsure if you're dreaming - what a great fucking dream if you were. Your mouth opens for him when you feel his tongue lick your lips and it slips in, your saliva mixing with his.
"just wanna feel you yeah baby? missed you so much" he pants, so desperately into your mouth and you feel his fat tip nudge at your hole making you sigh softly at the slight intrusion.
There it is, that pretty sigh that his ears had been craving.
"mmmyyyeah s'ok baby" you slur and he feels your arms wrap around him a little tighter and your legs hook over his hips as he starts inching himself inside.
such a good girl for him, even when you're so sleepy.
"gggggod baby, missed her so much - she missed me too huh?"
he hopes you missed him as much as he missed you.
Frank lets out a low groan as he deepens your kiss and he swallows your breathy little whimper when he finally bottoms out.
His strokes are long and slow, pulling out all the way to the tip before bullying into your hole again, a stark contrast with the way his rough hands hurriedly shuck your night slip up exposing your tits for him.
"missed these pretty fuckin tits" he whispers with a rough grope over one as he kisses back down to suck the other one into his hot mouth.
"uuhhhh m-mmissed you so much frankieee" you croak as he fucks you back to consciousness. And god how you missed him, his thick cock dragging in and out of your soaked hole. So desperate as you cling onto every inch of him.
You feel Frank wrap his big arms around you, pressing his body down to yours, as if four days without you had driven him mad. He needed to feel every inch of your skin on his.
"so wet for me baby, feel so good-fuck-been dreaming bout you every fuckin night" he sounds so desperate, like he's already close when his thrusts go from long and slow to rutting his cock into you with his hips pressing down into yours.
Your eyes blink open when he kisses back up to your lips, your tits pressed into his chest and your sensitive clit grinding against the pressure of his hips against yours.
His brows are furrowed together as he tries his best not to cum just yet as both of your bodies move together like a wave lost in the pleasure of one another.
"ohh-fuck-baby m'closeee" you sigh when he bring his mouth back to yours - kissing you hungrily.
"yyeah? yeah me too babyy, wanna feel you cum around my cock-god-please honey" he practically begs.
You feel his hands everywhere, one massaging your breast and the other slid under you as he cradles you tight. Your toes start to curl as your legs lock tighter around him and he feels the way your nails dig deeper into his scalp.
"yyyeahh thats it sweetheart, thats it" he pants as he inhales you, not letting his lips leave yours.
Your body feels so sensitive, and you feel every sensation - the way your nipples graze against his skin, your clit grazing the hair above his base giving you the perfect amount of friction and his cock filling you up so perfectly. Each rut of his hip sends you closer to the edge and you feel every cell in your body combust as he sends you over completely.
"nngggfuckk i'm coming babbbyyy" you cry out and he feels the heartbeat inside your cunt pound away. Your walls start to squeeze him so tight, so so greedy for his cum - so greedy for him.
"yeahyeahyeah gggodd baby she's fuckin milkin me" he grunts out as his head drops to the crook of your neck, sucking bruises into your skin. Thankful for his claim on you, the ones he had given you before he left had started to fade anyways.
"fill me up frankie, pleeeaseee she's been so empty" you cry out as your nails bite into him.
and that does it, that breaks him.
You feel the warmth of his cum flood your pussy.
"feel that baby? s'all for you, all this fuckin cum I saved it for you honey its all yours" he grunts out
"mmmhhyeeeah thank you frankiee feel- s-so warm" you slur out as your body twitches through the aftershocks of your orgasm.
You feel his body go heavy on top of you as he crushes you into the mattress, his heart hammering away above yours. A welcomed weight, you could die under him like this - but at least he was back, on top of you, inside of you.
You feel his hips shift, and your legs lock around him again. You shake your head beneath him "stay....please" you couldnt bear the empty feeling, not again.
don't worry he's not going anywhere.
He scoops you up, keeping his cock inside of you, cant have any of his cum seeping out now can we? not after he's so generously filled you up.
Turning you to the side pulls your leg over his hip pulling you into his chest.
"not goin no where baby" he whispers tilting your head up to him and kissing you again - slower this time - savouring your soft lips on his.
you smile between sleepy kisses, your body feeling content, your pussy full and happy with him inside of you for the night.
"welcome home frankie"
🤍
a/n: ha ha ha i am so feral for him, help
if you enjoyed reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated :)
i want to be sexy to someone
is it too much to ask?
sexy to somebody, it would help me out
– sexy to someone, Clairo
summary: you finally put yourself back out there and set up a date for your night off. to your utter humiliation, you get stood up. the night takes a turn when you see your attending, Jack Abbot, who suggests you have dinner together since you're already all dressed up.
tags/warnings: age gap (reader is a resident), oral (f + m receiving), dacryphilia, protected piv sex, dry humping, crybaby!reader, idiots in love, ER references because I can't help myself :), the tiniest hint of puppy play, discussions of jack's amputation,
wc: 10k
a/n: I'm realizing that I have a tendency to write about jack abbot saving reader from mediocre and shitty men... and you know what he would!!!! genuinely thought this would be a cute lil 5k fic and then... oh well!! being short-winded is not my thing lol
credits: gif credits to @wesandresons
8:21.
You checked your phone for the millionth time.
You were supposed to meet him at the restaurant at 7pm, and he was almost an hour and a half late.
Well, you hoped he was late. You hadn’t yet accepted the probable fact that you’d been stood up. I mean, you were no stranger to chaotic schedules, unplanned overtime, and last minute catastrophes that had to be dealt with. Residency often rendered your social life moot; you could barely keep up with your commitments at the hospital, let alone a vibrant dating life. Maybe he had an equally demanding job; maybe there was a plausible excuse for why he left you stranded in this Italian restaurant without the decency of a “sorry, not interested anymore” text.
You looked at your phone again–8:26. Okay, you’d give him 4 more minutes before you decide to pack it up. You try to subtly survey the restaurant for any sign of him, but are met only with the pitying looks of the waitstaff, who would, in all likelihood, be the only ones benefitting from this humiliation ritual. The hostess checked in with you at the bar regularly, the bartender had given you a glass of merlot on the house, and a very kind server brought you a charcuterie board to nibble on–had even brought you extra olives when you commented on how they were your favorite. They were all getting fat tips–or at least as fat as you could afford.
8:31. Despite your best efforts you felt tears pricking at the corners of your eyes and your throat got that tight, achy feeling that precedes a sob. You felt so foolish.
You looked up at the ceiling, blinking the tears away and tried to even out your breathing.
You didn’t even want to go on this date. You’d all but sworn off of dating, the ROI not worth the emotional whiplash you were subjected to more often than not. It was becoming harder and harder as you got older to open up to people, expose your vulnerabilities and greatest fears, only to have them spit back in your face when things didn’t go their way.
So you stopped with the apps, stopped the meaningless dates that were nothing more than a hookup vehicle for most. But your friends had convinced you that you needed to get back out there, that things would be better in Pittsburgh–the proverbial ocean filled with different, better fish than your hometown. And perhaps they were tired of hearing you wax poetic about the hazel-eyed night shift attending that you had no chance with.
But you did want to find that person. As much as you were an independent, capable woman–doctor, even–the truth was you were lonely. Your days consisted of going to work, where you spent 12+ hours caring for Pittsburgh’s sickest, and coming home to microwave whatever sad frozen meal you had in your freezer. Sometimes you had the energy to join some of the night shift for post-shift breakfast, but that was about it.
You wanted someone to share your life with, to ask about your day or if you’ve eaten. Someone who knew that your favorite flower was lily of the valley, but since they were too expensive you would settle for a bouquet of peonies; that you loved horror movies even though they scared the daylights out of you; that knew you loved olives but hated pickles. Someone who knew you, inside and out.
There was a chasm in your chest that ached, that yearned for someone to take care of you–not financially, though you wouldn’t be opposed to that–but emotionally. To tell you that you were good, worthy, that you weren’t too much or too clingy. That wanted you as much as you wanted them. That felt the tension leave their shoulders when they looked at you, because you just being there made things better.
Was that too much to ask for?
It’d been so long since someone had even flirted with you, and even longer since you’d hooked up with anybody. Your dry spell was bordering on sahara levels of arid. Hell, at this point, you think you’d cum for the next guy who called you pretty.
You shake yourself out of your pity party, dabbing your eyes with a napkin and gathering up the courage to ask for the bill, when you hear someone calling your name. Great. You’re halfway to a breakdown over some stupid guy who stood you up, and now you would have to sit through pleasantries with someone when you desperately wanted to go home and cry into a bottle of wine.
You turned, fake smile plastered on your face.
The person you least expect to see is the aforementioned hazel-eyed attending. He’s standing by the hostess stand, off to the side, dressed in dark blue jeans and a tight black shirt. It was unfair, really, how good the man could look in the most basic outfit. His shirt was pulled taut across his chest, muscles straining against the fabric and outlining the planes of his pecs. His hands were tucked into his pockets, his strong, freckled arms on display, and sinful thoughts ran through your head at how those arms would feel around you.
You smiled and waved at him, reluctantly making your way over. It’s not like you can avoid him at this point, though these are less than ideal circumstances to meet him outside of work.
“Small world,” he joked as you approached, a soft smile gracing his features.
“I guess so,” you said sullenly, not up to your usual banter.
“Big plans for the night?” he asked, eyes skating over your form, taking in the pretty red dress you’d donned for the evening, the light coat of makeup you applied, the hairstyle you wrangled your locks into. In any other scenario, you’d be preening under his watchful eye, giddy that he was eyeing you up and down.
Now, though, you wilted under the attention. The humiliation from the night and the tingly feeling pooling in your gut at his gaze swirled together in some rancid amalgamation of emotions. You didn’t know if you wanted to laugh or cry or both, but ideally not in front of him.
Your silence, apparently, concerned him. He looked at you seriously now, his eyes getting that clinical, assessing look in them as he took you in, “You okay?” he asked, genuine concern lacing his features.
It was the one question you did not want to be asked. Because, for some reason, you could keep it all inside, bury the feelings as deep as they’d go, as long as someone didn’t ask if you were okay. The barest expression of concern had your lip trembling, throat tight as you managed to squeak out a meek, “I’m fine!”
You could feel a tear tracing down your cheek, and you wiped it away furiously. Your eyes focused on a spot over his shoulder, unable to bear the pitying look that was undoubtedly on his face.
“You don’t look fine,” he said softly, hand coming up to rest lightly on your upper arm.
You shook your head, powerless to staunch the flow of tears now running down your face. “Sorry, I just, uh, I had a date tonight and he didn’t show, so,” you made a helpless gesture, your shoulders shrugging in feigned nonchalance. You felt ridiculous, crying over being stood up in front of your attending who was just trying to make small talk with you.
You let out a garbled laugh, “Shit, sorry,” you hiccup, “this isn’t your problem, I don’t wanna interrupt your night any more than I already have. Have a good night,” you said, moving to push past him and scurry out the door.
He grabbed your wrist, his grip firm but gentle, his body blocking your exit.
“You’re not interrupting. I was just about to place a to-go order,” he said, a hesitant look crossing his face before he continued, “But, uh… would you like to have dinner with me instead?”
You're taken aback. It’s the last thing you expected him to ask you. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t thought about him in this context. On the contrary, Jack Abbot had been the subject of many a ‘boyfriend’ dream over the past year you’d worked with him. He was kind and generous and funny, his humor as dark as yours. He was steady in the face of chaos, a lighthouse in the foggiest of days–a man you could depend on when shit hit the fan. It’s part of the reason you switched to nights. You always felt calmer in his presence, more assured of your capabilities because he believed in you.
And he was undeniably gorgeous–his fine wrinkles and graying curls set your body ablaze each time you looked at him, your panties soaking through in record time. You loved especially when he went a day or two longer without shaving, his scruffy cheeks looking like a delectable place to sit.
Your mind was plagued by obscene fantasies of him, the sinful images assaulting you at the most inopportune times. You knew he’d treat you right, wouldn’t prioritize his pleasure over yours. He was older, experienced, not a kid fumbling around in the dark, searching for your most sensitive spots and coming up empty. You imagined the way his stubble would feel on your skin, his jaw scraping down your neck as he pressed kisses there, moving lower and lower until he was nestled between your thighs, mouth hot against your aching pussy. The way he would stretch you out and fill you up, have you desperate and begging for more.
You’re snapped out of your lustful daydream when he says your name, an inquiring tone meant to prompt a response. Oh right, he asked you a question.
You shook your head, not because you didn’t want to have dinner with him, but because you didn’t want to do so under these conditions; you didn’t want to be a charity case.
“That’s very kind, but you don’t have to have a pity dinner with me. I’m a big girl, I can handle a little rejection.”
“It wouldn’t be a pity dinner,” he shook his head immediately, “come on, you got all dressed up, let me at least buy you dinner for your trouble.”
He cleared his throat, “Unless you really don’t want to, obviously, and I’ll let it go,” he said, “but I’d hate to see you go home cryin’.” And he looked so sincere, his pretty eyes so soft and squishy, all but pleading for you to accept his offer.
You chewed on your lip, considering it. It wouldn’t be the worst way to spend your night. As of now your plans for the rest of the night were getting sadder by the moment. Things could only go up from here, you supposed. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure,” you nodded.
“I’m positive,” he said, hand coming up to rest on the small of your back, guiding you back up to the hostess stand. “Table for two, please.”
The two of you were sat at a corner booth near the back of the restaurant, the section secluded and not too loud. It was a classic Italian restaurant–warm, dim lighting illuminated the space from antique sconces on the wall, the walls were a beautiful exposed red brick, and the tables were candlelit and laid with red and white checkered cloths. The leather of the booth was soft but worn, the cracks spidering out and indenting into the back of your thighs a sign of how well loved this place was.
The booth forced you close together, your thighs not quite touching each other, but close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. His scent is intoxicating, all warm amber and oud, mixed with a hint of citrus and his natural musk. It took all your power not to burrow your nose into his neck and inhale deeply.
You were lucky to have the same waitress that checked on you at the bar, though you did have to assure her that this was not the man who stood you up. You were honestly a little concerned at the death glare she gave him at first–a true girls girl.
“So, Dr. Abbot, how was your day off?” you asked, fiddling nervously with the hem of your dress. Despite your easy rapport at work, it felt awkward to be sitting here with your attending, especially when you were desperately trying to keep your feelings for him at bay.
“Oh it was fine, picked up a shift with the SWAT unit and didn’t get shot at, so, you know, all things considered,” he said, then waved his hand dismissively, “and please, call me Jack. We're not at work,” a slight blush spreading across his cheeks.
“Okay, Jack,” you laughed, the tension easing a bit as you threw formalities out the window.
“I would ask you how your day off was, but I think I have a pretty good idea,” he said with a teasing lilt.
“Yeah, not my best moment. This is partially why I stopped dating, I hate getting my hopes up,” you said, a little more vulnerable than you intended but you supposed you were past that now.
“If it makes you feel any better, I think whatever man decided to let you slip through their fingers is a fuckin’ idiot.”
You sputtered a bit at that, your cheeks heating up. It was a kind platitude, and you wished that it made you feel better, but it did little to alleviate the pit in your stomach that made you feel small; that screamed that you weren’t good enough.
“But enough about that asshole. Do you want to order an appetizer?” he asked, scanning the menu.
“Oh no, I’m okay, thank you.”
“You sure? My treat, remember, don’t worry about prices.” he looked up, concerned.
“I’m fine, really,” you bit your cheek, reluctant to spit it out, “our waitress may or may not have given me a pity charcuterie board at the bar.”
His face was still for a moment before you saw the edge of his mouth betray him, quirking up in a suppressed smile.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” you warned, your own resolve already breaking as you took in how pathetic the situation actually was. “It’s not funny!” you laughed, smacking him lightly on the shoulder with the menu.
“No, no, definitely not,” he intoned, a look of mock-seriousness on his face before he broke out into a laugh, “I’m sorry! But it is objectively a little funny,” he hedged, hands held out defensively to block another menu attack.
“It is not! It means that the poor waitress had to go talk to her boss and ask if they could comp an appetizer for the miserable sad sack at the bar!”
“She probably didn’t call you a miserable sad sack. Maybe sad puppy dog girl, but not miserable sad sack,” he teased.
You gasped exaggeratedly, “I am not a sad puppy dog girl!”
“Oh yes you are. It’s the eyes. And the general obedient demeanor," he smirked.
Oh. Your tummy twisted at that, but you quickly filed it under things that I simply do not have enough time to unpack right now.
“You’re mean,” you pouted, lip jutting out and arms crossed. You weren’t really upset, but it felt fun to play it up a little bit.
“Aww,” he pouted back at you, his tone just a tad condescending, “let me make it up to you. What do you say to some good wine and garlic knots?”
You gnawed on your lip, considering his offer, “what the hell, let's do it. It’s not like I’m going to be kissing anybody tonight anyway,” you said, a little bitter, before realizing that was probably not an appropriate joke to make in front of your boss.
“You never know, we could always pull a Lady and the Tramp,” he joked, not looking up from the wine menu.
You were a little stunned at that. Was he… flirting? No. Definitely not. This was a strictly platonic date. Right? I mean, the puppy comment you could explain away, but this… this was different, wasn’t it? Who just jokes like that about the most romantic canine kiss in history? A joke, you settled on. Because you’d already gotten your hopes up enough for one night.
Dinner was nice. Really nice.
Conversation flowed freely, starting out in neutral territory with updates about patients, work gossip, whatever the fuck was going on with Robby. But you soon moved out of the work realm and into personal matters. You told him about your childhood–where you grew up, your favorite childhood pets, how much trouble you got into as a teen.
And you learned a lot about Jack. That he came from a military family that moved around a lot, but spent a large chunk of time in North Carolina. He had two sisters, both older than him. One stayed in North Carolina and the other lived in West Virginia. Both married to military men, and both notorious for giving Jack shit about everything. But they were his rocks when he lost his leg, and then again when he lost his wife, and he was endlessly grateful for them.
You both loved 90s alternative rock, which surprised you because you took Jack to be more of a classic rock fan, to which he merely glared at you and said that he wasn’t that old. You both had childhood crushes on Winona Ryder; his borne from her role in Heathers, and yours from Girl, Interrupted. He surprised you with the fact that he was a good cook, a fact that seemed unfathomable to you based on his general vibe.
Now, though, you’d moved to med school stories, and Jack was regaling you with stories about him and Robby back in the day.
“We must have been… god, I must have been a third year med student, and Robby was… an R2? and he had really pissed me off that night. I don’t even remember what he did, I just remember being so annoyed at him,” he laughed, shaking his head at the memory, “It was a quiet night, so he snuck off to the on-call room to catch a few hours of sleep, leaving me to do all the scut. So, I recruited the help of the charge nurse, Carol, and our attending, Mark, and we applied a cast to his right leg while he was knocked out.”
He’s cackling now, almost unable to finish his story between wheezing gasps of air, “we paged him, like, 10 times until he answered, and next thing we know he’s bursting out of the on-call room and onto his ass before he even realized what happened!”
You’re laughing hard now, too, trying to picture a younger version of Robby gracelessly tripping over an unnecessary leg cast in his hurry to answer his page. It sounded so unlike the self-assured, stoic version you knew him to be.
“Oh my god,” you wheezed, “how mad was he?”
“Oh he was pissed. Not because of the cast, but because 5 minutes after we paged him, a 15-car pile up came in and he got benched until he could get the cast off. He had to wait for it to dry before he could saw it off, and the whole time he just sat there glaring at me.”
“Did he get you back?” you asked, hungry for more crumbs of their life before you, before the Pitt as it was now.
“Yeah,” he rolled his eyes, “the fucker taped nails to his shirt, took an x-ray, and switched out the real film for the fake before I noticed. I was freaking out to Mark, yelling about how this patient needed surgery before they perfed. Meanwhile Mark was in on it, and made me feel crazy when he pulled out the perfectly normal x-ray for my patient. He said, ‘I don’t know what they’re teaching you in school these days, but this looks like a perfectly normal x-ray,’” he said, in an impersonation you could only assume was Mark.
“That’s fucking crazy,” you giggled, “can you imagine someone doing something like that in the Pitt? I think Robby’d actually have an aneurysm.”
“Yeah, the old man’s lost a bit of his whimsy over the years,” he shook his head.
“Old man, huh? Those are fighting words from a man merely 3 years younger than him,” you teased, “and much grayer,” you added with a wink.
“Watch it, missy,” he warned, then, quieter, “not too old to teach you some manners.”
Feeling emboldened by the wine, you leaned a little closer, “don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Tracing the rim of your wine glass, you looked up at him. You swear his eyes drifted to your lips, but before you could do anything about it, he cleared his throat, steering the conversation back into safer waters.
“So, why did you get into emergency medicine?”
You thought about it for a moment, considering how honest you wanted to be. “I wanted to meet people where they were at, help them in a real, immediate way. The traumas are great and exciting, and there’s nothing like making a pickup that saves someone’s life. But I like the less exciting stuff, too. The mundane care that doesn’t save a life, but makes someone feel better. Helps them get over a cold, or helps soothe a burn; suturing up a lac, or removing foreign objects from patients and not making them feel worse about their predicament. That stuff is just as important as the traumas.
Especially with how fucked healthcare is in this country, people come to us when they’re at their most vulnerable, and usually don’t want to be there. I just hope that I can make things less scary for patients when they come in, make sure they feel like they’re cared about and not being judged for coming to us.”
It’d been a long time since you’d answered that question honestly. Usually, you had your stock answer that you pulled out, which was a more eloquent version of “I want to save lives!” And that was still true, but there was so much more to working in the emergency department than just saving lives. It was paperwork and insurance and bed shortages and nursing shortages and all the other fucked up shit in the world that inevitably contributed to the cases you saw come through the doors at the Pitt.
“What about you? Was emergency medicine always it for you, or did you ever consider going into something else?” you asked.
He shook his head, “Not seriously, no. Considered switching to critical care after my leg. I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for the hustle and bustle of the emergency room after that. But it was the only place I wanted to be, so I figured it out, did what I needed to do to get back to where I was before the accident.”
“Well, for what it's worth, I’m glad you stuck with EM. I couldn’t imagine working at the Pitt without you. I don’t think I’d be half the doctor I am without you,” you said, looking up at him.
You hadn’t realized how close you’d gotten, his arm slung over the back of the booth and your thighs pressed against each other.
“Don’t sell yourself short, you’d be amazing with or without me,” he said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind your ear. “You know, I’ve taught a lot of residents in my years, and you… you’re really cut out for this. Not everyone is.”
The praise made you preen, the proximity of his hand to your face doing nothing to calm your rapidly beating heart. For a brief moment, you think he might lean in, might press those pillowy pink lips to yours, kiss you until you can’t think stra–
“Hi, sorry to interrupt but we’ll be closing in 15 minutes. Here’s your check when you’re ready,” the waitress said, setting the check down and scurrying away.
You checked the time on your phone: 11:15. Did you really spend almost 3 hours talking to Jack? It certainly didn’t feel like it.
“I guess we should get out of here before they kick us out,” Jack said, sliding out of the booth and offering you his hand.
You’re giggling at another one of Jack’s jokes as you leave the restaurant, the bill graciously paid by him despite your best efforts to split it. Your limbs were loose from the wine, goosebumps springing up on your arms from the early summer air turned chilly.
“Thank you for dinner. You salvaged an otherwise shitty night,” you laughed.
“It was no problem, really. I had a nice time,” he said, leaning against the brick wall, arms crossed.
You mirrored him, shoulder scraping against the gritty brick, and looked up at him.
“Hold on, I think you have a little sauce on your face,” he said, and before you could grab a tissue from your purse, he reached out. His thumb gathered the sauce at the corner of your lips, going further to brush the pad of it across your bottom lip. The movement dragged your lower lip down slightly, your mouth parting involuntarily with it. You’re not sure why, but your tongue darted out, licked the pad of his thumb and the residual sauce.
Jack’s breath hitched, the sharp intake of air the only thing you could hear despite the sounds of car alarms and drunk party girls on a Friday night in downtown Pittsburgh.
You looked up at him, tongue still pressed flat against his thumb, and searched his eyes for a sign that the heat building between you is mutual.
Fuck it, you decided.
Without thinking about it too much, you leaned up and pressed your lips against his. And god, did they feel nice. They were soft, but firm, and he tasted faintly of the wine you’d shared earlier mixed with the slight acidity of the tomato sauce from his dinner. Your hand tangled in the curls at the base of his neck, and they’re so soft, but also a little stiff. You wondered, briefly, if he uses mousse, or hairspray, or if he’s got a whole curly girl routine down before realizing that oh my god he wasn’t kissing you back. Oh no, oh fuck.
How did you misread this situation so horrifically? You thought you were getting all the right signals, thought that he liked being with you, that he was flirting with you. But maybe it really was just a courtesy, a pity dinner.
Your cheeks are hot when you pull away from him, shame sitting thick and heavy in your stomach, numbness prickling up your arms in staticky goosebumps. And Jack is just standing there, the dumbfounded look on his face doing nothing to assuage your embarrassment.
You backed up, trying to create some distance, to lower the temperature between you that apparently only you felt.
Looking down at your shoes, unable to make eye contact, you babbled out, “I-I’m so sorry, that was completely inappropriate and I don’t know why I-” your voice cracked and it felt like your lungs weren’t properly inflating with oxygen, “I don’t know how I misread things, but I guess I did so again, I’m so sorry. I’m gonna go home and pretend this never happened,” you said, turning around and starting down the street, despite the fact that you most certainly needed to Uber home, not walk.
You’re trying not to cry for the umpteenth time that night when you hear him calling your name, “Wait!”
He caught up with you, only a few strides away from where you were standing, and grasped your arm gently. “Wait, I’m sorry,” he said, a little breathless, “I just… you surprised me.”
“Surprised you?” you laughed, “I damn near sucked your thumb, Jack,” you said, genuinely confused how a man like Jack Abbot could be surprised that a woman would try to kiss him; that the next logical step from erotic thumbsucking would be a kiss. “And you flirted with me all night! You made a Lady and the Tramp joke! How else am I supposed to take that?”
He rubbed at his jaw anxiously, a slight blush coating his cheeks, “I mean, yeah, I was surprised. I’ve liked you for a while now but then I heard you talking to Santos about how you didn’t want to go out with that cardiology attending and just assumed I didn’t have a shot,” he admitted sheepishly. “And maybe I got a little brazen with my flirting because I thought you didn’t see me like that anyway, figured it couldn’t hurt.”
It’s your turn to be surprised now. You hadn’t realized he heard that conversation, or that he’d taken the wrong idea from it; the opposite idea, actually.
You took a step closer to him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, fingers finding his curls again, “Well, if you recall, snoopy, I said that part of the problem was that I just didn’t want to fuck that cardiology attending,” you said, looking up at him and batting your eyelashes, “that isn’t the case with you.”
He looked shocked, but recovered quickly, his confident air returning to him. “Oh, is that so?” he asked, lips quirking up into a smile as he backed you up against the rough brick wall. His hand rested on the wall next to your head, the other on your hip, stroking you through your dress.
“In that case, please allow me to make up for my rude behavior,” he said, dipping down to kiss you properly this time.
You’d pictured this moment countless times before, but nothing compared to the real thing. Jack Abbot is a no nonsense man–a wartorn vet who understands more than most the importance of not wasting time. You expected your first kiss with him to be hungry, maybe a little sloppy, but when his lips meet yours, he’s achingly tender. It wasn’t uncertain–there was no question underlying his kiss–it was deep and languorous, like he was content to take his time up against this brick wall and savor the slide of your lips against his because he knew he had you right where he wanted you, finally.
He commanded you, his hand cupping your jaw to angle your head back, deepening the kiss. His tongue swept across your bottom lip, and you instinctively opened up for him. The slide of his tongue against yours was delicious, the slick muscle curling around yours before moving back to your lips, sucking at your bottom lip and biting down gently. Your mind felt fuzzy at the way he handled you, guiding and taking you how he saw fit.
Some of his restraint dissipated, your mouths moving feverishly against each other. You couldn’t get enough of him; you pulled him into you and hooked your leg around his waist to draw him as close to you as possible. Pathetic, embarrassing whines and whimpers escaped you involuntarily, your body unable to mask how this man was making a mess of you.
His hand fell to the thigh wrapped around him, calloused fingers sliding up under your dress and gripping the bare flesh. He pulled you close, his pelvis rolling against yours sinfully. You could feel the hard outline of his cock against your cunt, your hips thrusting forward to meet the friction. A frustrated moan fell from your lips at the clothes separating you, at the inability to feel his skin against yours.
You pulled away only when air was necessary–and because you were very close to being cited for public indecency if things went any further.
“Sorry, I probably taste like garlic,” you said dumbly, fingers tracing over your spit slick lips, numb and swollen from Jack’s attention.
He laughed, forehead resting against yours, “you taste incredible,” he said, pressing a kiss to your nose, then your cheek, and then under your ear. “I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but my place is a couple blocks from here, if you’d like to come home with me.”
You nodded, a giddy smile breaking out across your face, “I would very much like to go home with you,” you said, already grabbing his hand and dragging him down the street.
The entryway is dark as you stumbled into Jack’s townhouse, the walk talking longer than it should have due to your need to drag him into searing kiss after searing kiss every dozen or so steps.
Jack navigated the two of you through the dark, your bodies unceremoniously plopping down on his couch. You fell onto his lap, knees sinking into the leather cushions and thighs stretching over the wide berth of his hips. Your kisses had devolved from slow and deep to fast and hungry, teeth nipping and clashing against one another, your breathing ragged from the exertion.
He was rock-hard and throbbing under you, the outline of his cock pressing deliciously against your pussy. The only articles of clothing separating you were the thin, lacy excuse for panties you were wearing and his jeans. Your eyes fluttered closed as you ground your hips down on him, the combination of rough denim and the drag of his cock on your aching cunt forcing loud moans and whimpers from your lips.
Jack was just as loud, his hips canting up to meet your rolling hips. His hand travelled to the back of your dress, fingers playing with the zipper, “this okay, sweetheart?” he asked against your lips. You nodded, too caught up in his lips to give a verbal answer.
He chuckled as he pulled the zipper down, easing the sleeves down next and pulling away to get a look at you. He let out a sharp breath, the air stolen from his lungs as he took you in, hands gripping your waist tight and rolling his hips hard against you.
Your pretty tits were held up in an unlined white bra, your hardened nipples peaking through the barely there lace. He threw his head back against the couch, pupils blown wide as they fixated on your chest. ““My pretty, pretty girl. Was this all for him?” he asked, thumbs running in circles around your areolas. You nodded shyly, a bit embarrassed that you’d put on your good lingerie for some random guy. But it wasn’t all for nought, if Jack’s reaction was any indication.
“What a fuckin’ idiot,” he mumbled before enveloping your nipple between his lips, sucking the bud through the lace. He captured the other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tugging and pinching it, then soothing it over in soft circles. The sensation was dizzying. His mouth was hot and wet against your skin, and he knew exactly the right pressure to ride the line between pleasure and pain.
But the lace was getting in the way; you couldn’t feel the scratch of his stubble like you’d dreamed of for so long. You unclasped your bra, tugging on his curls and pulling his face back just enough to let the garment fall down between you.
A guttural sound left him as he dove back in, lips suctioning onto your nipple and sucking hard, cheeks hollowed out and tongue swirling around the bud. Your hand tightened in his curls, arching your back and pushing your chest against his mouth. He alternated between the two, sucking, licking, and biting at one and kneading, flicking, and pinching the other. You could finally feel the scrape of his stubble against your sensitive skin, your eyes rolling back in your head as your hips doubled their effort, grinding hard against his cock.
He released your nipple with a wet pop, “you know how hard it’s been keepin’ my hands to myself, pretty girl? and all this time you’ve been hidin’ this pretty set of tits under your scrubs,” he shook his head in disbelief, “don’t think I’ll be able to think about anything other than stuffin’ my face between these tits when I see you at work.”
His lips returned to your chest while his unoccupied hand moved under your dress, his rough palm gripping the fat of your ass and guiding you over his length faster. Every grind of your hips had your clit bumping up against the head of his cock, the pressure exquisite. Your slick was dripping down your thighs and seeping into his jeans, the schlick schlick schlick steady background noise among your moans and groans.
You didn’t realize how fast your orgasm was building until you were nearly on the precipice of it, letting out a strangled moan and, “I’m gonna–” before the wave crested. Your thighs trembled, a dull ache forming from keeping them stretched around Jack’s bulk, but it only added to the pleasure that zipped through you. That staticky feeling radiated through you, your pussy contracting and fluttering around nothing.
You’re panting into the crook of his neck as you ride out the aftershocks, your hips still grinding against his clothed cock, your lips letting out tiny gasps and whines.
“Did you… did you just cum, sweetheart?” Jack asked, a stunned look on his face.
You could feel how hot your cheeks were, shame curling through you because yes, you did cum from a little nipple play and grinding on his cock.
“I-i’m sorry, it’s just been a long time and no one’s touched me in so long and you feel so good, I didn’t think that would happen so quickly,” you said, panicked, “I’m sorry if I ruined things.”
“Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay,” he said, thumbs brushing away the embarrassed tears you weren’t even aware had fallen, “you didn’t ruin anything, okay? I was just surprised, is all. I’m sorry if anyone’s made you feel that way, but you don’t ever have to be embarrassed with me. Never,” The sincerity of his words triggered a new bout of tears. You buried your head in the crook of his neck again, his scent a calming balm to your nerves.
“Plus, do you know how much of an ego boost it is to know I had such a pretty girl cummin’ on lap in under five minutes? That’s the stuff of dreams, baby,” he teased, pulling you out from your hiding spot and pressing kisses to your cheeks.
You laughed, still sniffling a bit, “gosh, I’m sorry I’ve been such a crybaby tonight.”
“It’s okay, honey,” he said, then, teasing, “but I can think of much better reasons for you to be cryin’, and none of them have anything to do with you being sad or embarrassed,” he said, kissing you properly now, tongue licking deep into your mouth.
You moaned into his mouth, then squealed as he hoisted you up, carrying you to his bedroom. He set you down at the edge of the bed, then properly removed your dress from where it was awkwardly gathered at your waist.
He didn’t waste any time, dropping to his knees and parting your legs, pushing them up toward your chest. “Hold 'em there for me, baby, wanna take a good look at you,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the damp fabric between your legs. You did as he told you, hooking your hands under your knees and spreading yourself open for him. You felt exposed, but the awestruck look in his eye as he examined your pussy sent shockwaves through your body.
“This all because of me?” he asked, thumbing at your center over the fabric, pressing lightly against your clit with each stroke. Your panties were soaked through, the tiny scrap of fabric doing nothing to obscure your puffy folds that were sticky with a mix of your slick and cum. “What a mess you made, honey. Guess I’m gonna have to clean you up,” he said, pulling your panties to the side and licking a broad stripe from your hole to your clit.
You moaned, hips lifting off the bed and chasing his mouth. The contrast of his hot tongue on your cool flesh was blistering. His hands grabbed the back of your thighs, his fingers digging into the soft skin there and stopping any movement of your hips. You whined at the restriction, your hands fisting in the soft sheets instead.
“Waited so long for this honey, shit, fuckin’ dreamed about how you’d taste,” he moaned into your pussy, mouth lapping and sucking at your folds, gathering all the spend and slick and swallowing it down like nectar. His face was nestled deep into your cunt, tongue exploring every crease and crevice your cunt had to offer, licking, sucking, biting–and taking note of what made you scream.
And once he discovered it, he didn’t just eat you, he devoured you. He was a man possessed, with no regard for his own need for air. His tongue assaulted your clit, alternating between rubbing tight circles around it, short kitten licks, and long, languorous licks that had him shaking his head between your thighs. Every now and again he wrapped his lips around your clit and suckled it, the light leaving your body every time. Your hips rocked against his mouth despite his hold on you, wrecked moans falling from your lips.
“Fuck, jack, please–r-right there!”
“That’s it, baby, let me hear you, tell me how good I’m makin’ you feel,” he said, pulling back just far enough to spit onto your cunt before running two fingers up your slit, pushing them in without preamble. The stretch was delicious, his thick fingers curling deep into your wet heat and finding that sweet spot in no time. He exploited it mercilessly, massaging it with the pads of his fingers. His lips returned to your clit, sucking harshly now, giving you no reprieve from his ministrations.
“Feels so good Jack! Never felt this good before!” you cried.
The slurping and squelching was lewd, your moans and breathless cries of his name intermingled to create an obscene symphony that you’re sure the entire population of Pittsburgh could hear.
“You gonna cum on my face, honey? Gonna give me another one?” he asked, fingers massaging your g-spot. “Wanna–fuck–wanna feel this tight cunt squeeze my fingers when she cums.”
“Y-yes, please Jack, ‘m gonna cum, feels sosososo good” you cried out, your second orgasm crashing over you. Stars burst behind your eyes, back arching uncomfortably off the bed and walls clenching so hard around his fingers you’re not sure how he hasn’t lost circulation. Your legs clamped around his head, trapping him there as you rode out your orgasm, hips rutting against his mouth and fingers. He didn’t mind, licking and sucking you through it, his fingers keeping pressure on your g-spot until you were pushing him away.
He peppered your body with kisses as you came down, starting at your thighs and making his way up over your tummy, ribs, and breasts. He came to rest above you, a dopey smile on your face as you pulled him in for a lazy kiss. His face was soaked with your spend and you could taste the tang on his tongue when he kissed you.
“You’re stupidly good at that,” you whispered, body still boneless and floaty.
“Yeah? Want me to show you want else I’m stupidly good at?” he asked while finally shucking his shirt off.
“Yeah?” you said absentmindedly, eyes glazed over at the majesty that was Jack Abbot’s chest. You immediately began pressing kisses across the newly exposed skin–to his neck, collarbone, pecs, and tummy. You’re even able to scrape your teeth across a nipple before he holds you back at arms length, laughing.
“Yeah, honey,” he laughed between your frantic kisses, “but you gotta let me breathe for a sec, gotta take care of my leg.”
“Let me,” you said, slipping down to the floor and sitting back on your heels. You ran your palms up his thighs, hands coming to rest on his belt before going any further.
“You don’t have to do that, honey.”
“I know,” you said softly, “but I want to. If you’re okay with that.”
He cradled your face in his hand, thumb stroking your cheekbone. You turned into it, kissing the palm of his hand to assure him that you wanted to do this.
“I care about you Jack, and this is part of you. I just wanna help you, wanna make you feel good,” you said earnestly, giving him your puppy dog eyes.
“Yeah. Okay, honey, go ahead,” he nodded, sitting back on his elbows to watch you. You grasped his belt again, unfastening the buckle and pulling the belt through the loops, discarding it somewhere behind you. You moved to the button of his jeans, deftly popping it open and hooking your fingers into the waistband, tugging them down with Jack’s help.
Your breath hitched at the sight of his dark gray boxers, a wet spot front and center that made your mouth water. You learned forward and kissed the damp fabric, moaning at the slight taste of precum that danced across your lips.
“Careful, sweetheart…” he warned, but there wasn’t much heat behind his words.
You just grinned up at him before getting back to the task at hand. Your fingers travelled down to the sleek metal attached to him, getting a feel for the mechanism before unlocking and twisting it off. The liner came next, tossed to the side before you pressed your fingertips into his skin, massaging the skin to get some blood flow back into the residual limb. You pressed sweet kisses to his flesh, from the front of his knee to the scarred flesh of his leg, tongue dipping out to trace the prominent scar just above his amputation site.
Jack breathed heavily above you, tiny groans escaping him unbidden. A look flickered across his face, and you think, briefly, that this may be the first time you’ve seen him truly vulnerable. It wasn’t a secret that he’d lost the lower portion of his leg in the war, but he didn’t flaunt it either. You wondered if there was an insecurity that lay deep within him, despite his overt confidence; if other women had reacted differently, cruelly even to the sight of his prosthesis. It made your heart ache to think about it, to think of someone doing anything but worshipping his beautiful body the way he deserved.
“So pretty, Jack,” you whispered, kisses inching higher up his thigh now, “wanna taste you now.”
When you’re met with the sight of Jack’s cock, you’re well and truly speechless. You knew he was big from your time on the couch, but seeing it was different. He was thick and veiny, the tip flushed a deep red and leaking precum furiously. It rested against his belly, curving slightly to the left. And did you mention that he was thick? Mouth agape, you wondered how you were going to fit him in your mouth. Or pussy.
You’re not sure how long you’ve been sitting there, hands perched against his thighs, just staring at his cock, until Jack tilts your head back, fingers tightening in the strands of hair at the nape of your neck.
“Thought you wanted a taste, honey. You just gonna sit there and stare at it all night?” he asked, a smug smile on his lips.
“Maybe,” you mumbled, tongue darting out to wet your lips.
Before you can do anything of your own accord, his hand is guiding your head forward, the head of his cock pushing gently against the seam of your lips. You take over from there, pressing an open mouthed kiss to his tip, the precum gathered there salty and sticky against your lips. Your tongue dipped out to caress the spot just below his head, running the flat of your tongue along it before moving back to his head, spitting a glob of spit onto him and wrapping a hand around his base. You started with long, slow strokes, squeezing and twisting on the upstroke, your hand meeting your lips where they suckled at his tip.
You moaned at the steady stream of precum invading your mouth, “taste so good Jack,” you said before taking more of him into your mouth. You're only about halfway down and your lips are already stretched tight around him, spit leaking from the corners of your mouth in filthy waterfalls. You hollowed your cheeks out, bobbing your head up and down his shaft, your tongue massaging the underside of his cock.
“Fuck, baby, who knew you had such a filthy fuckin’ mouth on you,” he groaned, hips rutting up slightly.
His tip occasionally hits the back of your throat, causing you to gag and tears to prick behind your eyes, but you don’t care; the feeling of him weighing heavy on your tongue is reward enough.
You feel a light pressure applied to the back of your head, “deeper, baby, know you can take it,” he groaned. You obliged, breathing deep through your nose and sinking down further onto his cock until you felt him hit the back of your throat and your nose was nestled in the trimmed grey curls at his base. Your hand grappled for his where it was perched on your head, using it to push harder against your head, trying to convey to him that you wanted him to take over; to fuck your face.
He groaned, hips jerking involuntarily as he realized what you wanted. He gathered your hair in his hands, hips shallowly trusting into the wet heat of your mouth. His mouth was slack, grunts and groans loud as he fucked your face. His pace builds, his cock roughly pistoning in and out of your mouth. Tears are falling freely now, your mouth stretched to capacity and throat being used and abused by his fat cock.
“See? These tears are much prettier, baby,” he huffed out, thumbs brushing the trails where they fell. “So fuckin’ pretty, crying with my cock in your mouth.”
You moaned around him at that, the praise and shame swirling in your tummy. Your hand came up to cup his balls, massaging and squeezing them gently between your fingers.
You’re suddenly pulled up off his cock and into his lap, spit stringing from your shiny, swollen lips. You whined at the loss of him, your mouth feeling uncomfortably empty now.
“Fuck–you feel too good, honey,” he grunted, setting you back against his pillows, “can’t cum in that pretty little mouth tonight, need to be inside you.”
He grabbed a condom out of his drawer before moving back to you, sitting back on his knees and rolling the condom on. You let out an annoyed whine. You’ve never hated the more rational side of your brain more than you do right now. You craved to feel him bare inside you–to feel him cum deep inside you, the hot white ropes painting your walls. And while you trusted him implicitly, you knew safety was of the utmost importance, so condom it was.
“Don’t worry, baby, soon as we get tested, you won’t be able to stop me from fuckin’ this pussy raw,” he groaned, settling between your spread thighs. His body was a soothing weight above you, the warmth he emanated relieving any anxiety you had.
He gripped the base of his cock and ran it through your sopping folds a few times, the tip catching slightly on your entrance on each pass. “Please, Jack, need to feel you,” you moaned, wrapping your legs around his waist and pulling him close.
He cursed before giving in, notching the head of his cock against your entrance and entering you slowly, letting you feel and adjust to every inch on its own. Your head fell back into his plush pillows as he sank fully into you, your mouth open in a silent scream. Your walls were tight around him, clenching viciously at the intrusion–you’d never been stretched so wide, or filled so thoroughly. It felt like the air had been punched out of your lungs and replaced by his cock. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, your short nails biting at his skin.
You were still for a moment, both your chests heaving as you adjusted to the feeling of one another. Then, once Jack composed himself, he started to move–slow, shallow thrusts at first, your pussy still clenching tight around him, sucking him in greedily with each thrust.
“Relax for me, honey, that’s it, doin’ so good for me,” he grunted, eyes closed, “pussy feels so good.”
You willed your body to relax, for your muscles to go lax around him. You shifted your legs up higher, the heels of your feet digging into the soft flesh of his ass.
“There you go, so good for me,” he moaned, “knew you’d be so good for me.”
He pulled out again, easier this time, until only the tip remained inside you, then snapped his hips forward. His thrusts were slow but hard, his hips slamming against you each time he bottomed out. The drag of his cock against your walls felt so good, his thick, throbbing length rubbing up against every sensitive spot. You felt every thick vein and ridge, as if they were imprinting into your walls, making a home there. You moaned at the thought of eternity, of Jack making your pussy his again and again and again.
He was watching you with a wondrous look on his face, his eyes flitting between your blissed out face and bouncing tits. “So fuckin’ sexy, baby, you don’t even understand how fuckin’ gorgeous you are,” he groaned, hips picking up speed, fucking you faster and harder.
The adrenaline and emotions from the night came crashing down around you. The feeling of his cock dragging through your walls mixed with the sweet words he was whispering into your ear had you feeling exposed and vulnerable, made you feel seen. Your hands were frantic, running over every bit of skin you could get your hands on, needing to feel his skin against yours. You pulled him impossibly closer, his chest now flush against yours, the friction it provided to your nipples dizzying.
You didn’t notice the tears until Jack was kissing away the salty tracks, his tongue sneaking out to lick up the length of your cheek. “You’re my little crybaby, aren’t you?” he asked, a sweet hint of condescension in his tone, “just can’t help babbling over my cock, huh, baby?”
You could only whimper at that. The words should feel shameful, degrading, even, but the fondness on his face, the constant reassurance he’d been giving you all night only made you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Because you weren’t a crybaby, you were his crybaby.
The coil in your stomach tightened, your orgasm fast approaching. He was fucking you hard and fast now, his balls slapping against your ass with a wet smack. “Jaack, I’m gonna–fffuck–I need–” you gasped at a particularly hard thrust, your eyes rolling into the back of your head.
But Jack knew what you needed before you did, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing tight circles against it, and you were done for. Your toes curled, heels pressing harder into his ass as you came, white-hot sparks shooting through your body. Your walls spasmed wildly, your orgasm crashing through you in waves. You were absolutely drenched, your pussy gushing around his cock, leaking down your ass and onto the bed.
Jack wasn’t far behind, his hips stuttering as your walls seized his cock in a vise grip. “F-fuck, baby, you’re squeezin’ me so tight, so fuckin’ good,” he grunted, his hips going into overdrive now, chasing his climax and fucking you hard and deep.
"Cum for me, Jack, wanna make you feel good," you cried.
He ground his hips into one last time, cumming with a loud moan, cock buried deep inside you and hips pressed flush against yours.
He collapsed on top of you, head resting on your chest. He pressed lazy kisses to your sternum, collarbone, the soft flesh of your breasts–whatever he could get his lips on from this angle. Your fingers carded through his curls, the motion soothing as you tried to catch your breath.
Eventually, though, you had to part.
You whined as he pulled out, your cunt empty and cold now that he’d taken his warmth away. He grabbed his arm crutches, disposing of the condom and retreating to the bathroom. He returned with a warm washcloth and began cleaning you up, gently wiping at your swollen pussy and sticky thighs, making sure you were comfortable before tossing the rag in the hamper.
He slid back into bed when he was finished, laying on his side and pulling you close against his chest. Your head was cushioned by this arm as you curled into him, your sweat slick bodies cool to the touch now that the heat had dissipated.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to kiss you,” he said, fingers brushing up and down your ribs, the touch featherlight.
“Mmm probably as long as I have,” you said, snuggling closer to him.
“Really? When did you realize you wanted to kiss me?”
You didn’t have to think about it at all. “My birthday, on the roof. I gave you a cupcake and you got frosting all over you,” you giggled at the memory, “and all I could think about was how bad I wanted to kiss it all off of your stupidly handsome face.”
He laughed with you, the creases around his eyes deepening as he did. He was so pretty, you thought for the thousandth time that night.
“I remember that,” he smiled, “I remember being so proud that I made you laugh that night.”
“What about you?” you asked.
He thought about it for a minute. “I think the need to kiss you has been simmering in me since I met you, but the first time I had the conscious thought was when you patched me up after that patient clocked me in the head,” he said, his hand now on your cheek, stroking the bone there, “you were standin’ between my legs, stitchin’ up my forehead, and all I could think about was pulling you close and kissing you until I couldn’t breathe.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He sighed, “I’m your superior and I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable if you didn't feel the same way.” You knew he didn’t want to delve into the ‘superior’ thing right now, didn’t want to have the long, complicated conversation that was sure to come in the following days.
“And I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself once I started,” he said, lightening the mood a bit.
You giggled at that, rolling your eyes affectionately. But something nagged in your head about what he said.
“Wait…” you said, piecing together a timeline, “that was nearly a year ago! You’re telling me we could have been doing this for a year!?” you exclaimed, slapping him on the chest lightly.
He shook his head at you, a sheepish look on his face. You were both idiots.
“Well, I guess we have a lot of lost time to make up for, then, don’t we?” he said cheekily, capturing your lips again and pushing you onto your back, determined to make you a very happy woman.
a/n: thank you for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it <33
pairing: clark kent x f!reader | genre: smut | wc: 3.1k | KENT <- collab m.list (be sure to check out the other lovely fics & stay tuned for more!!!)
summary: clark can’t leave you alone—even when he really, really should. the pressure builds… and something has to give.
warnings: explicit sexual content (18+), clark cusses 2.5 times, unprotected sex (p in v), pussy drunk!clark, rough sex, loss of control, furniture breaking, overstimulation, nsfw themes + language, reader called “baby”
a/n: clark breaks the bathtub while fucking you. that’s it. that’s the fic. A BIG THANK YOU to @tw1sters for including me in this collab!!! i had so much fun writing this and can’t wait to read everyone else’s!! hope you guys enjoy! <3 //graphics: @sparklingsin — thank you ash for the beautiful header below. still can’t get over how talented you are!! 🤍🤍
Clark was supposed to be leaving for work.
Well, that had been the plan, at least. He was mostly dressed for it too, shirt crisp, tie half-adjusted, sleeves buttoned, everything in place except the last few steps that would actually get him out the door.
His shoes waited by the couch. His jacket was draped neatly over the dining room chair. Just a few final adjustments and he’d be gone.
It should have been simple. Really, it should have. But when it came to you, simple had never been something he could count on.
You were minding your own business. Relaxing. Existing. Apparently, that alone was enough to ruin whatever focus he had left.
Clark stood at the sink, adjusting his tie in the mirror, fingers working at the knot with practiced precision. He fixed it once, then again, and again, like something about it still wasn’t sitting right, even though it had been perfect the first time.
Behind him, the tub sat visible in the reflection, and you were there, sunk low in the water, completely at ease. Steam filled the room in slow curls, softening the edges of everything, including you.
Clark’s eyes kept flicking toward you in the mirror, quick at first, then slower. Then longer. And longer. Long enough that he’d forget what he was doing entirely before dragging his gaze back up to his own reflection like that might somehow fix it.
He swallowed hard and forced his attention back to his tie.
Focus.
Clark straightened, running a hand through his hair before adjusting his glasses, eyes fixed on his reflection to anchor him there, to keep him moving, to keep him from—
His gaze slipped again.
Slower this time. Heavier in a way where he couldn’t even pretend it was accidental.
The water moved when you shifted your legs, the surface breaking just enough to catch and follow, offering brief, shifting glimpses before settling again. Droplets clung to your shoulders and throat, slipping slowly over your skin each time you moved, tracing small paths he couldn’t stop noticing. The whole room felt warm with it, thick with quiet and water and the faint scent of whatever you’d poured into the tub.
You weren’t even doing anything, not really, which only made it worse. Clark couldn’t seem to look anywhere else, or think of anything else for that matter.
That didn’t stop him from trying, though.
And God, did he try.
Clark let out a slow, steady breath, deeper than it needed to be, like it might push whatever this was back down where it belonged.
“Alright, baby,” he said, voice quieter than usual. “I have to go.”
He turned and stepped closer as he said it, already leaning down before the sentence had fully settled between you. It was supposed to be quick. Normal. Just one last soft kiss before work.
Clark’s hand braced on the edge of the tub as his lips met yours, gentle and familiar, something that should’ve ended there but didn’t. You were warm, your mouth slightly parted, soft where you gave under him without resistance.
He lingered a second too long, catching the faint drag of your lower lip before pulling back just barely, his breath brushing yours.
His gaze dropped to your mouth again—and stayed there.
Something tightened in his chest, heavier now, pushing up from where he’d tried to bury it.
He kissed you again.
Longer this time.
And then again, deeper, his mouth pressing into yours with intent, the kiss opening, getting away from him, losing whatever restraint had been left in it. His hand on the tub clenched tighter, grounding himself in the strain while the other came up to your face, thumb pressing along your jaw as he pulled you into him.
He should have stopped. He knew that. Knew that this was the last thing he should be doing right now.
The thought flickered, thin and useless, drowned out by the way you felt, by the way your lips moved with his, by the immediate reaction in his body. Heat hit him low and sharp, his cock caught tight beneath his slacks, the pressure there before he could even pretend otherwise.
Still, he didn’t pull away.
His mouth stayed on yours, each kiss deepening with every second he didn’t stop. His breathing shifted, uneven, heavier now, pulling through his nose in quiet bursts that brushed hot against your skin. Every inhale came tighter than the last, tension winding through his chest instead of easing down.
You laughed softly against his mouth, a quiet, breathy sound that brushed his lips when you spoke. “You’re gonna get all wet,” you murmured, the words light, amused, as if this was still something easy. Still playful.
His response came in the way his mouth pressed harder to yours, more insistent, the kiss turning urgent without pause. His hand flexed against the edge of the tub again, grip tightening, fingers pressing into the porcelain for resistance, for something solid to hold while everything else slipped further out of his control.
A faint sound gave under his palm.
Small. Thin. Barely there.
A hairline crack split through the porcelain, too quiet for anyone but him to hear, but he caught it all the same. That faint give beneath his hand, the smallest surrender under pressure, something yielding when it shouldn’t have.
It echoed too closely. Too much like the way his restraint had been going, not all at once, but splitting, fracturing, giving in pieces he wasn’t getting back.
He didn’t notice himself leaning closer at first. It just happened gradually, his weight shifting forward, his body following where his mouth already was, where his focus had narrowed completely.
The edge of the tub pressed into his body, then more and more. He kept going. Closer. Further. Until there wasn’t really a line left to cross.
His weight tipped past the edge before either of you could slow it, one knee dropping into the water, then the other, his mouth still fixed to yours. The bath surged around him, spilling hard over the sides as his clothes soaked through all at once. His shirt and pants stuck to him in seconds, ruined and heavy, water streaming from the fabric and pooling across the floor.
It didn’t matter. None of it did. The mess, the sound, the fact that he had been halfway out the door minutes ago. All of it dropped away under one singular focus.
You.
His hands were already on you, firm, urgent, pulling you up and into him with a kind of need that made it clear he was past the point of caring how it looked. Water sloshed violently with the movement, spilling over again, your body shifting against his as he maneuvered you onto his lap.
It wasn’t neat or careful. It was messy, rushed, a little clumsy in the way urgency always was with him when he got like this. Clark moved fast, driven by how badly he needed you there, by how little patience he had left to get you there any other way.
You startled, breath catching sharply, the surprise obvious in the way your hands braced against him, the way your body reacted to the suddenness of it. He didn’t ease up, didn’t even think about slowing down. His mouth found yours again, rougher, open, all urgency now. He sank lower into the tub beneath you, water shifting hard around his body, soaking him through completely, but it didn’t register. Not with you on him.
His hands moved like he couldn’t pick a place, like he needed all of you at once. One slid up your back, broad and hot, pressing you down into him, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades before sweeping lower. The other traced down your side, slow for half a second before taking hold of your hip, then shifting again.
Higher.
His hand closed over your breast, fingers curling around the weight of it as he squeezed. His thumb moved slowly over your nipple, pressing, rolling, pulling a breathy reaction from you. The sound you made hit his mouth, and he swallowed it instantly, tongue pushing in to taste it, to take more of you anywhere he could.
His hips worked beneath you with no real attempt to hide it anymore, rolling up against you with purpose. His cock pressed against you through the soaked fabric of his slacks, the friction pulling a low, strained sound from him as it jumped against you, needy and insistent. His hands settled harder at your hips, keeping you right where he needed you.
Steam hung thick around you both, heat wrapping tight, softening everything around the edges until even his glasses began to fog.
It registered for half a second—
That was all it got.
Clark’s hand shot up, ripping the glasses from his face before they could fog over completely. He tossed them aside without looking, the frames skidding across the bathroom tile with a sharp crack that failed to pull his attention.
His mouth crashed into yours again, deeper, sloppier, breath hot and wrecked as his hands went right back to you, gripping, sliding, squeezing like any space between his hands and your body was too much.
Clark wasted no time. One hand dropped from you just long enough to fumble at his belt, fingers clumsy with urgency as he yanked it loose. The buckle knocked dully against itself before he shoved his pants down, fabric resisting under the water, soaked and clinging as he forced it out of the way beneath you. The movement jostled you both, water splashing up and over the edge again, but he didn’t pause, didn’t dare break the rhythm of his mouth against yours.
He didn’t give you the usual slow slide, didn’t ease you into it like he normally would. The second he freed himself, he was already pulling you closer, lining himself up more by need than patience, his breath catching the moment he found you before pushing in all at once.
The stretch hit immediately, sudden and full, pulling a cry from you as your body clenched around him. Clark groaned at the feel of it, low and broken, his head dipping forward like the sensation had knocked the rest of him loose.
“Shi—”
The word broke apart in his throat, cut off into something rougher.
There was no time to adjust, no chance for your body to catch up before his hands found your hips and started moving you again. His hands locked onto you, fingers sinking in as he guided you into motion, pulling you down onto him, lifting you back up, setting a pace that hit hard and fast right from the start.
Water sloshed violently with every movement, spilling over the edge in steady waves, the sound of it mixing with breath and skin and the wet slide of your bodies coming together again and again.
It didn’t take long before you caught it, matched it—
Then took it.
Your hands twisted into his soaked button-up, fingers curling tight in the fabric as you shifted your weight and rode him properly, not just following anymore. You bounced on him, harder now, faster, the angle changing as you ground down between each lift, dragging him deeper every time you came back down. The friction got to him immediately.
A ragged sound slipped out of him, as you took over, his hands braced at your hips while your pace started pulling him apart. Each movement worked more out of him, left him less steady, less able to hide how badly you had him.
You felt too good.
Too tight, too warm, too perfect around him, every bounce pulling another rough sound from him, every grind making his grip tighten.
He was already gone.
Fucked out in a way that stripped him down to instinct, to reaction, to nothing but the feel of you working him over. He could feel it bleeding into everything else too, that lack of control, the way heat built behind his eyes each time you sank down, the way his strength kept threatening to slip into his hands where they held you. Even the air leaving him came out wrong now, too hot, too wrecked.
He tried to keep it all in check, tried to rein it in before it got away from him.
Clark’s jaw tightened, breath snagging as his hands clung to you with a care the rest of him had no room for. Everything in him wanted to push harder, take more, fuck up into you with all the strength he kept buried under skin and restraint. He held it back by inches, barely, muscles locked beneath you while his touch stayed careful through sheer force alone.
It worked.
Mostly.
Until you leaned forward.
Your arms slid around him, pulling him close, pressing your body flush against his as his breath broke hard in his chest. The sound of his name left you in a low, wrecked moan, dragged straight out of you with the roll of your hips, each one locking tighter around him.
“Baby—” he tried, the word breaking halfway through, strained, like the start of a warning he already knew wouldn’t survive the next second.
You didn’t slow down, didn’t give him the space to finish it, and he didn’t fight for it either. The warning lost shape in the way you kept moving, in the fact that he didn’t want you to stop at all.
Your hips drove down again and again, relentless, the pressure building with every movement, taking him deeper each time, too much and not enough all at once. It stacked on him fast, sensation piling as his hands dug into your waist.
And then your hips sank lower.
One deep, filthy grind.
It pressed him all the way in and held him there, your weight settling fully, the drag of it hitting something sharp and exact that tore straight through whatever control he had left.
Clark’s entire body seized before a loud, guttural groan ripped out of him as he came hard, hips jerking up into you on instinct.
His hand slammed down with it, the force splintering through the side of the tub hard enough to break a chunk loose. Porcelain gave way beneath his palm, the side splitting open as water flooded through the gap and rushed across the floor.
At the same time, his eyes flashed.
Just for a split second.
A flare of heat vision shot wide, too sudden for him to catch, striking the metal faucet behind you with enough force to shatter it clean. The pipe split with a harsh snap, water bursting out hot and pressurized, hissing into the room and adding to the chaos.
“Shit—”
His eyes squeezed shut instantly, jaw clenching hard as he tried to rein it back in, like he could force himself under control if he just held tight enough. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you in, locking you against him as another rough groan tore out of his chest, muffled against your skin.
Water poured around you now, from the split-open side of the tub, from the broken pipe, soaking everything, flooding the tile, but he didn’t stop.
He couldn’t.
Your reaction caught somewhere between your lungs and your throat, a choked inhale, a sound that never fully formed as the pace hit too fast, too hard. Your body tried to respond, hands tightening on him, fingers gripping into soaked fabric, but every attempt got swallowed by the next thrust, the next snap of his hips that stole whatever you were about to say.
The break in the tub shifted everything, the side giving way enough to let his legs spread wider beneath you, changing the angle completely. He felt it and used it without hesitation, hips bucking up into you even as he was still coming.
He kept you pressed to him, hands locked at your hips as he fucked up into you through the broken rush of water, through the soaked mess around you, through the wreckage of everything he’d already let go too far.
“I’m sorry—” he gritted out, the words catching as his hips snapped again. “I’ll fix it—I promise—just—” His hands pressed harder into your hips, breath shuddering hot between you.
That was the only thing left in his head.
Need.
His pace changed, not easing, only deepening, his body rising to meet yours as he dragged you down against him in heavy rolls that kept him buried inside you while he chased the feeling again and again. His hands moved with it, guiding the motion, making you feel every inch of him as he ground up hard, breath breaking with each grind.
Clark forced his eyes open, pulling himself back into it, into the moment, into you. His brows pulled tight immediately, mouth parting on a ragged breath as his gaze dropped between you, locking onto where your bodies met. He watched the way you took him, the way he disappeared inside you with every movement, and the sight tore another wrecked sound from his chest.
The reaction chased up his spine just as fast, too much, too immediate, and his head tipped back on instinct, eyes squeezing shut again before it could go any further. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding as he tried to contain it, tried to fight that heat building fast and dangerous behind his eyes again. It came back stronger, hotter, threatening to spill if he lost even a fraction more control.
But that didn’t stop him.
“Keep—” his voice faltered, breath catching, “keep going—don’t—”
You could see how badly he was fighting it. It was there in the hard set of his jaw, in the faint tremor running through his hands, in the way his breathing refused to settle even after everything. The pressure hadn’t eased. If anything, it had gotten worse.
Your mouth parted, instinct kicking in, ready to ask if he was sure—but he caught it.
Maybe it was the way your hips stilled for half a second. Maybe it was the breath you pulled in, that slight pause before you spoke. Whatever it was, he felt it instantly, his hands locking at your hips hard enough to keep you there.
“Don’t—fuck—don’t stop,” he groaned.
His hips ground up as he pulled you down harder, the motion breaking his words into something rougher, something he barely seemed to realize had left him.
The edge of it cracked just as fast as it came.
His voice dropped in sync with your hips, the tone softer but no less strained—
if you want to be tagged in my future posts, comment or message me! i’m happy to do it! :) just let me know if you want all works or just for specific characters <3
• links: masterlist | wattpad | tip jar 🫙 (support my writing!)
tips are never required, but always appreciated. thank you for being here!
IT’S NOT FUNNY IT’S VERY LOGICAL THAT HE WOULD HAVE ADJUSTED TO LIVING LIFE WHILE HE WAS IN SPACE BECAUSE IT’S DIFFERENT FROM EARTH BUT I CAN’T FUCKING BREATHE
Summary: You were trained to be a weapon—silent, precise, untouchable. A swan that bites, a peacock that dazzles only after the strike. Trained by women who believed softness was a lie and love a liability, you learned to move silently, to kill without leaving a trace. You were never meant to want. Only to execute. Jason Todd sees you and knows immediately: you don’t soften. You consume. You meet like survivors circling the same wound—watchful, armed, too close. What grows between you isn’t tenderness. It’s hunger, pressure, and inevitability. Love doesn’t bloom here. It overflows. And when the world comes for what they made—you don’t run. You devour.
Tw: this fic has themes of Graphic violence, blood/gore, death (both canon and non-cannon ), trafficking, PTSD, possessive behavior, explicit language, eventual smut and implied mental health. DEAD DOVE. DO NOT EAT
(Masterlist) CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: WHEN HOME BURNS PT. 2
The Plume Palace was dying in real time.
Flames roared through ancient halls, devouring silk banners and centuries of history. Smoke choked the mountain air, thick and black, turning the night into a choking inferno. Explosions still thundered in the distance as secondary arsenals cooked off. The once-sacred courtyards were now slaughter grounds—stone slick with blood, bodies sprawled in broken heaps.
You and Jason moved through the chaos like two predators cut from the same violent cloth. Your rifle was up, eyes scanning every shadow. Jason stayed glued to your flank, shotgun barking whenever a Vale or LexCorp soldier dared show their face. You didn’t waste rounds. When one got too close, you closed the distance—claws extended, ripping through tactical armor like it was paper. A soldier raised his rifle; you caught the barrel, twisted, and drove your claws straight through his throat. Blood sprayed hot across your face. You took his spare magazines without blinking, slamming them into your vest as you kept moving.
Another tried to flank. You spun, dismembered his arm at the elbow with a brutal swipe, then put two rounds through his visor before he could scream.
Jason glanced at you—half-impressed, half-worried.
“You’re not even breathing hard.”
You didn’t answer. Your focus was razor-sharp, every sense tuned to the nightmare around you.
You stepped into the main courtyard.
And paused.
Your rifle snapped up instantly, barrel aimed at the rooftop of the burning eastern hall.
There she was.
Jia.
Casually perched on the edge of a collapsing roof like she was watching a street performance. One eye still covered by that sleek black patch, the other gleaming with unhinged delight. She whistled—sharp, mocking—then slow-clapped, the sound cutting through the roar of flames.
“Bravo,” she called down, voice dripping with venomous glee. “Look at you. All grown up and ripping throats like the good old days. Lady Dracula’s back in the house.”
You didn’t lower the rifle.
“Get down here and say that to my face.”
Jia grinned wider, legs swinging like a child on a swing.
“Oh, I would. But this view is just too good. All that fire… all that blood… it suits you.”
Jason shifted beside you, shotgun trained.
“Jason,” you said without looking at him, voice low and deadly. “Go. Help the others.”
He hesitated, grip tightening on his weapon.
“I’m not leaving you with her.”
You finally glanced at him—eyes glowing faint green at the edges.
“I have her. Go.”
He searched your face for half a second, jaw clenched. Then he nodded once—reluctant—and melted into the smoke toward the lower levels.
Jia laughed.
“Sending your little guard dog away? How sweet.”
The second Jason disappeared, you moved.
Like lightning.
You switched weapons mid-stride—dropping the rifle for the suppressed SMG slung across your chest—and opened fire. Rounds stitched across the rooftop where Jia had been. She was already moving, flipping off the edge with reckless grace, landing in a roll that carried her into the smoke.
You pursued.
The fight was savage.
Jia was chaos—fast, unpredictable, laughing even as you clipped her shoulder and blood sprayed. She threw knives from hidden sleeves, one grazing your cheek. You closed the distance in a blur, slamming her into a burning pillar. Embers rained down as you drove your knee into her stomach. She gasped but still grinned.
“You know what the best part is?” she wheezed, blood on her teeth. “Your mother screamed so pretty when we dragged her out. And that little sister of yours… Blaire, right? Her cries were like music. High and sweet. I bet she begged just like you did when you burned—”
You snapped.
No warning. No thought.
Your claws extended fully—long, razor-sharp—and you drove your entire hand straight through her chest.
Jia’s eyes widened in shock. A wet, choking gasp escaped her as you twisted, feeling ribs crack and organs tear. Blood poured hot over your wrist, down your arm, splattering across your face and chest.
You ripped your hand free in one brutal pull.
Jia dropped like a broken doll, eyes glassy, mouth still open in a final, silent scream.
For a moment you stood over her—chest heaving, claws dripping, fangs fully extended. The old hunger roared back to life. The taste of blood on your lips was copper and salt and satisfaction. You dragged your tongue across the back of your hand, licking a streak of red clean without thinking. Lady Dracula, they’d called you in the underground pits for a reason.
The feral part of you purred.
Then you heard footsteps.
Jason rounded the corner, shotgun up, eyes widening at the sight of you standing over Jia’s corpse, blood painting your face like war markings.
He didn’t flinch.
But he saw it—the shift in you. The hunger. The monster barely leashed.
“You….good?” he asked carefully.
You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, smearing red across your cheek.
“I’m fine.”
You weren’t.
————
MEANWHILE….
Bruce, Tim, Dick, and Damian moved through more of the collapsing underground passages with grim purpose. Justice League backup had arrived—Green Arrow and Black Canary providing cover fire as they evacuated the surviving girls.
Tim scanned the group, voice gentle but urgent.
“Is there a girl named Blaire? Small, dark hair, about nine?”
The protective line shifted. One of the older girls shook her head, eyes wide with fear.
“She was with the younger ones… but they took some when they breached the second chamber. We tried to stop them—”
A distant explosion rocked the tunnel.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
Bruce’s voice was calm steel.
“We’re moving. Now. Stay together. And you must be quiet.”
The evacuation contuined—fragile, terrified children being herded through collapsing stone corridors while League remnants and League backup fought a desperate rearguard.
But no one had seen Blaire.
Not yet.
————
Back in the burning courtyard, you stood over Jia’s body, blood still dripping from your claws, the taste of it lingering on your tongue.
The palace groaned around you as another wing collapsed in flames.
Jason watched you carefully—rifle lowered but ready.
Then your comm crackled.
Tim’s voice, strained:
“We’ve got most of the girls—but we can’t find Blaire. She’s not with the group.”
Your blood ran cold.
The feral hunger in your veins sharpened into something far more dangerous.
Pure, protective rage.
You looked at Jason, eyes glowing bright green now.
“Then we tear this place apart until we do.”
The hunt had just become something far more personal.
And heaven help anyone still standing in your way.
summary — jack used to press his thumb inside of your wrist, just to feel your pulse. he’s been thinking that lately. he’s been thinking about that a lot.
content / trigger warnings — 12.6k words. angst, heavy, heavyyy angst, emotional neglect, reader leaves jack, no explicit breakup scene, hurt/no comfort, medical setting, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary embolism most likely presented inaccurately based on what i could find on wikipedia, reader is unconscious, references to ptsd/ptsd implied, jack’s past military service mentioned, insomnia, crying, lots of themes of loneliness, dissociation compared to being a fugue state, grief, pining, jack not being the very best at this relationship so maybe ooc?
author’s note — yes i have no range all i can write is a yearning man after he massively messes up; i wanna try being more versatile though so send in requests so i can make an attempt at being a Little more creative. i wanted to get this out because i started writing it while season 2 was coming out
The coffee maker had been broken for three days because the carafe wouldn’t click into place anymore, so if you didn’t press down on it while it brewed, the coffee pooled around the base and ran out onto the counter. You’d been meaning to tell Jack. You kept forgetting. Or maybe you kept remembering at the wrong times—when he was asleep, when he was in the shower, when he was already halfway out the door—and so for three days you’d been holding the carafe down while scrolling on your phone with the other. The kitchen did permanently smell of burnt coffee because some of it still got under there and cooked against the warmer. Nobody had complained, though.
You were holding the carafe down now.
It was 6:47 in the morning. The light through the kitchen window was the same shade as weak tea. You’d forgotten your socks again, so your feet were going cold against the tile. You’d pulled the cuffs of your sleep shorts down as far as they’d go. You hadn’t slept. You’d gone to bed at eleven and lain in the dark for a while, just to get up at two and read on the couch. You’d ate a piece of toast at four.
He was meant to be home at six-thirty. It was 6:48 now. You checked the clock on the microwave, the clock on the stove, and the clock on your phone, all of which disagreed by between thirty seconds and two minutes, and none of which mattered because the only clock that mattered was the sound of his key in the lock, and you hadn't heard it yet.
You kept thinking about the fucking carafe.
You kept thinking if you told him, if when he came in that you had to hold the thing down, he’d put his hand over yours and it would become a thing. A small, but real thing. You'd been living on smaller ones lately. The other night he'd touched the back of your neck when he passed you in the hallway and you'd thought about it for two days.
The coffee finished. You let go of the carafe. You poured two mugs—his first, the one with the chip on the rim that he insisted he liked because it made the coffee taste better, which wasn't true but was the kind of thing he said sometimes, the kind of thing that used to make you laugh—and then yours, the one your sister had given you for your twenty-eighth birthday, the one with the hairline crack that had been there so long you'd stopped worrying it would split. You put two sugars in his. You put nothing in yours. You stood at the counter holding both mugs by their handles and you waited.
You’d been putting two sugars in Jack’s coffee for almost three years that you’d started doing it without thinking. You thought, briefly, about not putting sugar in his, about making his coffee wrong. You thought about whether he’d notice. You wanted him to notice. No, you didn’t want him to notice. You put the two sugars in, and stirred them with the small spoon you always used. The wrong coffee would have been a test, you realized, and you weren’t ready to give a test you already knew the answer to.
6:53.
You set the mugs down. You picked them up. You set them down again. You went to the window and looked out at the parking lot like you were sixteen and waiting for a boy to pull up, except you were thirty-one and you lived with him and there was no reason to be standing at the window except that you couldn't sit down. Sitting down would mean admitting you were waiting. Standing was a thing you happened to be doing in the kitchen near the window. It wasn't the same.
You heard the key jangle at 7:04.
Your body reacted the same way it had been reacting for three years now. There was an involuntary lift in your chest, this small gladness, and the fleeting, euphoric thought of oh good, Jack’s here. It happened milliseconds before you could decide whether you were allowed to feel it anymore; it happened in the half-second between the key turning and the door opening. You hated that it still happened. You hated that you were unsure whether you hated it.
He came in. He looked at you. He eyed the mugs on the counter. He looked back at you.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” you said.
He left his jacket on and held onto his bag. He stood in the doorway like a man who’d come into the wrong apartment and was figuring out how to exit without being mean about it. His hair was flat on one side from where he’d been pushing his locks through it. There was something on the cuff of his scrubs, a dried, dark spot. He—like always—smelled like the hospital, and underneath that he smelled like himself, and underneath that, faintly, he smelled like coffee that wasn’t yours.
He’d stopped somewhere on his way home.
You filed that thought away into this ever-growing compartment of Jack your subconscious mind had started months ago, and your conscious mind was just catching on. You were getting good at filing things away. You had a whole drawer of them now, in your head, organized chronologically: the night he hadn't come to bed; the morning he'd left without saying goodbye; the Tuesday he'd told you he was too tired to talk and then you'd heard him on the phone in the bathroom, laughing, low, at something somebody else had said. You didn't open the drawer. You just kept putting things in it. You'd open it later. You'd open it when you were ready.
“I made coffee,” you said, because that was how it was supposed to go. That was how it always went.
“I had some,” he said.
“Okay.”
He was looking past you, at the cabinet behind your head, at nothing, you realized. He’d hadn’t met your eyes since he came in, and you were realizing you had stopped considering it avoiding, because to avoid would mean he was putting in the effort to. When had this become the nature of it all? You couldn’t remember the last time he looked at you. You were going to remember the not remembering later. When had you become a thing his eyes had learned to skip over?
“Long night?” you asked.
“Yeah.”
You waited with bated breath. There used to be a ‘yeah,’ then a story. There used to be a ‘yeah, this guy came in, you won’t believe what he did to his hand.’ He’d sit at the counter and tell you, gesturing with his coffee, and you’d put your chin on your palm and listen with both ears. Sometimes you’d laugh and sometimes you wouldn’t and once you’d cried. He’d reached across the counter and put his thumb under your eye and say, “Hey. Hey. Come here.” And then you’d go around the corner and he’d hold you for a long time without saying anything.
You waited.
“I’m gonna shower,” he said.
“Okay.”
He moved past you without touching you. There was a moment—a half-second, less, the time it took for him to pass behind you in the narrow space between the counter and the table—when you felt the air shift. The possible moment he could have put a hand on your hip, on the small of your back, on the top of your head; when he could have done any of the small unthinking touches he used to do without thinking. But he moved through the space like you were a piece of furniture he was navigating around. You heard the bathroom door close. You heard the shower turn on.
You stood at the counter for a while.
You picked up his mug, the one with the chipped rim, and you held it with both hands. It was still warm. The two sugars hadn't dissolved all the way; you could feel the grit at the bottom when you tilted it. You thought about pouring it out. You thought about drinking it yourself. You thought about a lot of things.
You set it down.
You sat at the table. You hadn't sat down all morning. Your hands were colder than they should've been. You put them between your thighs to warm them up. You looked at the chip on the rim of his mug, the small white triangle of it where the ceramic had broken away two years ago—you'd done it, actually, you'd been washing dishes and you'd knocked it against the faucet and you'd stood there holding it and almost cried because it was his favorite, and he'd come up behind you and looked at it and laughed and said ‘Baby, it's a mug, it's fine, I like it better now,’ and he'd kissed the top of your head and taken it out of your hands and put it back in the cabinet—and a thought came unbidden to you, one of those with clarity that came in the morning after a night of no sleep.
He doesn’t love me anymore.
You hadn’t decided the thought. It arrived, came through the kitchen window like a weak-tea light and the scent of burnt coffee. The thought sat across the table from you with folded arms as it waited for you to say something back.
You sat there for a long time, listening to the shower run, and somewhere far away you could hear a car door slamming and a dog barking and the building above you starting to wake up, all of it the wrong sounds for this hour, all of it the sounds of a day beginning, and you sat at your kitchen table in your sleep shorts with your cold feet on the tile and you thought, okay.
The shower kept running. You got up to hold the carafe down for the second pot.
It was for you because the act of making coffee was the only thing your hands knew how to do at the moment, and your hands needed something to do or you were going to start crying at the kitchen table, and you weren't going to start crying at the kitchen table because if he came out of the shower and found you crying you would have to explain it, and you didn't have an explanation that would fit in the space he was willing to give you.
‘You don’t love me anymore,’ it’s not a sentence you could say out loud to Jack. It was a sentence you could barely say to yourself. You'd thought it once and now it was in the room and you needed to do something with your hands.
You filled the carafe at the sink. The water ran cold over your wrist and you watched the little bones move under your skin and you thought about how he used to take your hand sometimes and turn it over and press his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and hold it, like he was checking and making sure. You used to ask him what he was doing and he’d always say, ‘Nothing.’ Then, he’d add, ‘I just like knowing.’
You hadn't felt his thumb on your wrist in—you didn't know. You couldn't remember the last time. That was the thing about the things he used to do. They stopped happening and you didn't notice on the day they stopped, you noticed three weeks later when you reached for the memory of the last time and it wasn't where you'd left it.
You poured the water into the machine. You pressed the button. You held the carafe down.
The shower was still running. The shower had been running for twenty-two minutes.
The coffee maker beeped.
You let go of the carafe. You poured. You added milk—too much, your hand slipped, you didn't bother to fix it—and you took the mug to the table and sat down and you didn't drink it, you just put your hands around it and held on.
You thought about your sister.
You thought about your sister, the phone call you’d had with her four months ago in October. You’d been on a walk and she’d asked how Jack was and you’d said he was good.
She’d been quiet on the other line for a second too long, which meant she'd already heard the answer in your voice and was just giving you the chance to say it out loud. You’d told her you were fine, you were fine. You’d meant it. You were fine in October. You'd been worried about him but you'd been fine. And she'd let it go, because she was good like that, because she didn't push, and you'd gotten off the phone and kept walking and not thought about it again.
You were thinking about it now because you realized she knew before you did.
You were thinking about how lonely had been a slow leak. How you couldn't point to a day. How if someone asked you, later, about when it started, you wouldn’t have an answer that would satisfy them, you'd just have a list of small things and the dawning understanding that the small things had been a shape that had been apparent to everyone but you.
The shower stopped.
You looked up.
The silence after the shower was always loud, for the apartment adjusted, the pipes ticked, the bathroom fan still spun. You heard him moving around in there. The squeak of his palm on the foggy mirror. The click of the cabinet. The small domestic sounds of a man getting ready to come out and face his life. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug and you thought, very clearly, very calmly to not ask him.
Don't ask him what's wrong. Don't ask him if he's okay. Don't ask him if he still wants this. Don't ask him anything. If you ask him he will tell you and you cannot un-hear what he tells you and you are not ready, you are not ready, you are not ready.
He came out in sweatpants and a t-shirt, toweling his hair, as he balanced on his crutches. The steam came out with him in a soft cloud, and for one half-second—the half-second before he saw you sitting there—his face was open. Tired. Wrecked. Human. You saw him. You saw the man you'd loved for almost three years, the man who'd stood at this counter in October and pressed his mouth to the top of your head and asked, rhetorically, what he would do without you. The man who you were pretty sure you would have married if he'd asked, the man you'd been so quietly, stupidly, completely sure of that you'd never even let yourself worry he might not be sure of you.
He saw you and his face closed.
It was the smallest thing. It was a thing you'd seen happen maybe a hundred times in the last few months and never quite let yourself name. It was like a door shut behind his eyes. The towel kept moving in his hand but something in his shoulders went still, the way an animal goes still when it sees you coming.
He stood there with the towel around his neck. He was looking at the floor between you. He had a tan line on the back of his neck from his work badge lanyard, you'd noticed it last week, a small pale stripe. You'd thought about pointing it out to him and you hadn't, because you weren't sure anymore which kinds of small noticings were welcome.
You opened your mouth.
You were sitting at the table with your hands around your mug and you'd made yourself a promise eleven seconds ago and you opened your mouth anyway because some part of you was already past being careful, some part of you was already at the bottom of the hill and rolling, some part of you had decided it would rather know than keep not-knowing, and you opened your mouth and you spoke, “Jack.”
His gaze was still fixed to the floor. “What?”
“Are we okay?”
The towel stopped moving. The kitchen got very quiet. You could hear your own heartbeat in your ears in the slow heavy way it did when you were about to be told something that was going to rearrange you, and you sat very still at the table with your hands around your mug and you watched him decide.
He took a long time to decide, enough that you understood what the answer was going to be. He was giving you mercy, you supposed, to prepare your body. You felt your shoulders settle. You felt your jaw loosen. You felt the very small private animal of yourself curl up tight somewhere behind your ribs and go quiet, the way it did before bad news, the way it had done in the doctor's office when you were nineteen, the way it had done at your grandfather's bedside, the way it had done—once, years ago, in a different life—when a different man had told you a different version of the same thing. You knew this feeling. Your body knew this feeling. Your body was already mourning.
He pulled the towel off of his neck and held it beside the crutches.
“I don’t know.”
You waited, eyes fixated on him.
“I don’t—” He started, then stopped. “I’m tired. I’m really tired. Can we not do this right now?”
“Okay,” you said.
“I just got off a fourteen-hour—”
“Okay.”
“Don’t—Please don’t ‘okay’ me that way.”
“What way?”
“Like that. Like you’re—” He lifted his free hand up from the hold on his crutch and gestured vaguely in your direction. “Like you’ve decided what I’m gonna say.”
“Have you?”
“What?”
“Decided.”
He looked at you for the first time since he’d come home. His eyes were on your face as opposed to something past it, and you almost flinched, because you'd forgotten what it felt like to be seen by him and the remembering hurt worse than the forgetting had. His eyes were red. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, even though he'd slept yesterday, you'd watched him sleep yesterday, you'd brought the blackout curtain closed all the way like you always did and you'd put a glass of water on his nightstand like you always did and he'd slept for six hours and woken up and gone to work and now he was standing in your kitchen looking like he hadn't slept in a year.
“Don’t,” he said, voice quiet. “Don’t push this on me right now. Not right this second.”
“When, then? Tomorrow? Next week? March?” Your voice was very even, you were almost impressed by it. “Just tell me when, Jack. I’ll write it down. I’ll wait.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head as he turned away. He was going to walk out. He was going to walk into the bedroom and close the door and you were going to sit at this table for another hour and then go to work and come home and find him gone again and the whole thing would go on, the whole thing would keep going, the slow leak, the quiet drawer, the small white triangle on the rim of the mug.
“I just—” he started, stopping at the threshold of the bedroom. He had his back to you. “I just don’t know how to do this anymore.”
You did not move an inch. You did not move and you did not move and you did not move. You sat at the table with your hands around your mug, watching the back of his head, for he had said it without facing you. He’d hadn’t been brave enough to say it to your face, even though that was the truest sentence he’d said in a month, he’d said it to a doorframe.
You set your mug down on the table.
The sound it made was very small. A soft tock. You'd set it down a thousand times before. You'd set it down this morning. The mug didn't know anything had changed. The mug was a mug. You looked at it. You looked at the small ring of moisture it had left on the wood. You looked at your hands on either side of it, palms-up, empty.
“Okay,” you said.
You went to work that day. You weren’t sure what happened, what you wore, who you talked to, whether you ate lunch, and you won’t be able to. The day will be a white space in your head. A fugue state boiled down to its lowest, least harmful level. Your body had gone to work and answered emails and sat in a meeting and microwaved something for lunch and your mind had been at the kitchen table in your apartment, hands around a mug, listening to Jack’s words like a bruise that keeps being a bruise even after you stop pressing it.
You'd sat in the parking lot of your building for eleven minutes before you'd made yourself get out of the car. You'd looked up at your window—third floor, second from the left, the one with the plant on the sill that you'd bought him for his birthday last year, a stupid little succulent he'd named Gerald for reasons he'd never adequately explained—and you'd seen that the blackout curtain was still closed, which meant he was still asleep. You had maybe forty minutes before he got up for his shift, and you'd thought about driving away. You'd actually thought about it. You'd thought about driving to your sister's, two hours north, and walking into her kitchen and sitting down at her table and letting her ask you what was wrong. You'd thought about it long enough that your hands had moved to the gear shift. And then you hadn't done it, because some part of you was still hoping, standing at the kitchen counter at six-forty-seven in the morning holding two mugs of coffee. Some part of you was going to keep standing there until he told you, in plain words, to stop.
His mug from the morning was still on the counter. The coffee in it had a film on top now, a dull skin you could break with the tip of your finger.
You sat on the couch in the living room and he got up at six-fifteen. You heard the alarm first—the soft one he'd set when you started staying over because the regular one had made you flinch—and then the rustle of the sheets and the soft thud of his feet on the floor and the particular small sound he made every morning when he stood up, a half-grunt, the huh of a man whose body had been disagreeing with him for years and who'd made peace with it. You'd loved that sound. You'd loved being the only person who knew it.
He came out.
He was dressed for work — black t-shirt, scrubs slung over his shoulder, hair still wet from the shower he must have just taken, the second one in twelve hours — and he stopped when he saw you on the couch.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“You’re home.”
“Yeah.”
He stood there for a second like he was going to say something. You watched him consider it, as though there were random english words bouncing in his mind he was trying to piece together to get what he wanted. You didn’t know what. Or you did know what. You weren’t sure.
“You want me to turn on the light?” he asked.
“It’s okay.”
“Okay.”
He went into the kitchen. You heard him open the fridge. You heard him close it without taking anything out. You heard him fill a glass of water at the sink and drink it and set the glass down on the counter—on the counter, where you'd find it later and wash it and put it away—and then he came back into the living room and he stood in the doorway and he looked at you.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” he said.
You looked at him, trying to force your lips to not turn downwards from the corner. “Are you?”
Your question came out sharper than you wanted it to. The edge had been put on it by the part of you that had been awake for more than a day and had realized, in its wake, that Jack had unlearned how to meet your eyes.
A muscle moved in his jaw. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry—yeah.”
“What are you sorry for, Jack?” Your voice still had that even thing in it, that surprising calm thing, like someone else was operating you from inside. “What part are you sorry for?”
“I don’t—” he said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
You shrugged stiffly. “What you’re sorry for.”
“I’m sorry I was short with you. I was tired. I shouldn’t have—”
“You told me you didn’t know how to do this anymore.”
He closed his eyes, and you could see the way his face twisted at the action. “That’s not what I meant. I can’t think straight when I haven’t slept and you’re—”
You cleared your throat. “Did you mean it?”
He didn't answer for long enough that you understood he was going to lie about it, and he understood that you understood, and you both sat in that mutual understanding for a second, in the gray light, in the quiet apartment, and you watched him choose.
“I meant I was tired.”
It was the worst possible answer. It was the answer of a man who knew that yes would end the conversation and no would be a lie he couldn't make himself tell, and so he'd found a third door and walked through it, and you stood on the other side of the door and you looked at it and you thought, oh.
Oh. He’s a coward.
This was not a thought you had ever had about him. You had thought he was a lot of things. You had thought he was guarded and tired and weighed down and difficult; you had thought he was kind, in a private way, in a way most people didn't get to see; you had thought he was the smartest person in most rooms and you had thought he knew it and didn't care; you had thought, sometimes, when he was sleeping with his hand on your stomach, that he was the love of your life. You had never thought he was a coward. You had never thought he was the kind of man who would refuse to answer a yes-or-no question from a woman who had loved him because answering would cost him something he wasn't willing to pay.
You were thinking it and you were watching your face not show it and you were watching him relax, fractionally, because he thought he'd gotten away with it, because you hadn't pushed and he thought the conversation was ending in the same manner the conversations had been ending for months now, with both of you agreeing not to look directly at the thing in the middle of the room. And some terrible new part of you—a part that had been born this morning at the kitchen table, a part you didn't recognize and weren't sure you liked—wanted to let him think it. You wanted to let him walk out the door thinking he'd managed it. You wanted to give him this one last small dishonest peace before you took everything else away.
“Okay.”
He looked mildly surprised, but he hardly showed it. “Are you okay? Are we good?”
“Yeah, Jack.”
He looked at you for a long second and you held his gaze, and his face flickered—a part of him that knew that your yes was one with a stone in it—and he chose, once again, to not ask. He chose, again, to be tired.
“Okay,” he said. “I gotta go. I’m gonna be late.” Then, he added, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
You nodded.
He started coming towards the couch. You hadn’t expected that. You'd been bracing for him to just leave, to grab his bag and go, and instead he came over to the couch and he stood in front of you and he leaned down and he kissed the top of your head—like he was your father, like he was your friend, like he was anyone but the man who used to kiss you on the mouth at any opportunity he received—nd his hand brushed the back of your neck, briefly, and he smelled like soap and like him and like the faint trace of the antiseptic that never really came off him.
He said into your hair, quietly, “Get some rest, baby.”
He hadn’t called you that in seven weeks. You had not meant to keep count. You had become aware, somewhere around the fifth week, that you were keeping count in the back of your head, the small ruthless math of being unloved by someone who used to love you. You were certain he was saying goodbye.
He didn't know he was saying it. He thought he was being kind. He thought he was patching it. He thought he was leaving for his shift and he'd come home in the morning and the two of you would keep doing what you'd been doing, the slow leak and the quiet drawer.
He had no idea, but your body knew. Your body had known since the kitchen this morning. Your body had been ahead of you all day. Your body was, even now, in the small private dark of itself, already at the door, already in the car, already three exits down the freeway with one suitcase and the mug from your sister already gone, already gone, already gone.
“You too, Jack.”
He pulled back and looked at you. You saw the whole man, you saw the version of him that loved you and the version of him that didn't know how to and the version of him that was about to lose you and didn't know it yet, all of him stacked up in one face for one stupid second in the gray February light of your living room, and you almost said it.
Don’t go. I’m going to leave you. I’m going to leave you tonight, while you’re at work. I’m going to be gone when you come home. This is our last chance. Look at me. Tell me to stay.
You let him go.
He picked up his bag from the chair by the door. He picked up his keys from the bowl. He paused, very briefly, with his hand on the doorknob—you knew you would lie awake and replay that pause and try to decide if it had meant anything, if he had almost turned around, if he had felt the thing you were feeling and chosen against it the way he chose against everything now— and then he opened the door and he went out and he closed it behind him.
It came up through your stomach. It came up through your chest. It came out of your eyes without your permission and without any of the sounds you'd been expecting, like a quiet steady leaking, the way a faucet leaked, the way a roof leaked, a small humiliating involuntary grief of a body that had been holding still for fourteen hours and couldn't hold still anymore. You sat on the couch and you cried and you didn't wipe your face, because there was no one to see, because the apartment was empty
Because the man who used to put his thumb under your eye and say ‘Hey. Hey. Come here’ was on the freeway going to the hospital and he was never going to do that again.
When you stood up. Your legs were stiff. You went to the bathroom and you washed your face with cold water and you looked at yourself in the mirror —your eyes were red, your mouth was doing a thing—and you decided to go to the closet.
You grabbed the suitcase and set it on the bed. It still had the tag from the August trip on the handle. Some hotel in Vermont. You'd gone for a long weekend. He'd held your hand on the walk to dinner the first night and you'd thought this was it, the thing you wanted for the rest of your life.
The tag had your handwriting on it, with his name and the hotel address as the contact—you'd filled it out for him at the airport because he'd been on the phone with the hospital—and you stood looking at the tag with your own handwriting saying JACK ABBOTT in your slightly-too-loopy capitals.
You took the tag off the handle. You set it on the dresser. You did not throw it away. You weren't ready to throw things away yet. You were ready to take things out of the closet and put them in a suitcase. You'd worry about throwing things away later.
The kid wouldn’t stop crying. Jack didn’t blame the kid. The kid was four and he had a piece of LEGO lodged so far up his left nostril that it was going to need a procedure room, and the mother was crying when she came in, and he knew she’d have to explain to everyone later it was only ninety seconds on the phone. Jack put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from crying, and she didn’t. So, for about thirty minutes, the kid and his mother were like a background noise that nobody had asked for.
He was washing his hands now. He'd gotten the LEGO out—it had been a small red one, a 1x2, and he’d held it up in the forceps so the kid could see, and joked that he’d grown a LEGO, and the kid had laughed once through the snot and then started crying again, and Jack had handed the LEGO to the mother in a specimen cup and told her she could keep it as a souvenir, which had been a joke, which she had taken seriously, and she had thanked him three times on the way out. He was thinking about whether he could get away with eating the second half of his sandwich before the next chart hit.
It was 10:47. The board was light for a Tuesday, which meant the q-word wasn't allowed out loud, which meant he was thinking it in his head, which counted, which meant somewhere in the city right now someone was about to do something dumb with a ladder. He'd been doing this long enough to know better. He kept thinking about it anyway. The board was light. He was going to eat his sandwich.
“You owe me twenty bucks.”
Dana, who’d decided this was her twice-in-a-blue-moon night shift, behind him.
“For what?”
“LEGO. I had a LEGO.”
“You bet on a LEGO? In a four-year-old’s nose?”
“Mateo had a marble. Shen took penny. Ellis took battery.”
He dried his hands. He turned around.
“Eat the sandwich,” Dana said.
“Mhm.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna eat it, Dana.”
He went to the break room. The sandwich was where he'd left it on top of his locker—turkey on rye, the rye going a little stale at the edges, made by him—and he took it back out to the desk and ate it standing up.
He got two bites in before Ellis called from the desk, “Abbott.”
“Hm?”
“Pittsburgh General called. They’ve got a transfer they want to send us.”
“Why?”
“They’re full.”
“Liars.”
“They say they’re full.”
“Tell ‘em to go cry about it.”
“I told them you said that.”
“Really,” Jack drawled.
“I told them we had capacity. Female, early-thirties, came in two hours ago with shortness of breath, chest pain, hemoptysis. Clots in her lungs. Both sides. PE. She passed out in triage. They had to put a tube in to help her breathe and they started her on blood thinners but she's getting worse, not better. They want her transferred.”
Jack chewed. “How bad?”
“They’re scared her heart can’t keep up. They don't know if they need to push the clot-busters or just keep her supported and pray. They want a second set of eyes before they pull the trigger, and we’ve got the beds.”
He swallowed. “Fine. ETA?”
“Twenty minutes. They’re loading her now.”
“Bay?”
“Two.”
“Tell Mateo to set up. I want the ultrasound at the bedside before she rolls in, not after.”
“Already did.”
“You’re showing off.”
“I’m always showing off, Doctor.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. He set the sandwich down. He knew the sandwich would go unfinished. He knew it moment Ellis had opened her mouth, which was a thing he should have learned by now and somehow kept not learning. He looked at it for a second. He picked it up. He took one more bite for the road. He chewed it on the way to bay 2.
Bay 2 was ready. Mateo had the ultrasound at the head of the bed and a tray of intubation supplies on the side table and a runner had hung two bags of saline on the IV pole and the monitor was on, blank and waiting, and the overhead was at the low setting, which Jack liked, which he had asked for once two years ago and which had become a thing that just happened now when he was running the bay, the kind of small institutional accommodation a department made for an attending it had decided to keep.
“You good?” he said to Mateo.
“Always.”
Jack pulled a gown off the rack and shrugged it on over his scrubs. He pulled gloves out of the box on the wall and he stood at the head of the bed and he waited.
He liked the waiting.
This was something he had figured out about himself a long time ago, in a different uniform, in a different country. He liked the minute before. The minute when you knew something was coming and didn't yet know what it was going to ask of you. Other people hated that minute. Other people filled it with chatter or with checking their phones or with the small fidgeting of a body that didn't know what to do with itself. He liked it. He stood very still and he let his hands hang at his sides and he ran the algorithm in his head—bilateral PEs, borderline pressures, tachy to the one-thirties, possible RV strain—and he felt the small clean focus of his brain narrowing down to the work, and underneath the focus, almost imperceptible, the thing he wasn't going to look at directly, the small persistent low-grade hum that lived in his chest now and that he had stopped trying to name.
“Two minutes out,” Ellis called from the desk.
“Copy.”
He pulled his mask up over his nose. He flexed his fingers in the gloves. He looked at the empty gurney space at the foot of the bed and he waited.
The doors banged open at 11:04.
EMS came through first, two of them. The gurney they were pushing had a person on it and the person had a tube coming out of her mouth and her chest was rising in the small mechanical way of a chest being ventilated by someone else, and Jack stepped forward to the head of the bed and he said, ‘gimme the report,’ and the medic at the head said, “Thirty-three-year-old female, history per General is unremarkable, presented to them at twenty-one hundred with two hours of progressive shortness of breath, syncopal episode in triage—”
Jack was examining her chart. He usually took the chart in one hand and he scanned the top line for the name, DOB, the allergies, and that was his muscle memory. His hands started it before his eyes did. His eyes did it before his brain did. His eyes landed on the name on the top of the chart and his brain—
His brain stopped.
His brain stopped like a needle lifted off mid-song. The whole bay went very quiet, which it wasn’t, for it was full of sound—monitors pinging, the medics still talking, Mateo on the other side of the bed saying something—but inside Jack’s head, it was very, very quiet. It was a sort of quiet he hadn’t heard in a long time; it came before bad things, as a result of the absence of his own thoughts.
He looked at the name on the chart. He looked at it for what he would later think was a long time and was actually about a second and a half.
He looked up, and he looked at the face. The ace had a tube taped to the corner of your mouth. Your hair was—someone had pulled it back at General and tied it off with those rubber things they kept in the jar at every ER—
Your face. Your face was your face.
Your face was the face he had—your face was the face that had—your face.
Your face was older.
That was the first thing his brain managed to think after it had finished stopping. Your face was older by two and a half years. There were small things that were different. There was a barely-there line between your eyebrows that had not been there. There was a small softness around your mouth he was trying to name, but failing. Your hair was a slightly different color by a few shades. Maybe you’d stopped getting the highlights you used to. Maybe you’d started getting something different. Jack was clueless what you’d started to do differently, but he knew that you had.
Two and a half years had happened to your face without him, and his brain started taking a clinical inventory of the years he had not been allowed to see. His brain—for the first time in much too long—understood that time had been real. He’d understood time had happened, and you’d been alive for it. That you’d aged, and he’d not been there.
His eyes went down to your throat. He’d made an involuntary decision to look. There was a thin gold chain resting there he didn’t recognize. It was small and the kind of chain you’d buy for yourself or have given it to you from someone else. This chain, Jack realized, had been on your neck for an unknown amount of time, in some unknown place, during unknown evenings he couldn’t be a part of.
His eyes went down further. To your hand on the sheet. To your right thumb. The cuticle was bitten. The cuticle was bitten down to the bed of the nail, the way you used to bite it when you were anxious about something, the way you bit it the night before a big work meeting or the morning of a doctor's appointment or the time you were waiting to hear back from the bone scan on your aunt. The cuticle had been bitten recently. You had been anxious recently. He did not know what about. He did not get to know what about.
“Dr. Abbott?” Mateo called from across the bed, and it sounded like his voice came through a long tunnel. “Dr. Abbot, everything good?”
His hands were on the chart. His hands were still on the chart, and his eyes were on your face, and his mouth was not doing anything. His mouth was a part of his body he had forgotten about. He could feel his pulse in his neck. He could feel his pulse in his hands. He could feel the small mean drop of his stomach that he hadn't felt in two and a half years and that he recognized immediately, the way you recognized a smell from a place you used to live.
“Get me Dana,” he said to Mateo. His voice was the voice he used in the ER. His voice was a small miracle. He didn't know how his voice was doing that.
“Doctor—”
“Now. Please.”
Mateo scrambled off. Jack looked back down at you.
You were—the color was bad. He could see that without looking at the monitor. Your face was the wrong color, it was the exact one of someone whose heart was not pushing blood the way it was supposed to, and your chest was rising in the wrong way, because it was one that was being made to breathe. There was a small patch of dried blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on its way in, and your eyelashes—Jesus fucking Christ.
Your eyelashes. He had not—there had not been a single day in the last two and a half years when he had not thought about your eyelashes, not specifically, not the small fact of their existence, the fact that they sat on your cheeks when your eyelids were closed, the small fringe of them, the small fringe of them that he had—that he used to—
He stepped back from the gurney, his prosthetic causing him to stumble back slightly. He didn’t mean to, his body had done it. His body had taken one step away from you and his body was, right now, his body was making a series of very small decisions about him without consulting him, his body was the only thing in the room with any sense, his body was controlling him because his brain was haywire.
“Jack,” Dana said firmly at his elbow.
He couldn’t look at her.
“Jack. Look at me.”
He looked at Dana.
Dana had her hand on his elbow. Dana was looking at his face. And Dana. Dana was a woman who had known him for a long time and who was looking at his face and Dana's own face did a thing, did a small terrible quick thing, and then it didn't do the thing anymore, and her hand was on his elbow and her voice was very low and very even and she was saying, “Step out.”
“No.”
“Jack.”
“No, Dana.”
“You can’t—”
“I know. I know what I can’t. Get Ellis. Ellis runs it. I want eyes on. I am not leaving.”
“Jack.”
“I am not leaving, Dana.”
She looked at him for a second that felt like a year, the small assessing look of a woman who had run more codes than most cardiologists and who was, right now, doing math, fast math, the kind of math that took into account him and her and the patient on the gurney and the resident across the bed and the medical board of Pennsylvania and whatever the fuck else lived in Dana’s marvelous head, and then she nodded.
“Stand at the head. Do not touch her. Tell Ellis everything you know.”
“I don’t—don’t anymore—”
“You know her, Jack. That’s what you know. Tell Ellis what you know about her medically. Allergies. Meds. History. Anything you have. Then you stand at the head and you keep your hands behind your back.”
He nodded, because words were foreign to him right now. So, he nodded.
Dana squeezed his elbow once and let go and turned for Ellis, and Ellis came at a jog from the desk. Jack moved up to the head of the bed and he stood there and he put his hands behind his back like Dana had said and he looked down at her face and he thought about the kitchen.
He thought about the kitchen for one second, the kitchen at six-fifty-three in the morning, the cold coffee on the counter and the key beside it and the small tag on the suitcase handle in the closet that he hadn't found until two days later when he was looking for something else, the small tag with her handwriting on it and his name on it.
He thought don’t. Not now. Don’t.
He looked at your face.
He cleared his throat quickly and said, “No allergies. NKDA. She—sulfa makes her stomach hurt but it’s not a real allergy; she’ll say it is because it’s easier. But write down sulfa. She—she was on a dose of OCP a couple years ago, but I don’t know if she still is. I don’t know what she’s on now. I don’t—”
His voice cracked, a little glitch it had not done in a long time. He cleared his throat again.
“She gets migraines, maybe twice a year, with aura. She used to take excedrin for them. I don’t know what she takes now. I don’t know what she takes. No surgeries. Tonsils when she was eleven. That’s it. Non-smoker, was. Is. Drinks socially.”
Ellis nodded. “Got it.”
“She’s—there’s family history. Her mom had a—fuck, she had a—a clotting thing. After her second pregnancy. She was on heparin for a while. Her sister got tested; she got tested. They were both negative. But it’s in the chart somewhere. It should be in the chart.”
“Okay.”
“It is in the chart, Parker. I’m telling you.”
“I believe you, Jack. We’ll look.”
“There’s—she’s got a thing. She said she doesn’t like the idea of being intubated in front of strangers. She’s scared of it. She told me she didn’t want it. If she can hear us, if there’s any way, I know she can’t, but if she can, somebody should tell her she’s safe.”
Ellis looked at him for a moment. “I’ll tell her.”
He nodded and made himself stop. He could feel the next thing he was going to say lining up behind his teeth and he made himself not say it.
‘She sleeps on her left side. She can’t sleep on her back, it gives her bad dreams. If you have to put her flat for any reason, she’s going to wake up panicking. Just—be ready for it.’ He could feel the small careful instruction-manual of you that he had been keeping in his head for two and a half years, the small useful nothings. ‘She likes the room cold when she sleeps and she gets cold hands when she’s scared. She wants water but never says yes to it, so just put it next to her. She always wants water.’
He understood, standing at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back, that none of this was medical. None of that was his to give. None of it belonged in Ellis’s notes about you. Ellis was looking at him for something useful, and the only thing he could think of was that you like the room cold. He could not say it, though what he would not give to be able to spill his guts about you, talk about you to anyone who listened until the sun came up and his throat was raw.
“She’s healthy,” he said. “She—from last time I—she’s healthy.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Ellis nodded again gently and looked at him.
She looked at him with a face he was going to think about later, as she understood in real time, and Ellis, to her enormous credit, the credit of a doctor he was going to think about with gratitude for the rest of his life, did not say anything about it. Ellis took the report from the medic and started moving.
“Okay, let’s get a repeat set of vitals,” she said, turning back to your bed. “Bedside echo, second large-bore IV if she doesn't have one, and someone get me the chart from General, the actual chart, not the summary. Mateo, walk me through the heparin dose.”
Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he looked down at your face and he did not touch you and he watched your chest rise on the ventilator and he watched the small dried patch of blood at the corner of her mouth and he watched your eyelashes on her cheek and he thought, please.
He stood at the head of your bed with his hands behind his back like a man at a funeral and he thought please, baby and he watched the ventilator breathe for you, and somewhere out at the desk a phone was ringing, and somewhere down the hall a kid with no LEGO in his nose was being discharged with a sticker, and the clock on the wall said 11:07, and Jack Abbott did not move and did not move and did not move.
He thought about how Ellis was good. He’d always known it. He had a file in his head about her, and it was filled it words like competent, fast, doesn’t panic, asks the right questions, and that file was being updated in real time tonight now. Because Ellis, right now, in this bay, with this patient, being the doctor Jack would have wanted in this room for someone he loved if he had been able to choose, which he had not been and could not be, and the choice was Ellis. And Ellis was good, and Jack stood at the head of the bed with his hands behind his back and he watched Collins work and he tried not to be grateful in a way that would make his face do anything.
Mateo gave the probe to Ellis. She took it. She gelled it. She tucked the sheet down off your chest in the small careful way she would for any patient and Jack looked at the ceiling for a half-second because he could not look at your chest under fluorescent light with a stranger's hand moving across it, even Ellis’s hand, even the hand of a doctor he trusted. He looked at the ceiling. The ceiling tile above bay 2 had a small water stain in the shape of nothing, really. The shape of a stain. He had stood under this water stain before. He had stood under it last month and the month before and probably a hundred times. He had never seen it before in his life.
He had the algorithm in his head. He could feel it running. He could feel the part of him that was a doctor doing the thing it did, the small clean calculation of everything to do medically. And underneath, he could feel the other part of him. He could feel the man who had once watched you sleep next to him for six-hundred-and-forty-three nights, and that part was making a sound he could not hear out loud, a small high frantic sound, the sound of a thing being held under water.
“What do you want to do?” Ellis asked.
He realized she knew what to do. Ellis knew exactly what to do. She was asking him because he was the senior attending and because asking him kept him in the room, kept his hands attached to a function, kept him from being a man standing at the head of a gurney watching the love of his life turn the wrong color under fluorescent light. She was throwing him a rope. She was throwing it casually, the way you would throw a rope to someone who didn't yet know they were drowning, and Jack looked at Collins and Collins looked back at him and Collins did not blink and Jack thought, Parker Ellis. Parker Ellis, you good and decent woman. I am going to remember this.
“Half-dose.”
“You sure?”
“She’s young. Full dose risks the bleed. We watch.”
“Agree.”
“Get the Radiology in case.”
“Already paged.”
“You’re showing off again, Ellis.”
“You’re slow tonight, Doctor Abott.”
They looked at each other, and the exchange was the closest thing to mercy he was going to get for a while, and they both understood it, and they both let it pass without naming it, and Ellis turned back to your bed and started working and Jack stayed where he was, at the head, with his hands behind his back, and he watched.
This was a thing he had observed about himself in difficult moments before, mostly in a different uniform in a different country; his perception narrowed in stages. First, the room got smaller; the room got quieter; the room developed a kind of underwater quality, where sound came to him on a small delay, where people's mouths moved a half-second before the words got to him. His own pulse was the loudest thing he could hear. He was at the underwater stage now. He had not been at the underwater stage in a long time. He had forgotten how it was almost peaceful, almost, the small mean peace of a brain that had decided it could not handle the regular speed of things and had slowed everything down.
Your hand was on the gurney with the palm turned up. Someone — the medic, probably, at General, hours ago — had put a pulse ox on your index finger and the small red light of it was glowing through the pad of your finger, and your hand was slack and pale on the white sheet and your fingers were curled in the soft way of a hand whose owner was not currently making decisions about it, and Jack looked at your hand and he thought to make himself stop thinking.
He could feel his thoughts coming behind him like waves, and he tried to brace and he tried to think don't hard enough that the memory would go around him instead of through him, and it didn't work, it never worked, he had been trying not to think about specific memories of you for two and a half years and he had not once succeeded in not thinking about a memory once it had decided to arrive, and the memory arrived like a crash.
It was a Sunday morning a long time ago, in his apartment, in the bed that had been his apartment's bed before it had been your apartment's bed before it had been his apartment's bed again, and you had been asleep on your side facing him and he had been lying on his side facing you, awake, watching you, in the way he sometimes did and never told you about, and your hand had been on the pillow between your faces with the palm turned up, the way it was turned up now, the small slack curl of your fingers, and he had reached out very slowly so he didn't wake you and he had pressed his thumb to the inside of your wrist, just there, where the pulse was, and he had felt it, the small steady beat of you, and he had thought ‘thank you.’
He had thought it as a sentence with no addressee. He had thought it the way men in foxholes thought it. He had thought thank you, and you had not woken up, and he had taken his thumb off your wrist after a while and you had slept on, and he had lain there for another hour watching you sleep, and that had been a Sunday in — he didn't know. He didn't know what Sunday it had been. He had a lot of Sundays like that one filed away and he had stopped, at some point, trying to keep them in order.
He was at the head of your bed and he wasn’t allowed to touch you.
Your hand was on the sheet with the palm turned up and the small red light of the pulse ox was glowing through the pad of your index finger and your pulse was being read by a machine instead of by him and Jack stood at the head of the bed and he did not move and he did not move and he did not move.
When the tPA went in, Jack knew it went in and it went around and it found the clot and it started to break it up, and you started to get better the way ice melted, slowly, in increments you couldn't see while you were watching, only in the aggregate, only when you looked away and looked back.
So the next twenty minutes were a vigil. The next twenty minutes were Jack and Ellis and Mateo and other people standing around your bed and watching the monitor and watching your chest and watching your color, and the monitor pinged in its small mechanical way and your blood pressure stayed at eighty-six and your heart rate stayed at one-forty and Jack stood at the head of the bed and breathed through his nose and counted, in his head, very quietly, because he had nothing else to do with his hands and his mouth and his eyes.
He counted to a hundred.
He counted to a hundred again.
He was on four hundred when his blood pressure went up by four points.
Jack looked at the monitor; he watched your blood pressure. He watched your blood pressure sit at ninety for a few seconds and then go to ninety-two. He watched your heart rate come down from one-thirty-five to one-thirty-two. He watched the numbers and he did not let himself feel anything about the numbers and he stood at the head of the bed and the small slow tide of the room came back up around his ankles and, even though he didn’t, felt like he had one, healthy breath he could take instead of the shallow ones he’d been taking.
He thought, okay. He thought it the way you’d said it that morning. He thought it in your voice, he heard it in your voice, and he stood at the head of the bed and kept repeating the word and he watched the numbers and they kept on being good.
Ellis exhaled. Jack hadn’t even realized Ellis had been holding her breath, and the only reason he noticed it was because she let it out. Ellis shook her head once, very small, and said, “Okay. We’re getting somewhere.” Then, she looked at Jack and said, “Abbott, sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Jack said, not missing a beat.
“You’re gray, Abbott.”
Jack stayed silent because, frankly, he had no idea what color his face was. He had no information about his face—he didn’t care about his face—because it was somewhere far above him being operated by remote. But Ellis was looking at him with a look he’d never seen on her, at least directed on him, and Jack thought he really must’ve looked bad.
“Five minutes,” Ellis said. “Go sit down. Drink some water. I won’t leave her. I’ll call you if anything moves.”
“Please—”
“Five minutes.”
Jack looked at Ellis, then he looked at you. He was not going to win this one and that the smartest thing he could do was to take the five minutes she was offering and come back functional.
He walked through the bay doors and past the desk and past Dana, who did not look up from the phone, who knew not to look up, who was a woman of great and terrible mercies, and he walked down the hall to the supply closet on the left, and he opened the supply closet and he went in and he closed the door behind him and he stood in the dark for a second and then he turned the light on and he leaned against the metal shelving with the gauze and the saline and the small disposable speculums on it and he put his hands over his face.
Jack hadn’t cried in a long, long time. He wasn’t sure if he still could. The mechanism was there, somewhere, but he had not, since the morning he had come back home and seen your key on the counter and the cold, day-old coffee mug beside it, made it work. He’d come close. He had come close a number of times. He’d stood at his own kitchen counter for too long, his weight foot had gotten sore because of how much pressure he was putting on it, and the tears had not come. The only thing that accompanied him was this tug at his chest that started dull, then grew into this feeling of thousands of tiny knives stabbing into his ribcage.
He stood with his hands over his face and his back against the shelving and he breathed for a count of four in and a count of six out, which was a thing he had been taught a long time ago by a therapist with a kind face whose name he could not currently remember. He breathed and breathed, but all his brain could conjure up was the trip the two of you never made it on.
The cabin, the one you were supposed to be going to in June, only months after you left. You’d booked it in October, and you’d been excited about it. Jack had been so, so excited about it. You had a running list of things you wanted to do—a hike, a swim in a strange place, a restaurant with things neither of you had heard of—and you’d emailed him the list with the subject line, “june???” and he’d emailed back, “yes ma’am,” and that was that.
He’d gone to the cabin alone four months after you’d left. He’d taken the time off he’d already booked, gotten in his car, and drove four hours to the cabin. He’d checked in under his own name and the receptionist asked if there had been a change to the reservation, because there were two names on it. He knew it was downright silly to have expected you there; he hadn’t run into you in Pittsburgh, so there was no possibility you would have shown up here. He said no, the other person couldn’t make it. The woman at the front desk had nodded politely and given him the keys.
He’d done none of the things on your list. He had sat on the dock and looked at the lake and thought about you. He’d thought about whether you knew the dates of the trip you’d planned. Were you also thinking about the dates? He had thought about whether you were thinking about him thinking about you. He had eaten badly. He had slept badly.
On the third day, he had walked into the woods behind the cabin and he had sat down on a fallen log and he had stayed on it for an hour as his chest felt like it was caving in. The light had changed while he was on the log. The light had gone from the late afternoon kind to the early evening kind, and at some point he had registered that the light had changed, and he had gotten up off the log and walked back to the cabin, and he had checked out the next day a day early. He had driven home. He had not told anyone he had gone.
He took his hands off his face.
He looked at the ceiling of the supply closet. He turned the light off. He opened the door. He walked back down the hall. He walked past the desk. Dana, again, did not look up. He went back into bay 2.
Ellis looked at him and nodded, which he returned.
Your blood pressure was ninety-six over sixty. Your heart rate was one-twenty-eight. Your color, under the fluorescents, was — your color was a fraction less wrong than it had been five minutes ago. The ventilator was breathing for you in the same small mechanical way. Ellis started charting at the foot of the bed. The new nurse was checking the IV.
Jack went back to the head of the bed and put his hands behind his back.
He didn't know how long he stood there because he had stopped looking at the clock — there was a clock above the door of bay 2 and he had stopped letting his eyes go to it, because every time he looked at it less time had passed than he thought, every time he looked at it the small mean math of the clock told him that the universe was running slow tonight on purpose, and he had decided at some point that he was not going to look at the clock anymore.
“Jack?” Dana’s voice called.
“Mm?”
“Her sister’s here.”
He stood at the head of the bed and he looked at you and he held very still and he thought about something. He thought about the suitcase tag. He thought about your hand on the pillow on a Sunday morning a long time ago.
He thought about the small dried patch of blood at the corner of your mouth where the tube must have nicked you on the way in and which someone, at some point, was going to have to wipe off, and he thought, very clearly, with the small clean clarity of a man in a supply closet, that he wanted to be the one who wiped it off.
He wasn’t allowed.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” Dana said when he didn’t respond.
“I’m going, it’s okay.”
Dana looked at him for a long second with the look she had, the look he had earned over years, the look that said that while she is, in fact, his nurse, she could be his friend or his mother or his nurse, if he needed her to be any of those for the next ten minutes. He looked back at her and he didn't say anything. She nodded, once, and she stepped aside.
He walked out of bay 2.
He could see your sister, standing at the desk, in a coat that was too thin for the weather, with her purse on her shoulder and her phone in her hand and her hair pulled back from her face, which he had only ever seen her do twice, the first time when your father had been in the hospital four years ago and the second time when she had come to yours and Jack’s apartment for Thanksgiving and burned the rolls and cried about it in the kitchen and let him hand her a glass of wine.
She had a wedding band on, which she had not the last time he’d seen her. The ring was a thin gold band. She had a small gold charm on a chain around her neck.
He knew her face. He knew the way she held her phone.
He knew, even from down the hall, that she had been crying in the car on the way over and had stopped before she came in, because that was the kind of thing your sister did, that was a specific habit she had, and he had liked her very much, once, and she had liked him very much, once. It was a kind of likeness that came from knowing the other person loved their mutual person right.
The last thing she had ever said to him out loud had been “She's okay. I just wanted you to know she's okay,” on a phone call four months after you’d left, and she had hung up before he could say anything back. She was the closest he could get to you without getting to you, because the one time he’d tried calling you, it rang five times before he, in the most honest words he could put it, chickened out.
When she turned and saw him, there was the flash of recognition. Then, he could practically hear her think ‘of course it’s you, of course it had to be you.’ Then her face did the thing he had been bracing for, the polite hard face of a woman who had not forgiven him and was not going to and was, right now, going to have to talk to him anyway because her sister was on a ventilator. She stood at the desk with her phone in her hand and she watched him walk toward her.
He put them in the pockets of his scrubs. He took them out. He put them behind his back. He took them out again. He let them hang at his sides.
“Hi,” he said.
She looked at him and seemed like she wanted to frown. “Hi, Jack.”
Jack had been bracing for cruelty. It was then he realized she was choosing to be kind to him. Why, he wasn’t sure. But the only conclusion he could come to was that she wouldn’t punish him for what he’d done, and instead let the world do it. The world was doing a fine job.
“She’s stable.” He cleared his throat because it sounded too heavy again. “She’s gonna—she’s gonna be okay. We're moving her to ICU in a little while. She's gonna be okay.”
She looked at him and Jack watched her eyes fill up. Your sister was, like you, a person who did not cry in front of people if she could help it. He stood there and watched her not cry, and he understood, with the clarity of a man who loved you and could not stop doing so, that she didn’t cry in front of people because you didn’t cry in front of people. Because the two of you had learned it from the same kitchen, the same mother, the same childhood with the same set of rules about what was and was not allowed to be done in a room with witnesses.
She let her eyes fill up and she looked at the ceiling for a second and she breathed through her nose and she looked back at him and she said, very quietly, “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
“I didn’t—Doctor Ellis ran most—”
“Thank you, Jack.”
He gave her one jerky nod. Then, he looked at the floor and nodded again and he stood there.
“Can I—” he started, then stopped himself because he wasn’t sure what he was asking.
Your sister hummed, slightly urging him to continue.
“Can I see her? Once she’s in the ICU. Can I—I don’t have to go in. I just, I would really like to. Once, if that’s okay.”
This woman had stood in your kitchen one Sunday afternoon a long time ago and watched him put his hand on the back of your neck while you laughed at something the neighbor’s dog had done and who had thought, in that moment, that, yes, Jack is the one for her sister. This woman had also, four months later, sat with you on the phone while you cried in a parking lot in a different city. The look she gave him contained both of those things. It was a look that contained more than Jack could parse, and he stood in the hallway of his ER and he looked at your sister and he waited.
“I don’t know, Jack,” she said.
He nodded, and it was more unstable than before.
“I don’t know if she’d want that.”
“I know,” Jack said, and this time, there was no denying the shakiness accompanying his voice. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’ll think about it, okay?” Jack was nodding along to whatever she said now, because this, this, he’d have to make peace with. “I’ll see how she feels, and maybe I can bring it up—?”
He nodded and he could not say anything and he stepped back from the desk. Before he could turn around, another question slipped from his mouth, “Was—is she okay? In the last while, was she taking care of herself? Happy? Sleeping?”
He was making a mess of it. He could feel his face doing the thing it did when he was making a mess of it.
“She’s been okay, Jack.”
He nodded and nodded and nodded.
Your sister picked up her purse from where it had slid down her arm and she adjusted her coat and she looked at him one more time and she said, “It’s nice to see you, Jack.”
She said it like a small kindness she was giving him because she had decided, in these past few minutes, that she was going to give him this one thing. Like giving a stranger directions to a place you knew they probably weren't going to find. She said it and she meant it and she also did not mean it, and Jack stood as he watched your sister walk past him toward bay 2, where Dana was waiting to take her in, and he stood there until she was gone, and then he stood there a little longer.
Jack Abbot X Foc (Amber)
Main Masterlist, [Ao3]
Amber just wants to finish her practicum at PTMC, be done and have a career she put off for years. Her dysfunctional family is not helping her trying to achieve her goal. But, everything feels a bit lighter when she meets Jack Abbot. Coworkers to lovers
Warnings: Job inaccuracies, Past child abuse, Alcoholism/alcohol abuse, abuse
Word Count: 36k+
Ongoing: 25/33
* = Mature
Chapter One: If The Bones Are Good
Chapter Two: Reality
Chapter Three: The Bar
Chapter Four: First Day
Chapter Five: Letters
Chapter Six: Too Close to Home
Chapter Seven: The VA and Coffee
Chapter Eight: The Night Shift
Chapter Nine: Nocturnal
Chapter Ten: Sturdiness
Chapter Eleven: Tender
Chapter Twelve: Support
Chapter Thirteen: Late Night Phone Call
Chapter Fourteen: Stargazing
Chapter Fifteen: Flirt and Work
Chapter Sixteen: Day Off
Chapter Seventeen: MIA
Chapter Eighteen: Promise*
Chapter Nineteen: Morning After
Chapter Twenty: Comfort
Chapter Twenty-One: Like A Moth
Chapter Twenty-Two: Alive
Chapter Twenty-Three: Selfish*
Chapter Twenty-Four: Tender Morning
Chapter Twenty-Five: Tender
SUMMARY: When an angry patient attacks you at work, you do everything in your power to hide how bad it is from Jack. Unfortunately for you, his dog, Buddy, knows best, and is quick to alert him to how bad things are as soon as he gets home.
NOTES: Aggressive patient, physical injury, Jack has a retired military dog, the dog is very protective of reader, hurt/comfort, established relationship.
NAVIGATION | PITT MASTERLIST | KO-FI
a/n — technically a part two to dog’s best friend, but can absolutely be read as a standalone !
“I just need you to stay seated for a second, alright?” you say, voice soft, even, the same tone you use with every difficult situation, steady and careful without ever sounding condescending.
The patient doesn’t like it. You see it in the way her shoulders tense, the sharp turn of her head, the flicker of something reactive and unpredictable behind her eyes.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not,” you reassure gently, hands visible, posture open. “I’m just trying to help you, ma’am.”
The metal tray is already in her hand before you fully register it.
“Hey!”. It’s Samira’s voice, a sharp warning from somewhere behind you, but it comes a second too late.
The patient swings. Not hard enough to seriously injure on its own. But combined with the shove that comes with it, it’s enough. The impact glances off your shoulder, but the force of the push sends you stumbling backwards, your foot catching awkwardly on the edge of the trolley behind you.
There’s a split second where you try to correct it. Your balance almost rights itself. Then, your heel slips.
You go down hard.
Your hip hits first, the shock of it jolting up your side before your shoulder follows, and then your head clips the edge of the cabinet behind you with a dull, sickening crack that makes your vision flare white.
The world tilts. Sound distorts.
You suck in a breath too fast and it catches halfway, your ribs protesting sharply as pain blooms deep along your side, spreading outwards in a way that feels heavy and wrong.
“Shit!”
“Hold her back!”
“Move!”
Hands are on you immediately. Too many. Too fast.
“Don’t move,” Dana says firmly, already crouched at your side, one hand braced against your shoulder to keep you grounded.
“I’m fine,” you manage automatically, even as your voice comes out thinner than you want it to. “I just slipped—”
“You didn’t slip,” Samira cuts in, sharper than usual, already scanning you quickly. “She shoved you.”
“I’m fine,” you repeat, trying to push yourself up.
Your body protests instantly. A sharp, deep pain lances through your ribs and your breath hitches before you can stop it.
Dana presses you back down without hesitation.
“No, you’re not getting up yet.”
“I’m okay,” you insist, though your hand has already moved instinctively to your side, fingers pressing there like you can contain the ache if you just hold it still.
“Yeah,” Langdon mutters, crouching on your other side, one brow raised. “You look fantastic.”
You glare weakly. “I am—”
“You’re wincing,” Mel says gently from behind them. “Just stay down a second.”
Across the bay, Robby steps in, taking in the scene quickly, his expression tightening slightly as he looks between you and the now-restrained patient.
“What happened?”
“They got knocked,” Dana says, not taking her eyes off you. “Hit their head on the way down.”
“I’m fine,” you say again, the words automatic now, like muscle memory.
Robby’s gaze lingers on you a moment longer than you’d like. Assessing. Weighing.
Then, “Get them checked,” he says. “No arguments.”
You open your mouth to argue anyway. Close it again.
The check is quick. Too quick.
Vitals steady. Pupils reactive. A few questions you answer without thinking, even as your head still feels slightly off and your ribs ache every time you breathe too deeply.
“Probably just bruised,” Langdon says, though there’s hesitation there. “Keep an eye on it.”
“I will,” you say.
You go back to work. Of course you do. It’s slower now. More careful. Every movement measured so you don’t aggravate the pain blooming along your side, every breath kept shallow enough to avoid the sharpest edge of it.
You don’t let anyone make a fuss. You don’t give them the chance.
By the time shift change creeps in, you’re running on stubbornness more than anything else.
Your body feels heavy. Your head dull. Your ribs worse. But you’re still standing. That counts for something.
You see Jack the second he walks in.
It’s instinct, the way something in you softens at the sight of him, even through the ache, even through the exhaustion.
He sees you just as quickly, and immediately, his expression changes. “What happened?”
No hello. No lead-in. Just that.
You blink. Too slow. “…nothing.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
You can see him clocking it, the stiffness in your posture, the way you’re holding yourself like you’re trying not to move too much, the faint mark forming near your hairline.
“Don’t do that,” he says quietly.
“Do what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Lie to me.”
You huff a small breath, trying for normal. “I’m not lying. I just got knocked a bit. It’s fine.”
“Knocked how?”
“Patient,” you say quickly. “It happens.”
His jaw tightens. “You hit your head.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
Jack steps closer, his hand coming up instinctively, hovering for a second before brushing lightly near your temple, careful.
You flinch. Just slightly. Jack notices anyway.
“Hey,” he says, softer now. “Talk to me.”
“I am,” you insist, forcing a small smile. “It’s nothing, Jack. Just a bruise.”
“You don’t look like it’s nothing.”
“I’m just tired.”
“That’s not what this is.”
You don’t let him push further. You can’t, because if you stop holding it together now, you’re not sure you’ll be able to start again.
“I promise I’m okay,” you say, gentler now, stepping into his space, your hand brushing his arm. “I’m just going to go home, sleep it off.”
Jack searches your face. Longer than you’re comfortable with. “…yeah?”
You nod. “I promise.”
You kiss him before he can argue again. Soft. Quick. A distraction more than anything.
“I’ll text you,” you add.
He doesn’t look convinced. But he lets you go.
You don’t realise how much you’ve been holding in until you get home.
The door shuts behind you. Your bag slips from your shoulder. Everything collapses.
The pain hits first. Sharp. Deep. Your ribs screaming the second you stop forcing yourself to breathe carefully around it. Your head throbbing dully where it connected earlier. Your whole body suddenly too aware of itself.
Then the tears. They come fast. Uncontrolled. Your hands come up to your face as your shoulders shake, the sound breaking out of you before you can stop it.
“It hurts,” you whisper, voice cracking.
Soft paws hit the floor behind you. Buddy is there instantly.
No hesitation. No distance. Just straight to you, pressing in close, whining low as his nose nudges at your hands, your face, your shoulder, anywhere he can reach.
“Hey, Buddy…” Your voice wobbles as you drop one hand to him, fingers tangling in his fur. “I’m okay,” you murmur, even as you cry. “I’m okay—”
He doesn’t believe you. He licks at your cheek, catching tears, pressing closer until you sink down with him, your body folding as he crowds in, solid and warm and there.
Buddy doesn’t leave your side once. Not when you get up slowly. Not when you change. Not when you ease yourself into bed with a quiet, pained breath.
He jumps up beside you without hesitation. Circles once. Then presses himself along your back, heavy and grounding, his head resting near your shoulder like he’s keeping watch.
You fall asleep like that. Hurting. Exhausted. But not alone.
Jack knows something is wrong before he even gets the door fully open.
It isn’t logical at first. There’s no noise, no obvious sign of anything being off, but the second the latch clicks and the door gives, the silence hits him wrong, too heavy, too still, like something’s settled where it shouldn’t.
Then, there’s movement. Fast. Low.
A sharp bark that cuts straight through the quiet.
Buddy is there instantly, planted between Jack and the hallway like a barrier, body rigid, ears forward, a low, warning growl vibrating through his chest in a way Jack has never heard directed at him before.
“Hey, Buddy…” Jack stills, hands lifting slightly in reflex, not defensive, just careful. “Buddy.”
The dog doesn’t move.
If anything, he braces harder, stance widening, blocking the path to the bedroom completely like he’s guarding something.
Another bark. Sharper this time. Urgent.
Jack’s chest tightens. “Alright,” he murmurs, voice dropping instinctively, steady, controlled. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”
Buddy huffs, pacing a tight step forward, then back, torn between holding his ground and needing Jack to follow.
It clicks immediately. Not aggression. Protection.
Jack’s stomach drops. “…where are they?”
Buddy barks again. Turns. Looks back. Then looks at him.
Jack doesn’t hesitate. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Okay, I’m coming.”
Buddy doesn’t fully relax, but he shifts just enough to allow it, moving ahead of him down the hall, glancing back every few steps like he’s making sure Jack is still there. Still following. Still paying attention.
The bedroom door is half open. The light is off.
Jack pushes it gently. “Sweetheart?”
No answer.
His chest tightens further as he steps inside.
You’re there. Curled on your side, exactly where he expects you to be, and somehow still wrong. Too still. Too tense even in sleep, your body drawn in slightly like you’re protecting something.
“Hey,” he says again, softer now, stepping closer.
Buddy is already at the side of the bed, whining low, tail flicking anxiously, nose nudging lightly at your arm.
You don’t wake straight away.
Jack reaches you in two steps, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed, his hand hovering for just a second before resting lightly on your shoulder.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
You stir at that. Just slightly. A small sound leaving you, somewhere between a breath and a soft groan as you shift without meaning to.
The movement pulls a reaction out of you immediately. A sharp inhale. A wince. Your hand tightening instinctively at your side.
Jack stills. “There it is,” he murmurs quietly.
Your eyes open slowly, heavy with sleep, disoriented for a second before they land on him.
“…Jack?” Your voice is rough. Small.
“Hey,” Jack exhales softly, relief flickering across his face for just a second before it’s replaced with something more focused. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Buddy immediately pushes closer the second you’re awake, nose nudging your cheek, then your shoulder, then settling half across you like he’s making sure you stay put.
“What…” you start, blinking. “What time is it?”
“Too early for you to pretend you’re fine,” he replies gently.
You try to smile. It doesn’t quite work.
“I am fine.”
Jack doesn’t even entertain that.
“Mhm,” he hums, eyes already scanning you properly now, taking in the way you’re holding yourself, the tightness in your posture, the faint shadow of bruising starting to show along your side where your shirt has shifted. “What actually happened?”
“Nothing,” you say automatically. Too quickly.
His gaze flicks up to yours. Flat. Unimpressed.
“Try again.”
You hesitate. Just for a second. It’s enough.
“A patient knocked me,” you admit finally, quieter now. “It’s not a big deal.”
Jack’s jaw tightens immediately. “Knocked you how? You can’t just leave it at that, baby.”
“I fell,” you say. “It’s just a bruise.”
Buddy lets out a soft, unhappy whine. Jack glances at him briefly, then back at you.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “He doesn’t seem to think so either.”
You huff a weak breath. “He’s dramatic.”
“Yeah,” Jack repeats. “Funny. So are you.”
You try to push yourself up. Bad idea. The movement pulls a sharp, involuntary sound out of you before you can stop it, your hand flying back to your ribs as pain flares hot and immediate.
Jack’s hand is there instantly, steadying you before you can even properly lose balance.
“Hey, easy, easy.”
“I’m fine,” you insist again, breath uneven now.
“No, you’re not,” Jack says, still calm but firmer now, his other hand coming up to gently guide you back down against the pillows. “Lie back.”
You don’t argue this time. You don’t have the energy.
Buddy shifts with you immediately, repositioning so he’s still pressed against your side, careful, oddly careful for his size, like he knows exactly where not to put weight.
Jack notices. Files it away.
“Where?” he asks quietly, his hand hovering just above your ribs. “Show me.”
You hesitate. Then, slowly, you move your hand just enough to indicate the worst of it. His touch is light when it comes, fingers pressing gently along the area, assessing. You flinch. Harder this time.
“Shit, okay,” Jack murmurs, more to himself than you. “Yeah, that’s not nothing.”
“It’s just bruised,” you say weakly.
“Maybe,” he replies. “Maybe not.”
You look at him. A flicker of worry finally breaking through everything else.
“It’s not broken. I got checked out. Ask Robby.” He doesn’t answer straight away. Which is answer enough. “Jack, please.”
“Hey,” he says softly, immediately, his hand coming up to your face instead, thumb brushing lightly under your eye where tears are starting to gather again. “Don’t get upset about it. Not your fault.”
“I didn’t want to make a fuss,” you admit, voice cracking slightly. “It wasn’t that bad at work, I just—”
“You came home and cried,” he says quietly.
You freeze. “How did you—”
He glances at Buddy. Buddy, who is currently pressed against you like a guard dog with a personal vendetta.
“Right,” you mutter weakly.
Jack’s expression softens. A lot. “You should’ve told me,” he says, not accusing, just honest.
“I didn’t want you to worry,” you whisper.
He huffs a quiet breath. Too late for that. “You don’t get to decide that for me,” he says gently.
Your throat tightens. “I know.”
There’s a pause. Soft. Then, “Alright,” he says, shifting slightly. “We’re going to fix you up, okay?”
You blink. “We?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Me and him. You know we can’t leave him out of anything.”
Buddy lifts his head slightly at that, like he’s been formally acknowledged.
Despite everything, you almost laugh.
Jack doesn’t rush you. That’s the first thing you notice. Even with the tension sitting tight in his shoulders, even with the way his eyes keep flicking back to your ribs like he’s already running through worst-case scenarios in his head, he keeps everything slow. Measured. Like if he moves too fast, you’ll bolt or break or both.
“Alright,” he murmurs, shifting off the bed briefly. “Stay there.”
You don’t have the energy to do anything else. Buddy does. The second Jack steps away, Buddy’s head lifts, ears pricking forward, a low, suspicious rumble building in his chest again like he’s not entirely convinced this is still safe.
“Hey,” Jack says without looking at him, already grabbing what he needs. “Pack it in.”
Buddy huffs. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t relax. You reach down weakly, fingers brushing through his fur.
“It’s okay, Buddy,” you murmur softly. “He’s helping.”
Buddy’s attention flicks to you immediately. That’s all that matters.
Jack comes back with a small kit, nothing dramatic, just basics, but it’s the way he carries it that tells you everything. Familiar. Practised. Focused.
He sits beside you again, closer this time. Close enough that your knees brush when he shifts.
“Can I?” he asks quietly, his hand hovering near the hem of your shirt.
You nod.
He moves carefully. Slowly lifting the fabric just enough to expose your side. The bruise is worse than either of you expected. Dark already. Spreading. Angry under the skin, the kind of deep, blooming discolouration that makes your stomach twist just looking at it.
“Fuck,” Jack exhales quietly. Not surprised. Not pleased either.
“It looks worse than it feels,” you say automatically.
It’s a lie. A weak one.
Jack glances at you. Doesn’t call it out. Doesn’t need to.
“Does it hurt to breathe?” he asks instead.
“A bit.”
“How much is a bit?”
You hesitate. “More than a bit.”
He nods slightly, like he expected that. “Any sharp pain when you move?”
“Yes.”
“Dizziness? Nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“A little.”
He takes that in, nodding with a frown. Then his hand comes back to your side, touch light, deliberate, pressing just enough to assess without making it worse. You tense immediately. A sharp inhale slipping out before you can stop it.
“Sorry, honey,” he murmurs, instantly easing off.
“It’s okay,” you whisper, even as your eyes sting again.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”
That lands. Heavier than anything else has. Your lip wobbles slightly before you can stop it. You look away.
“I really thought it was fine,” you admit, voice small now. “At work it didn’t feel this bad.”
“Adrenaline,” he says simply.
You huff a weak breath. “Yeah.”
There’s a pause. Then, “Hey.”
You look back at Jack. His hand comes up to your face again, thumb brushing lightly under your eye where tears have started slipping free again without you realising.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs. “It looks bad, but you’re okay.”
“I feel stupid,” you whisper.
His expression tightens. Not at you. At the word.
“Don’t,” he says softly.
“I should’ve just stopped. Let them check it properly. Told you—”
“You got through your shift,” he cuts in gently. “That’s what you were focused on.”
“That doesn’t make it smart.”
“No,” he agrees quietly. “But it makes it understandable. I know what you’re like.”
You swallow. Your chest tightens.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” you say, barely above a whisper now.
“You don’t get to decide that it’s not a big deal,” he replies, not harsh, just steady. “Not when it’s you.”
You don’t argue. You can’t.
Buddy shifts slightly, pushing his head more firmly into your lap like he’s trying to insert himself into the conversation. You let your hand fall to him automatically, fingers threading through his fur.
Jack watches it for a second. Then, “Alright,” he says, softer now. “We’re going to assume bad bruising, maybe a cracked rib. No heroics for a few days.”
You let out a quiet breath. “Okay. I can live with that.”
“I’ll grab some ice,” he adds.
Buddy immediately lifts his head again. Watching. Tracking. Jack pauses. Looks at him.
“I’m coming back,” he says dryly.
Buddy blinks. Considers it. Then settles again, barely. You laugh softly despite yourself. It hurts. You do it anyway.
By the time Jack comes back, you’re more settled. Not better, but calmer.
He helps you adjust carefully, guiding you so you’re propped slightly, a pillow tucked behind your back to keep pressure off your ribs. Every movement is slow. Considered. His hands never far from you.
“Gonna be cold, sorry,” he warns quietly, pressing the ice pack gently against your side.
You flinch. Then relax. “That’s actually nice,” you admit after a second.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Usually is.”
The quiet settles again. Different now. Softer.
You’re watching Jack without meaning to.
The focus in his expression. The care in every movement. The way he keeps checking in without making it obvious.
“You’re not mad?” you ask after a while.
He looks up. Brows drawing together slightly. “Mad?”
“That I didn’t tell you.”
There’s a pause. Then, “No,” he says.
You blink. “Really?”
“I mean, I’m not thrilled,” he adds honestly. “But I’m not mad at you, sweetheart.”
That eases something in your chest. You didn’t even realise it was there.
“I just didn’t want to worry you,” you repeat softly.
“You don’t get to make that call,” he says again, gentler this time. “You tell me, I worry. That’s the deal.”
Your lips twitch slightly. “That’s not a very fair deal.”
“No,” he agrees. “Works for me, though.”
You laugh quietly. It pulls at your ribs. You wince.
His hand is there instantly. “Easy.”
“I’m okay,” you murmur. “Stop being funny.”
“I know. I’ll try,” he says.
Buddy shifts again, this time climbing more deliberately across the bed until he wedges himself firmly between you and Jack, his body pressed along your side, his head settling heavily across your lap like he’s decided his position is now permanent.
Jack stares at him. “Really?”
Buddy doesn’t move. Doesn’t even acknowledge him. You smile softly, your hand resting automatically on Buddy’s head.
“He’s just making sure I’m okay.”
“Yeah,” Jack mutters. “I can see that.”
There’s a pause. Then, carefully, deliberately, Jack shifts closer anyway. Working around the dog rather than moving him. His arm slides gently behind your back, pulling you just slightly closer so you’re supported without putting pressure on your ribs.
Buddy allows it. Barely.
You melt into it. Exhaustion catching up all over again now that everything else has settled. Your head tips lightly against Jack’s shoulder. Your hand still resting on Buddy.
“I’m really tired,” you mumble.
“Yeah,” Jack murmurs softly. “I know.”
Your eyes slip closed. Between them, you’re completely boxed in, warmth at your back, solid weight at your front, hands anchoring you in place like nothing is going to let you fall apart again.
“Stay,” you whisper, barely conscious now.
Jack’s arm tightens slightly around you. “I’ve got you.”
Buddy huffs softly. Settling deeper. And for the first time since it happened, you actually relax. Sleep comes easy after that.
All three of you tangled together in the quiet.
— COME AND JOIN MY TAGLISTS !
ALL PITT: @shawnhatosysrightbicep @goldfishenthusiast67 @snake-in-a-flower-crown @aureliacalista @sheridamn
ALL PITT MEN: @malindacath
JACK ABBOT: @moonlitblossomsofthesun @nebuleuseeeeee @nyxmoretti @oliviarw3
how i'd love to go to paris again (and again) | j. abbot
pairing jack abbot x fem!reader x michael robinavitch
summary after jack casually floats the idea of adding a third, you don’t let it stay theoretical for long—what starts as curiosity turns into something a lot more real when robby gets pulled into the space you and jack have built together. (#threesometime #neverforgetchallengers) (ao3)
tags/warnings MDNI (18+) explicit sexual content, age gap (mid-20s / 50s), established relationship with you and jack, living together, unlabelled jack and robby sexualities (bi?), attempt at a true love triangle (et tu, challengers (2024) except no cheating & u and jack r <3. but rabbot under(over?)tones), unprotected p in v, oral (f/m, m/f) handjobs (f/m, m/m), masturbation, praise & teasing, dom!ish robby, bratty!ish reader, lowkey switch/softdom jack idk, finger sucking, domestic, drinking, brief hospital/medical stuff / orthopaedics (r3), porn with... context?, hint at robby internalised homophobia? possibly ooc for jack sorry, title reference to the 1975 but not inspired by the song more just bad pun bc... paris... threesome... get it
wc 18.3k words
spin off of the fic: my (wo)man on willpower | j. abbot - can be read solo!
Robby doesn’t look confused so much as… unconvinced.
He sits back in the booth, one arm slung along the backrest, beer loose in his hand, eyes moving between you and Jack like he’s watching a consult go sideways.
“…You two wanna try that again,” he says, slow, “but in English this time?”
Jack huffs under his breath, already regretting opening his mouth. He drags a hand over his jaw, glancing at you like he’s half-tempted to pull the plug on the whole thing.
“Told you,” he mutters, low. “Bad pitch.”
You nudge his knee under the table—not hard, just enough. Don’t bail.
Robby catches it. Of course he does. His eyes flick down, then back up, something sharpening.
“Oh, don’t tap out now,” he says, leaning forward, forearms braced on the table. “You brought it up. I’m listening.”
Jack opens his mouth again—
“—No,” Robby cuts him off, not even looking at him. “She talks.”
There’s that tone. The one he uses with residents when they’re dancing around something obvious. Not unkind. Just… direct. Your breath catches for half a second. Not nerves exactly—more the weight of being looked at like that. Seen through, a little.
Jack glances at you, something softer there now. A small nod. Go on.
You shift in your seat, tucking one leg under you slightly, grounding yourself before you speak.
“It’s not… open,” you start, careful. “We’re not looking to—change anything. Not really.”
Robby watches you the whole time. Doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t fill the silence for you.
“It’s just—” you exhale, a small, almost embarrassed huff of a laugh, “—we trust you. Both of us do. And you’ve been… there. With us. For a while.”
“Unfortunately,” he mutters.
Jack snorts. “Speak for yourself.”
But Robby doesn’t look away from you.
You hold his gaze. “It’s not random. It’s not… about finding some person to fool around with. It’s you.”
That lands. You see it in the way his jaw shifts, just slightly. The humour doesn’t disappear, but it tightens around the edges.
“…Right,” he says, slower now.
Jack leans forward, elbows on the table, finally stepping back in. “It’s not a free-for-all,” he adds, dry. “We’re not pitching some kind of ER orgy.”
“Shame,” Robby says flatly.
You almost laugh, tension breaking for a second.
Jack shoots him a look. “Be serious for one second in your life.”
“I am serious,” Robby says. Then, to you—“I’m just making sure I understand what the hell you’re asking me.”
His gaze drops briefly—to your hands, the way they’re curled loosely around your glass—then back up again.
“What are you actually offering here?” he asks.
You hesitate—not because you don’t know, but because saying it out loud makes it real. Jack shifts beside you. You feel his knee press into yours, steady, grounding.
“It’s not just sex,” you say, quieter now.
Robby’s brow lifts. “No?”
You shake your head. “It’s… us. Still us. Just—” you glance at Jack, then back at Robby, “—with you in it. Sometimes. If you wanted that.”
There’s a long beat.
Robby leans back again, dragging his hand over his mouth, thinking. Really thinking.
“You two have been together, what,” he says, glancing at Jack, “two years now?”
“Nearly three,” Jack corrects.
“Nearly three,” Robby repeats. “You know, you… you live together. Don’t kill each other. That’s impressive.”
“Thank you,” you say, dry.
His gaze shifts back to you again, softer this time—but heavier, too.
“And you’re both telling me this doesn’t… complicate things.”
Jack answers this time, steady. “Everything’s already complicated. This wouldn’t change what we’ve got. We’ve talked, we trust each other, we trust you.”
Robby studies him for a second longer than necessary. There’s history in that look. Long-standing, unspoken understanding. The kind you only get after decades of knowing someone.
“…You’re serious,” he says finally.
“Yeah,” Jack says.
Robby exhales, a quiet, disbelieving laugh under his breath. He tips his head back for a second, staring at the ceiling like he’s trying to reset his brain.
“Jesus Christ.”
You don’t rush him. Neither does Jack. When he looks back at you, it’s different now. Less amused. More… considering.
“You’re asking about the three of us…” he tries, trailing off.
You nod. “Yeah.”
His eyes flick, just briefly, to where your leg is still angled toward Jack’s, the easy closeness of it. Then back to your face.
“And you’re both just- you’re… good with it,” he says.
Your voice is quieter when you answer. “Wouldn’t be sitting here if we weren’t. You’re attractive, smart, funny. And I think you’ve always secretly had a thing for at least one of us. Maybe both, but, one way to find out, I guess.”
Robby drums his fingers once against the table, then stills them.
“...Christ,” he mutters again, but there’s a hint of something else in it now. Not just disbelief.
Interest. He looks at you properly then. Not the quick, passing glances from before. This is slower. Measuring.
“You always this persuasive?” He wonders.
You tilt your head, a small smile pulling at your mouth. “Only when it matters.”
That earns the faintest huff of a laugh.
“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that.”
Jack shifts beside you, not tense—but alert. Watching the shift happen in real time. Robby notices that too. His mouth quirks, just slightly.
Your phone buzzes—once, twice, then a string of messages lighting up your screen.
You glance down, already half-standing. “I’ve gotta go. Park needs me—Isla called in sick.”
Jack doesn’t even hesitate. He’s already reaching into his pocket, keys in hand. “Take the car. I’ll ride back with him.”
You take them, brushing his fingers briefly. “Thanks, baby.”
You lean down—meant to be quick, but it doesn’t quite stay that way. Your mouth presses to his, warm, familiar. He lets you, hand coming up to your cheek, thumb catching just under your jaw, holding you there for half a second longer than necessary before you pull back.
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes when you do. You straighten, turning— Robby’s already looking at you. Not subtle about it. Rarely is.
“Michael,” you say, softer, a small nod.
He repeats your name—flatter, rougher, like he’s testing how it sits in his mouth.
You don’t linger. You head out.
The door swings shut behind you.
Jack watches it a beat too long. Then exhales, leaning back into the booth, dragging a hand over his mouth like he’s resetting.
Robby doesn’t look at the door. He looks at Jack. There’s a slow, almost amused curve to his mouth. Not mocking. Just… processing.
“Alright,” he says. “Who’s idea is it?”
Jack doesn’t bother pretending. “Mine.”
Robby lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“When?”
Jack shrugs, reaching for his beer. “Remember that detox sexless cult thing she did a few months back?”
Robby snorts. “Yeah. You turned into the most unbearable version of yourself I’ve seen in twenty years. Which is saying something.”
“Appreciate that.”
“Walking around like—” Robby gestures vaguely, “—like a cat in heat.”
Jack huffs a laugh despite himself. “Yeah, well. After you left that morning, we had our… you know, usual great sex - not adding as part of the pitch, you already know how good the sex is -”
“-get to the point,” Robby says, with a slight snicker.
“Some point, I mention… I don’t know, marriage, foreplay, a third. We finish up, and… we’re just talking.”
“Talking,” Robby repeats, deadpan.
“Yeah. Try it sometime. With a professional, even, they do that.”
“Hard pass.”
Jack ignores him, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “It came up. Not seriously at first. Hypotheticals. What we’d be into, what we wouldn’t.”
“And you landed on me,” Robby says.
“Yeah.”
Robby watches him for a second. Longer than usual. “…Both of you.”
“Both of us.”
That lands differently.
Robby leans back, dragging a hand over his jaw, thinking. Really thinking now—not just reacting.
“That’s your girl,” he says finally. “You’ve built something there. I’m not—” he shakes his head slightly, “—I’m not interested in screwing that up.”
Jack’s expression doesn’t change much, but something in it settles. He nods once.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I thought you would.”
Robby glances at him, sharper now. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“No,” Jack agrees easily. “But I do know you.”
A beat.
“And I trust you,” he adds.
it hangs there. Robby exhales slowly, gaze dropping to the table for a second before coming back up.
“…Yeah,” he mutters. “That’s the problem.”
Jack’s brow lifts, faintly amused. “That I trust you?”
“That I don’t take that lightly,” Robby shoots back.
Silence stretches for a second. Then Robby leans forward slightly, forearms braced on the table, voice dropping a notch.
“And you’re fine with it,” he says. Not a question. “Me and her.”
Jack doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
“Really.”
“Yeah.”
Robby studies him—searching for cracks, for ego, for something careless. Doesn’t find much. Jack kept his pride in check. He wasn’t a jealous person, not really. He was secure in himself. Something Robby envied, sometimes.
“…She’s—” he starts, then cuts himself off, jaw tightening slightly. “You know what she is.”
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I do.”
“Twenty-something,” Robby continues. “Smart. Looks like—” he gestures vaguely, then shakes his head. “You’ve seen her.”
Jack smirks faintly. “I have, yeah. A lot of her. It’s great.”
Robby’s mouth twitches despite himself.
“And she looks at you like you hung the moon half the time,” he adds.
Jack’s expression softens just a fraction. “Sometimes.”
Robby nods once, slow. Then—
“…You really telling me you’ve never thought about it? About her” Jack asks, casual—but not careless.
Robby lets out a quiet breath through his nose, leaning back again.
“That’s not a fair question.”
Jack tilts his head at his friend. An insistence in his eyes to go on.
Robby tips his head back slightly, staring at the ceiling for a second like he’s debating how honest he wants to be.
Then he looks back at Jack.
“…Well I’m not blind,” he says.
Jack doesn’t react much. Just watches him.
“She’s—” Robby exhales, searching for a word, then gives up and settles for, “—she’s a lot. Sweet.”
Jack’s mouth ticks. “She is… You ever think about her while jerking off?”
Robby lets out a low breath at that, clicking his tongue at his friend's bluntness. Fuck it, they’re being honest. “Yes.”
Robby’s a little surprised when he sees the slow blink from Jack, a nod. Maybe irritable.
“What?” Robby scoffs. “You’re cool with the prospect of me fucking your girl? But what I do with my hand in my spare time is… what, some sort of line being crossed?”
“I didn’t say anything, alright. I’m all good here. Just didn’t think you’d admit it,” Jack nods with insistence. “What about during sex? Thought about her then?”
“...On occasion, yes, I’ve- she’s popped up there, yeah.” Robby admits with brief hesitance.
That’s as far as he pushes it—but it’s enough. Jack nods once, like this one he expected. Like it doesn’t threaten anything.
“Fair,” he says.
Robby glances at him, something like disbelief creeping back in. “You’re taking that a lot better than I thought you would.”
Jack shrugs. “She’s hot. You’re not dead. Tells me you’ve got a working dick, at least.”
Robby lets out a short laugh at that, shaking his head.
Jack took a sip of his beer, then—because he wasn’t finished, because he never really was with Robby—tilts his head slightly.
“What about me?”
Robby scoffs immediately, too quick. “Oh, come on.”
“No, seriously,” Jack says, glancing at him sideways. Casual on the surface, not casual underneath. “No shame, total honesty here. Twenty years, no secrets, all that bullshit.”
Robby drags a hand over his beard, already feeling the trap closing. “You’re unbelievable.”
“Have you?” Jack asks, like he was asking about the weather.
A pause.
Robby stares at the table, jaw working once.
“…You first,” he mutters.
Jack doesn’t even blink. “Yeah.”
Robby let out a slow breath through his nose, eyes dropping, like he was doing the math on how much of himself he was willing to hand over tonight.
“Man, it’s not even—” Jack went on, shrugging a shoulder. “Half the time that shit doesn’t mean anything. Brain just throws things at you. Doesn’t make you anything.”
Robby let out a short, humourless huff. “Right.”
“What,” Jack presses lightly, “you worried about the gay implications?”
Robby shot him a look. “Don’t—”
“—What? Say ‘gay’?” Jack says, not unkind, but not backing off either.
Robby glances up as a couple walks past, waits them out, then leans back in his seat, voice lower.
“We’re talking about whether I’ve jacked off thinking about another guy,” he says, flat. “Yeah, the… ‘gay’ of it all crossed my mind. Excuse me.”
Jack just nods, like that was fair.
“I just… I guess, I didn’t realise—” Robby starts, then stops, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I mean, you know, are you—”
Jack shrugs, easy. “I’ve been with a few. Never made a whole thing out of it. Don’t really care to.”
Robby gives a small, disbelieving shake of his head. “Figrues. Army man.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack mutters. “You don’t have to slap a label on it, Rob. Doesn’t have to mean anything bigger than it is.”
“I’m aware,” Robby says, maybe a little sharper than he meant to. Then, quieter—like it cost him something— “…It’s crossed my mind.”
Jack’s mouth pulled into something faintly smug. Not cruel—just… satisfied.
“Crossed your mind,” he repeated. “Interesting wording.”
“Don’t start,” Robby warns, but there was less heat in it now.
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “It was easier getting you to admit you think about fucking my girlfriend half our age than it was getting that out of you. That’s saying something.”
“Fuck you,” Robby mutters, rolling his eyes—but there was a reluctant grin there now, breaking through whether he liked it or not.
Jack shrugs, taking another sip. “Options apparently on the table.”
Robby shakes his head, but didn’t argue. Didn’t fully look away, either.
Something in the air had shifted—subtle, but real. Not a line crossed, exactly. More like one finally acknowledged.
Robby studied him for a second, longer than necessary. There was history there—years of it, unspoken things sitting just under the surface, things neither of them had ever had to name.
Jack didn’t push. Just leaned back, easy.
“Think about it,” he tries. “Or don’t. Nothing changes.”
Robby nods once, short. “Yeah.” A few seconds of quiet. “…You still need that ride home?” he asks.
Jack snorts. “Oh, a ride home? Wow. Subtle.”
“Shut up.”
“Flirting now, are we?”
“You are not a funny man, Jack Abbot, don’t think otherwise,” Robby says, but he was already smiling, just a little.
★★★
2 WEEKS EARLIER
threesomenoun — three·some — ˈthrē-səm
1: a group of three persons or things : trio
2: a golf match in which one person plays their ball against the ball of two others playing each stroke alternately
3: a sexual encounter involving three people
“Are you trying to say you wanna play golf?” Jack says from the stove, not even turning around as he stirs the pan like it personally offended him.
The kitchen smells like garlic and butter—onions already softened down, carrots and capsicum still holding a bit too much bite. He’s got one hand on the wooden spoon, the other braced on the counter, solid and steady in that way he always is.
You’re perched up on the counter, one leg swinging lazily, phone in hand.
“Yes,” you say dryly, scrolling. “I’m deeply passionate about golf. The balls. The stroking of the balls—”
“—I get it,” Jack cuts in. “You want a threesome.”
You look up at him, unimpressed. “I don’t want a threesome. I love twosomes. Specifically with you.” A beat. “But I’m not opposed to… expanding the sample size.”
Jack snorts, finally glancing over to you. “Expanding the—Jesus. That’s how you pitch wanting to fuck my best friend?”
“You brought it up,” you shoot back, pointing your phone at him like evidence. “Don’t act like this wasn’t your idea. ‘Oh baby, we should add a third, Robby would give me notes’—”
“I did not sound like that.”
“—If anything,” you continue over him, “I think you wanna fuck your best friend.”
“Alright,” Jack mutters, turning back to the pan. “Not what I sound like. And c’mon—you know you’re all I wanna fuck.” He nudges the vegetables again, frowning. “I think these are done.”
“They’re not.” You don’t even look up when you say it. “Anyway… I doubt he’d even be down for it,” you say. “I barely think he likes me as a friend.”
Jack lets out a quiet scoff at that.
You narrow your eyes. “What?”
“I think he’d fuck you in a heartbeat if I said I was okay with it,” Jack says, like it’s obvious. Then, distracted again—“I really think these are done, hon.”
“Test the carrot,” you say, still scrolling. “If it’s soft enough, it’ll break with pressure.”
He presses the spoon into one. It doesn’t budge.
“…Needs longer,” he admits.
“How do you know that?”
“I just did what you said, I—”
“No,” you interrupt, looking at him properly now. “How do you know Robby would fuck me?”
That slows him down.
Jack exhales through his nose, shoulders shifting as he leans back slightly against the counter, thinking.
“I know him,” he says. “Twenty years of it. And I know you.” A beat. “There’s something there. A thing. You’ve always had good chemistry.”
You huff lightly. “A vague… thing, maybe.”
You hesitate, then—because you don’t really do half-truths—
“I did have a bit of a crush on him,” you admit. “Before I met you.”
Jack stills. Not dramatically. Just enough.
“I don’t anymore,” you add quickly. “It faded. Pretty fast, actually. It was early—before I started coming down to ED properly. He’d come up sometimes, consults, whatever. I think it was just…” you shrug, searching, “…older. Authority. Bit of an asshole.”
Jack’s mouth pulls slightly at that, something between amused and unimpressed.
“Glad to know you don’t have a type,” he mutters.
You lean in closer from the counter, nudging his shoulder lightly with your knee.
“Hey,” you murmur. He glances up at you. “I like them a little shorter,” you say softly.
Jack blinks.
Then rolls his eyes, a huff of laughter slipping out despite himself as you grin and go back to your phone.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters, turning the heat down, a small smile at the corner of his lips.
★★★
The thing about a third—about this third—was that it… kind of just felt natural. Like there was so little reason to not do it, to not try it, invite it.
It wasn’t sudden. It was something that had been sitting under the skin of things for so long it stopped feeling foreign the second it was named.
Robby had never been separate from Jack.
Not really. People liked to pretend friendships had clean edges—this is where I end, this is where you begin—but that had never been the case with them.
Too many years. Too many nights that blurred into mornings, too many arguments that never quite resolved but never quite broke them either.
They’d dragged each other through their twenties, stumbled into their thirties, and settled—somehow—into their forties without ever untangling.
They knew each other in ways that made distance feel artificial.
And Robby had always lived in that tension.
He didn’t soften easily. Didn’t trust softness when it showed up uninvited. Jack had always been the exception to that rule—steady enough to withstand it, patient enough not to demand more than Robby could give. But patience didn’t mean absence.
There were things between them that had never been said out loud. Not because they didn’t exist, but because saying them would’ve required a kind of clarity Robby had spent most of his life avoiding.
It was easier to file it under something else—loyalty, history, proximity. Easier to laugh it off, to redirect, to let it sit in that grey space where it didn’t have to be examined too closely.
Then you came along. And you didn’t disrupt that balance. You just seemed to understand it.
You didn’t wedge yourself between them, didn’t ask Jack to choose, didn’t look at Robby like he was something to tolerate or compete with. You moved through it like it already made sense to you. Like there was room.
And God—there was something about you.
Not just that you were beautiful—though you were, in a way that made people look twice without meaning to. Not just that you were younger, brighter, sharper at the edges in a way that made everything feel a little more alive. It was the way you saw people.
The way you saw Jack—fully, without flinching, without trying to fix him or soften him into something more palatable. The way you leaned into him like you trusted him to hold the weight of that. The way you touched him without hesitation, like affection was a language you spoke fluently.
And worse—
The way you looked at Robby sometimes, like you were trying to figure him out and already had.
He’d noticed it long before anyone said anything. Of course he had. The small things. The way your attention lingered just a second longer than necessary. The way you didn’t pull back when he got too close, didn’t flinch at the edge in him that made other people cautious.
You met it. Sometimes you even matched it. And that—more than anything—was what made him careful. Because wanting you was one thing.
That was easy enough to dismiss, tuck away under instinct, under biology, under the thousand other justifications people used to avoid looking too closely at themselves.
But wanting you like this—in the context of Jack, with Jack, because of Jack. That was something else entirely. It brushed up against things he didn’t have neat categories for. Things that felt uncomfortably close to lines he’d spent years pretending weren’t there.
And Jack…
Jack, who didn’t do anything halfway, who didn’t offer things he wasn’t sure about—was sitting across from him like this was just another extension of something already solid. Like this wasn’t a risk so much as… an opening.
That was what threw him. It wasn’t the sex or the implication, it was how Jack totally trusted him. With you, with this, with Jack himself.
And Robby didn’t trust himself nearly that much.
That was the problem. Beneath all the deflection, all the dryness and sarcasm, the sharp edges, there was something undeniably real threading through all three of you. Not clean, not simple—but real in a way that resisted being dismissed.
Jack had never been particularly private about you. Not with Robby.
Not in the way people usually were about relationships—careful, curated, keeping the good parts polished and the rest tucked away. Jack wasn’t built like that. He didn’t gush, didn’t sentimentalise—but if he’d had a couple drinks in him and it’d been a long week, you came up. Inevitably.
Not in a soft-focus, hearts-and-flowers way.
In details. In fragments. In the way you got under his skin and stayed there.
The way you kissed him, made him feel every ounce of his own flesh and blood, grounded, and above at once. In how much he adored your figure, or some ridiculous position, some ridiculous story of stamina and libido, your mouth, his mouth, your hand, his hand.
Robby had learned, over the years, to let it wash over him. Half-listening, half-not. It wasn’t discomfort exactly—more like… he didn’t know where to put it. There was something about hearing your name in Jack’s mouth like that that sat strange in his chest.
“What the fuck do you mean six times?” Robby had said once, a laugh breaking through despite himself as he tipped his beer back.
They were sprawled out on the grass like they hadn’t aged out of it—backs damp against the ground, shirts sticking, the heat of the day still rising up through the dirt. The city hummed around them, distant enough to ignore. It felt like being twenty something again, except their knees ached when they stood and everything they didn’t talk about sat heavier.
It was one of those nothing nights, sometime back in Spring. End of a shift. A few beers. Waiting for you to finish upstairs while Jack pretended he wasn’t being watched over by the hospital.
Jack didn’t even open his eyes. “I mean she came six times,” he said, easy. “Working up to eight.”
Robby snorted. “You’re talking like it’s a personal best.”
“It is,” Jack said. “You don’t set goals, you stagnate. That’s what my therapist says.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Jack grinned faintly, still flat on his back, arms folded behind his head like he had nowhere else to be. “What’s your number?”
Robby shrugged, taking another sip. “I don’t know. I don’t have a number.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Nope.”
“Bull.”
Robby dragged a hand over his mouth, already regretting engaging. “…Four. Maybe.”
Jack turned his head slightly, considering that like it mattered more than it should. His fingers tapped absently against the neck of the bottle.
“Four,” he repeated.
“Some of us aren’t treating it like a competitive sport,” Robby muttered.
Jack huffed. “It’s not me,” he said. “It’s her. She’s a natural.”
“She really that good?” Robby had slipped as a question. Maybe for his own curiosity, maybe because he knew Jack would’ve gotten to it at some point. Both, likely.
There was a beat.
Robby stared up at the sky like it didn’t matter either way. Jack shifted slightly, something quieter settling into him now.
“She’s—” he paused, like he was trying to find a word that didn’t sound ridiculous and failing. “She pays attention. Like she’s studying you. Figures out what works and then—just… doesn’t let up. Like I’m constantly high around her. And man, she-” Jack cleared his throat. “She does this thing with her tongue.”
Robby exhaled through his nose, slow.
He didn’t say anything.
“She swirls it, right around the underside, traces it—the entire thing with the flat part. Goes between, you know, broad strokes, little ones, then she’ll—fuck,” Jack had mused. “…She’ll use the space beneath her tongue, suck, and still use her tongue at the same time. I can’t describe how good it feels,” Jack had explained, his words slurring slightly but still carrying a strange clarity. “Fucking… incredible.”
Robby couldn’t have helped but picture it. The image of you, on your knees, long lashes batting at him, as you brought him to the edge. He sipped his beer, fingers a bit tighter around the neck of the glass.
“She makes the prettiest noises, like a… I don’t even know,” Jack added, quieter now, almost to himself. “Moans and screams, and so… Christ. Like she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it, possessed.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Robby cut in, not sharply, but firm.
Jack just smirked, eyes still shut. “You asked.”
“I didn’t ask for a breakdown.”
“Semantics.”
Robby shook his head, but there was a faint smile tugging at his mouth despite it. He finished the last of his beer, letting the cold settle something in his chest that had nothing to do with the heat.
A pause stretched between them. Jack sipped his beer. Then—
“What’s the deal with you and Noelle?” Jack asked, casual in that way that wasn’t casual at all.
Robby’s jaw shifted.
“She’s… fine,” he said.
Jack cracked one eye open. “That sounds promising.”
Robby huffed. “It’s not—” he cut himself off, shook his head. “Don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
Jack watched him for a second. Then nodded, like he’d expected that. He handed Robby his own beer, watching as Robby took it after a moment, sipping from it himself
“Yeah,” he said. “Bummer.”
Another beat. Robby sat up, bracing his forearms on his knees, their shared beer dangling loose between his fingers.
“Don’t think I’m built for it,” he said finally.
Jack didn’t move. “For what?”
“This,” Robby gestured vaguely. “Relationships. The staying. The… showing up part.”
Jack was quiet for a second.
Then—
“Now that’s bull,” he said, not unkindly.
Robby glanced at him, a faint, tired smirk pulling at his mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “We’ve known each other, what—twenty years? You’ve stuck around that long.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
Robby didn’t answer that. Jack pushed himself up onto his elbows now, looking at him properly.
“You don’t get to pretend you can’t do something just because you haven’t done it right yet,” he said.
Robby scoffed lightly. “Didn’t realise you were gonna get philosophical on me.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack muttered, reaching for his beer. “Hate to break it to you, man, but you’re not some unfixable case.”
Robby laughed at that—short, real.
“Garcia said I’d make a good ex-husband,” he said.
Jack snorted. “See? Even she thinks you can commit.”
“That’s not what that means.”
“Close enough,” Jack sighed. “Lie down, will you. You’re so damn tense.”
Robby let out a low groan but did it anyway, dropping back into the grass beside him, one arm flung over his eyes like he could shut the world out for a second.
The ground was still a little damp from the morning rain, cool through his shirt, the air thick and warm in that late-night way where everything feels slower, looser.
They went quiet after that. Easy quiet. The kind that only comes after years—no need to fill it, no need to perform.
“Aw, you two are so cute.”
Jack sat up immediately.
You stood a few feet off the path, lit half by a flickering streetlamp—scrubs wrinkled, hair a mess like you’d been running your hands through it all day, hoodie tied loose around your hips. One of Jack’s old military backpacks hung off your shoulder like it belonged there.
For a while there, Robby had forgotten the whole reason they’d been in the park to begin with was to wait for you.
“Hey, baby,” Jack said, voice softening without him meaning it to. “You finish alright?”
You just nodded, already moving toward him.
You didn’t hesitate—never did. Leaned down, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek that turned, halfway through, into something closer to his mouth. Warm. Familiar. You lingered just long enough that he had to chase it a second.
“Miss me?” you murmured, barely pulling back.
“Always,” he said, easy. A little drunk, a little honest.
Robby watched it happen from the ground, not even pretending not to.
You dropped down in front of Jack, cross-legged, close enough your knees brushed his thighs. His hands came up immediately—instinct, habit—sliding over your arms, grounding, checking.
Then his mouth found your neck, a soft press just under your jaw, before his hands settled at your shoulders, working slow circles into muscle that had no business being that tight at your age.
You exhaled like you’d been holding it all day.
“Jesus,” you muttered. “Keep doing that.”
“Yeah?” Jack hummed against your skin, a little smug.
“Mhm.”
You tipped your head slightly, giving him better access without thinking. He took it.
Across from you, Robby shifted, propping himself up on his elbows now, watching the two of you with that same look he always got—half amused, half something else he never quite named.
“Robby,” you said, glancing over at him, “how the hell are you drinking after that shift? You guys were slammed.”
“Sometimes a drink’s all you get,” he said. His voice was steady, but his eyes flicked—brief, involuntary—to where Jack’s hands were still working into your shoulders. Then back to your face. “Ortho must’ve been a dream, though.”
You let out a dry laugh. “Oh yeah. Absolute paradise. Park was being a complete asshole to one of the R1s. Kid looked like he was gonna cry.”
“Sounds about right,” Robby muttered.
Jack’s hands slowed, thumbs pressing deeper into a knot that made you suck in a breath.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re gonna fall asleep right here.”
“Honestly?” you said, eyes half-lidded now, “tempting.”
There was a beat. Quiet again—but different this time. Fuller.
You shifted slightly, leaning back into Jack without thinking. Your hand found his knee, resting there, absent, like it belonged.
Robby noticed that too. Of course he did.
You glanced up at Jack then, studying him for a second longer than necessary.
“…You been talking about me?” you asked.
Jack snorted, immediate. “What?”
“You’ve got that look,” you said, squinting at him. “And he’s looking at me weird.”
“I always look at people weird,” Robby said, flat, from the grass.
You didn’t even look at him. “Yeah, but this is a different weird.”
Jack huffed a laugh under his breath, shaking his head like you were ridiculous, even as his mouth betrayed him. “We were just talking about your—what was it—immense beauty. Your sex appeal. Your many talents.”
His mouth brushed your neck again as he said it, like he couldn’t quite help himself.
Robby let out a quiet breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. Something drier. “It’s not far off.”
You stilled. Then slowly turned your head, looking at Jack properly now.
“What did you say to him,” you murmured, low, dangerous in a way that wasn’t entirely serious—but not entirely not.
Jack leaned in, said something under his breath—too quiet for Robby to catch. Your reaction was immediate.
You smacked his leg—right on the prosthetic—with a sharp thwack.
“Jack.”
He barely flinched, just grinned, caught your wrist before you could do it again.
“If you actually told him that,” you said, pointing at him, “I swear to god I’ll take this thing off and beat you with it.”
“That’s dramatic,” Jack murmured, still holding your hand. “And also physically unlikely.”
“It’s true, though,” he added, softer now, mouth near your ear again. “You’re very good at it.”
You rolled your eyes, but your shoulders had loosened, leaning back into him again despite yourself.
Robby watched the whole thing like it was a film he hadn’t agreed to sit through, but couldn’t quite look away from either.
“So the tongue thing’s real then?” he asked, almost idly.
Jack groaned. “Alright. We’re done here.”
You laughed—bright, cutting through the heaviness of the day shift still clinging to all three of you—and turned into Jack properly this time.
It wasn’t quick. Not really. Soft at first, then deeper, your hand coming up to his jaw, holding him there. He responded without thinking, one hand sliding to your waist, pulling you closer, grounding himself in something he knew.
Robby looked away. Not fast enough.
You pulled back eventually, brushing your nose against Jack’s.
“I’ll drive,” you said quietly. “You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” he said automatically.
“You’re pretty drunk,” you corrected.
A beat.
“…Alright. Could be a little drunk,” he conceded.
You smiled, already reaching into his pocket for the keys like it was second nature. He let you. Fingers brushing yours as you took them, just for a second longer than necessary.
“Don’t lose the car,” he muttered.
“No promises.”
You stood, stretching slightly, then glanced down at Robby.
“You good?” you asked, softer now.
He met your eyes, something unreadable passing through his expression before it settled back into something easier.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m good.”
You nodded like you believed him.
“Night, Michael.”
There was a flicker at that—something small but real.
“Night,” he said.
Jack let you haul him up, weight shifting automatically to his left as he got his balance, your hand steady at his arm without making a thing of it. He adjusted, rolled his shoulders like he always did, then followed your lead without argument.
“Text me when you get home,” he called back to Robby.
“Sure. Have fun with your girl.’ Robby had said, lying back down.
“I definitely will,” Jack nodded.
You were already walking, his shoulder brushing yours, easy. He leaned down slightly as you hit the path, murmuring something low against your hair that made you let out a quiet, breathy laugh—something private, something just for him.
Robby watched you both go.
Didn’t move.
The grass was still damp under his back when he lay down again, staring up at a sky that refused to give him anything clear.
He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand over his mouth.
So, when you and Jack finally put it to him—cornered him in that quiet, deliberate way the two of you had—Robby wasn’t as hung up on the logistics of it as he probably should’ve been. The dynamic, the risk, the aftermath—those were the things a smarter man might’ve led with. But that wasn’t where his mind went first.
It went somewhere simpler. Sharper.
Just how pretty were the noises you made? How soft was your tongue? Would you like it if Robby was cruel—if he held your head down and made you choke on him?
And Jack… steady Jack. What did he look like when he finally came? Did he like being teased, kept right on that edge until it snapped? Would he grip Robby’s hair, or would he stay controlled even then, taking it without losing that composure?
It wasn't an abstract curiosity. It wasn’t even entirely sexual, not at its core. It was about access.
About seeing something of both of you that no one else did. About being let into a space that already existed—intimate, closed, complete—and being told there was room for him inside it.
And that—more than anything else—was what made it difficult to dismiss.
★★★
Ortho is down for a consultation when you get called in.
The patient is already under—intubated and sedated, leg secured in traction. The CT is up on PACS, the fracture obvious even before you zoom in: a displaced mid-shaft femur, clear shortening, classic muscle pull deformity.
“Yeah, that’s a transverse mid-shaft femoral fracture,” you say, pen tapping the screen. “You can see the displacement here, and the overlap—this is why the leg looks shortened clinically.”
Santos leans in, her eyes slightly wide. “Fuck.”
You shake your head. “It looks dramatic, but it’s stable from what we’ve got. No obvious vascular compromise on imaging. Ortho will likely take her for an intramedullary nail.”
Santos lets out a breath.
You scroll through the scan again, adjusting the windowing. “We’ll just want to repeat neurovascular checks pre-op and post-reduction. But she’s straightforward.”
“Thank god,” Santos mutters. “I was so not bothered to call for another consult.
A knock on the glass interrupts you. You glance up.
Robby.
He’s already halfway through sanitising his hands when he steps in, eyes flicking once to the screen before landing on you.
“Ortho’s down in ED?” he says.
“Yeah,” you answer, a little too aware of him in the doorway. “Santos messaged me. Femur fracture.”
He leans in beside you to look at the CT, close enough that the space shifts—clinical, but not entirely neutral. He’s tired in the way only long shifts make you, sleeves pushed up, forearms marked faintly by pressure lines from his undershirt.
“Looks like a clean nail,” he says.
“Assuming ortho behaves,” you reply.
He huffs something like a laugh. “They won’t.”
“No,” you agree. “We never do.”
Santos clears her throat. “While I’ve got you—Huckleberry and I are having a Parisian party next Friday. At our place. You should come. You and Abbott, of course.”
You pause slightly.
“A Parisian party?” you repeat.
“Yeah,” Santos says, warming to it. “Paris-themed. Like… French food, wine, decorations. The Eiffel Tower and shit.”
Robby makes a quiet sound behind you—almost a laugh, quickly disguised.
You glance at him, but he’s still looking at the scan like nothing happened.
Santos continues, mildly confused. “Have either of you been to Paris?”
“No,” you say.
Robby: “Nope.”
Santos nods like that still tracks logically. “Yeah, me neither. Barely even been to Canada.”
There’s a beat.
“Anyway,” She adds, already backing toward the door, “You’re invited too, Robby. Maybe the three of you come together or something. You’re all close”
“...Sounds good, Santos, we’ll let you know,” Robby says with a nod. “North Twelve?”
“Consider it done.” Santos says dry, nodding.
The door shuts behind her. Silence settles back in—clean, clinical, familiar. Except Robby is still standing close enough that you’re aware of him in a way you shouldn’t be during a trauma consult.
He glances at the CT again. “Paris-themed party,” he repeats flatly.
“Don’t even,” you say immediately, because you can hear it in his tone already, trying to hide your own smile.
“What?” he says innocently.
You turn slightly toward him. “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
He finally looks at you properly now, mouth twitching. “I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re absolutely thinking something and at work nonetheless? Inappropriate.”
“I’m thinking Santos should never be allowed to plan anything,” he says.
“Liar.”
That earns you a brief, quiet exhale of amusement. You finish with the scans and walk out, Robby hot on your heels as you head to the nurses station.
“You think you’ll go?” he asks.
“No,” you say. “Jack and I have the night off. We’ll be busy.”
“Right,” he nods.
A beat.
“You?” you ask.
“I’d rather not spend my night around a bunch of drunk residents,” Robby says with a quiet exhale. “So, no.”
“Come over then,” you offer, stopping at the nurses’ station.
Robby gives you a look. “Thought you said you two were busy.”
“You can be busy with us,” you say, looking up at him, pen tapping lightly against the chart. “Or just Jack. Or just me. He told me you’ve thought about it either way.”
A faint sigh leaves him. “Right. I forgot he can’t keep anything to himself.”
He leans against the counter, lowering his voice slightly as his eyes flick briefly across the station—Dana watching from a few bays away, already narrowing her gaze like she’s clocking something she hasn’t labelled yet.
“Have you?” he asks softly.
“Thought about you? In that way?” you clarify.
He nods, a slight tilt to his head, curious.
You hesitate just long enough to make it honest.
“Yes,” you admit. “You’re tall. Kind. Your beard’s nice. You’re probably a little meaner than Jack, which interests me.”
That earns the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Something deeper in him satisfied.
“Abbot’s a lover boy at heart,” Robby says. “Gives in easily. ‘Specially for you.”
You nod, like that tracks. “Most of the time, yeah.”
That earns a quieter look from him. A pause that sits just slightly longer than professional. Then, more carefully, “Is it true you had a crush on me?”
You tilt your head. “God, he really just— Doesn’t keep anything to himself.”
Robby exhales through his nose. “Not at all. I’ve been subjected to that man and his inner workings for too long.”
You bump his shoulder lightly with yours, just enough contact to make the space between you feel intentional.
“Was it a yes?”
“To the crush?” You consider it. “Yeah.”
That makes his eyebrows lift slightly.
“Before Jack,” you add, like it matters in a technical sense. “Older, authority figure, slightly emotionally unavailable… I think I might just have a pattern.”
Robby hums, low. “Tracks.”
There’s a beat where neither of you moves away. Then he says, quieter, “And now?”
You don’t look away when you answer. “Now, it’s just… different.”
That hangs there. From somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeps sharply, breaking the moment just enough for it not to tip into anything else.
You glance back down at the chart, already half-moving on.
“I’ll let you know when we get a room open for the femur nail lady.”
And then you’re gone—already walking toward the elevator, the conversation left hanging in the air behind you. Robby watches you go.
A quiet breath leaves him through his nose. He taps his fingers once against the counter, then pushes off it, turning back to the screens like he needs something solid to land on.
Dana appears beside him a second later, sliding into the space like she’s been waiting for exactly this moment.
“What’s with that?” she asks.
“...What’s with what?” he replies, arms folding loosely, eyes still on the monitor bank.
“I mean,” she says slowly, “what’s with flirtin’ with Abbott’s girl in front of everybody?”
He doesn’t look at her when he answers.
“That’s not flirting,” he says evenly. “We were just talking.”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding toward the bay. “Just rolled in. Need you over there.”
“Alright,” he says.
And he follows her down the hall, expression already reset.
★★★
“—Hey. Hold on a second,” Jack says, breath a little uneven.
“No, don’t—don’t hold on,” you protest, already moving, frustrated at the interruption. Your hips roll, trying to sink deeper, but his hands clamp down on your waist—firm, grounding, stopping you.
“Hey. Easy.” A breath. “Just—gimme a second, alright?”
You huff, but you stop. Barely. Your thighs tremble, hovering just above his cock, the tip brushing against your wet slit. “This better be good.”
He lets out something like a quiet laugh, more breath than sound. “Yeah, I’ll try not to waste your time.”
A beat. He looks at you properly now—focused, a little too clear-headed for the situation. His thumb traces a slow circle on your hipbone, soothing, but his eyes are sharp.
“Just… wanna get this straight,” he says.
Your hands shift on his chest, nails dragging lightly. “Okay. Then say it.”
He nods once. “He can be there. He can watch, he can fuck you.” A pause. “But there are lines.”
You tilt your head, watching him. “Such as?”
His grip tightens just a fraction—not enough to bruise, enough to mean something. “Such as—you don’t forget who you’re with.”
You raise a brow, a smirk pulling at your lips. “Hard to forget when you’ve got your dick in me half the time I’m not at work.”
“Smartass,” he mutters. Then, quieter—“I’m serious. He doesn’t get to know how you taste. That’s mine.”
“Uh-huh…” You roll your hips lazily, not sinking down, just letting the head of his cock nudge against your clit, making him hiss. “So this is allowed?” You lift up, then lower just an inch, teasing the tip against your entrance.
“Yeah, allowed,” Jack nods, his jaw tight.
“Mm. This?” You lean down and kiss him—sweet, slow, your tongue brushing his lower lip before you pull back with a soft pop.
He nods into the kiss, groaning when you start to move again, lifting your pussy off him completely. The air hits his wet shaft and he shudders.
“Yeah? What about this?” You wrap your hand around his cock, giving it a slow, deliberate stroke from base to tip, slick with your own arousal. You squeeze just a little, watching his eyes flutter.
“All allowed,” he grates out, “but his mouth isn’t getting near this, alright, that’s all—” He cuts off as he grabs you by the hips, guiding your pussy back down, lining you up and shoving it back in with a single, brutal thrust. Your moan rips out of you—loud, breathy, grateful. His cock fills you so deep you feel it in your throat.
“Yeah? That good with you?” he asks, voice rough.
You nod, already starting to ride him—slow at first, just a rock of your hips, teasing the angle. “What about you and ’im?” you ask, breath hitching as you grind down.
Jack shrugs—or tries to. “What don’t you want?”
“No blowjobs either, then,” you say, voice a little strained as you lift up and drop back down, feeling every ridge. “’S for me.”
“Sounds good to me.” His hands find your hips again, but he doesn’t guide—he just holds, letting you set the pace. Letting you take.
You pick up speed, thighs burning, your clit grinding against his pubic bone with each roll. The room fills with the wet sound of your pussy gripping his cock, and you tilt your head back, letting him see the arch of your throat.
His hand comes up, thumb brushing along your jaw, pulling your focus back to him when you drift.
“Right here,” he murmurs.
You meet his gaze. That same look—steady, a little rough around the edges, but sure. His.
“Good,” he says, softer now. His thumb drags across your lower lip, and you part your mouth, just enough to suck the tip of it in. His eyes darken.
And when you move again, it’s slower. You rock forward, letting his cock hit that deep, sweet spot, and you moan against his thumb. You pull off it with a wet sound, then lean down to kiss him again—dirtier this time, tongue and teeth, whimpering into him.
“Yeah,” he breathes against your lips. “That’s better.”
★★★
It’s late into the evening on Friday when you hear Jack on the phone.
“No, can’t,” Jack says, pacing your living room, phone tucked to his ear while he half-heartedly folds laundry and gives up halfway through. “I’m home. She’s cooking. Smells like I’m about to get fat and happy.”
“Baby, can you come try this?” you call from the kitchen.
“One sec,” he says, then quieter, back into the phone—“What’d you wanna do?”
“Nothing,” Robby mutters. “I… I don’t know, man. I don’t feel like crashing Santos and Whitaker’s… house party. We could go for a drive. Hike.”
Jack stops mid-step. “A hike,” he repeats. “At nine-thirty at night.”
A beat.
“Yeah, not happening,” he decides, dropping the laundry basket and heading into the kitchen.
You’re at the counter in that barely-there nightgown—soft, short, riding up your thighs as you lean forward, aggressively chopping an onion like it personally offended you. Eyes glossy, blinking through it.
Jack pauses in the doorway for half a second longer than necessary.
Then—business as usual.
“Alright,” he says, stepping in behind you, close enough that his hand brushes your hip on the way past. “What am I trying?”
You nod at the stove. “Carbonara.”
He leans over, tastes it, hums—low, approving.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “She’s showing off.”
You bump his arm lightly. “I am not.”
“You are,” he says, kissing you quick, easy, like he’s done it a thousand times. “It’s working.”
You smile despite yourself, wiping at your eyes.
On the phone, Robby exhales. Rough. Tired.
“Hike’s dumb,” Jack says, shifting tone without making it obvious. “What’s actually going on.”
“Nothing,” Robby says. “Just… can’t sit still. Garcia was on my ass all day, Al-Hashimi wouldn’t shut the fuck up—”
“—Hey,” Jack cuts in, calm, steady. “Take a breath.”
You glance over at him. He’s not looking at you anymore—focused now, locked into that mode.
“You’re good,” he says. “You’re not thinking anything dumb, right?”
A pause.
“…No,” Robby says. “Just need to… get out of my head, I don’t know.”
Jack hears it. You do too. That edge. That restless, pissed-off with nowhere to put it thing.
“He can come here,” you say, like it’s obvious.
Jack looks at you—quick, assessing—but there’s no resistance there. Just a flicker of something else.
“Yeah,” he says into the phone. “Come over. Food’s ready soon.”
“I don’t know, man—” Robby starts.
You reach over and take the phone straight out of Jack’s hand.
“Hey, Michael.”
There’s a beat.
Jack watches you now, not even pretending to focus on the onions anymore.
“…Hey,” Robby says, slower. “Heard you were cooking.”
“Mhm,” you hum, leaning back against the counter, bare leg brushing against Jack’s where he stands beside you. “Plenty to go around.”
Jack’s hand settles at your hip automatically. Not possessive—just there.
Robby hears the shift anyway.
“This a setup?” he asks.
You smile slightly. “You always this suspicious, or just with me?”
A quiet scoff from him.
“You should come,” you add, softer—but not innocent. “You sound like you need it.”
A beat. Jack’s thumb presses lightly into your hip. Grounding. Present.
Robby exhales. “Yeah. Guess I can make it.”
“Guess you can,” you say easily.
Silence again—but it’s different now.
You glance at Jack.
He nods once.
“Door’s unlocked,” you say. “Twenty minutes.”
You hand the phone back.
Jack takes it, fingers brushing yours briefly, then brings it back to his ear. “You heard her. No pressure.”
A pause.
“…Alright,” Robby says.
The line clicks dead.
Jack sets the phone down on the counter, then looks at you properly. A slow once-over. Not subtle.
“What?” You raise a brow.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’ll finish the laundry.” He gives you a deep kiss to your neck, hands trailing over your figure as he mumbles into your skin, fingers gently pushing aside the light material. “You gonna stay in this?” He asks.
“‘S that alright?” You wonder, leaning into his touch.
He inhales sharply against your skin, lips leaving your skin. “Sure.”
★★★
You’re out on the balcony when it comes up.
Jack’s place sits high enough that the city feels almost staged—Pittsburgh stretched out in warm light, bridges lit up in clean lines, traffic moving steady below like it never really stops. It’s one of those late summer nights where the air sticks just slightly to your skin, warm but not suffocating. There’s music drifting from somewhere down the block, a party you can’t see but can feel in the background.
The balcony’s not small—wide enough for a proper table, a few chairs, space to lean without feeling cramped. Jack had insisted on that when he bought the place. Said if he was going to spend money, it’d be on something worth standing still for.
Your plates are mostly cleared, carbonara half-finished, wine and beer sweating into the wood.
“Have either of you done this before?” Robby asks.
Jack shakes his head immediately. “No.”
You don’t answer.
You’re thinking—actually thinking, head tilted slightly, finger lifting to tap against Jack’s arm like you need him to hold on a second. That’s when it hits him, belated and faintly incredulous, that this apparently hadn’t come up when the idea itself had.
“…Have you?” Jack asks, turning to you, already suspicious.
“I am thinking,” you murmur, brows pulling together like this is a serious recall exercise.
Robby raises a brow, watching you now, something amused creeping in despite himself.
“What do you mean you’re thinking?” Jack presses. “That’s not… I don’t know, something you half do or something. You’d know.”
“Or something,” Robby mutters under his breath.
You shoot him a look, then roll your eyes. “Okay—no. I don’t think I’ve had a threesome.”
“How can you not think you’ve had a threesome?” Jack wonders.
You lean back slightly, folding one leg under you, the fabric of your nightgown shifting higher on your thigh without you bothering to fix it. You don’t notice how both men’s gaze drop there.
You exhale, already regretting engaging. “Because—technically—no one actually got fucked, there was no penetration by anybody, so, grey area?”
There’s a beat.
Robby’s mouth twitches.
Jack blinks. “...Right.”
“Okay?” you continue, defensive now. “It was—hands. That’s it. Group situation, but not… full commitment.”
Robby huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Group situation,” he repeats.
“Shut up,” you mutter.
“Another guy or girl?” Jack asks, too quickly.
You hesitate just long enough to make it interesting. “…Both.”
Jack leans back like you’ve just told him something deeply inconvenient. “...Huh.”
Robby lets out a low whistle through his nose. “So not a threesome. Just… poor project management.”
You laugh despite yourself. “Oh my god.”
“That’s a foursome that lost direction,” he adds, dry.
“Whatever,” you shrug. “Med school was fun for me. Sorry I had range.”
Jack eyes you, something between amused and slightly thrown. “I’m just saying, that’s a hell of a thing to casually drop over dinner.”
You smirk faintly. “I’m surprised you haven’t.”
Jack scoffs. “I’ve had opportunities.”
“Mm,” you hum, unconvinced.
Robby glances at him sideways. “That sounds like a lie.”
“It’s not a lie,” Jack says, defensive now. “I just—never felt the need.”
“Right,” Robby says. “Till now.”
Jack gives him a look. “Till now.”
Something passes there—quick, familiar, not entirely friendly as Robby sips his beer.
After, you step out to the edge of the balcony, forearms resting against the railing. The city hums below you, the air warmer now, carrying the smell of food and distant smoke.
Inside, you hear Jack moving—plates, running water. Robby’s voice low, asking something, already familiar with the space.
“Thanks, baby,” you say when Jack comes back out, taking your plate.
You lean in, press a quick kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, hand coming up to your hair, messing it slightly with a small, easy smile.
You push him away lightly. “Don’t start.”
Robby watches it for a second before picking up the empty bottles, holding them loosely by the necks.
“Next to the fridge?” he asks, like he hasn’t been here a hundred times already—like tonight isn’t slightly different.
“Yeah,” you nod. “Recycling. Thank you.”
He gives a short nod and turns— You catch his wrist. It’s not forceful. Just enough.
“Hey,” you say, softer.
He looks down at you.
There’s a pause—his eyes dragging, just briefly, lower before coming back up. You’re close enough now to feel the heat off him, the faint roughness of his breath after a drink, after a long day.
You use his forearm to pull yourself up just slightly— and kiss him. It’s not rushed. It’s far from tentative either. Close. Testing.
His beard scratches lightly against your skin, rough in a way that makes you more aware of it, not less. He stills for half a second—then responds, mouth softer than you expected, hand hovering like he hasn’t decided where it’s allowed to land.
Your teeth catch his bottom lip briefly. That’s what does it.
“Starting without me?” Jack’s voice cuts in, dry. “Bit mean.”
Robby pulls back instinctively, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t—even though—
Even though.
You smile a little, letting go of his wrist as he clears his throat.
“Next to the fridge,” Jack adds, nodding toward the bottles.
Robby nods once, wordless, moving past him.
Their shoulders brush as he goes. Not accidental. Jack doesn’t move out of the way.
He watches Robby for a second longer than necessary, then looks back at you.
You end up on the couch.
It happens naturally—plates abandoned in the sink, TV flicked on for noise more than anything else. Some late-night rerun playing low in the background, colours shifting across the room, low lamps lighting the room.
Jack’s in the middle, halfway through some story from work—one of those cases that stuck with him. Complicated, strange, the kind he can’t quite let go of.
You’re tucked into his side, knees curled under you, your hand idly playing at the back of his neck—fingers brushing through his hair, absent, familiar. You nod along, half-listening, more focused on the rhythm of his voice, the warmth of him.
Robby’s behind you. Close enough that you can feel the heat of him through your back, even before his hand settles on your thigh—slow, absent movement, like he’s not even fully aware he’s doing it.
Up. Down. Not pushing. Not asking. Just there.
Jack keeps talking.
You lean in without really thinking about it—your lips brushing along his jaw, then just below it. Light. Familiar. Not rushed.
Jack’s hand comes up to your lower back automatically, pulling you in a fraction closer, steadying you there.
Robby’s hand doesn’t stop. If anything, it shifts—just slightly higher, fingers brushing warmer skin now where the fabric gives way.
Jack feels it. His hand stills for a second at your back—then relaxes again.
He doesn’t pull you away. Doesn’t say anything. You exhale softly against his neck, your breath warm there, your fingers tightening slightly where they rest behind him.
And for a second—just a second—you’re aware of both of them at once.
Jack in front of you, steady, grounding. Robby behind you, quieter, heavier—watching more than speaking.
Jack’s gaze lifts. Meets Robby’s. There’s a beat. Not long. But long enough. Something passes between them—wordless, measured. Something you can’t read.
Jack gives the smallest nod. Barely there. Robby’s jaw shifts slight. Then Jack looks back at you.
Your hand slides from his neck to his jaw, turning him slightly, and you kiss him properly this time—slow, deliberate. He leans into it without hesitation, one hand firm at your waist.
When you pull back, it’s not far. Just enough. Just long enough to turn.
Robby’s already looking at you. Not surprised. Not really. Just watching. You close the distance like it’s nothing—like it’s always been this simple—and kiss him too.
Different. Not softer, not harder—just new. Testing. His hand stills on your thigh for half a second before it shifts, coming up to steady at your side, like he’s grounding himself in it.
There’s a quiet breath from him—almost a huff, almost disbelief.
“This is fun,” You murmur.
You don’t give him time to overthink it.
You lean back between them again, tipping your head slightly, and they follow without being told.
Jack’s mouth finds one side of your neck, familiar, certain.
Robby hesitates for a fraction of a second— then doesn’t.
The other side. Slower. More deliberate. Like he’s learning something he’s not used to having.
You exhale, a soft sound you don’t quite hold back this time, and your hands come up instinctively—one finding Jack’s hair, the other Robby’s, fingers threading through both, holding them there.
For a second, it stays like that. Balanced.
Then you shift, just slightly—hands tightening, guiding as you move the two of them, their lips almost naturally coming to find one anothers, moving them like ken dolls, before you drop your hands, watching with a small smile, as Robby's immediacy for control goes against Jack's. Robby’s hand deepening into your thigh, grip tight as he kisses Jack.
Jack pulls back first, breath uneven but still controlled, his eyes flicking to yours like he’s checking in—like he always does.
His hand slides up your spine, slower now, deliberate where it had been absent before. His palm is cool against your overheated skin, the contrast making you shiver as it traces upward, then back down again, lingering just enough to feel intentional.
You lean back into him, lips finding his neck again—dragging slowly over the roughness of his skin, the faint scrape grounding, familiar. You press a little firmer this time, less thought, more instinct.
When you pull back, it’s only barely. Your breath catches—not dramatic, just… aware. Of him. Of Robby. Of both.
Jack’s hand presses more firmly into your back, keeping you close, steadying you like he can feel the shift too.
“Baby,” he murmurs, voice low, softer than before. “Feeling needy?”
You nod against him, answering with your mouth instead—kissing along his jaw now, slower, more deliberate.
“Yeah,” he exhales, a quiet sort of understanding in it. “I know, hon.” A beat. Then, quieter—“You want me, or him?”
You hesitate. Not long—but long enough to matter.
Robby’s hand shifts on your thigh, moving from the outside to your inner thigh, firm but unhurried, easing you open just slightly—testing, not taking. Waiting to see what you’ll do with it.
“It’s alright,” Jack starts, voice still calm, like he’s talking you through something he already trusts. “Go ahead. She likes it when you—”
“—I’ll ask you for help if I need it, alright?” Robby cuts in, low and even.
They exchange a look—brief, sharp, understood.
You lean over, pressing a quick, soft kiss to Jack’s cheek—something sweet, grounding—before shifting your weight and climbing into Robby’s lap.
He stiffens for a second. Just a second.
Robby’s always been hard to read. Time’s etched itself into his face, but there’s still that wall there—something held back, something controlled. Maybe it’s nerves. Maybe it’s you. His best friend’s girl, sitting on him like this—close, warm, curious.
“You okay there, Sasquatch?” you tease, tilting your head up at him.
His hands find your thighs again almost immediately, like muscle memory kicking in. His gaze flicks—down, over you, then back to your eyes. Briefly to Jack. Then back again.
“Sasquatch? Really?” he murmurs, one hand moving up to cup your breast through your top. His palm is warm against you, sending a shiver down your spine. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“Beard, tall… same thing, no?” you shrug lightly.
That earns the faintest hint of a smirk.
“She always cracking jokes before getting fucked?” Robby asks, giving your breast a firm squeeze. His other hand slides lower, ghosting over your stomach before cupping your mound through your panties
“Depends,” Jack admits. “One time I got G.I Joe for an hour.”
“He was in uniform, in my defense,” You defend, brief before you try moving your hips over Robby’s fingers, eager. “Come on, Michael.”
Robby's fingers press harder against your core, rubbing slow, firm circles that have you arching into him, a sweet whine escaping your lips, his eyes enamoured with how your mouth parts, breath warm against him.
“What a cute noise you make, sweetheart,” Robby murmurs. “Ask me nicely now.”
You hesitate, desperate as his fingers continue to move achingly slow over your wetness.
“Ask or I give Jack my hand right now instead and you can wait your turn for another hour,” Robby tells, voice low and soft, not looking away from where his fingers glide over your seeping core.
“Please,” you murmur, voice breathy and desperate. “Please fuck me with your fingers.”
You crash your lips to his—harsh, messy, tongues thrusting quick and slick, his beard scraping rough red trails across your cheeks and chin. He growls low into your mouth, yanking your panties aside with brutal force, calloused fingertips dragging through your dripping folds, parting your lips wide before ramming two thick fingers knuckle-deep into your clenching pussy—no mercy, no prep.
You gasp ragged into the kiss, a high-pitched moan ripping free as your lips break away, saliva trailing shiny strings from his mouth to yours. You latch onto his neck, teeth grazing the salty skin, sucking hard as you grind down fierce onto his invading digits—walls squeezing tight around the stretch, juices flooding hot over his palm.
“Move your fingers toward her ventral,” Jack instructs from the side, voice calm but edged with that teasing know-it-all tone, his hand sliding warm along your spine.
Robby exhales sharp through his nose—mild irritation flashing in his eyes at the unasked advice, jaw clenching as he shoots Jack a quick, heated glare. But he curls his fingers obediently upward inside you, knuckles grinding rough along your front wall to hammer your g-spot precise and relentless. Your moan swells louder, body jolting as fresh gushes of slick coat his hand, pussy slurping obscenely around each pump.
“Christ, you’re making a mess on me, aren’t you, kid? Huh?” Robby rasps, voice gravel-thick with mean delight, eyes locked on the filthy sight—your swollen pussy lips gliding and sucking greedily over his plunging fingers, riding them frantic.
He twists his wrist sharp, scissoring the digits wide to pry your hole open, thumb mashing down hard on your throbbing clit with every brutal thrust—wet schlicks echoing loud, your thighs trembling slick against his forearm, arousal trickling warm down to soak his jeans.
He adds a third finger suddenly, forcing the burn deeper, stretching your cunt taut as he moves, hooking mercilessly on that spongy spot.
“You getting close?” He asks, low and rough, listening closely to your moans, how they become pitchier, breathier, as sweet as Jack described. You nod, a loose yes, focused only on how your core winds up to the edge. “That right?”
Your cries pitch wilder, back arching as he pinches your clit between thumb and knuckle, rolling it rough while his fingers churn your insides, coil tight in your core.
“What else she like?” Robby asks Jack, glancing over at his friend now, fingers never slowing their rhythm inside you.
Jack taps his index and middle digit to his lips, nodding toward you. Robby nods back, hums at the sight of you, curious.
Robby yanks his fingers free abrupt—your pussy clenching empty, a whine tearing from your throat at the aching void, hips bucking needy for more. He brings those soaked digits up to your face, gripping your chin firm to still you, watching hungry as you part your lips instinctively.
His fingertips tease your bottom lip, smearing your own cream glossy, before you suck them in deep—tongue swirling eager around the thick lengths, lapping every tangy drop, hollowing cheeks as saliva drips messy down your chin.
“Atta girl, you’re a fuckin’ mess now aren’t you?” Robby murmurs, gaze glued ravenous to your bobbing mouth, cock throbbing harder under you. “You wanna cum?”
You nod, frantic around his fingers, eyes pleading.
“Not yet,” Robby denies, voice almost gentle, yet harsh at once. “Barely seen what you can do.”
You exhale shaky as he pulls his fingers out with a wet pop, trailing spit from your chin before cupping your whole face possessive, holding you locked on him.
“Go over to him. Make him feel good,” Robby orders, jerking his chin at Jack.
You nod, movements sluggish from the edge he left you on.
“On the floor, knees, now,” Robby snaps, voice brooking no argument.
You slide off his lap reluctant, crawling back to Jack beside him on the couch. He smiles soft at you, fingers threading gentle through your hair, cupping your cheek as he brushes strands aside, gaze roaming tender over your flushed skin.
“You alright there?” he asks nicely, thumb stroking your jaw.
You nod eager, hands diving straight to his sweatpants, palming the rigid bulge straining there—heat pulsing under your touch.
You tug the waistband down, freeing his cock—thick shaft springing up heavy, veins bulging, head slick with pre-cum. Your fist wraps tight around the base, pumping slow firm strokes up to the tip, twisting slick over the crown to spread his leak.
Jack inhales sharp, but you drop fully to your knees between his spread thighs on the rug, the rough weave biting into your skin. You lean in, lips parting wide to swallow his cockhead first—tongue flicking the slit to lap salty pre, then sliding down inch by veiny inch, throat relaxing to take him deeper.
“Look pretty down there,” Jack murmurs with a small smile, hand light in your hair, just cradling.
“You’re so soft with her,” Robby remarks from beside, voice mixed with mocking and earnestness as he watches you work, his own tenting obvious.
Jack shrugs, a quiet groan escaping as you hollow your cheeks, sucking vacuum-tight while bobbing steady—saliva pooling at the corners of your stretched lips, dribbling down his balls. Your hand strokes what your mouth can't reach, twisting wet on the upstroke, tongue pressing flat along the underside to trace every ridge.
Robby's gaze burns hot—flicking over your arched back, your drool-slick chin, eyes that dart between Jack's tense face, Robby's hungry stare, then flutter shut as you deepthroat him full, nose burying in his pubes. He fixates on Jack's cock vanishing slick between your lips, throat bulging visible. Then up to Jack, whose fingers grip tighter into your scalp—not shoving, just anchoring as his neck cords tense.
“Good job, sweetheart,” Jack praises breathy, hips twitching minimal into your rhythm.
Your moan vibrates around his length, humming deep to make him shudder, spit bubbling messy as you pop off to lick sloppy stripes up his shaft, sucking each ball into your mouth turn before plunging back down.
He groans low, head lolling back, “Fucking… perfect. So perfect, always.”
Tension crackles thicker between them—Jack's free hand drifts casual at first, then deliberate, palming Robby's thigh before cupping the massive bulge in his jeans, squeezing firm through denim. Robby stiffens, eyes meeting with Jack's, breath hitching as Jack rubs slow circles over the thick outline, thumb pressing the zipper ridge where pre darkens the fabric.
“You alright there, man?” Jack scoffs, a light smile. “Can’t handle it?”
It’s a challenge. It always is with them. Has been since they were twenty something.
Jack knows exactly what he’s doing—knows the tells. The slight tilt of Robby’s head, the way his weight shifts more onto one side, the flicker of something sharper behind his eyes. He’s seen that look in bars, in fights, in operating rooms when things went sideways.
Robby doesn’t back down from anything. Least of all him.
Then Robby exhales slowly, something almost like a laugh under it, eyes locking onto Jack’s—steady, unflinching.
“Oh, I can handle it just fine,” Robby agrees with his own smile. “Go ‘head.”
Jack groans at your relentless mouth—fast and wet, then slowing perfect against him—his hand stroking over Robby’s clothed cock, deliberate and slow, denim rasping under his palm. He leans in first, crashing his mouth to Robby's—sloppy, urgent, tongues battling fierce right above you, beards grinding rough, wet sucks and grunts filling the air. Jack's fingers knead Robby's bulge harder, unzipping halfway to delve inside, wrapping firm around the hot shaft through boxers.
You pull off Jack with a gasp, spit stringing from your lips to his glistening tip, replacing your mouth with your fist—pumping slick and steady along his veiny length, thumb swirling over the slit to smear pre-cum. Your eyes lock on their kiss, Jack's hand slowing on Robby as your thumb teases tentative over his own sensitive crown, tongue darting out to lap the edge of his slit.
“Oh fuck,” Jack moans into Robby’s mouth, breaking away to watch you lick him sweetly, hips bucking light into your grip.
Your free hand joins Jack’s on Robby’s cock, fingers overlapping his as Robby undoes his belt buckle with a metallic clink, shoving jeans and boxers down his thighs. His thick cock springs free. You spit thick into your palm, slicking it hot before gripping him base to tip, stroking in tandem with Jack—your hand twisting wet on the upstroke while his squeezes the root, veins pulsing under your combined pressure.
Robby hisses through clenched teeth, thighs tensing as you both jerk him off rough, pre dribbling over knuckles, your mouth still working on Jack’s cock.
Jack's strokes on you falter to lazy pumps, his fist gliding easy over your saliva-lubed skin as he watches Robby swell thicker in your shared hold. “Fuck, feel that grip? She’s got hands made for this,” he rasps, voice husky, eyes dark on Robby's face.
Robby grunts approval, thrusting shallow into the double stroke. Jack pulls back suddenly, nodding down at you. “Let him feel how good your pretty mouth is, baby.”
You release Jack reluctant, his cock twitching angry-red in the cool air as he takes over—fist flying fast over his shaft, slick echoing. You shift on your knees, turning to Robby, who grips his base and taps the fat head heavy against your cheek—wet smacks on flushed skin, taunting drip of pre-painting streaks.
“Dreamt about this once,” he admits, voice low. “The way Jack described it, you’d think you have the mouth of an angel. That right? You an angel?” He wonders.
You lick your lips in anticipation, hand between your legs, fingers gliding over your folds.
“Seemed pretty desperate for my boyfriend there too,” You remark, not looking away from Robby’s gaze.
His jaw tightens. “He’s pretty good with his hand, but I think you can do better with your tongue.”
You part lips wide, tongue out flat as he slaps his cock deliberately across it, underside dragging salty over your tastebuds before shoving in brutal—half his length in one thrust, stretching your jaw.
You gag wet but suck hollow, cheeks caving as you bob frantic, hand pumping the rest in sync. Saliva floods fast, bubbling down his sack as you swirl tongue under the ridge, hollowing deep to milk him. Your fingers are quick against your wetness, dripping between your thighs, your other hand planted at Robby’s thigh.
“Shit—yeah, like that,” Robby growls, free hand fisting your hair to guide rough, not forcing but controlling the pace—pulling you off to tap his cock on your tongue again, smearing spit and pre glossy before ramming back in.
He fucks your face shallow, hips snapping precise, balls swinging to nudge your chin while Jack jerks himself faster beside, groans syncing with yours muffled around Robby's girth.
You sweep the underside of your tongue around Robby’s cock, soft wetness coating him, slow, then fast, hearing how Robby’s hand tightens harder in your scalp.
Jack leans close, breath ragged as his fist blurs over his cock, tip weeping steady. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Fuck off,” Robby mutters, focused on your mouth, your eyes as they look up at him, wide, watery.
Your fingers slip between your thighs, dipping into your soaked pussy, rutting slow circles over your clit as you kneel between them, mouth stuffed full on Robby's cock. Spit drips messy down your chin, mixing with the slick from your own folds as you finger yourself deeper, chasing that tight coil building low in your belly.
“I’m good,” Jack rasps, eyes locked on your hand working your cunt, his fist pumping steady over his own cock. “Slow down, sweetheart.”
Your fingers comply, easing to lazy drags through your wetness, eyes flicking up to watch Jack slow his palm in sync, thumb circling his flushed tip. His free hand drifts back to Robby's thigh, squeezing hard muscle as he watches you deepthroat—throat bulging obscene with each plunge, gags turning wet and rhythmic.
Robby's taunts rumble gravel-deep: “Fucking hell, you gonna let me cum in that mouth, honey?” He pops free with a gasp, cock throbbing inches from your face, tapping insistent on your cheek—left, right, smearing sticky pre over flushed skin—before you dive back voluntary, nose grinding into his pubes as you swallow him full, humming vibration to wrench a guttural curse from his chest.
“She can take it,” Jack murmurs, voice thick. “Can you, baby? Come on, speak now.”
You moan muffled around Robby's girth, pulling off with a slick pop, resting your head against his still-clothed thigh as your fingers plunge back into your pussy, rutting frantic. “Mhm.” You kiss alongside his shaft, tongue tracing veins lazy, lips brushing hot skin.
“So damn sweet now,” Robby murmurs, hand loosening from your scalp to pet gentle through your hair, watching your fingers disappear knuckle-deep. “That feel good?”
You nod against his thigh, licking slow stripes up his cock, pumping your pussy deliberate—thumb flicking your clit, hips rocking into your hand, edge creeping close, breath hitching sharp.
“No more of that, alright?” Robby nods down, eyes sharp on your body. “Yeah? You listening?”
You groan, fingers curling harder inside yourself. “Fuck you—you wanna cum, I get to cum too.”
Robby tilts his head, that piercing look—the one Jack knows spells trouble, before ripping into a resident. Jack nearly laughs, slowing his strokes to a tease. “Not how it works,” Robby says flat, voice dropping steel.
You glance at Jack, pleading.
“Don’t look at him,” Robby orders, tone snapping stricter, hand fisting your hair tight to force your gaze back. You gulp, thighs clenching empty as you pull your fingers free, pussy clenching needy on nothing. “Put both hands behind your back if you’re gonna act like a fuckin’ brat.”
Reluctant, you clasp your hands behind you, knees aching on the floor, tits heaving with each breath. Robby nods approval, gripping his base to feed his cock back past your lips—slow at first, letting you savor the stretch, then thrusting deeper as you hollow cheeks vacuum-tight.
Your tongue flattens under his shaft to lap the frenulum relentlessly, swirling wet around the head on every upstroke before slamming down throat-deep, gag reflex crushed to nothing. Saliva floods obscenely, bubbling at the corners of your mouth, dripping strings to his balls as you bob frantic—suction pulling groans from his gut, nose buried in coarse hair, throat milking him like a fist.
You hum constant vibration, eyes watering up at him, popping off to spit thick on his length before sucking one ball then the other into your mouth, rolling tongue heavy before plunging back down full.
“Jesus Christ—yeah, there we go…” Robby snarls, hips snapping erratic, free hand clamping your nape to hold you buried as his cock swells impossibly thicker, balls drawing tight.
He floods your mouth suddenly—hot spurts painting your tongue thick and salty, cock pulsing ropes down your throat as you swallow greedily around him, not spilling a drop. He rides it out shallow thrusts, groaning ragged until spent, pulling free with a wet schlick.
“Fuck,” he pants, watching your tongue swipe clean over his softening head, lapping the last beads from his slit.
You fall back onto your heels, knees throbbing, core dripping wet and aching empty down your thighs. Swallowing his load thick, you stand shaky, and lean down to Robby, core exposed from your barely there nightgown. You grab him by his jaw, fingers at his chin, watching as his hand catches your wrist.
You smile at that. “Go on,” Your fingers linger near his mouth, covered with your wetness. “Jack prefers the real deal. You shy all of a sudden, Mikey?”
Robby reluctantly opens his mouth, trying and tasting your wetness, sucking your fingers clean.
“Atta boy,” You say sarcastically, moving them out of his mouth. “You think you can still fuck me, old man?” You whisper.
“Watch it,” Robby murmurs.
“You can, in the corner, while Jack finally makes me cum.” You whisper. “Jack,” you grab Jack’s hand, walking away with him as Jack follows suit behind you.
“Up and at it,” Jack tells Robby over his shoulder as he follows you.
“Fucking hell,” Robby mutters, taking a second before following after.
You hum satisfied, leading them stumbling to the bedroom, the air electric behind you.
In the dim glow, you strip your nightgown overhead, leaving ruined panties—crotch soaked dark—and a lacey bra barely containing your tits. Their eyes burn hot as you climb onto yours and Jack's bed, kneeling center.
Jack follows instant, standing at the edge, hands cupping your jaw rough-tender, leaning down to crash his mouth to yours—passionate and devouring, tongue fucking deep to taste Robby's cum lingering salty. You moan into it, hand snaking to grip his cock again, stroking firm base-to-tip.
Behind Jack, Robby's hands roam his back, trailing firm over shirt fabric before gripping the hem, yanking it up and off in one pull. Jack moans muffled into your kiss when your fist pumps faster, hips bucking into your grip, but he breaks away gasping as cool air hits his bare chest.
Robby presses close from behind, chest flush to Jack's back, beard scraping his shoulder as lips latch onto Jack's neck—sucking a mark deliberate.
“Baby, lie down for me,” Jack instructs.
You nod, lying down on your back, knees spread apart like second nature. He tilts his head, as Robby’s lips trail over his skin.
“Enjoying yourself?” Robby echoes Jack's earlier words, hand meeting at his cock briefly, feeling Jack stiffen and inhale sharply at that. “You gonna make your girl cum, or do I have to do that?”
“Fuck off,” Jack murmurs. “Go sit in a corner and wait, or somethin’,” Jack mutters, hands dragging you by the underside of your knee, gently towards the edge as he kneels on the bed, as Robby steps back with a chuckle.
“Think I got her ready, though, so, shouldn't take long,” Robby says. “Unless you’re not as skilled as you’ve been bragging to be.”
“Oh, my god, one of you make me cum or else I’m doing it myself, Jesus,” you whine.
“Oh, baby,” Jack murmurs, kissing at your inner thighs. “I’m leaving you waiting here.”
“She’s being a brat. Have some patience, honey,” Robby insists, tilting his head at you in mock. “But she’s right, hurry up, Abbot, Christ.”
Jack swipes his tongue along your core, and you moan, your wetness ready and eager from Robby's fingering and your own arousal. He licks slow and firm, teasing your sensitive flesh.
Robby watches from the side, his cock still tucked away in his jeans, as he observes you writhing under Jack's talented tongue. His expression is heated, hungry, clearly enjoying the show.
"Mmm...you look like a-" you moan, too lost in sensation to finish the thought. "A fucking nun, Michael," you finally manage, nodding towards his henley. "You aren't hot in that? Take it off already, fuck,"
Robby clicks his tongue, a light roll of his eyes. "You could ask me nicely. Here I thought you were so polite and sweet," he chides.
Jack’s tongue is a relentless, wet invasion, fucking into you with a rhythm that steals your breath. You clench around him, a tight, pulsing grip, your fingers tangled in his silver curls, thighs locked around his head like a vise.
Your eyes stay fixed on Robby’s as he discards his shirt, the fabric whispering to the floor. The snick of his belt sliding free from the loops makes you tighten your legs around Jack even more, a shiver of anticipation racing up your spine, as Jack laps at your pussy.
“Wider,” Jack grunts, his voice muffled against your pussy. He pushes your thighs apart with his hard biceps, one big hand splayed over your hipbone, pinning you down. “Stop squirming. Take it.”
From the foot of the bed, Robby watches, arms folded over his bare chest. He looks like a professor observing a dissection—calm, analytical, utterly in control. “How close are you?” he asks, his tone clinical.
“Mm, close,” you manage, the words breaking on a moan as Jack’s tongue flicks hard over your clit.
“You make such pretty sounds. He was right about that,” Robby hums, stepping closer. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his calloused hand coming up to cup your cheek. His thumb strokes your skin, sweetly, but his brow is furrowed, his gaze intense. “Callin’ me a nun, and you still got this thing on, honey.” He hooks a finger under the strap of your bra and flicks it sharply against your skin, a sting of sensation.
Jack’s tongue plunges deep again, and you arch off the bed, a choked cry leaving your lips. Your eyes don’t leave Robby’s as his hand slides down, cupping your breast through the lace. He admires the weight, the shape, his fingers tracing the curve.
“Want me to fuck you first, or GI Joe there?” Robby recalls, a smirk playing on his lips.
He doesn’t miss the way your mouth curves in a smile, even as your eyelids flutter shut. Jack quickens his pace, his hands now gripping your thighs like he’s holding you together.
You’re too close, teetering on that blinding edge. Words are impossible.
“Answer me,” Robby instructs, his voice dropping low and stern. His hand kneads your breast, then slips inside the cup of your bra, his fingers finding your nipple. He rolls it, pinches it just shy of pain. “Who do you want first?”
“You,” you gasp, the answer torn from you instinctively, desperately.
Robby’s smirk widens. “You hear that, Abbot? I get to break her in first.” He doesn’t look away from you as he says it.
He leans down, his hand sliding between your legs. Jack pulls back without a word, letting Robby’s fingers trail through your soaked folds, delivering a slap to your clit. You shiver violently, a string of high, needy moans escaping as he collects your wetness on his fingertips. He brings them back to your mouth, his other hand still working your nipple.
“I was right,” you murmur, breathless. “Knew you’d be mean.”
“Yeah? You like it?” Robby wonders, though he already knows.
You bite your lip, refusing to answer.
He pushes his wet fingers past your lips, pulling your jaw open with a firm pressure. The look he gives you is pure command—dark, expectant. Obey.
“I like it,” you moan around his fingers, the admission almost reluctant. Your grip tightens in Jack’s hair. “Fuck—I’m gonna—oh fuck—”
“Yeah?” Robby hums, petting your hair now, his other hand still at your breast. He watches your mouth hang open, watches the pleasure wreck you. “Eyes on me. Come on. No, no. No closing them. You keep ’em right here.” His gaze holds yours captive. “Good girl… good girl, aren’t you? Bratty, but you just needed to cum a little, isn’t that right?”
You whimper as Jack’s tongue sweeps over your oversensitive clit one last time, lapping up your juices as you shatter. Your orgasm crashes through you, white-hot and convulsing, your body bowing off the bed as you cry out.
“Good job, baby. Fucking hell,” Jack mutters against your thigh, his voice rough with praise.
He comes up your body, his hand replacing Robby’s on your breast, kneading possessively. His lips find yours in a messy, wet kiss, tasting of you. Tongues swiping, teeth clashing briefly as you chuckle into the kiss, wet and sloppy as he moves to your neck, sucking hard around your jaw, yoru neck, hand trailing over your figure, squeezing, gentle, rough all at once.
“My favourite girl in the world, you know that,” he murmurs against your skin, kissing at your collarbone.
You grin, feeling as Robby captures your mouth with his own, a brief pause as he watches Jack worship your figure. Jack slides a finger over your core, feeling as your back arches, how you gasp into Robby’s mouth.
“You aren’t a brat, are you baby?” Jack murmurs, rubbing tight circles at your clit, hearing how you whimper at the feeling, fresh from your orgasm. “No, honey, not for me, isn’t that right? Yeah, I know, I know… my sweet girl,” He replaces Robby’s mouth with his own, dragging over yours as you nod into the kiss.
“Told you. Lover boy,” Robby remarks to you.
You grin into the kiss, before Jack pulls away and naturally seems to find Robby’s lips.
You watch, a strange heat pooling in your belly, watching as Jack immediately leans in and kisses Robby. It’s harsh and sweet all at once—a clash of teeth and soft sighs. You thought you might feel a spike of jealousy, but instead, a warm, possessive pride swells in your chest.
Robby stands, briefly cupping Jack’s jaw in a gesture that’s both dismissal and affection before pushing him gently aside. Jack moves from between your legs, sprawling onto his back on the bed. Robby’s hands are on your waist, and you yelp in surprise as he manhandles you with effortless strength, flipping you onto your stomach.
He drags your ruined panties down over your ass, off your legs, and sends them flying to a corner of the room with a flick of his wrist. Your bra is next; he unclips it with one practiced hand, and the lace joins the panties.
“Ass up, sweetheart,” Robby instructs, his voice thick. He lands a sharp, stinging tap on your bare ass cheek. He has one knee on the bed, the other foot planted on the floor.
You obey, pushing yourself up onto your knees and elbows. Jack is lying in front of you now, his gaze heated. You reach for his prosthetic leg, helping him with the quick-release mechanism. Robby hands you the second one without a word—a seamless, understood exchange. Jack kisses you, sweet and grateful, as he sets the limb aside.
"That's it," Robby mutters, positioning himself behind you. You feel the blunt head of his cock pressing against your slick entrance, teasing, and then he thrusts forward in one brutal, seamless motion.
Filling you so completely the air leaves your lungs in a whoosh. He sets a punishing pace immediately, each thrust driving you forward toward Jack.
Robby inhales sharply at the feeling of you. You adjust to him, moan loud and silent all at once at the feeling.
“Shit,” Robby mutters. “Fuckin’ hell, you know much Jack’s raved about this pussy? Callin’ it the treasure of the fucking ocean.”
His hands grip your hips like anchors, fingernails digging into your soft flesh as he sets a merciless rhythm—pounding into you with a force that drives your body forward with each impact, making the headboard knock rhythmically against the wall. “Perfect fucking pussy, sweetheart, you know that?”
You moan at his words, clenching even tighter around him.
“How the fuck do you leave home, Jack— Jesus Christ,” Robby says as he quickens his pace slightly, watching as your ass moves from the harsh contact of his hips against you.
“Life or death, and that’s it,” Jack says.
“Come on, give him some love, kid,” Robby tells.
Jack’s cock is hard and leaking against his stomach. You lean down, taking him into your mouth, swallowing him deep. He groans, his hands coming up to cradle your head. “Fuck, just like that,” he rasps.
You’re split between them—Robby fucking into you from behind with deep, possessive strokes, and Jack’s length hitting the back of your throat. The dual sensation is overwhelming. Robby’s hips slap against your ass, the sound filthy and wet.
“You like being used like this baby?” Jack wonders, your moans vibrating against him.
You don’t answer, focused on the sensation of Robby’s cock harsh within you.
“He asked you a question,” Robby pants, moving his hand to your hair, tight as you look up at Jack, watery eyed.
“Uh-huh,” you nod.
“See? Not so hard,” Robby groans.
Jack smiles a bit at that, caressing your face as you occupy your mouth with Jack’s cock. He groans. The taste of salt and heat floods your tongue as you take him deep, your lips stretching around his girth. You hollow your cheeks, sucking hard as you bob your head, letting him feel every ridge of your throat as you swallow him down. Your nose presses against his pelvis, and he groans, his fingers threading through your hair.
"Just like that… Just like that," Jack chokes out, his head falling back as his hips buck up involuntarily, his hand tightening on your jaw. His thumb presses against your cheek, forcing your mouth wider, and you feel every ridge and vein of his cock sliding deeper down your throat. "Come on now, so close."
The words vibrate through you, but before you can double down, Robby leans over your arched back, his chest sweaty and hot against your spine, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "Make him wait."
You pull off Jack's cock with a wet pop, a thick strand of saliva and pre-cum stretching between your lips and his glistening tip before breaking. Jack's frustrated groan cuts through the room, his hips twitching in empty air.
"Fuck off, Mike," Jack growls, but his hand remains gentle in your hair, fingers stroking through the sweat-damp strands as you whimper from the brutal pace behind you.
Robby's cock is driving into you with relentless accuracy, the head of him hitting that deep, spongy spot inside you with every thrust, sending electric jolts through your core. Your inner walls flutter and clench around him, helpless against the assault.
"You gonna be a brat too, then?" Robby says, shooting a lighthearted glare at Jack over your shoulder.
Before Jack can retort, you clench down hard around Robby's shaft, a desperate whine escaping your throat. Robby's rhythm stutters for half a second, a low curse spilling from his lips. "Fucking—hell, god, doll. You are so goddamn tight, y'know that?"
His pace becomes brutal, each thrust driving deeper, harder, the angle punishing. His balls slap wetly against your clit with every impact, the sound filthy and rhythmic. You feel the slick heat of your own arousal coating his shaft, dripping down your thighs with every punishing stroke.
"She's close," Jack murmurs, his voice softer now, almost reverent.
You shift forward, pressing open-mouthed kisses across his stomach, your tongue tracing the soft lines of his abs, tasting salt and skin, over the light freckles. You moan into his flesh, the vibration making his muscles jump, and then his palm cups your cheek, thumb brushing over your bottom lip, holding you warmly.
"Look at you," Jack whispers, his eyes dark and soft at once. "So beautiful like this. Taking us both. You're doing so well, baby."
“Go ahead, cum,” Robby growls into your ear, his hand snakes around your hip, his fingers finding your clit. He rubs tight circles against the swollen nub while he continues to pound into you, and the sensation is electric—each thrust driving his fingers harder against that sensitive bundle of nerves. “Now.”
You moan around Jack’s cock as you break, your pussy clenching wildly around Robby’s thrusts. The convulsions milk him, and with a low groan, he buries himself to the hilt and pulses inside you, hot and deep.
"Fuck," he breathes, his forehead pressing against your shoulder blade, his body shuddering through the aftershocks.
He pulls out slowly, and you feel his cum begin to seep from you.
“Goddamnit,” Robby murmurs, a pant.
Before you can even catch your breath, he spits into his palm, the sound crude and purposeful. He reaches down, slicking up Jack’s cock, which is already hard again and straining against his stomach. Jack groans, a deep, ragged sound at the touch.
“Your turn,” Robby tells him, his voice rough with use.
But instead of letting you face Jack, Robby guides you. His strong hands on your hips turn you, maneuvering your spent body until you’re straddling Jack, but facing away from him. Your back is to Jack’s chest, your ass pressed against his hips. You can feel Robby’s cum, warm and wet, slicking the way as you settle over Jack’s length.
Jack’s hands come to your hips, steadying you. “Easy, sweetheart,” he murmurs, but his voice is tight with need.
From the foot of the bed, Robby watches. He’s kneeling there now, his eyes dark and hungry, fixed on the place where your bodies move against one another, well practiced. Jack’s fingers slide between your legs, through the slick mess Robby left behind. He gathers it on his fingertips, his touch making you shiver, he brings those wet fingers to your lips.
You open for him, tasting Robby’s salty tang on Jack’s skin as he slips his fingers into your mouth. You moan around them, your tongue swirling. Jack’s eyes never leave Robby’s as he then pulls his fingers free, back to your cunt, a slight shudder once more, and brings them to his own lips, sucking them clean, tasting his best friend.
Robby watches this whole exchange, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Atta girl,” Jack pants against your ear, his hands tightening on your hips.
Then he guides you down, and you sink onto him with a broken cry. He fills you completely, the stretch delicious, the sensation of being stuffed so soon after your last climax making your head spin. You’re so sensitive it’s almost painful, a sweet, overwhelming ache.
You begin to move, rising and falling on his cock, finding a slow, grinding rhythm. Your hands brace on Jack’s thighs behind you for leverage. The angle is deep, each descent hitting a spot that makes you see stars.
“That’s it,” Jack encourages, his voice a rasp in your ear. His hands roam your body—gripping your waist, palming your breasts, thumbing your nipples.
You increase your pace, bouncing on him, the wet sounds of your joining filling the room. Your head falls back against his shoulder, your eyes fluttering shut.
“Eyes open, sweetheart.”
Robby’s command cuts through the haze. Your eyes snap open. He’s moved closer, kneeling right beside the bed now, his face level with where you’re joined with Jack. He’s watching every slide, every glide, his expression one of rapt fascination.
“Look at you,” Robby murmurs, his voice thick. “Takin’ him so well."
His praise fuels you. You lean more back, hands coming up behind you to Jack, angle pushing him even deeper, as you whimper, sharp gasps, teetering on the edge again.
“Baby, I’m gonna cum,” Your moan, soft.
“Fucking- shit, go ahead, honey, cum f’me,” he moans.
Your orgasm crests, a silent scream trapped in your throat as your body tightens. You clench around Jack, a series of violent, fluttering spasms that milk his length.
Jack curses, his hips bucking up into you. “Fucking—just like that—”
As you’re pulsing around him, Robby leans in. He captures Jack’s mouth in a sudden, fierce kiss over your shoulder. You can hear the wet slide of their lips, the soft grunts and sighs. It’s raw and intimate, and it sends another shockwave of pleasure through your oversensitive nerves.
Robby breaks the kiss. “Lift up for a second, kid,” he breathes against your skin.
Dazed and pliant, you raise yourself up, Jack’s slick cock sliding almost all the way out of you. Robby’s hand replaces you, wrapping around Jack’s shaft. He gives him a few rough, efficient strokes, his thumb smearing the pre-cum beaded at the tip.
“Missed the taste of you,” Robby mutters to Jack, his eyes locked on his friend’s face as he works him.
Jack just groans, his head thrown back, his hands gripping your thighs. Then Robby guides you back down, easing you onto Jack’s cock until you’re fully seated once more, stuffed to the brim.
“Go ahead, finish,” Robby growls, his command for both of you.
You begin to move again, a slow, rolling grind now, utterly spent but driven by the need to feel Jack lose control. He’s close—you can feel the tension in his body, the way his breath hitches.
“Come on, Jack,” Robby urges softly, his hand returning to your clit, applying just enough pressure to make you whimper. “Fill her up. Give her what she needs.”
That does it. With a shattered cry, Jack’s hips piston up once, twice, and then he stills, buried deep inside you as he comes. You feel the hot pulses of his release joining Robby’s already there, flooding you.
Jack kisses at your shoulder blades, near your neck, as you relax your body entirely, shaky breaths with your back against his chest. His arm coming around you automatically, instinctive, like it always does. His hand slides up your arm, slow, grounding, fingers brushing your shoulder, your collarbone—checking, not asking out loud but asking anyway.
Robby puts a hand to your jaw, tapping your cheeks lightly with his fingers, watching as your eyes lazily find his.
“You alright?” he murmurs, voice rough, softer than it’s been all night.
“Mhm,” You nod, catching your breath.
“There she is,” Jack murmurs against you, pressing a kiss into your hair, lingering there a second longer than usual.
Robby doesn’t move right away.
He’s sitting beside you both, elbows on his knees, head tipped slightly forward, breathing steadier now—but there’s something in his posture, something looser than before. The edge is gone. Or at least… dialed down.
You shift, peeling yourself gently from Jack, turning toward Robby. For a second, there’s that flicker—uncertainty, maybe. Not doubt. Just… recalibration.
Then you lean in and kiss him. It’s different now. Slower. Softer. No urgency behind it.
Robby’s hand comes up to the back of your head, not guiding, not demanding—just holding you there, thumb brushing lightly at your hairline. He exhales through his nose, a quiet thing, like he didn’t realize he’d been holding onto something.
When you pull back, you stay close.
“Hey,” you say, softer.
“Hey,” he echoes.
Jack watches the two of you. His hand still rests low on your back, thumb moving in slow, absent circles like it always does when he’s settling you.
Jack kisses gently at your bare back, “Be right back,” he murmurs against you, before you hear him leave the bed, putting on his temporary prosthetic.
You hear him leave, pulling away from Robby who watches Jack as he leaves the room, headed for the hall.
You groan and flop onto the bed, Robby moving the blanket over you, maybe suddenly prudeish as he picks up presumably Jack’s shirt and hands it to you. You hum, put it on.
“Jesus,” you murmur, voice soft, wrecked. “I think my legs might actually fall off.”
That gets a quiet huff out of Robby.
He’s sitting up at the edge of the bed now, dragging a hand down his face, then through his hair. He looks… different, a little. Looser. The usual edge sanded down.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Think you’ll live.”
You glance over at him, managing a small smile.
He’s already reaching for his boxers, pulling them back on, movements unhurried. The gold chain at his neck catches the low light—the Star of David resting against his chest, rising and falling with his breathing. There’s something grounding about it. Familiar. Normal.
There’s a beat.
Then, softer—
“…You good?” You ask.
He turns your head toward you. “Yeah.” He thinks for a moment, a shake of his head as he lets himself admit– “Needed that. Needed to be… not alone, I think.”
You watch him for a second—something thoughtful in your expression.
“That something you’d wanna do again or is this a one and done situation?” You wonder earnestly, rolling onto your side as you look up at him. “
Robby doesn’t answer straight away. He looks at you—really looks, like he’s trying to figure out what the question actually means underneath what you asked.
Your hair’s a mess, Jack’s shirt slipping off one shoulder, eyes soft but steady on him. Hickies across your neck. Not fragile. Not asking for reassurance. Just… asking.
His jaw shifts slightly.
“…You always this direct after something like that?” he mutters.
You huff a quiet laugh. “I’m an ortho resident. I don’t have time for interpretive dance.”
That almost gets a smile out of him. He exhales, leaning back more fully, one hand rubbing absently at his chest like he’s trying to settle something under the surface.
“It’s not—” he starts, then stops. Tries again. “It’s not really a ‘one and done’ kind of question.”
You tilt your head slightly. “Why not?”
He glances at the door—where Jack disappeared—then back at you.
Because Jack’s not just some guy. Because this isn’t just sex. Because there’s history here that predates you by decades and still manages to feel unfinished. Because he already feels it sitting somewhere in his chest, heavy.
You seem to pick up where his head is at, a nod. “Do you have… like, real feelings for him? Or me?”
Robby scoffs a chuckle. “I don’t have time to think about that.”
“Just time to fuck us though. Well, not Jack, sure he’ll give me a complaint about that later.” You murmur.
Robby smiles a bit. “You two are… perfect for each other. I still don’t get how he found you.”
“I don’t know either, to be honest,” You admit. “But he cares about you. Like a lot. And so do I. And it’s not just because your dick is great, promise. You’re always welcome with us, whether its sex, comfort, food, all three. We aren’t picky people.”
“Picked up on that,” Robby nods, quieter now. “What are your plans? With him, I mean. He mentioned something about marriage.”
You smile a little—more to yourself than anything—your hand drifting, almost unconsciously, to your left ring finger.
“No idea,” you admit. “However long he wants me around, I guess.”
Robby huffs a soft breath, leaning back against the headboard. “Well, if age’s anything to go by, you’ve got a good couple of years.”
You smack his arm lightly. “You’re literally older than him.”
“I’m not marrying you,” Robby shoots back, deadpan.
“You’re an ass,” you sigh.
That earns you a small smile.
The door opens.
Jack steps back in, towel slung over his shoulder, a glass of water already in hand. He pauses just inside, taking in the room in one sweep—quick, practiced. You, curled on your side in his shirt. Robby at the edge of the bed, quieter than usual.
“My leg’s killing me,” Jack mutters, like it’s an afterthought, already moving back toward the bed.
You push yourself up onto your elbows, frowning. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says, dismissive in that way he gets, like pain’s just background noise. He hands you the glass. “Drink.”
You take it, still watching him. “You say that about everything.”
“Because everything’s fine.”
Robby snorts under his breath. “Yeah. That’s a healthy coping mechanism.”
Jack shoots him a look as he sits down, stretching his leg out carefully. “Oh, I’m sorry—did you want to compare notes?”
Robby raises his brows. “Not particularly.”
Then Jack exhales, leaning back into the headboard. His hand finds your thigh automatically—absent, grounding, like he needs the contact without thinking about it.
His gaze flicks between the two of you, lingering on Robby for half a second longer than necessary.
“What’d I miss?” he asks.
You shift, settling back into him, your cheek brushing his shoulder. “Marriage.”
Jack huffs. “One night with my girl and you’re already trying to steal her? Alright. Good to know.”
Robby lets out a quiet chuckle.
“With you, idiot,” you correct.
Jack glances down at you. “Oh, him and I are getting married now?”
You roll your eyes and, just to be difficult, shift toward Robby instead—curling lightly into his side.
It lasts all of two seconds.
Jack’s arm hooks around you and pulls you straight back against him.
“Relax,” he mutters, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, holding you there against his chest.
Robby watches that, something unreadable flickering across his face before it settles again.
Robby stays the night.
Not in the same way—there’s a natural rhythm to it. He gives you and Jack space without being asked, drifting out into the living room, the quiet murmur of the TV carrying faintly down the hall. At one point you hear the balcony door slide open, then shut again.
He’s not intrusive. Never has been.
But he doesn’t leave, either.
if u havent read it, i'd recommend reading my (wo)man on willpower! this is a spin off of that, i suppose. focuses more on jack x reader, though. :D
a/n: girls i have another like 700 words i had that as a short scene of santos speculating why u didnt make it to her paris party (oh my god im so funny paris because threesome haha i know right, please dont click off this), and i might post that later, but my ao3 will get the full thing if u wanna just see what it was. the 1000 block limit on tumblr genuinely my opp fr.
anyway thank u guys all for the support on my (wo)man on willpower, so proud of that fic and so sweet the reblogs and comments! i wish u could see my grin every time! and yall hammered me for this so i hope its up to standard, meets an expectation or two. i had a lot of fun just exploring the dynamic, you x robby, robby x jack, jack x you, like i am a true believer in true love triangles, so hopefully that came across, but admittedly, still keeping jack and reader endgame obvi, so.. also sorry if it aint gay enough, i told yall i do not read mlm stuff, just not for me. i love it! just dont like, actively read it yk! i also just wanted to have fun with the prose, emotional stuff, etc, and idk. hopefully the smut isnt terrible, that shit is hard as hell! like, positions, dirty talk?! dirty talk is hardddd guys!! then like the build to it, ugh. i wish i had a smut class at my uni or something so i could really get into the weeds of it, and spend time endlessly editing it. i really couldve spent another few days editing this but honestly wanted it OUT and DONE !! need to lock in got exams soon team. okay sorry for this long as hell authors note ! lmfaoo. hope yall liked!
