Robby is the kind of person to stand in front of mirror, noticing every new wrinkle, every new gray strain in his hair or beard and genuinely hates looking so old, and feeling even older
But then he looks at Jack and his even grayer hair and the wrinkles and it's the opposite line of thoughts. How hot he looks with gray hair, how cute the wrinkles look on his freckled skin. How well he's aging, like a fine wine.
Jack sees the insecure Robby and always calls him pretty in any shape or form.
"Hey Handsome."
"What's up Gorgeous?"
"How's my Beautiful husband doing today?"
"Good morning Cutie."
And Robby always turns red like a tomato and argues that he's nothing special and that Jack is the lucky one because he looks stupidly hot for his years.
And Jack? Just shrugs and simply replies "Hell yeah I'm lucky. Lucky to have husband this fucking hot to give me boner every day."
"Um, well, I'm not sure that it's about liking, really?" Mel says. "It's more that it's neat and quick. Oh, and if I have a lot of hair on the back of my neck, sometimes that gets sweaty and I don't really like the sensation?"
"Okay, but it's not like you've only got one choice to work with," Trinity says. "Live a little."
There are some points that Mel could make, but Trinity is already settling in behind her, her legs snugged around Mel's hips where they're sitting on the living room floor.
"You don't have to—"
"Uh, I know I don't have to." Mel doesn't have to see Trinity's face to know the kind of eye-roll that must have accompanied her words, but Trinity undoes Mel's usual braid with fingers that are deft and careful. She doesn't tug on Mel's scalp. She works her fingers in among the strands, ruffling them loose gently, while her thumbs press in against the tight fibres of Mel's upper trapezius. Trinity works them in precise circles, and a tension that Mel hadn't been aware of shivers out of her. It feels like how their karaoke duet had, except it's Trinity's hands that are coaxing this out of her rather than her voice.
"You should be grateful that I'm not making jokes about how tight you are," Trinity says, and Mel would have questions about that but Trinity's fingers do feel very good. She'd have questions, too, about how Trinity had suggested this as if it was some spur-of-the-moment idea, just the kind of thing that friends do on a lazy weekend morning, but from her bag she'd produced a rat tail comb and a hairbrush—both still in their original packaging—and an unopened packet of hair ties.
"Um," Mel says, once Trinity's got everything opened and is sectioning out Mel's hair with practiced movements. She hopes that it's not going to be a high ponytail. Mel doesn't like having her hair in a high ponytail. "It's just also that I don't like it when I've got too much traction on my scalp? So that's—"
"I got you," Trinity says, leaning forward so that Mel can feel the puff of her warm breath against the nape of her neck. "Relax."
At first, Mel has to focus very hard on doing just that, but soon she finds that her body is relaxing in spite of herself. Trinity's hands are a light, grounding pressure against her as she works, braiding first one side of Mel's head and then the other. In the slightly dusty reflection of her dark TV screen, Mel watches as two Dutch braids appear. Somehow, Trinity gets the balance just right: tight enough that the braids are neat and pleasing to look at, loose enough that they don't hurt.
"You're good at this," Mel says.
"Gymnastics," Trinity says, which isn't quite an explanation and definitely isn't accepting the compliment.
"You know," Mel says, "my mom always used to say to me and Becca that knowing how to be gracious about a compliment was a sign of good manners."
"Ugh, are you using your dead mom against me? Low blow," Trinity says, but when she leans forward to get one of the hair ties out of the packet, Mel is able to see that her cheeks are flushed pink.
"No," Mel says. "I'm using the fact that you do actually care about what other people think of you against you. That, and you are very good at this."
Trinity's hands go still for a moment, before she finishes out the last of the second braid and secures it with another hair tie. Quietly, she says, "Thank you."
She gets her phone and takes some pictures of Mel's head from various angles, to show her what Mel herself can't see.
"Oh!" Mel says as she flicks through the snapshots. It's only one small difference—she's still wearing her glasses, still in her Greater Pittsburgh Equine Rescue t-shirt—but she's so used to seeing herself with her hair pulled back in one practical braid that this will take some getting used to. But she doesn't hate it, and she thinks that—like karaoke and Aviation cocktails and lechon kawali and all the other things that Trinity has introduced her to—she could grow to really like it. Being the same Mel, but not the same old Mel. "Oh, it's so nice! I should send these to Becca, because I won't see her until Wednesday and I'll never be able to do this all by myself."
"Who says you'll have to?" Trinity says, and her voice is very light but there's a note to it that Mel can understand—that she knows is an offer, being made with the maximum amount of plausible deniability, and that makes her acutely aware that they're still sitting so very, very close to one another at ten on a Saturday morning.
"Um." Mel twists around so that she can look Trinity in the eye. Trinity's chewing on her lower lip but her gaze is steady. "Me? Really?"
Trinity shrugs, diffident, but she doesn't leave. "Yeah, I guess," she says, and maybe Mel would be taken in by that if she didn't know Trinity pretty well by now.
"Gosh," Mel says, and she leans in and kisses Trinity and thinks well yes, this part is about liking—this is about being the same Mel, but also reaching out for something new.
aaaaok this has likelihood of being ooc so anything can be changed or shifted if you choose to respond!! I literally binged all your huckleabbot stuff today and it was so good i finally got the motivation to start the show so I haven’t observed them in the natural habitat yet
but i’ve thought all day about jack who likes control through conditioning so when they’ve agreed to the dynamic he starts slow and softer with helping dennis eat more, because he is absolutely a regular two-meal-skipper. bringing back snacks after his shift like a yogurt and a cup of fruit (that he might say were from the break room if pressed but these have never been offered to employees so is someone getting their yogurt stolen??) and placing them at the front of the fridge with dennis’ name scrawled on them. placing a granola bar in front of him with little to no mention of it, the mini boxes of cereal found tucked away with dennis’ actual groceries, a bowl of healthy-ish snacks randomly appears on abbot’s counter.
and dennis is maybe somewhat a doormat but he’s tried soft bratting against it. he’s simply not eaten it and gotten it handed to him the next day all the same, he’s started to rebuke but just been cut off with another verbal prod towards it before , and he knows how to get a confrontation started so one day he says “I know you’re trying to make me eat more.” and jack raises an eyebrow, probably gives the “are you dumb” look that absolutely smashes dennis’ focus as he simply replies “then why aren’t you?”
also yogurt was an example but i have now thought of jack helping by scooping yogurt onto his fingers and feeding it to dennis so i will be slinking away to my lair. and if you hear typing and giggling and twirling hair no you didn’t
the show is not. like it's not as gay as i make it out to be. sexually charged, yes, but the rest of it is me playing barbies
Jack is sooooo good at just calling Dennis out on his bullshit. He doesn't give him time to talk around it or make up excuses. He just calls Dennis out for doing the exact things he's not supposed to be doing.
"You're tired because you're spending your days off out on that farm instead of actually resting."
"You won't tell people no because you don't think you're allowed to, so I'm telling you no and you can blame me."
Which means most of the time, Jack and Dennis don't have to have those long conversations about Things that he needs to work on. Jack's new hobby is Dennis and Dennis's new hobby is taking care of himself.
Food is always going to be hard with Dennis. Food insecurity, food waste, that struggle of never learning what he actually enjoys fueling his body with. Food for him is a luxury at times, something that he doesn't indulge in because money can always be spent in better ways. Smarter ways.
Jack takes away the thinking aspect of it. He sees that hole in Dennis's behavioral patterns and figures out how to address it without making it a Thing. He prefers not to make things a Thing if he doesn't have to.
But this? This is a Thing.
"Then why aren't you?"
And Dennis is sputtering and trying to find the words to get Jack to back off, to throw him off of his current attack. But Jack just looks down at him with one of these slutty things -
and waits, patiently, for Dennis to say something. Anything. Get one word out, kid, come on.
"If you know what you're supposed to be doing, why are you not doing it? If you want to be over my knee so bad, kiddo, you can just ask me." You know I always give you what you want."
"That's not-" Dennis tries to protest but it's really no use. His voice is too high pitched to hide the lie. And Jack is next to impossible to lie to anyway.
"It's not? Not even a little?"
"No."
Jack picks up whatever snack he had just placed in front of Dennis and holds it out in front of his mouth with a smug expression.
"No? Okay. How about this? You eat and then I'll give you a reward. And we can both pretend you're really upset about it later. How does that sound?"
Dennis always does better under positive reinforcement. Even if the reinforcement is exactly what he'd been getting as a punishment.
Jack had always wanted a puppy, he liked dogs enough and even had his favorites when he was deployed in the military but he never really got to adopt one. Now that his wife is not around the puppy will just be lonely when he's out of the house during his shift.
That was until he had discovered one of the newer interns living in the abandoned floor in the hospital. Taking Dennis Whitaker home was like adopting a new puppy, he had convinced himself that he's only doing the right thing by providing the kid with a safe place to sleep in especially after that whole mass casualty incident.
The rules were simple, Dennis can stay for as long as he likes and he can do things like chores but that wasn't mandatory. As long as he's not stealing things from his house and not make a big mess Jack is more than happy to keep him here. Dennis' big blue eyes held nothing but confusion as he tilted his head like a puppy does and Jack can't help but to reach his hand and pet his head.
Dennis was quick to lean on his touch unconsciously and blushed a cute shade of red as he realized what he was doing. Jack only gave him a smile as he patted his back, wanting to run his fingers through his hair, he cannot be normal about him, about his new puppy.
"Get some rest, pup. You had a long day." The nickname easily slipped out before Jack could help it.
he was there during siege of the North. he infiltrated the spirit oasis. he has an uncle who studies spirits and the spirit world. he watched the sky go dark then the moon suddenly reappear like everyone else in the entire world did. and most importantly he watched zhao get eaten by a giant godzilla fish spirit.
Also, Iroh was there? He literally watched Sokka make out with the moon spirit. And you want to tell me that a romantic sap like him would not have immediately told Zuko about this romantic tragedy? Please, Zuko has known about this for ages, he just knows that this is not an acceptable situation in which to say “yeah, I know.”
#idk what this means or if i do this but ig i'll just hold my phone with my pinky stuck out from now on??
Good question, also no that won’t help.
shitty MS Paint 3 minutes doodle, nto entirely accurate: When you have your pinky hooked on the “bottom” edge of the phone for the extra security so it doesn’t slide out of your hand that easily, you’re wreaking damage on your hand, since the pinky is extremely askew from it’s resting position. You might have noticed that when you hold your phone like that for long time it begins to hurt, like when you are gripping a pen too tightly for example.
Green lines - the fingers are going their natural way. Red line - the pinky is way off, that’s bad.
Reblogging to add, all your fingers have their own individual nerve, EXCEPT for the pinkie! It shares a nerve (the ulnar nerve) with your ring finger.
This is why it hurts when you do this, because you're basically making your last two fingers play tug of war because mom said it was their turn on the xbox, potentially for hours, while lifting/supporting an object as big as or larger than your entire hand. This is like if you tried to lift something as big as your torso over your head while doing the splits, all day, then being surprised when stuff hurts.
Also, your ulnar nerve isn't just in your hands, it runs through your arm all the way up through the shoulder to where it joins the rest of the body, and problems in the hand can carry problems all the rest of the way up.
Remember when you last banged your elbow on the corner of something and hit the funny bone, and it wasn't remotely funny? THAT IS THE ULNAR NERVE.
tl;dr using your phone like that is basically hitting your funny bone in slow motion every day of your life, forever
Loved the last episode of the second season with Carter missing his own graduation to keep his little liver transplant patient company.
She is so animated because i choose to believe this is after the transplant shenanigans😌 (Also added med school Jack because i could) #JohnCarter #ER #JackkAbbot
all i want for 2026 is that gigantic rancid AI bubble to finally burst in such a catastrophic way that the consequences will be so good and i'll never have to see another AI generated image ever again
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
ellievsbear
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