call of duty:
stupid. | ghoap.
soap is a yapper. (18+)| soap mactavish x female reader.
challengers:
talk to me nice. pretty please. (18+) | patrick zweig x fem reader. part two.
one of your girls. (18+) | tashi duncan x fem reader.
RULES AND GUIDELINES:
okay, so, my blog is totally a safe space for whoever needs it, and my asks are always open. not all of my work is explicit, but I will say if I see a minor liking a post I SPECIFICALLY labeled as 18+ they will be blocked. that being said, I do hope whoever decides to read my works enjoys them. I do not tolerate any hate of any kind (unless it's like to the government bc fuck the government let's be fr).
requests:
I do take requests! I am ok with a lot of stuff, but if it makes me uncomfortable I will reach out privately to let the person who requested it know. also, (not that this has ever happened) if I get a lot of requests, or am just super busy, I might not get to it immediately! this doesn't meant that I won't do it.
that's all I think! please enjoy surfing my little corner of the internet!
one of your girls.
tashi duncan x fem!reader.
warnings: intentional lowercase, smut, oral, fingering, usage of the word mommy in a sexual manner, profanity, tashi being manipulative (kind of?? pretty sure), cheating, obviously intended for audiences eighteen and over.
you never meant to end up here. no. not at all. not in your coach's bed, mouthing along the supple skin of her thighs while her fingers ran through your hair.
you could still smell art's cologne on the sheets, and it made your stomach twist with guilt.
he was so kind to you. so eager to help tashi build you into what he could never be for her, so excited that he could be more than just her project for once, and this how you repay him.
by fucking his wife when he wasn't around.
"c'mon, baby. what's going on, hmm? can practically feel you thinking down there." tashi murmured softly, pulling your hair just firmly enough to make you look up at her.
you swallowed thickly, tongue feeling heavy and clumsy in your mouth. god, even when you felt like shit, the need you felt for her was stronger.
"i just- no, it's nothing. it's stupid."
"you're thinking about art?"
you blinked dumbly up at her, but nodded anyway. she tutted softly, the noise almost mocking in the thick silence of the room.
"sweet girl, he doesn't matter. he's not here." she cooed, fingers sliding from your hair to grip your jaw. her manicured nails dug into your skin just enough to make a small, wanting noise leave your throat. "besides, we both know if he was here, he'd be all too happy to watch."
you whined, brows furrowing as her nails dug deeper, but the sound stopped when she leaned down and pressed her lips to yours. they were always so soft, and she tasted like the cocoa butter lip balm she always kept in her purse. you would routinely forget yours and ask to use hers, just to taste her in small doses.
"don't worry about him. don't you wanna make mommy feel good, hmm? be a good player for your coach?"
you nodded again, pupils going wide as full moons. it felt like your brain was leaking out of your ears as you returned to laving kisses along the smooth skin of her inner thigh, your lips making soft 'mwah' sounds as you did.
she settled back into her pillows with a soft and satisfied sigh, eyes falling closed and hand settling on the nape of your neck. the weight of her palm was grounding, and you began to lap at her pussy over her panties with the flat of your tongue, brows pulling together at the quiet but pleased noise she let out.
"don't tease, baby, i've had a long day."
your fingers moved faster than your brain did, tugging her panties down and carefully pushing the champagne colored silk of her slip up until the hem of it rested just above her navel.
"'m sorry, jus'... you're so soft, smell so good." you mumbled into her skin, scooting up just enough to lick along her hip bone, tasting the salt of her skin and the faint chemical tinge of her herbal lotion.
she hummed amusedly, watching you with low eyes akin to that of a lioness watching her prey graze unknowingly in the grass, blissfully ignorant to the swift death that waits for them.
you eventually kissed your way back down to her pussy, licking along her outer lips before doing the same to her clit. her thighs tensed, just minutely enough that only you would notice from weeks of memorizing each tell of her body.
your tongue moved in broad but short strokes, making sure there wasn't a second where she needed to chase what she was getting from you. slowly but surely, her cunt began to leak slick down your chin, and her thighs tightened around your head, making you moan into her wetness.
you parted just long enough to rest your head on her thigh, panting softly. your fingers ran through her slick folds, eyes on her face as you sunk two fingers in up to your knuckles.
"'m i doin' good mommy? makin' you feel good?" you whined out, staring up at her through your lashes.
the way she looked was making slick pool in your own panties. her plush lower lip was caught between her teeth, and she was looking down at you with an intensity that made your face burn.
"yeah, sweet girl, doing so good." she murmured, clenching around your fingers as you began to curl them rhythmically against her g-spot.
you returned to the task of lavishing her clit in attention, the taste of her arousal making your mouth water. drool leaked down your chin, mixing with her own slick and making the glide of your fingers smooth and perfect.
tashi was never particularly vocal during sex, so you knew to relish each little whimper and grunt that left her lips, taking each one and using it to make yourself feel better about this.
the guilt about art never left, mixing with the arousal pooling low in your stomach and making you feel a mix of nauseous and dizzy and out of breath.
you were doing good, weren't you? tashi was your coach, and you follow her orders. tashi was your coach, and you listen to whatever she says. you do what she says.
and god, how could you not want to? she was... she was ethereal, especially when she was coming apart on your tongue and fingers like she was now. light brown skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, brows pulled together and pretty brown eyes glazed over as she watched you between her thighs.
she was glowing.
her slick tasted like what you imagined ambrosia would, and the mere fact that she allows you to have her like this made a lump swell in your throat.
were you about to cry right now? shit, you've reached a whole new low.
to you, tashi was a goddess. you worshipped her. you worshipped her before you became her prodigy, watching her and art's rise to fame. you couldn't believe your eyes when she approached you after your game that day.
"i've been watching you. i'm interested in becoming your coach, if you'll have me."
if you'll have me.
the words seemed almost comical looking back on it, because you don't have her. she has you. heart, body and soul. you know she's using you, you know you're fulfilling what art couldn't, and you know she'll move on to someone else once she's wrung you dry.
but you still can't bring yourself to tear away from the warmth between her thighs, even as tears leaked from your eyes. she doesn't notice, and if she does, she doesn't comment, too focused on grinding her hips in little circles down against your face.
you're more than disappointed in yourself. you figured out weeks ago that you were in love with her, or at least something close to it. you know she'll never feel the same.
you're more than happy to take what she'll give you.
you're more than happy to give what she takes from you.
a broken, strangled moan that is so unlike her tears its way from tashi's throat, her cunt gushing and clenching around her fingers as you worked her through her orgasm. you ease yourself off when her thighs jerked shut and her fingers pulled hard at your hair.
she stared down at you, panting hard. you were breathing just as hard, face slick from the nose down.
a moment of silence passed before you crawled shakily up the bed, whining pitifully as you pressed your lips to hers. she kissed back, fingers running soothingly along your spine.
you hated yourself for this. she knew it, you knew it. but you also knew that you'd be back here the next time art was gone and she called your name in that sickly sweet tone you knew so well.
_________________________________________________________
a/n: i think i might make a part two where art is in the cuck chair... decisions decisions....
is anyone else having issues with their drafts not saving? i'm using the website, and it keeps giving me a "there was a problem autosaving your changes" or "there was an error processing your post".
summary: you sleep with jack for the first time and discover what it means to be loved gently
cw: smut (mdni, 18+), gentle sex, oral (f rec), referenced p in v, reader uses sex as a coping mechanism and has low self-esteem, light intoxication
wc: 3k
a/n: listen, I do not think that rough sex is necessarily a bad thing, but it can be. I don’t feel like expanding on this
now playing: Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby – Cigarettes After Sex
Jack can’t take his eyes off you. Not when you look the way you do right now: skin glowing, eyes sparkling, and a truly sincere smile on your face.
The wine bottle shared between the two of you stands at your feet as his hands snake around your waist, pulling you closer. He tastes the grapes on your tongue when his own slips between your parted lips, mapping out the inside of your mouth slowly. His palm wanders from your side to the small of your back, pressing you flush against him.
You only pull away when you start to get lightheaded—too little oxygen, too much love.
Love.
Neither one of you has said it yet. It’s much too early for that four-letter word, but the idea of it hangs over you as he kisses your cheek instead of your mouth to let you catch your breath.
Jack tilts his head to meet your gaze and smiles softly. His eyes drift over your face like he’s memorizing every inch. He’s close enough that he could count each individual lash if he wanted to.
When he lifts his hands to cup your face between his palms, you melt into his touch.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.
Your skin heats under his hands, blood rushing to your face. The timid smile on your face tugs at Jack’s heartstrings.
“So beautiful,” he repeats tenderly.
He means it.
You misinterpret it.
When you stand on your tiptoes to kiss him again, there’s more heat to it—the kind that leads to places you haven’t been to with him yet.
He keeps you steady, your face still held by him.
His lips fit against yours like two puzzle pieces.
The weight of him leads you towards the couch naturally. He doesn’t guide or force but simply leans in until you sink onto the cushions, him braced above you.
Your hand drifts down from his chest to his stomach. Through his shirt, you still feel the way his muscles flex under your touch.
He breaks the kiss to look at you, an almost dopey curve to his mouth.
“You’re ticklin’ me,” he mumbles.
“That’s on purpose,” you reply.
He grins, then catches your hands in his own.
“Is that so?” he whispers. “Anything else you want to confess?”
You let a few seconds pass, just for dramatic effect, before you nod.
“Yeah,” you mumble, “I’m also trying to take your shirt off right now.”
Jack chuckles softly.
“You don’t say,” he teases. “Any reason for that?”
You roll your eyes fondly.
“Take a guess.”
A gentle laugh spills from him, originating deep from his chest. You feel the vibration travel through him until it reaches your hand, too.
“I think I can help out with that.”
He grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it up, then over his head. Your eyes are glued to every inch of sun-kissed skin that’s slowly exposed. For a moment, you hesitate before you reach out to rest your hand on his chest, feeling the heat radiating from him.
When you’ve had your fill of touching him—though you’re not sure you’ll ever get enough of him—you take off your own shirt. You had planned in advance and worn a black lace bralette, but you hadn’t told Jack, so you could trick him into thinking that you’re always this put together.
The matching panties waited for him under the skirt, which you were eager for him to pull off of you.
Jack can’t look away—and doesn’t want to. You’re surprised that for once, it doesn’t feel like you’re being ogled.
No, Jack admires.
His fingers drift over your breasts up to your neck, then rest on your face.
“Like I said,” he whispers. “Beautiful.”
Instead of answering, you lean in to kiss him again. As your lips press against his, you reach for his belt buckle and open it. Jack hums into your mouth, a small roll of his hips encouraging you.
He helps you take off his jeans. Jack talked to you about not wearing his prosthetic at home around you a few days ago, but right now, he still has it on. He seems a little nervous as his pants fall away, and you get a full glance at it for the first time.
You don’t mind at all.
The next barrier that falls is your skirt. Jack undoes the zipper at the side carefully, then slides the fabric down your legs. He makes a sound you can’t quite categorize when he sees the thin lace panties you picked out for tonight.
“Fuck,” he whispers, “How are you this perfect?”
Again, you forgo an answer with another kiss.
Jack notices. He cups your face, then pulls away a little just to look at you. His brows knit together slightly.
“Hey,” he mumbles.
You haven’t been together that long yet, but he knows you well enough to see that you don’t feel like talking about this right now.
Still, for a moment, he chews on his bottom lip in contemplation before he asks, “Wouldn’t you rather take this to the bedroom?”
You shrug softly.
“I don’t mind the couch. Whatever you want.”
The divot between his brows deepens.
“But I’m asking you what you want,” he counters. “If… if we’re doing this right now, I want you to be comfortable.”
“I am comfortable,” you reply.
He nods reluctantly.
“Alright,” he mumbles.
The next kiss feels a little different—not in a bad way, just more careful. Jack waits, lets you chase him instead of taking the lead. So you do.
You reach behind you to unfasten the clasps of your bra. As the lace falls away, Jack watches with amazement. He almost manages to throw in another compliment for you, but you don’t give him the chance.
You stand up from the couch and hook your fingers into your panties, then slowly slip them off.
Jack’s breath hitches. He leans into the back of the couch to watch as you step out of the fabric that fell to your ankles. This time, he truly stares.
When you step closer, he pulls you in by your hips until you’re seated on his lap. Your bare cunt brushes over the bulge in his boxers, causing both of you to moan.
You roll against him once, then twice, then kiss him again. The heat between the two of you is unbearable. You don’t understand why he hasn’t taken off his underpants yet and wonder if he maybe just needs a little bit more encouragement, so you grind down against him again.
Jack hisses at the contact, his fingers tightening on your sides.
“Fuck, baby,” he mutters. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
“Then let me help you,” you chuckle and reach for the waistband of his boxers.
He lifts his hips to help you slip them off—and you swallow hard when you see what you’re working with. The grey happy trail you’ve been eyeing since his shirt came off leads down to his thick cock. The size of the bulge makes more sense now. He’s veiny and flushed a dark red, almost a little purple at the tip.
“Jesus,” you whisper.
Jack chuckles, maybe even a little self-consciously so.
“Yeah, it’s um… it’s been a while for me,” he admits.
Your mouth falls open—you hadn’t expected that. A man with his looks, a doctor at that, too?
“Really?” you ask. “I mean… that’s okay. I don’t mind. Just… tell me what you like.”
He shrugs softly.
“I like you.”
His answer is so sappy that it makes you grin.
“Shut up. No, really, tell me what you like.”
Jack looks at you and pulls you closer again.
“I’m serious,” he mumbles. “I just want you, however you want. Why? What kinda stuff do the kids like these days?”
Your face warms a little.
“I don’t know,” you mumble. A total lie.
“We can try some stuff, you know?”
“Like what?” he asks. “You want me to tie you up?”
He chuckles like the idea is absurd to him.
“Would you want to tie me up?” you counter.
Jack’s brows furrow again.
“I don’t think that’s my thing,” he says quietly.
You nod slowly.
“What about…”
Saying it out loud feels, for lack of a better word, cringe, so you take his hand and place it on the base of your throat.
Jack doesn’t pull away immediately, but his fingers don’t wrap around your neck either. He looks up at you, his jaw set tightly.
Then he shakes his head and cups your face instead.
“I don’t think so,” he says softly. “How about… we just take things slow and figure it out as we go?”
When you nod, Jack kisses you, and it tastes like relief.
He surprises you when he switches positions with you—you’d have thought he would want you to stay on top.
Jack braces his weight on his forearms as he hovers above you, his face just inches away from you. Then he lowers his head, but his lips don’t meet yours—they trail down over your chest. His tongue swirls around your nipple, making you gasp as the sensation tingles through you.
He cups your other breast, squeezing and kneading the flesh gently, then places a kiss on the valley between your breasts before he descends further.
To your ribs… then your navel… then your hipbone.
Your breath stills completely when his fingers come to rest on your thighs. He doesn’t push them open yet.
“May I?” he asks.
“Yeah,” you whisper.
He parts your legs gently, his eyes still focused on you until he lowers his head and—
Your world tilts a little.
When his tongue drags through your drenched slit, and Jack moans out loud, you arch towards him. He holds your hips in place, fingers digging into the flesh—not hard enough to bruise, but enough to make you feel him.
“Fuck,” he gasps, “You taste so fucking good, baby.”
He flattens his tongue against your clit, licking upwards until you see stars.
“Jack-“ you moan, trying… you don’t know what you’re trying to say. Your fingers find purchase in his hair, tugging slightly at the grey curls.
He sucks your clit into his mouth, causing you to cry out in pleasure.
He laps at your cunt like a starved dog, and you can’t believe that “it’s been a while” for him, not when he’s eating you out like that.
“I—oh God,” you sigh dreamily.
Your legs quiver, your hips twitch—your entire body is shaking with pleasure.
“That’s it, baby,” Jack murmurs, his words muffled. “Fuck—please, just let me make you feel good.”
The sounds of your arousal mixing with his saliva are unholy—a wet overflow of moisture between your thighs. Jack seems to be right where he wants to be. He moans into your flesh, his hips bucking and pressing into the couch below like he is trying to alleviate the ache, the buildup of his own need.
When you come apart, he guides you through it, not stopping until your brain is overflowing with oxytocin and your thighs won’t stop shaking.
Both of you are panting when he comes up.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and smiles devilishly.
“God… we’re so doing this again,” he declares softly.
You’re at a loss for words. You haven’t come like that ever. All you can do is nod and reach for him.
Jack plants his arms on either side of your head and kisses you deeply. You taste yourself on his tongue, the sweet, tangy flavor erupting in your mouth.
His leaking cock presses against your tummy as his lips graze yours.
You reach between you and stroke him, making him groan into your mouth.
“Jesus,” he mutters when he pulls away to look at you. “You—”
He thrusts into your hand instinctively, and you realize just how pent up he is.
“Your turn,” you whisper.
Jack tsks softly, half amused, half… something else.
He cups your face and kisses your jaw tenderly.
“Believe me, that was my turn,” he says lowly. “But if you want to keep going, I’m sure as hell not saying no.”
--
The bliss afterwards is indescribable. But it’s also foreign.
You still sense every press of his hands on your body without feeling tender, every brush of his lips without a single mark on your skin, and every thrust of his hips without that residual feeling of having been used.
Jack was nothing but gentle.
And god, it was incredible.
The sheets underneath you are crumpled and slightly damp with sweat and sex, but you don’t mind. Not when Jack’s arm is wrapped around you, your back pressing against his chest. He kisses the side of your neck where your pulse still flutters with excitement.
“You were incredible,” he whispers.
It must be so obvious that his words fluster you because he smirks when you hide your face in the sheets.
“Barely even did anything,” you mumble.
Jack makes a sound you can’t quite discern.
“Right,” he chuckles. “Except that thing where you got really tight when you were about to come again or—”
You whip around and press your hand over his mouth, your eyes wide and embarrassed.
“Jack,” you complain, half-serious, half-playful.
He kisses your palm and smiles.
“Hey, I’m just teasin’,” he retorts. “But I really meant it. It was really great for me.”
“Yeah, for me, too,” you mumble.
You’re not used to any kind of pillow talk, so the words feel thick, like they don’t quite want to leave your mouth.
Jack doesn’t seem to mind. He just pulls you closer against his chest and rests his chin on the top of your head.
As the minutes pass, he tells you to go pee and promises more cuddles later on.
In the bathroom, you look at yourself in the mirror. The haphazardly buttoned-up shirt you’re wearing belongs to Jack and falls to your mid-thigh. Your hair is a mess from how often he ran his hands through it. A few hickeys begin to gain color and paint your neck a soft purple.
You can’t help but smile.
“Hey, sweetheart?” Jack calls out. “Your phone keeps vibrating. I think someone really wants to talk to you!”
“Yeah, just a sec,” you reply.
When you return to his bedroom, Jack is sitting up, his brows drawn together slightly. Your phone is in his hand, the screen facing up.
“Sorry,” he says as he passes it to you. “I didn’t mean to spy on you or anything, just wanted to bring it to you.”
You take your phone and glance at the messages—and feel your face heat up.
“Oh.” Your laugh comes out stiff as you quickly shut off your phone. “Sorry, um—they’re joking, of course. Like, uh…”
Jack looks at you quietly, watching as you fumble nervously with the edge of your phone case. There was a light flush to his cheeks now, too.
“No, no, don’t worry, I shouldn’t have read it anyway, I just looked at it ‘cause it kept… vibrating,” he explains.
The awkward silence that follows feels detrimental.
You wonder if you should explain more, or if maybe stammering another apology would make it worse, but then Jack breaks the quiet first.
“Not to sound my age, but… I assume cracking means… uh… hooking up?”
You press your lips together uncomfortably.
“Yeah,” you mumble. “Like, um… yes.”
He nods once. Then he tilts his head to catch your eyes.
“It’s not the… nicest word, is it?” he asks.
“It’s just, like, a TikTok thing,” you answer.
“Hm,” is all he replies.
Then he takes your hand and guides you back onto the mattress. You meet his gaze hesitantly. The lines around his eyes are a little deeper, just like the furrow between his brows. He doesn’t seem angry, just serious.
“I… I kind of would prefer it if you didn’t think of what we just did as… “cracking”. It’s not the word I would use,” he says slowly.
“It’s just a word,” you mutter.
“Not to me,” he argues softly. “It’s… words have meanings. And cracking sounds like… like I’m doing something to you, not with you. I don’t mean to be… all old man and, like, police your language. But… I don’t want you to think of sex with me that way. Or… with anyone else for that matter, even though, ideally, I would like this to be a long-term thing.”
His hazel eyes don’t leave your face for even a single moment, and it’s almost overwhelming—if it weren’t for the sincerity in them.
“I’m sorry—" you begin, but Jack shushes you.
“No, sweetheart, I don’t- I don’t want you to apologize. I just want you to be comfortable with me. I wanna make sure you… you feel respected by me,” he explains.
“I do,” you reply quickly. “Really. Like, no one else has ever… been this kind to me.”
Jack’s face falls.
“Oh, no, I mean, like… you’re a gentleman,” you elaborate.
He shakes his head softly.
“No, baby, I’m… this is… this is the bare minimum. Christ.”
Jack’s hands find yours, and he leans in to kiss your forehead. Then he wraps his arms around you.
“At the risk of sounding like your father, I think you kids need to put down your phones and go out in the real world.”
❤︎ just a quick reminder that the best way to support authors on here is to comment and reblog ❤︎ ☆ find my masterlist here ☆
there is a very long, very nuanced conversation about the fine line between sexual liberation for women and brainrot porn (that honestly i doubt people on the internet could have in a mature way) and can i just say that i LOVE the approach you took with it????? i love soft, loving jack and how he doesn't judge reader but still draws his limits and they still find common ground and they both enjoy themselves thoroughly and i think it's so important for women (especially young women) to ask themselves if they enjoy the fast rough kinky sex because that's genuinely what they like or if it's because it's been imposed and indoctrinated that they need that to "be cool" or "be good in bed" or "be better" than the women who don't like it and urghhhhh please i could read a thousand more fics like this!!!!!!!!!!!!
summary: andrew does pushups with you under him until you want more.
warning: 18+, dryhumping, coming in pants
a/n: wrote the smut in this tipsy while being bored of the word cup game pls bare with any typos. i need this man to do pushups over me
Laying under Andrew as he does pushups, his strong, thick biceps on either side of your head. Feeling the sturdy weight of him press gently into you whenever he comes down, and pressing you stomach.. His face, etched with concentration as his eyes bore into yours every time he does a pushup.
You’re content to just lay there under him, admire his face and his chest and his arms on either side of you, warmth pooling in your stomach. It hasn’t been long, only about ten minutes or so, but small rivulets of sweat are forming along his curls, at the nape of his neck.
Eventually, you decide you need him to suffer a little, need to make him stop and take you right here, instead of doing his stupid push-ups, which were sexy, yes, but you were growing needy watching him, slick pooling in your underwear.
The little furrow in his brow smoothes out when you give him a little peck on his lips as he leans down. Just a soft press of your lips against his.
He pants.
“You’re distracting me.”
You giggle.
“That was my intention.”
Then you put your arms on his chest, on those pecs and slowly rub circles with your thumbs, feeling the warmth and slightly sweaty skin.
He stills above you, arms locked on either side. A bead of sweat trails down the side of his head, down his neck.
“You’re so sweaty, honey,” you begin, trailing your hands up and up the planes of his chest, until they meet at the back of his neck. You pull him down slightly, and he lets you, surprisingly, curious for your next move.
You smirk before you lean up slightly, neck tilting up. Then you take your tongue out, and trail it up the side his throat, tasting the slight musk and tanginess.
His jaw clenches, lips pressing together.
Andrew wraps one beefy arm around your waist, the other holding him up. Then he turns you over with an ease that leaves you stunned.
“Oh my god,” you gasp, now on top of him. You reach out and place your hands on either side of his head, your knees on the ground, straddling him to keep your balance.
“Holy fucking shit. I cannot believe you just flipped us over like that.”
Andrew just stares at you, the corner of his mouth twitching as he fights back a smile.
“S’nothing,” he mumbles.
“No it’s not nothing,” you say as you run a hand through his curls. “You’re my strong boy.”
He blushes then, cheeks warming as he leans in again.
“Yeah? M’ good?
You nod, brushing your nose against his.
Then he presses your lips together, hard. You kiss, your tongue in his mouth, fighting for dominance.
Feeling his cock underneath you, hardening under his boxer shorts, your clit rubbing against him, hard, as you grind your hops against his, once.
“Fuck,” he grits out, grabbing your waist with both hands.
“Please Andrew, let me make you feel good.”
He nods, whimpering into your mouth.
“Keep goin’, pretty girl.”
And you do, rocking your hips back and forth, the friction of your clothes between you creating the perfect friction on your clit.
“Andrew, fuck! You feel- feel so good baby,”
He groans in reply, moaning into your mouth as he moves you back and forth, holding your waist.
You move faster, gripping the sides of his neck, mouth hovers above his.
“Andrew, fuck- m’gonna come,” you whine into his mouth.
He nods against you, egging you on. Not a man of many words, he just grips your waist tighter in his palms, rocking you against him faster.
“Just like that baby, m’gonna come too,” he groans.
As his tip slides against your clit under your shorts, pressing against you on the perfect way, the wave of pleasure breaks and you come - hard. Back arching, hips grinding, moaning his name.
Andrew just stares, all sweaty and lost in your body moving against him as you work through your peak.
“Fuck- fuck can feel you pulsing baby,” Andrew groans out lowly.
His hips jerk up once, then twice, jerkily, before he spills in his boxers, moaning against your mouth.
You both pant against each other, feeling your release in your underwear.
“Did so- so good for me, honey,” you praise against his lips, kissing him softly.
He only moans in reply, hips still slightly grinding up into you.
“Thank you,” he whimpers.
Yeah. There’s nowhere you’d rather be.
god bless the Thot in my notes app and the TikTok edit of Andrew including him doing pushups
summary — the first rule of sleeping with your attending was to make sure it meant nothing. you’d been very good at that right up until you weren’t.
warnings — 8.1k words. 18+ Minors DNI!! (explicit sexual content, oral [m! recieving], unprotected p in v, power imbalance [attending/resident], friends with benefits dynamics, mild dom/sub dynamics, hair pulling, a lot of talking during sex, can be read as slightly coercive maybe?), hurt/comfort, commitment issues, fear of emotional intimacy, lightly implied widower undertones, age gap (jack’s 50/reader’s a resident, implied to be late twenties), jack jokes about paying for sex, alcohol
notes — this one started light in the beginning and ended pretty heavy like idk where all that came from i wrote the first half when i was in a better mood and finished it when i got this request and i guess i was just feeling like i wanted to make it hurt even more
Jack Abbot came with his perks. He’d taken you under his wing when you first joined the PTMC as a second-year-resident, and somewhere over the space of a year, he’d taken you to his bed. You’d built him as a man who lived in a sad bachelor pad with the way he’d taken you to his house after a shitty shift; no preamble, just a jerk of his head toward the parking garage and a raspy ‘come on’ that you’d followed like he was still your attending after-hours.
And fuck, you couldn’t lie and say it didn’t feel slightly good to see a floor-to-ceiling windowed penthouse and drink something amber and expensive after you’d spent the last few years of your life not seeing the other end of what your work could bring you. It was grim and improper, you knew, fucking your attending in the early hours of the morning before the sun fully rose, but you knew it was coming; half the ED had placed bets on it and Cassie and Javadi were yet to know they were right.
He’d taken you against the window the first time.
“You afraid of heights?” he’d asked, and the question moved through you like warm liquid rather than reached you. You’d shaken your head, or tried to. “No,” he’d murmured, your jaw in his hands. “Didn’t think so.”
He’d taken his prosthetic off after, wryly claiming that the position felt good but the leg disagreed. That had somehow lead to another round, slower the second time with him on his back and you set over him.
A part of you wondered often the sort of impression you’d given Jack, what he’d seen, exactly, that made him sure he could have you like this and keep it weightless. Whatever it was, it had to have been right to some degree because you’d spent more nights in his penthouse than your own apartment for the past six months without ever calling it anymore than what it was.
He was a better lay than you’d ever had. He was probably the best option around to get steam off while you worked your way through residency. It helped that he was your attending and you shared the same strange hours.
You kept the books carefully and columns balanced. Sex, sleep, the occasional terrible four a.m. meal that didn’t count because eating was maintenance, not intimacy. You never stayed for coffee — you took it to go — and you didn’t learn his middle name on purpose. You’d never seen the inside of his closet. You left before you could risk having to go to work together. A woman in trouble would linger, and you did not linger. Therefore.
But the stupid books had started running a quiet deficit you hadn’t accounted for. You knew exactly how he took his coffee. The toothbrush in the second drawer that you reached for now without looking, muscle memory in a place you’d sworn was temporary.
And even though you could admit that Jack knew his way around you and never made you ask twice for anything in that bed, that wasn’t the line item that worried you. Bodies learned bodies. It was that you’d stopped taking your coffee to go some mornings without ever noticing the change; you’d sit at his counter with a mug that was somehow yours now, and drank it there while he read something on his phone and never told you to leave. You’d started to become a woman that lingered, and even worse, one who liked to do so.
And that had to stop, because Jack had told you point-blank what this was on the first night while you were still putting on your shirt with his mouth print blooming under the fabric.
This doesn’t have to be a thing. I’m not looking to make it one. Is that alright?
He’d said the words while putting on his briefs, and you’d agreed too fast, because at that time, it had cost you nothing. You’d wanted a body and a break, and he was offering both. He’d been more honest than any man you’d let touch you. He’d told you the terms up front and never moved them.
So, you simply had to put yourself out of the arrangement.
Jack found you by your car in the parking garage. He’d put on his coat a heavy thing that should’ve swallowed him but instead he was able to fill out almost perfectly.
“Jack,” you said, trying to find an even voice as he closed the distance between you. Before he could even ask, you forced out, “I’m not going home with you.”
His brows furrowed and he looked confused. For good reason, you supposed. Friday mornings had become sort of a usual for you, the easiest compensation in your life for missing Friday nights.
“You good?” He stepped close and tipped his head, and you watched him give you a complete once-over, eyes dropping to your hands and the set of your shoulders like you were a patient. “You looked a little out of it today. Come — I’ll make you soup.”
You pinched your eyes shut at his words. “What’s that even supposed to mean — I was fine.”
“Don’t take it personal,” he said. “Come on, soup.”
“Seriously, I was fine.” You were almost offended now, which was clearly his intent, the bastard. “I’ve been awake for nineteen hours, I’m not sick —” You caught yourself getting pulled into it, defending your honor, exactly the kind of dumb circular thing you’d let him rope you into a hundred times because arguing with Jack was sometimes fun. You shut it down. “I’m not going home with you,” you said again, this time with a sharper edge.
He pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest, giving you another once-over as he recaliberated the situation in real time. “Did I upset you?”
“No, it’s not a fight,” you said fast. You dragged a hand down your face. “I’m not mad at you, Jack. I’m done with this. The whole — all of it.”
He tipped his chin down when you gestured vaguely with your finger between the two of you, at the whole abstract nature of you. Then, he said, “You’re calling it?”
“Yeah, very much,” you said, voice dropping a register as you leaned against the driver’s side door of your car. Then, when you saw how his brows furrowed and how he looked just slightly caught off-guard, you added, dumbly, “Sorry. I guess.”
He held your eyes a long beat, something working in his mouth, and then closed the last of the distance between you. His hand came up to your jaw, and you felt your face turn to liquid as you involuntarily leaned into it; his thumb dragged slow along your cheekbone and his gaze followed it, and you stood pinned to your own cold car door and let him, because telling him to stop would mean pretending you didn’t want it, and you’d never once been able to sell that lie for either of you.
“You mean it?” he asked, voice rough, and his forehead dropped to yours. When you nodded, he mimicked your movement. “Alright. Then let’s at least end it properly.”
When you showed no urgency to decline, his mouth found yours before you could decide whether you trusted yourself enough to end it properly. One of his hands stayed at your jaw while the other one fitted you back against the cold of the car. He smiled against your mouth, and you used your palm to push him by the chest.
He went back, just slightly, dropping his head to your forehead again. “I’m guessing that’s a yes?”
“One time,” you said quietly, almost in a whisper. “And then I mean it. It won’t change anything.”
“I believe you,” he said. “Last time, then. Make it count.”
Jack was making it obscenely difficult for you to make it count. The rhythm you’d settled into with him at around month two — the one where the two of you skipped the drink and went straight into his bed — had disappeared tonight. He just really needed a drink tonight, and then another, and then he really didn’t want to shut his mouth.
He poured the second one without offering you a top-up and stood at the window instead of coming to you, two fingers of amber catching the lamplight. You watched him and watched him, answering his questions until the two of you finally ended up in the bedroom.
He’d opened his mouth to argue something and you got his belt open instead slowly, and whatever he’d been about to say faded elsewhere. The city sat out past the glass, unblinking, that audience he never drew the blinds against. His hand found your hair, resting with his thumb at your ear, almost gentle and completely fucking distracting.
“Slow,” he murmured when you took him into your mouth, and the word came out scraped down to nothing. His head went back against the headboard. “Fuck.”
You went the opposite of slow; you knew that taking your time with it, acknowledging the last time of it all, would crack something open in your chest you couldn’t afford to have open. You did everything you knew undid him — six months of evidence, a body of proof — fast and certain, and the breath punched out of him and his fingers curled into your hair and the smug, talkative version of him went quiet for about four seconds.
“You — huh — last time. Really?” he managed to say, fingers tightening against your scalp, the blunt fingernails scraping against the skin. You slid your tongue down his length, and he let out a short groan, letting out a wrecked, “Good girl.” His hips lifted a fraction before he caught them, forcing himself still under your hands. “Good — yeah.”
You’d have smiled if your mouth wasn’t otherwise occupied, so you settled on humming around him. You let yourself think you’d won the quiet, and then his thumb moved against your temple slowly, and he ruined it.
“You really mean it?” he asked quietly, words aimed somewhere at the ceiling. “You’re done?”
You ignored him and kept your rhythm. It wasn’t a question you were going to dignify with him in your mouth and your resolve already pooled somewhere on his bedroom floor.
His hands flexed in your hair at the silence, then tugged, a frustrated little pull that went straight down your spine and that he absolutely felt you react to, because his thumb pressed flat behind your ear like he was talking to your pulse there.
“Don’t go quiet on me,” he said, rasp going uneven, breath catching somewhere between the words, his whole stomach drawn tight. You watched the muscle there jump when you took him deeper as his jaw worked. “You hear me. I know you — shit.”
You’d found the underside with the flat of your tongue you slowly dragged, and the sentence collapsed. His head dropped back and your eyes caught the tendon at his throat standing out. One of his heels dug into the mattress and you felt the tremor run up his thigh under your palm.
You’d have been lying if you said this wouldn’t be missed. Not the talking, but this, the privilege of watching Jack Abbot lose a fight with his own body, a man who controlled every room he stood in coming apart by degrees because of what you were doing. You pressed your thumb into the crease of his hip and felt him shudder. You took him to the back of your throat and swallowed and he said your name that came out of his mouth breaking.
“You’re really gonna — ” He inhaled sharply, hand fisting tighter on your head. “ — gonna do this and walk, you’re — ”
You pulled off of him with a slow, wet, and deeply unflattering sound and sat back on your heels and looked up at him, lips swollen, thoroughly out of patience, your hand still working him just enough that his hips chased it. His eyes were closed, and he let out a large exhale.
“Are you kidding me?”
He cracked an eye open, then shifted his head to the side against the pillow. “What?” he muttered.
“Why won’t you shut up?” You squeezed deliberately and his jaw clenched against the noise that almost got out of him. “You’re acting like a child.”
“Acting like a child,” he huffed, head tipping back. “I’m pretty aged out of the tantrum bracket.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” You dragged your thumb up the length of him slowly. “You’ve been throwing one since we got off.”
His hand left your hair and closed around your wrist instead — the one still working him — stilling it, and then he was pulling with his unarguable strength, drawing you up over him until you had to crawl up his body or be dragged.
You ended up straddling his waist. He stayed flat on his back beneath you, one arm folding behind his head while the other spread warm and heavy over your thigh, and he looked up at you with his chest still heaving and the gray stark at his temples.
“Better,” he muttered. “Neck was startin’ to go, watching you be stubborn down there.” The hand on your thigh slid up slowly, settling at your hip, thumb working a lazy circle into the bone. He tilted his chin up slightly. “What’s this really about?”
You went still because you had too much of an answer, and it was the sort of one that you didn’t believe could survive being said out loud over a man who’d made it clear exactly what this was on day one.
“You know,” you said.
“Maybe. But humor me.” His eyes stayed on your face, looking patient as ever, as the circle of his thumb continued moving. “Thought we had something nice going and now — ” He tilted his head slightly against the pillow. “So, what’s going on up in that pretty little head of yours?”
“I want more than this,” you said plainly. “That’s what’s in my head. I want the whole thing — the relationship and dates and stuff. I think I’ve got enough time to — get into that.”
“Yeah?” he said, voice coming out in a breath His thumb stilled on your hip. He looked up at you and his other hand came up and pushed a piece of your hair back off your cheek.
You had to press your lips together, because you obviously weren’t expecting him to offer, and yet you’d been holding your breath anyway.
“Yeah,” you said. “I do.”
His hand stayed on your cheek a moment longer, the pad of his thumb resting just under your eye. Then his hand dropped back to your hip where it was safe.
“You should,” he said after a moment, swallowing. “Get into that. You’ve got the time.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?” His hands flexed at your hip, his hips still beneath yours and the want still humming under all of it. “Not gonna talk you out of one thing you actually deserve. Even I’m not that selfish.” His brows furrowed, like he’d just processed his own words. “Most days.”
His hand left your hip and found your waist, and then he was turning you, guiding you off of him onto the side on the mattress beside him, leaving the two of you laying facing each other in the gold dark. His thigh slid between yours.
This close, you could see everything you usually didn't get to study: the silver threaded through the stubble at his jaw, the small white seam of an old scar through one eyebrow, the way the lines around his eyes weren't from laughing. He had one arm folded under his head and the other draped heavy over your hip, fingers spread at the small of your back, and he just looked at you, the want and the conversation both still hanging in the air between you, neither resolved.
“S’it somebody at work?” he asked. “Has to be. You don’t have time yet to meet anyone who isn’t.”
You shook your head slightly against the pillow, and your brows furrowed together at the idea. “No — no one. I haven’t met anyone yet.”
He huffed. His eyes dropped from yours to somewhere near your collarbone, then came back up.
He turned his face toward the pillow for a second, as if to hide his face from you, then met your eyes again. “You’d rather have no one than me, huh?”
“Wow,” you breathed out in almost a gasp. You pulled back an inch against the pillow to look at him properly. “Now that’s mean, Jack. I can find someone, you know.”
“Yeah?” His brow lifted, scar catching the light. “Course you can.” His hand slid off your hip and down, palming the back of your thigh, drawing your knee up over his. “Always hear someone in the hospital talking about you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“M’not.” He hitched your leg higher, fitting himself into the space it opened, and you felt the blunt heat of him press where you were already aching for it, rubbing slowly against your folds. “I mean it. It’s about time you got out from this old man.”
“Don’t call yourself that.”
He dragged the length of him through you again, catching you over and over where you wanted him and not giving it. “It’s what I am. Fifty, boring life, no good to you past this.” His mouth ghosted the corner of yours, breath warm and uneven. “You should be out with someone who can give you the whole thing. I’ve already done my time.”
You could do it again, you wanted to say. You could be the whole thing. But the words sat behind your teeth, because you already knew what he’d say and do if you’d said them, and you couldn’t take hearing it kindly. Especially not with him notched against you like this when it was supposed to be the last time.
You let your hand find his jaw instead, the rough of the stubble, the silver, and you watched his eyes flicker at the touch, at how your lips moved from one side to the other as you tried to keep the words down. It seemed like he’d understood whatever you didn’t say.
“Yeah, baby,” he muttered and pressed his thumb to the back of your thigh, eyes fluttering shut at the touch of you. “I know.”
He pushed in then, slow, all the way, mid-breath like it was just the next thing between you. The shudder rolled clean through him as he sank into you, his exhale breaking ragged against your mouth. Your spine arched off the mattress. His arm hooked under the small of your back and dragged you flush, no space left, no air, the two of you pressed chest to chest in the gold hush.
“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth, holding there, buried to the hilt and not moving as he felt you clench around him. “Spoiling me rotten and then telling me you’re leaving.”
“Shut up now — ”
He drew back slow and sank back in deep, and the sound you made came out somewhere against his shoulder. Each roll of his hips pressed you up the sheets. “Get me used to this and then — what? Go hand it to someone who hasn’t earned it.” He laughed brokenly against your throat. “Selfish girl.”
You got a fistful of his hair and pulled, hard enough that his breath stuttered. “Go find — someone else yourself,” you said through your teeth, because opening your mouth seemed like something embarrassing would follow. “You’re not lacking options — ”
“But I like having my cake,” he breathed, and there was almost a laugh under it. “Eating it, too.”
“Gross,” you mumbled against him.
One month was meant to be enough time. Lying awake the first week, you’d assumed it’d take thirty days to unlearn a person. It had worked on the obvious things. You’d stopped reaching for your phone at the end-of-shift and stopped seeking him out by the lockers. You’d slept in your own bed and not found it lacking, mostly. But nobody warned you that being in a car for four hours would call it all into question.
One month of calling him Dr. Abbot across the bay, crisp and so weightless, handing him a chart without your fingers brushing his. You’d gotten good at it. Then Robby floated the conference. Some emergency medicine thing four hours upstate; a block of credits, a hotel with a conference rate, a chance to put PowerPoint slides between yourself and the actual work for two days. Dana volunteered the department van before anyone could think of a reason not to, already half out of her scrubs spiritually, determined to get a few days of being a person instead of a charge nurse.
Like these things usually did, the seating assembled itself, which was to say it was assembled badly. Robby drove while Dana drove shotgun. Trinity somehow won the entire back row. And the middle row was you, Dennis, and Jack.
You in the middle, because the universe worked in fucked-up ways. In this case, the universe was named Dana.
“You’ll fit,” Dana had said, and pressed a duffel of granola bars into your arms like a consolation prize, steering you into the gap between the two men before you could mount a defense.
You fit pressed thigh-to-thigh with Jack Abbot for four hours up interstate, his arm slung along the seatback behind you because there was genuinely nowhere else for a man his size’s arms to put it, the heat of him bleeding through your sleeve like a low fever. You knew that arm. You knew the weight of it, the places where his hand fell when it wasn’t thinking about where it fell. It was a quarter-inch from touching you, which was worse than actually touching you, and you suspected he knew that, too.
The van pulled out of the lot at five in the morning. Dennis had his headphones in before the drive even started. Up front, Dana was already arguing with Robby about the music. Trinity was sprawled in the whole back row to herself, scrolling on her phone.
Thirty minutes into the drive, Jack broke the seal.
“Excited?” he asked, eyes still out the window, profile flat and bored as anything. His voice was pitched low enough that it lived in the space between his mouth and your ear and nowhere else.
You kept your head tipped back against the seat. “More excited about sleeping in a comfortable bed than the conference.”
His brows narrowed as he turned to look at you. “Some Marriot-adjacent mattress? You’re aiming low.”
“It’s horizontal and not on-call. I’m easy to please.”
“Since when?” he drawled, bone-dry, eyes going back to the window. But his thigh had pressed a degree closer against yours, a shift you couldn’t call a thing without admitting you were keeping track. Up-front, Dana won whatever argument she’d been having and something with a heavy bassline filled the van. Jack let the noise ring and leaned half-an-inch closer that nobody would ever catch. “You used to say my sheets were scratchy.”
“For a man with that penthouse, they were scratchy — ”
“Finally,” he breathed out, satisfied, like he’d been fishing for exactly that and reeled it in. Something in his face eased and you hated, a little, how much you wanted to have done that. “I almost forgot you’d been in it.”
God. You hadn’t forgotten anything. That was the whole problem. You knew the place, the cold floor on the way to the bathroom, the exact freckles on his chest up close. You knew he wore a ring you had never once asked about and he’d never once explained, and that you’d both kept your eyes politely off the subject the way you keep your eyes off a wound that wasn’t yours to dress. You knew all of it, and all you could do was keep promising yourself it didn’t count anymore.
“Can we stop at the next exit?” Trinity said from the back. “I need coffee and the bathroom. In that order.”
Dana hummed. “There’s a Sheetz coming up in ten. That good?” She looked through the map on her phone. “Everybody go when we stop. We’re not pulling off twice.”
“Works for me,” Robby said.
Dennis plugged out one of his earphones and glanced over everyone in the car. “We’re stopping?”
“Yup,” Dana confirmed. “Bathroom, snacks, ten minutes, back in the van. Whitaker, you want anything, you decide now.”
Dennis considered, then put his earphone back on, apparently deciding the whole thing was beneath the commitment.
Jack leaned in from beside you, barely. “Single stall in the back of those places, you know?” he said, voice low, barely audible over the music. “There’s a lock on the door and everything.”
You kept your eyes on the windshield in front of you. “Weird thing to know off the top of your head.”
His thigh pressed warm against yours through the curve of an off-ramp that didn’t strictly require it. “How much would it take?” His eyes flickered back out to the window, even as his shoulder now pressed up against yours. “You and me in there. Ten minutes. Name a number.”
“Can’t be bought.” You forced your eyes to the windshield. “Sorry. Not for sale.”
“No?” His voice dipped, amused. “Everybody’s got a price.”
“Not me.” You turned your head and found him already closer than he’d been a second ago. “You really think you could afford me?”
“Could take a run at it.”
“Wouldn’t get far.”
“Fifty,” he said, and you could see the slight grin crawling onto his lips.
You let out a short laugh, then immediately pressed your mouth over your lips before it became any louder. “I don’t get out of bed for fifty dollars, Abbot, let alone on my knees.”
“Oof.” He winced, mock-wounded, dragging a hand over his chest. “Expensive date.”
“It’s never a date with you.”
He bit his lip at that, eyes raking over you, the grin caught behind his teeth. “Right. Hundred, then.”
“I’m gonna report you to HR. You’re my attending.”
“Good luck with filling out the history we have for that.”
You turned to look at him, and let your mouth curl. “You really think I’m the sort of girl to do it in a gas station bathroom?”
You watched the grin go still on his face, watched his eyes drop to your mouth and drag back up, the warmth in them tipping into something darker. “Would you?”
You scoffed, shaking your head. “In your dreams, Jack.”
“Frequently,” he said, not missing a second. “Vividly, too.”
You leaned in enough to feel his breath catch. “Keep dreaming, then. It’s all you’re getting.”
You sat back before he could answer, fingers playing with the seatbelt, sweet as anything.
“Christ.” He dragged a hand down over his jaw, his head tipping back against the seat and looked at you sideways through the gray morning light, and the bit fell off his face. “Missed you.”
Before you could even process the words with his attention on you, because he was who he was, his jaw worked once and looked back out the window, ending it himself before you could, handing the silence back to you to do with it what you pleased.
Your chest squeezed just slightly at that, and you had to be the one to force yourself to look away, catching sight of Dennis’s head bumping against the window as he soundly slept, oblivious, lucky.
At some point past the gas station you lost the fight with your own exhaustion. Nineteen hours of being awake before the drive, and the van was warm, and the bassline had mellowed into something Dana hummed underneath her breath, and the road had gone smooth — almost hypnotic — interstates often did when they’d gone out of the clutches of the city. You’d meant to stay awake. You’d made the small private rule about it, too; you went under anyway, somewhere between a stretch of dead farmland and the next, your head listing by degrees toward the warm solid thing on your left because your body, again, moving without giving a single shit about how you felt.
When you surfaced, it happened slowly. The light had changed; it was full morning now, white and flat through the windshield. Your cheek was pressed against something that rose and fell in a long, even rhythm, and your brain took its time arriving to the fact of it. You’d fallen asleep on Jack's chest. One month clean and your face was tucked into the seam of his jacket like it had never stopped being there.
You weren’t proud of how you didn’t want to move just yet, so you didn’t move.
You could feel his breathing under your cheek, slow enough that he might have been asleep, too. There was a smell to him you’d made yourself forget and were now remembering, completely against your will. It was nothing fancy, just clean cotton and something warm. The Gatorade bottle you’d been clutching was in the cupholder against your knee now, and you had no memory putting it there. Which meant there was a slight chance Jack had worked it out of your sleeping hand at some point so it wouldn’t tip into your lap, and set it down.
You cracked one eye to assess the damage to your dignity. Dennis had leaned in the same stretch of road, toward you, hood up and mouth open, gone to the world. And somewhere in all that, Jack’s arm, the long span of it along the seatback, had come down around you with his hand had ended up resting flat on the top of Dennis’s skull, holding it off your shoulder, fingers spread over the kid’s hair like a melon he was deciding whether to buy.
You’d furrowed your brows at the arrangement, reeling, when the camera shutter went off.
Jack came awake all at once. He always did; he was never groggy, never had a transition. It was like there was an off and on button to him, as though his nervous system had been trained somewhere that didn’t allow the luxury of waking up slowly. He clocked it in a half second: the phone, you against his chest, the unexplained weight under his own palm. He followed his arm down to where his hand was cradling a sleeping resident’s head and his face crumpled slightly.
He smacked it off, open-palmed, off the top of Dennis’s skull.
“Ow.” Dennis jolted awake, flailing upright, a crease pressed into his cheek from your sleeve. “What — Dr. Abbot — what —”
“Wrong shoulder, kid,” Jack said.
“I wasn’t —” Dennis took in the angle for himself and recoiled. “Sorry. God. Sorry.”
You’d started to sit up to peel yourself off Jack’s chest and salvage some dignity to sit back into the cold neutral air of your own seat where you belonged. His palm came up to your forehead and pushed you back down against him.
“Not you,” he said. His hand stayed flat on your forehead. “You’re fine where you are.”
You reached up and pulled his hand off your forehead, sitting up out of the warmth of him.
“C’mon,” he said quietly, under the music, softer than a command.
You paused with your hand still around his wrist and turned to look at him full-on. He was already looking at you, none of the previous needling present in his face.
You shook your head once, a small gesture. You didn’t trust the words to come out the way they needed to, so you let your face carry it instead.
He held your eyes a second, then his jaw shifted slightly and the corner of his mouth went to a worn-down half of a smile. He gave you the smallest nod. His eyes fell shut and he tipped his head back with a small shake of his head as he eased his wrist out of your hand.
You put your hands in your lap where they couldn’t get you in trouble, and stared out at the flat white morning coming up over the interstate, and made sure to not look at him again.
The conference threw a networking event the first evening, which meant a low-lit ball room, a cash bar charging eleven dollars for wine that came from a box, and a couple hundred physicians standing around in lanyards pretending they’d be here without the boxed wine.
You’d lost the group almost immediately. Dana was drawn to a cluster of people she knew in a previous life; Robby to someone he’d done a residency with; Dennis to the food; Trinity to one of her college buddies. It left you working the edge of the room with a plastic cup of wine, doing a slow orbit as you read badges, when a man peeled off a nearby conversation and aimed at you.
He was older. Closer to Jack’s range, give or take. He had silver coming in at the temples and an unbothered ease that made you wonder if he’d ever had it hard. His badge put him outside Columbus. He had a good face and seemed aware of it without leaning on it, and no wear that graced his features; a man who slept fine, you assumed, and didn’t own a single thing he refused to speak about.
“Pace yourself with that,” he said, tipping his own glass in the direction of yours. “It comes up to you pretty quickly.”
“Bit late for that,” you said, lifting the cup up an inch. “This is already number three.”
“Then I’m too late to save you and might as well make it worse,” he said, offering a hand. “Mark. Philly. I run the shop out there.”
You introduced yourself. He had a good handshake, dry and brief, none of the holding-on the men sometimes did at these things.
He tipped his head to look at your badge. “Pittsburgh Trauma. You like it?”
“Most days.”
He shrugged. “Anybody who says every day is lying or hasn’t been doing it long enough.” He took a sip and let his eyes come back to your face. “Let me guess. Senior resident. Somebody made you come.”
You were going to say something back—you had something, you’d half-built it—and then there was a hand at the small of your back. You knew the weight of it, the breadth, where the fingers fell. It settled low against your spine and stayed, warm through the dress.
“Mark,” Jack said from beside you. He had a club soda in his free hand and an easy nothing on his face. “Jack Abbot. Pittsburgh.”
“Jack.” Mark did a quick thing, the hand, the half-step Jack had folded into the space between you without seeming to take it, the way you hadn't stepped out from under his palm. Something recalibrated behind his face, pleasant and unhurried. He stuck the hand out anyway. “I think I’ve read you —” He referenced one of Jack’s studies you knew all too well, something he’d handed over to you once in his bed like it was a bedtime story.
“That’s me.” Jack took the handshake. His thumb moved once at your spine, where the angle hid it from the third person entirely. “Philly? You inherit the department or build it?”
“Little bit of both. Mostly inherited the problems,” he said lightly. “You enjoying the conference?”
“It’s a conference,” Jack said, lifting his glass half-an-inch. Then, his head tilted in your direction. “You know this one’s my best trauma resident? I’d put her on anything. Watched her run a procedure last month half the seniors I came up with couldn’t have called that fast.”
“That so?” Mark looked at you again, interest sharpened. “He doesn’t seem the type to hand those out.”
“He’s nice to everyone.”
“She’s underselling it.” Jack’s hand spread a degree wider at your back, the heel of his palm settling into the dip of your spine, fingers easy along your hip. “You’ll be reading her name in a couple years and remembering you met her here, of all places.”
It got the laugh Jack wanted it to. Mark took a sip, easy, regrouping, and you watched him do the math the way smooth men do—fast, behind a pleasant face—and land on a play.
“Well.” He tilted the glass toward Jack. “I won’t monopolize you. I’m sure you’ve got the room to work — everybody wants a minute at these things.”
The thumb that had been moving at your back stilled, and Jack’s features crossed into something amused as he narrowed his brows at the man.
“S’alright,” he said pleasantly. “Got everyone I need right here.”
Mark recaliberated again, watching him take Jack’s measure one more time; the hand, the half-inch of space that hardly qualified as space. You watched him arrive to the easy conclusion that whatever was happening here had been decided before he ever walked over.
“Fair enough,” he said, setting his empty cup down at the nearest high-top. “Pleasure. Good luck with the residency.” He nodded at you, then to Jack. “Abbot.” And then he was gone, folding back into the room, off to find the next conversation that wasn’t already spoken for.
Jack’s hand was still on your back, and you stepped out from under it. You turned to face him, and felt the thing that had been climbing in you all night finally find a target.
“Why would you do that?” you asked, shaking your head and pressing your lips shut to keep yourself from saying anything more.
“Do what?” he said mildly, the glass loose in his hand.
“Don’t.” You kept your face arranged for the room, tamping down your voice so it wouldn’t carry over to strangers. “You know what you did. You’re not stupid.”
“I said you were good at your job.” He had the gall to look reasonable. “Becuase you are.”
“That’s not what it was and you know it — thank you.” Your jaw tightened. “You don’t get to walk over and put your hand on me when I’m talking to another man and act like — ” Your fingers moved between the two of you, a small and sharp movement. “ — like you’ve got any claim. We agreed to this a month ago.”
Jack’s lips pressed in a thin line at the words, and his eyes raked over your face. “He’d have you in his bed by ten,” he said, calmer now. “Guys like that — it’s their whole game at places like this. One night, gone by checkout. You didn’t lose anything worth keeping.”
Your brows furrowed at that, and you felt something go hot in your neck. “Yeah?” you asked, voice going quieter. “Isn’t that what you were?”
He looked away for a second, one hand coming up to rub over the bottom half of his face. “If you can’t tell the difference between me and a guy like that,” he said evenly, and there was something genuinely stung underneath as his eyes met yours, “then I really don’t know what to tell you.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.”
His face twisted at that, and he let out a disbelieved laugh. “That’s how you think of me?”
“That’s not — ” You stopped, because his face had knocked something loose in you and you had no idea what you thought anymore. “That’s not what I said.”
“It sounded a hell of a lot like it.” He shook his head. “Six months and you’re putting me next to a guy you met ten minutes ago. Alright.”
“Jack — ”
“You wanted it, too. Okay?” When you let out a small ‘what?’ he continued, “You heard me. You’re acting like you just went along with it, and you never once asked for more either.” His voice had dropped low, and he’d walked closer to you before you even realized. “You never once asked for more until the night you walked. So don’t put it all on me.”
“I asked,” you said, voice cracking just slightly, and you looked around the room to see if anyone was close to you. “You were the one who told me to go find someone else. You said you’re no good past what we were doing.”
“I said it because it’s true,” he said quickly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m not the guy you build the rest of your life around. I tried to do the decent thing.”
“Then stand on that,” you said. “You don’t get to tell me to find someone and stop it the second anyone shows up. Pick one. You don’t get to keep me in your life like this forever because you can’t stand to either let me in or go.”
“I’m trying to do right by you,” he said roughly.
You pressed two fingers above your eyelid, shaking your head. “Why are you doing this?” You shoulders came up to your ears. “I don’t — it was never going to be us, Jack. You said so yourself. I don’t get why — I need to move on.”
He closed his eyes at that for a moment. “I know you do,” he said quietly, the fight gone all out of him. His eyes flickered down to his hand for a second, then made a loose fist out of them. “I — can we go somewhere else?” He leaned in slightly, body stiffening up. Reading the hesitation on your face, he said, “Please.”
You’d watched him avoid the word in a dozen rooms, so you nodded slowly and forced yourself to not look too hard at why. You couldn’t, because if you stopped to let yourself consider it, it’d make your body hurt even more, and you’d still do it.
The stairwell was the only door on the floor that wasn’t a room or a lobby. It was fire-exit cold, raw concrete, a fluorescent light overhead. The reception came up through the floor as bass and nothing else, the words gone out of it. The door sucked shut behind you both and took the noise with it. You both walked four floors up, apparently neither of you being ready to do anything about it. And then there was simply the buzz of the bad light and Jack, six months and one month and four floors and a whole conference away from you, standing with his back to the cinderblock and his hands jammed in his pockets.
You crossed your arms and your eyes involuntarily flickered up to the ceiling because you weren’t sure you could talk. But when he let the silence drag on, too, you said, “Jack — ”
“Did you want it to be me?” he said immediately, like your voice had spurred him into action.
“What?”
“The whole thing you said you want. Dates, the rest of it.” His body was stiff against the wall. “Was that — did you ever imagine me, or just, someone else. Someone who would.”
You took in a shaky breath. “You.” It came out more plainly than you’d expected, like your body had been ready to be rid of it, to place it somewhere in the open. “I left because I wanted more — with you, and you made it pretty clear I could never have that.”
His hands jammed in his pockets. The light buzzed overhead, that sick fluorescent flutter, and somewhere four floors down the reception kept going, two hundred people who'd never know this was happening over their heads.
“I don’t think I can give you that,” he said.
“Okay.” You forced yourself to nod, and your eyes went hot. “Thanks for telling me that, then.”
He raised a palm just enough that it caught in your eyesight. “I didn’t — didn’t say I never wanted to. Don’t think that.” He tilted his neck up to meet your eyes properly. “Wanting you that way wasn’t hard. I’ve been doing that against my own advice the entire time.”
He'd come off the wall a step without seeming to know he'd done it, and his face had lost the arrangement it usually wore, the bored set of it, and underneath was something you'd caught glimpses of and never the whole of. His eyes shifted to the wall, the stenciled number, anywhere but you.
“I did years of this already. And it ended about as badly as it could end.” He laughed wryly, no humor in it. “I stopped letting myself want things — I thought it’s a lot easier to get through a night if there’s nothing you’d be hurt to lose.” His muscles tensed on his face, the lines deepening as he pinched his eyes shut and shook his head. “Feels like I’m losing you, and it hurts like hell.” He looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when it happened. It wasn’t meant to.”
You pressed a finger against the underside of your eye then, determined to catch anything that could possibly leak out.
“But you don’t know if you can do it,” you said, words coming out shakily.
He tugged his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head slowly. “No,” he said honestly, and it was worse than any lie he could’ve told. “I don’t know.”
You nodded again, because there was nothing else for you to do.
“But — but, I don’t wanna lose what I’ve got with you,” he admitted, voice dropping into something shameful. “I know that the nights you’re not on are longer. And if I can’t have you, I want you to know you do that for me. It started being pretty serious a long time ago — for me, too.”
The light fluttered overhead and you let the finger drop from under your eye, gave up on holding it, let whatever wanted to come just come. Somehow, they were words you’d always wanted to hear and yet they arrived wrong, off-rhythm. You’d kept careful track of everything he wouldn’t give you, a whole running tally of it, and he'd just gone and paid the entire balance in one breath in the worst-lit room, and the awful part — the part that made your blood run even hotter — was that it counted. It counted, anyway.
“So what do we do with that?” you said. “I don’t — I don’t know where that leaves us.”
He was quiet for a moment. You watched him sit in the question instead of dodging it, which was new, which was maybe the most he’d ever given you in one night.
“I’d want to try,” he said finally, words careful, like he was setting something down that might break. “Not the old way. I mean the other thing. What you wanted.” He let out a breath. “If you still want it. I wasn’t very great the first time, and I’m out of practice, too.”
You wiped your cheek, and winced as you felt your hand scrub at your skin a little too roughly. “You were okay with it a month ago — ”
“It hurt,” he said immediately. “It hurt, you walking out. I didn’t have anything better than to let you, but don’t — don’t think it didn’t.”
He moved when you didn’t respond, stepping closer than the conversation needed. His hands came up and settled at your arms, just below the shoulders, loose, holding you in place or holding himself there, you couldn't tell which, maybe both.
“Let me try,” he said roughly. His thumbs moved once against your arms. “I want to learn this with you.”
You looked up at him. He held it — your eyes, the closeness, all of it — instead of glancing off the way he had all night. You realized distantly that this was a sort of contract you’d be signing, and he was laying out the option for you to not do so.
“You can’t disappear on me,” you said instead of considering the second option, “when it gets hard. I don’t ever want to feel like I made up something I didn’t.”
He nodded stiffly. “If I do, you can drag me back out.”
His forehead came down, to the top of your head, his chin resting in your hair, his arms folding the rest of the way around you like he'd finally run out of reasons not to. You felt him breathe out, the whole tense length of him going down an inch against you.
“Just let me try,” he said again, into your hair, voice a whisper. “Please. I’m asking. I don’t do that a lot.”
real talk tho ive seen ppl talk abt how long hair on men isn't intrinsically feminine & assuming so is racist can we get the same convo going for Black women w short hair can we start talking abt how short hair isn't intrinsically masculine or is that a step too far
i know folks are gonna call me a pedo for this one, but i grew up seeing my mom and grandma naked. they had health issues and at times needed care and help showering. and i truly think more kids need to be shown the nonsexual reality of naked women at a young age. there is nothing sexual about my grandmothers breasts, they were simply body parts. more women die of heart attacks because people are too afraid of breasts to do real chest compressions, because they are scared to touch their breasts. the sexualization of our bodies literally kills us. i need people to be more normal about naked bodies and i'm 100% serious.
richiee your beautiful mind...i need crash!jack to be mean to 1 month postpartum sleepy because she DARED to accept help around the house from a friend, like "you think i can't take care of both my girls?"
he immediately spirals into his shitty patterns of behavior after hearing both sleepy and chubby cry, and knowing he can't fuck it better for two more weeks. we're talking outside, in the rain, crying, throwing up, just for a sniff. please make him suffer for me <3
bad daddy behavior
jack's insecurities about taking care of you simmer too quickly in his fatigue after a heartbreaking shift, and when someone else helps you postpartum...
it leads to a whole lot of suffering on both ends.
oof. // wc: 3k // tw: sucidal behavior, mentions of sex with reader as a coping mechanism, unhealthy behavior, jealous!jack, mentallyunwell!jack, crash!jack, (does that explain this bullshit?), this is pretty bad but hey at least he loves you... // fic directory
It's because he comes home after a bad shift. It's because what he's been thinking about all night is the ounce of control he has in taking care of you and Chubby, and he is finally home to take hold, only to find something unexpected. It's because he's a new parent riddled with sleep deprivation.
Well. That's not really an excuse for what happens. He's been sleep-deprived before you were born. But there's a point to be made.
It's because he's riddled with a little bit of everything concerning you. That's been pretty damn true long before he knocked you up.
You wake, remembering Dana came over, and even in your fatigued blur, you can remember that the house was, to put it nicely, a bit messier before you fell asleep.
It's actually Jack's kind of clean. You think you and he have been doing a good job of maintaining the place as two people trying to survive a newborn, with sleep becoming a useless habit. But the counters are wiped down. Your baby's bottles are lined up.
Her burp cloths are folded on the coffee table in front of you. You peek into the kitchen to see that the sink's empty and the dish rack is full.
You almost forget there's a most perfect, chubby thing that caused the newly erased mess in the first place.
"Oh, shit."
You spring up to check on her instantly. The last thing you remember was Dana taking her away from you, right before you knocked out. That you apologized for the mess when she came over without permission.
"What mess? I see that a cute baby lives here, and her crazy mom and dad are pretending they don't need help."
You had tried to protest, but Dana simply pointed at the couch. You sat down. You fell asleep after she took your bundled baby.
You woke up at one point, actually. It's easy to remember the panic passing through your bones, and that you had asked for Chubby in a way that made the panic apparent.
Dana has chewn bad patients and know-it-all residents into mush, but her assurance softened you to the point of near-tears.
“She’s right here, honey. She’s okay. You’re allowed to sleep.”
You find Dana gone and Chubby wiggling in her crib, and when you pick her up, she scrunches her perfect little face as she smashes her fat cheek to your chest.
"Did you have a fun time with Aunty Dana? I sure had a great time, knocked the hell out. Yes, I didddd."
When you make your way into the kitchen with your sing-song tease, there's a note near the microwave to explain the lack of postpartum mess.
'Did dishes. Folded the kid's laundry. You'll find two Snickers bars in the fridge, my savior when I had my girls. Don't argue this favor. You’re bleeding, probably leaking, and sleeping in twenty-minute increments. Probably doesn't help that you're married to a man who thinks being a martyr is his chore. Eat and sleep.
I found a timer in the kitchen and set it for an hour so you can wake up from the dead, which you did if your you're reading this. I also found that Jack owns four different kinds of mops. That’s not normal.'
You don't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe you deserve the latter. Chubby had cried and cried and cried the other day. Only seems fair to twin with your daughter. Not that you're as cute.
You turn off the timer and eat both Snickers on the couch within five minutes. Jack's truck pulling into the driveway is right on cue.
You hear it before you see it through the window. The familiar grumble of the engine.
The sound of him coming home softens and warms you pathetically, but considering that you let him put a baby in you, you might as well own the postpartum monkey-brain part of you that makes you think he's the only thing you'll ever need.
Jackie's back. He's here. The cave is safe again.
Pfft. It's still a little ridiculous. That's what keeps your love for him as fun as it's been since the day he found you on shift.
"Look, Chubs. Dad's back. Say hi, Dada."
You bounce her softly as you take Jack in wholly. Rain has stained his scrubs, and his silver hair is slightly dampened. He looks exhausted. And very beautiful.
"My girls have a good day—"
When Jack comes home, his eyes always find you first, then Chubby. Then he kisses you both, usually with his face unwillingly twisting into something soft with relief. You're always flattered.
But this time, as he steps forward to greet you, his gaze moves past with his question dead on his tongue.
He's staring at the spotless kitchen. Then at the folded burp clothes. Then to the note that you've moved to the coffee table alongside them.
You swallow.
You can see the relief escape him. You don't know why. You think the sight of a clean house would get a smile to creep up on his face.
Chubby wriggles with a fussy grunt against your chest. Jack's eyes find their way back to her. And you.
“Who was here?”
There's a tone Jack uses from time to time, one that makes you feel younger. He uses it now, and you're gaining the sneaking suspicion that you'll have to keep this conversation from turning into a wound he can shove his hand into.
"Who says there was anyone? Maybe I've developed super duper mommy powers and gave the house a deep clean."
Jack stares, crossing his arms.
Welp. If that does get a smile out of him, you don't know what will.
"Dana stopped by, Jack. I didn't ask her to. She just...kinda did Dana things. We should probably throw her a thank-you text later—"
Jack walks farther into your space. He hasn't taken off his boots, and they're wet on the floor that you think Dana either swept or mopped.
You hold your tongue and keep yourself from lovingly scolding him for tracking prints.
He picks up the note, and you watch his eyes scan it over. You can actually see them move across the small, pink-heart patterned paper twice. You've been meaning to buy more from Etsy.
Jack blinks. He semi-rolls his neck with his shoulders squaring up.
His throat bobs the same time yours does.
"She folded laundry. Washed bottles. Did dishes. Wow."
You adjust your squirming baby as frustration seeps into your bones.
"I was tired. We're tired. Again, I didn't ask, but maybe a helping hand every now and again isn't so bad."
You cried yesterday because you dropped Chubby's pacifier. You cried last week because her tiny fingernails scratched her fat cheek and you felt like a negligent monster of a mother for not trimming them sooner.
You are tired, and Dana's helping hand hit like crack—
“So you let someone come into my house and do what I’m supposed to do?"
...Okay. What the hell?
Jack tilts his head up slightly, arms only uncrossing to shove his hands in his pockets. You stutter.
Okay. Okay. You're not exactly confused where this is coming from. Usually, if words and feelings come out of his throat roughly when he comes home, you can name the cause as the place he came from.
"...Did something happen at work? And...our house, right?"
Jack scoffs. "Our house. Fine. Our house. Our baby. Our laundry. Our mess. And yeah, the Pitt threw me a shit shift tonight, that's not on you. But you think I can’t take care of both my girls, that you let Dana waltz on in? Why don't you tell me I need to pick up the damn pace?"
...He sounds riled. It's been five minutes.
“Jack, she was helping. You're working. We can handle a little mess and a little help."
You can't let him say anymore, because he'll hear himself, but he won't stop. That's his pattern. Once the blade's out, he'll keep cutting because stopping meant looking at the blood.
You stand up. Chubby grows fussier.
"Jack, what's wrong? Why are you getting mad so fast—"
"Because you needed Dana to come in and show you what competent looks like. You've got somebody else to take care of you because I’m, what, too old? Too tired? Too fucked up to handle dishes and a newborn?”
"Don't do this, Jack. Not now. You are obviously tired as shit, and you're getting me, and you're going to say something you don't mean—"
Jack scoffs. No humor. All petty pain.
“No, say it. You had to let another woman come into my house and do my job because I’m failing at it.”
“I didn’t say that!"
“You don't really have to when you let someone do housekeeping for free."
At least his voice portrays something factual. You're on the verge of fucking tears.
What was so wrong about his night that he's burning his morning with you and his daughter away?
Chubby lets out a thin wail that pierces straight through your chest. You immediately cup the back of her head and begin bouncing her out of instinct.
“Oh, baby, no, no. I’m sorry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
For a moment, you catch Jack flinching as his hands leave his pockets with clenched, flexing fists.
You can see it, his anger losing its spine for a single second before his panic finds him.
"Give her to me—"
"She's crying because we're fighting! No."
Jack points a finger before running a hand over his stubbled mouth.
"I'm not gonna tolerate coming home to find out my wife would rather let someone else play house here than tell me she needed something—"
"Stop! Just stop! I get—I get it..."
You lose your voice in your choked cry. Tears track down your cheek. You don't. You don't get anything that's happened within the past seven minutes.
And knowing that whatever's left of Jack's anger dies at the sight of them probably wouldn't change anything. It's too late.
Your Chubby's wailing against your chest. You're sobbing silently above her as you try to soothe her. You do. Weakly.
The sounds of you and your daughter braid together as Jack stands surrounded by cloths he didn't fold and bottles he didn't wash.
You don't care to know that his heart's eating itself at the sight of you turning your shoulder between him and the baby you've given him.
Fuck. What the fuck did I do? What the fuck did I do, kiddo? Kill me. Fucking kill me.
“Sleepy...." His voice rolls gruff and wavering in his throat. "Give her to me, baby. I've got her—"
“I know you want to be everything. But you can’t punish me because someone helped me, and you can’t make me sorry for needing help.”
He can. You're sorry right now. But he shouldn't, right?
Jack's hands curl again at his sides as you turn away fully.
“I’m going upstairs.”
“Let me—”
"I'll be down later."
You just hope you can hold your ugly tears until you make it to Chubby's nursery. You'll hold her and cry into her and hope that's enough to get you through this episode.
It just might be, at least.
You carry Chubby out of the room, and Jack catches your sock slipping lower on your foot.
Even in the middle of ruining his fucked head, he wants to fix it with a kiss to your ankle.
Maybe he can bury himself in your thighs and beg for forgiveness. He doesn't even deserve that. Maybe that's before he puts a bullet in his head. He has to finalize his will first. He doesn't know why he hasn't yet.
He meant to before Chubby was born. He got caught, too caught in pretending he could handle being good and slight with you, kiddo.
Jack has to lean against the couch when he listens to you fully, you let out a cry. He's sure it's because you think there's enough distance.
"You fucking idiot. You fucking idiot!"
He hopes his heart gives out. No. Not now. Not so you can find him. That'd be even more fucked. No, Sleepy. You deserve better. He'll give out on the lawn so the neighbors can find him.
He...he's just been so fucking tired. He's been tired. And he's always been fucked. But, God, it was a bad shift. He took it out on you.
He took out having to keep a new mom from not dying for three hours because her fiancé fell asleep at the wheel on you. He took out hearing her baby screams echo throughout trauma two on you.
It seemed impossible not to reading that note.
Probably doesn't help that you're married to a man who thinks being a martyr is his chore.
Jack's heart has nearly fed itself with its own pulse. He can feel that in his muscles.
You're married to a man who made you cry one month after she gave him a child. Why would he let you do that? So he can have you for the rest of his life? Yeah, right? That's why he didn't, and it might just end with his pulse bursting through his stomach. It should. It really fucking should.
The nerves of his stomach, rightfully, find the pink bits inside of his skull and pound the shit out of themselves.
His hand on the couch grows even more weighted on the couch. He brings the other to his mouth.
He bites down on his wedding ring.
Two more weeks.
Why couldn't he have kept his shit inside until then, huh?
Two more weeks until the OB clears kiddo, maybe. Two more weeks until he could touch her the way his body keeps begging. Until he can bury his face between her legs and make her stop thinking. Two more weeks until he could fuck every apology into her cunt like that's ever fixed what's wrong inside him. It's soon until he can take all this filthy fear and helplessness to turn it into something she usually whines for instead of something that scared the shit out of her. His girl.
...It does keep Jack in check. A lot of the time. But he can't. He can't...fuck this better.
And even if he could—
"God."
Jack bends forward faster than he should be able to. The sick hits him fast.
He barely makes it to the back door.
And yeah. He tracks more prints, cause he's fucking shit at everything. He can ruin everything clean and good. You can trust him to do that much, Sleepy.
"Fuck. Jesus Christ—"
The rain drops cold against him as he stumbles onto the porch with his hands braced against the railing.
He vomits into the bushes. The burn of bile tears at his throat.
Good.
He coughs and tries to breathe, but fails. That's okay. He deserves to be smothered in the cold and sour spit. Nothing quite matches what he done. That's okay. It's enough until he's stable enough to bruise himself.
"Good. Good. In n' out. " Jack rubs his stinging eyes. "In n' out like the bullet that should go clean right through your fucking skull."
He goes to wipe the bile from his mouth with the collar of his undershirt, and what he inhales isn't air, because whatever God that isn't up there is a fucking comedian.
He smells you.
It smells like your deodorant and your skin. And baby soap. You stole this shirt two nights ago because Chubby kept spitting up on your clothes, and he was alright with sacrificing something from his drawer.
Sleepy. Kiddo. His wife. The mother of a perfect kid. The woman upstairs, who should be resting, not crying because he can't tolerate Dana washing a fucking bottle.
Jack holds the fabric to his nose.
He takes in the first successful breath.
"I'm sorry, baby. M' fucking sorry."
He could hate himself for how his body treats you like medication. Like proximity to you could save him from being him.
"M' sorry. M' sorry."
But it can, and that's why there are better things to hurt himself over.
I actually do think we should discourage women from becoming housewives. Do not become financially dependent on a man. That's how a lot of women ended up dead over the years. A man gets violent suddenly and you have to choose between homelessness or potentially dying at his hand because you have an enormous gap in your resume and no degrees or certifications or anything that will help you pursue a career that will allow you to be financially independent. He owns your bank account. His name is probably the one on the car. Try and leave and he can report it stolen. Where will you go then?
