Pairing: Jack Abbot x Michael Robinavitch x f!Reader
Description: Jack Abbot and Michael Robinavitch are your soulmates, but you're not going to let them find that out. Eight months and one hit and run later, they might have some opinions about that.
Tags/Warnings: A/B/O, Soulmates, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury (Reader gets in a car crash but not in this chapter wahoo), Significant Age Difference (40s/50s with 20s), Reader is a psych nurse who works in the pitt, Jack and Robby are in an established relationship
Wordcount: 3.7k
Author's Note: I wrote this during my night shifts, so forgive me if it's chaos. Also this is my first fic I've ever posted, so feedback is welcome but be nice pls. Love ya's.
00:27 a.m. and the witching hour began.
The fluorescent lights washed everything a sickly green, making skin look sallow and eyes sunken. The air smelled of antiseptic, blood, and too many bodies packed into too small a space.
The ER always felt different at night. Time didn't seem to move right; it stretched, stalled, then snapped forward without warning. One minute it was quiet, the next it was a flood-traumas, drunks, chest pains-ebbing and flowing with a strange, almost lunar rhythm Jack had long since stopped trying to understand, but had come to know.
But the witching hour was when the strange cases showed up, brought in by ambulance or police or just stumbling in off the streets. The dangerous, the deluded, or the medical mysteries no one could quite explain- the ones that made even seasoned ER vets like Jack paused and raise an eyebrow.
Jack had stopped trying to understand it. Night just stripped people down to the basics: fear, pain, anger, all sitting too close to the surface.
He liked it.
Thrived on it, even. The chaos, the constant problems to solve. The army had ruined any chance of a normal sleep schedule anyway, and the ER after dark suited him - everything narrowed down to this place, this moment, this job.
Tonight had been no exception. The evening had started hard and fast with a pileup on the freeway dumping half a dozen patients on them at once. Jack had spent the first few hours of his shift hip-deep in blood and broken bones, shouting orders and barking out instructions- the kind of controlled chaos that made him feel sharp. Alive.
Then, the drugs. ODs- some intentional, most not. A new drug on the streets had spiked, something dangerous that didn't show up in the tox screens right away, sending seizures through half the people who touched it.
They were hard to control and exhausting to manage.
Now, finally, a lull.
Jack leaned against the nurses’ station, nursing a cup of stale vending machine coffee. The caffeine did little to chase away the exhaustion that had settled into his bones, but it was better than nothing.
Movement down the hall caught his eye. He looked up, already knowing who it was before he properly saw you - something in the set of your shoulders, the way you moved, purposeful and steady even at this hour.
You’d been in the department a few months now - one of the new psych nurses they’d put on the floor to help manage the overflow of psych patients they'd never really known how to manage. Long enough that people trusted you. Long enough that Jack did, too.
He watched you approach, taking in the small details without really thinking about it - the way you scanned the room as you walked, clocking everything, the slight tension in your jaw that usually meant a patient was pushing limits somewhere.
You were good. Not just on paper, but in the way that actually mattered here. You were smart and capable, with a dry wit and a no-nonsense attitude that he respected. You handled the psych patients with a firm but compassionate hand, de-escalating tense situations when most would just reach for sedation and hope for the best.
Jack found himself paying attention when you were around. Not in a way he could easily explain. Just… awareness. Like he trusted that if something kicked off, you’d already be halfway to handling it.
Which you usually were.
Still, some part of him - more primitive, more instinct than thought - kept a closer eye on you than anyone else on the floor. It was a reflex he knew better than to take at face value. You didn’t need hovering. You were more than capable of handling yourself.
Didn’t stop the instinct, though. Just meant he ignored it. Mostly.
"Hey," he called out as you drew near, pushing off from the desk and straightening up. "How's our guy in South 14?"
The patient had been brought in by the police: found wandering down a street naked, swinging a baseball bat wildly and shouting about aliens. His skin had a faint green tinge that no one had quite explained yet.
You sighed, running a hand through your hair. "Can you write up 5 of haloperidol and 2 of loraz? He's really agitated- no way I can get an assessment on him when he's like this." You made a face, considering, before adding, "Might be a day shift job. Give him a chance to sleep off whatever he's taken."
“Sure,” Jack nodded, already reaching for the chart. He scribbled out the orders and handed it back with a wry smile. “Anything else I can do for you, doc?”
You rolled your eyes at the title, though the corners of your mouth betrayed you. “Just keep the crazies coming, Dr. Abbot. It’s what I’m here for.”
Jack always noticed the British lilt in your voice - it cut through the noise of the department, standing out against the heavier American accents around you.
You paused, studying him for a moment with those intelligent eyes. “How about you? You look like you could use some rest.”
Jack snorted. “I’m fine. Just another day in paradise.” He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. “Besides, the night’s still young. Who knows what kind of entertainment we’ll get before sunrise.”
“Has anyone told you adrenaline and cortisol are bad for you?” you asked dryly.
“Oh, daily,” he replied without missing a beat, pushing off the desk. "Come on. Let's go see our green friend. See if he's got any intergalactic secrets to share."
You fell into step beside him, shoulder brushing his in the narrow corridor. Jack felt it immediately- the brief brush of your shoulder against his in the narrow corridor, the spark of heat that ran sharper than it should have.
Jack exhaled sharply as they walked, jaw tightening. He’d never had issues working alongside omegas before. Never felt anything like this pull of instinct intruding on something as simple as a corridor walk.
He’d never had issues working alongside omegas before. Years in the army, then the ER, had taught him how to ignore anything that got in the way of the job. Instinct, scent, all of it - background noise.
But with you, it wasn’t quite so simple. Your scent was there, just at the edge of awareness - subtle, persistent, impossible to fully tune out. Even with blockers, it cut through in fragments: something warm, faintly spiced and sweet- like those chaii teas Robby sometimes had after dinner. Comforting. Too damn comforting for his own good.
But what could he do other than push it all down, bottle it up in some tucked away corner of his mind? Nothing. So he ignored it. Like usual.
You could hear South 14 before you could see him- voice raised in a feverish rant about government experiments and alien abductions. Jack shot you a sideways look, one brow raised. You just shrugged, already reaching for the handle.
"Welcome to my world, Dr Abbot." you said with a little grin, then slid through the door and into the room.
Inside, the scene was just as chaotic as expected. The patient was pacing back and forth, the thin hospital gown barely clinging to his shoulders, his hair tangled and wild. His eyes flicked nervously between you and the door like he was trying to work out an escape plan.
"Hey, Danny." you soothed, your voice calm and even as you approached the bedside. "I'm me again. You have any of that food I got you?" you nodded to the sandwich and apple he'd left untouched.
"The apples have cameras in!" he screamed, backing away from you. "They'll report back what I say. They know! They know I know!"
You didn't flinch at his outburst, just held up your hands in a placating gesture. "I know it's scary, Danny," you said softly. "But you're safe here. We're not going to let anyone hurt you."
Jack stood back, watching as you moved to stand just out of the patient's reach, your posture non-threatening, tone carefully neutral. You weren't trying to force him into a corner or corner him with questions, just offering a steady presence in the middle of his panic.
"Come on," you coaxed. "Just sit with me. We can talk about it. You want to tell me what's going on with the aliens?"
Danny hesitated, eyes darting to you then to Jack like he wasn't sure he could trust either of you. But after a moment, he nodded stiffly and slunk back toward the bed, sinking down onto it and hugging his knees to his chest. Jack watched as you pulled up a chair, keeping a safe but friendly distance. You sat forward, elbows resting on your knees, expression open and relaxed- not fake, just genuinely interested.
"You want to tell me more about what happened?" you asked gently.
Danny swallowed hard, eyes flicking toward the door like he was waiting for someone to burst in. "They...they put something in my head," he whispered. His hand trembled as he ran his fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands like he was trying to dig something out from beneath his scalp. "I can feel it. It's in there. They're listening. Always listening."
You nodded slowly, not dismissing it, just acknowledging. "That must be terrifying," you said, your voice soft. "It sounds like you're going through something really hard right now."
Danny's breath caught, and he glanced up at you with wide, desperate eyes. "You believe me?"
"I believe you're really scared," you replied carefully. "And I want to help you feel safer. Will you let me try?"
There was a long pause before Danny finally gave a small, tentative nod.
"Good," you smiled, reaching into your pocket for the med cup. "I brought you something that might help take the edge off. It won't hurt-just help calm things down a bit so you can get some rest."
Jack watched as Danny hesitated, eyeing the meds like they were poison. But then, slowly, he took the cup from your hand and swallowed the pills dry, his whole body still tense.
You stood up then, moving slowly, like you didn't want to startle him. "I'll stay right here with you until they start working, okay? We can talk more if you want."
Danny gave a tiny nod, seeming to settle just a little now that someone wasn't dismissing him or running out of the room. Jack moved back toward the door, giving you both space. He wasn't needed here now. You had everything under control.
You glanced round at him, eyebrow raised slightly as if to ask if he was leaving. Jack just nodded, keeping his expression even. "Call if you need me." he mouthed, gesturing at the panic alarm you always wore on your belt. You gave him a small smile in return and turned back to Danny, who had started talking again in low, rapid bursts about the voices in his head.
Jack slipped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut softly behind him. His chest felt tight, something sitting uncomfortably under his ribs as he walked away. But there was no time to dwell on it. His pager blared- code stroke, 4 minutes - and he was off again.
The rest of the night passed in a blur of activity, the steady stream of patients keeping Jack and the rest of the ER staff on their toes. There were more OD's and alcohol related incidents, a few car accident victims, and a rather bizarre case of a man who'd tried to open a coconut with his forehead and ended up needing stitches. Jack handled each one with his usual blend of dark humour and efficiency, cracking jokes that fell flat but kept him sane.
Somewhere around 5:30, during a brief moment of peace between traumas, Jack found himself back at the nurses station, leaning against the desk to try to relieve the ache in his stump. You were sitting at the desk, typing away at your computer with a focused little furrow in your brow. You had ear plugs in, a sign you were trying to get something done without distractions. You looked tired, he noted absently, watching as you pushed a loose strand of hair back into the knot at the nape of your neck.
Jack debated whether to interrupt you but decided against it. He didn't need anything from you. Just… wanted to see what you were up to. Not worth pulling your focus away from something that was clearly keeping your mind occupied.
Instead, he pushed himself upright and headed for the break room, gait uneven but steady. Another cup might help keep him moving. The end of the shift was close now-sunrise not far off, handover coming. Robby would be in soon. That thought settled somewhere quieter in his chest.
He poured himself a coffee from the pot then, without thinking, poured one for you too. Milk, one sugar- the way you took it. You looked like you needed it.
When he came back out, you were still at the desk, still working. He slid the cup across to you without a word. You glanced up, surprised, then smiled - tired, but genuine. “Thank you. I was just about to make one.”
“No trouble,” he said, taking a sip of his own. “What’re you working on?”
“Arguing with psych upstairs about taking Danny,” you muttered. “They won’t accept him until neuro reviews him even though there's absolutely no indication for it. It's bullshit."
“You want me to go yell at someone?” he offered, only half joking.
You huffed a quiet laugh. “Tempting. But I’ve got it.”
He shrugged, leaning back against the counter, scanning the department out of habit. Calm, for now. Nothing pressing. You’d already picked up the phone.
"Hey- yep, it's me again. Listen, I spoke to neuro and they said they're not coming down. No signs, no symptoms- nothing to review. So can we please just admit him and have your team assess in the morning?" Your voice was firm but not loud.
Jack watched as you ran your free hand over your face, obviously tired of the conversation. The person on the other end was clearly wasting your time.
"Yes, I just sent over the risk assessment. The one saying the ER is a clearly inappropriate environment for him to stay in- yes, even behavioural health-" you huffed, making eye contact with him and rolling your eyes as you listened to the other person talk. "And what's your clinical reasoning for that?" you asked, pausing as the person spoke again. "Alright, well then if it's a staffing concern I'll be raising that as a patient safety incident and- no? You don't want me to do that? Well-" You nodded, satisfied. "Wonderful. I'll be up with him in 20 minutes, I look forward to seeing you then."
Jack raised an eyebrow as you hung up the phone with a mutter of "Absolute prick" under your breath. You glanced at him, shrugging sheepishly.
"That's one way to handle it," he said, grinning.
You took a sip of coffee and looked far too pleased with yourself. "That's the most efficient way of handling it." You stretched and stood up, grabbing a pile of papers and organising them into the man's file. "The hospital's scared of paperwork. I love paperwork. That means the hospital's scared of me."
"Well, I'm glad you enjoy it," Jack said dryly. "One of us has to."
You just grinned and tucked your papers away. There was a pause, the silence hanging between you in that way that felt heavy without being uncomfortable. Jack was trying not to stare, but you were a lot more fun to watch than the rest of the ER.
After a beat, you cleared your throat and shifted your weight.
"Right, I'm going to get him up to psych. Thank you for the coffee again, Dr Abbot!" You gave his arm a brief, absent pat as you moved past, already calling out for an orderly to bring a wheelchair up. Just like that, you were gone - pulled back into the current of the department.
Jack stayed where he was for a second longer, coffee in hand, before pushing himself upright again and getting back to it.
At 7 a.m., Robby arrived, looking far more handsome than he had any right to in his old hoodie and scrubs. His backpack hung off one shoulder as he made his way through the department, nodding to staff as he passed. He was scanning the room as he went, always watching, always observing- it was what made him such a good chief of ER, though the hypervigilance followed him home, leaving him tense and struggling to relax more often than he wanted to admit.
Jack's eyes caught him as soon as he walked in, their bond prickling through the distance as Robby’s gaze locked on him from across the room. It was always like this- Robby's presence felt like a heartbeat just beneath Jack's skin, something steady and grounding in all the chaos. Jack felt a pang of longing so strong it made his chest ache. He wanted to go home with him, to hold him close and feel that warmth right against him, not greeting each other at handover, passing like ships in the night.
"Morning, sunshine," Robby greeted, his voice dry as he clapped a hand on Jack's shoulder. "How was your night?"
Jack glanced over at him, unable to hide the smirk that tugged at his lips. "Oh, you know, the usual. Blood, guts, and green men claiming to be from outer space." He rubbed his eyes. "Oh and someone who drank so much soy sauce he sent his sodium through the roof. Lab made me confirm it three times.”
Robby snorted, shaking his head in amusement. "Only you, Jack. Only you." He glanced around the ER, taking in the chaos. "Anything I need to know about before I take over?"
Jack quickly filled him in on the night's events, pointing out the patients who were waiting for beds upstairs, the ones who would be discharged. Robby listened intently, nodding along and making mental notes, his sharp mind already processing the information and formulating a plan of action.
As they talked, Jack found his gaze drifting back to you, standing off to the side, handing over to the day shift psych nurse. You looked as exhausted as he felt, your shoulders slumped and your eyes heavy with fatigue, but there was still a smile on your face as you chatted with your co-worker. He couldn't help but admire your resilience. Working the night shift was rough on even the best of them, but you handled it with grace.
The thought came uninvited, familiar enough now that it barely startled him- what it would be like to have you there at the end of a shift like this. Not here, in the noise and fluorescent glare, but at home instead, in their bed, tucked between him and Robby, warm and soft against his chest.
He shook his head, banishing the thought before it could take root. It was a dangerous line of thinking, one that led nowhere good. You were young, still building something for yourself, while he and Robby were settled - fixed, in a lot of ways, with too much history and weight behind them to pretend otherwise. It wouldn’t be fair, not to you, and not to what they had already built together.
They had talked about it before, in hushed voices at home long after the stress of the day had faded into quiet. They had acknowledged it for what it was - mutual, inconvenient, and impossible to ignore - but had agreed, just as deliberately, that it was not something they were willing to act on.
Didn’t make it easy.
Not at the end of a shift like this, when he was worn thin and the edges of things felt a little less solid than they should.
"Jack?" Robby's voice broke through his reverie, and Jack blinked, realising he'd been staring off into space. "You still with me, brother?"
"Sorry," Jack mumbled, rubbing a hand over his face. "Long night."
Robby studied him for a moment, his expression softening with concern. "You should get some rest," he said quietly, knowing Jack wouldn't listen to his advice but needing to offer it all the same.
Jack just nodded, pushing himself away from the desk. "I'll see you later." he leaned in, pressing a quick kiss to Robby's cheek. "Don't work too hard."
"Never do," Robby shot back with a grin. Jack made his way to the locker room, intent on grabbing his things and heading out before he could get roped into anything else. But as he passed you, he slowed just slightly, enough to reach out and let his fingers brush your arm.
“Hey,” he said quietly, waiting until you looked up. “You did good work tonight. Get some rest, alright?”
You blinked at him, a flicker of surprise crossing your face before you nodded. “Thanks, Dr. Abbot. You too.” You hesitated, like there might have been something more to say, then stopped yourself. “See you this evening.”
“See you then,” he said.
He gave a brief nod to the rest of the staff and kept moving, too tired to linger any longer than necessary.
The drive home blurred together, familiar streets sliding past in a haze of exhaustion. He barely remembered pulling into the driveway, or fumbling with his keys before finally getting the door open. Inside, he moved on autopilot- taking off his prosthetic and switching to crutches, pulling off clothes- not even bothering to turn on the lights or check the time before he collapsed onto their bed.
The sheets still carried Robby’s scent - warmth and smoke - and Jack inhaled deeply, letting it settle around him, something close to peace in the aftermath of the night. Sleep came faster than expected, pulling him under as soon as his eyes closed.
He was too tired to dream. That was always a mercy.
summary: the pitt notices the growing tension between you and dr. jack abbot, even after you're moved to the day shift temporarily - spurring forth a secret bet you're both unaware of. jack is there when you get injured at work, and he shows you just how helpful his hands can be.
warnings: 18+ MDNI, porn with a lotta plot (we work for our porn in this household), undefined age gap, hint at power imbalance (they're both consenting adults), sloooow burn, swearing, jealousy, mutual pining, jack is a yearner, so much tension it's dizzying, santos is a menace, lots of dialogue, reader has had knee surgery, reader gets injured, mentions of jack's prosthetic, swat jack, pet names (pretty girl, sweetheart, baby), detailed explicit smut, reader is desperate (aren't we all for that old man), dirty talk, teasing, praise kink, nipple play, fingering, oral (f!recieving), squirting, jack comes untouched, thigh grinding, unprotected pnv (reader is on birth control), service dom!jack, aftercare, dual pov, no use of y/n, not beta read, partly proofread, smut is not proofread (whatever i wrote is between me and the demon that possessed me)
word count: 16.7k (last 6k is straight up smut)
authors note: part 2 is finally here 😭 i have been going back and forth on this for weeks; i cannot just go full smut so apologies for the additional plot to part 1 (i'm not sorry, i love the pitt shenanigans 🙂↕️). i finally listened to yes, chef - shawn...the man that you are. i live for praise so don't be shy 🫦
song inspo: ooo - amber mark
divider credits: red line divider by @/omi-resources, medical divider by @/sisterlucifergraphics
part one masterlist
Have you ever thought about the things we could do?
Wakin' up next day smellin' like my perfume
I'll turn you on, I know you want those
Late night views, just us two, me on you
Jack Abbot knew what he was doing was wrong.
Well, maybe not wrong per se—but it wasn't typical attending behaviour. He knew for a fact he wouldn't guide Crus to an empty patient room if he caught him with a slight limp, knew he wouldn't touch Ellis' bare leg let alone fucking massage it.
The first time it happened he convinced himself that no, it was typical attending behaviour—he was concerned that your pain would affect your ability to treat patients. And yeah, there was a sliver of understanding as well—he knew how hard it was to ignore the physical ache, how once it reached a point it became an obsessive loop of pain, pain, pain.
Having an excuse to touch you, to get close to you—that was just a bonus, it wasn't the sole reason he was helping you. At least that's what he kept on telling himself, to convince himself that the professional boundaries were still there.
The second time he dragged you into an empty patient room, he was able to admit to himself that it wasn't typical attending behaviour. And while helping to relieve your pain wasn't wrong, the thoughts he had with your leg on his lap definitely were.
The thoughts he carried home with him after every shift with you, they were wrong. But, fuck, did they feel so right. Touching himself remembering how your skin felt under his hands, replaying your small pained whimpers and the look of relief on your face —he knew that was wrong. Moaning your name out as he came over his fist and stomach, he knew that was wrong. But no one would ever know—you would never know.
"So," he started, his fingers pressing into the spots on your calf he knew were the worst. "Any more first date horror stories?"
He didn't know why he was asking. He didn't want to know about you going out with other men. But it was on the long list of things about you that kept him up as he tried to sleep—the incessant thoughts about you spending your time with a man that was undeserving. Endless thoughts about another man's hands tending to your knee, hands that were allowed to drift higher and pull sounds from you he could only dream about hearing.
You placed your hands behind you on the patient bed, leaning back on them. "No, I've learned my lesson. Think I might get started early on that whole single, crazy cat lady thing."
His breathy laugh brushed across your bare shin. "Oh, yeah? How's that going?"
You pretended to think for a second with a hum. "I went to an animal shelter the other day, there was a cute three legged cat that I wanted to adopt."
He felt his chest crack open with something warm at the thought of you with a little amputee cat.
"Why didn't you?" His hazel eyes were tender when they met yours.
"Just…don't know if it's the right time. They're much less work than dogs, but it's still a pet—something that would rely on me." You shrugged, looking up at the ceiling because his eyes were too intense. A small wince left you as he worked on a tight knot.
"You're a very reliable person, I'm sure you could manage just fine. Plus, it's a three legged cat—those guys are adorable." He finished with a half smile.
You looked at him again, a small smile gracing your lips. "It sounds like you really want me to adopt this cat."
Jack was ready to go to every animal shelter in Pittsburgh to find that cat himself, if it guaranteed you wouldn't waste any more time on a man that wasn't him.
He finished off the massage with a soft pat to your shin. "If it means that you won't date any more assholes, then yeah, I want you to adopt the damn cat."
You were aware of the eyes on you and Dr. Abbot since he began helping with your knee. It was obvious when Ellis' and Shen's eyes trailed after you both as Abbot steered you towards South seventeen the second time he noticed your pained wince and limp. And it was especially obvious when Nurse Vivi came into what she thought was an empty room, intending to prep it for a patient from chairs.
"Oh! I'm sorry, doctors." She shot you a peculiar smile, her eyes flicking down to your exposed leg. "You okay?"
Dr. Abbot stood up and approached the door that Vivi was half standing in. "Yep. Just an old injury flare up." He said casually, like he did this for every one of his staff. He gave you a single nod before walking back into the ED.
The few hours until the end of your shift after that incident were full of raised eyebrows from Lena and Bridget—mainly directed at Dr. Abbot—and curious side-eyes from Ellis.
Lena approached you in the staff locker room as you grabbed your bag, Ellis doing the same at her locker next to yours.
"Hey, sweetie," she gave you a warm smile. "You know you can tell me if anything, if anyone, is making you uncomfortable, right?"
You felt heat rush up your neck—you understood what she was insinuating immediately. "Yes, of course!"
She tilted her head to the side, a look of suspicion pulling at her features.
You sighed, "it's nothing, really. I have an old sports injury that's been acting up, and Dr. Abbot has been helping when it slows me down."
Lena nodded slightly with a small smile. "He's a good man."
You didn't need the reminder. It was something that had you spiralling while trying to sleep more often than not lately.
"Let us know when it acts up again, okay? An ex once told me I have the hands of a masseuse." She ended with a wink before exiting, throwing a wave at you two over her shoulder.
The fourth and last time Dr. Abbot sat on a stool in front of you, it felt like you were under a microscope. You caught the double takes nurses did as they walked past the open curtain, and the small smirk on Ellis' lips had you wanting to shrink in on yourself.
You couldn't even enjoy the feel of his hands on your skin.
You couldn't enjoy the way his scrub sleeves were pulled taut around his biceps, the fabric straining against his thick muscles. You couldn't enjoy how every tendon in his arm tensed and moved while he massaged your calf, a sight that normally left you speechless—that left you with an ache you could only satiate with your hand between your thighs, imagining it was his instead.
Then there was the way Dr. Abbot looked at you in those brief moments you were alone—like he was memorising every detail about you. It made you want to crawl out of your skin. He was so goddamn attentive, catching every micro-flash of pain your face betrayed. And despite the sinking feeling that what you were doing was wrong, his hands on your skin felt so right—they left you feeling dizzy and flustered every time.
His voice was always softer, the rough edge of his professional doctor side falling away. He spoke to you almost as if you were a friend, and made it seem like this was something he often did with friends.
It was in that soft voice of his that he opened up about his own pain with his amputated leg—telling you the small things he did to help alleviate the pain, recommending you the cream he used, reminding you to take a small break whenever the chaos quietened enough.
"Can't have my best resident suffering," he mumbled, his eyes flicking to your mouth when one of your pained whimpers slipped free.
You chuckled through the tightness in your chest from his praise. "Don't let Ellis or Crus hear you say that—they might swap to the day shift in retaliation."
He let out a scoff. "Nah, they're too weird for the day shift," he gave you one of his signature winks. "Besides, I think Ellis would end up in a fist fight with Robby if she had to spend a full twelve hour shift with him. God knows how many times I've been close to punching him."
You threw your head back with a loud laugh, your body shaking from the intensity. You gave him a teasing smile after you caught your breath. "Isn't he one of your closest friends?"
Jack couldn't stop the full blown grin on his face, the sound of your laughter filling his body with a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time.
"And? You telling me you haven't wanted to cause your friends physical harm when they were being dicks?"
Another giggle slipped out of you. "Yeah, you've got me there. Santos has a photo of a bruise I gave her when we went out a few weeks ago." You held up a finger as his eyes shot up to yours, his eyebrows raised in surprise and his mouth parting to no doubt give you shit. "Before you say anything, she totally deserved it."
He shook his head with a small laugh, squinting his eyes at you. "I'm sure she did."
He finished massaging your leg, rolling your scrub pant down over your knee. He flashed you a small smirk before giving your calf a light pinch.
"I always knew you had a fiery side."
Fuck.
At the end of your next shift was when you realised how serious it really was. You were standing in the ambulance bay before morning rounds, catching a breath of fresh air when Dana joined you outside.
"I can already feel this is gonna be a long one," she huffed, pulling out a cigarette and lighter.
She lit the cigarette and took a long drag before looking at you with a glint in her eye. "You nightcrawlers are great at leaving a mess behind."
"Hey, that's not on me. I clean up after my weirdos." You crossed your arms over your chest and leaned against the exterior wall.
"You ever think about coming back to us, kid?" She flicked the butt of her cigarette, bringing it to her lips for another puff. "Step back into the light, you need the sunshine." She patted your cheek lightly.
You rolled your eyes fondly. "Always the mama bear, Dana. I get plenty of light, seeing as how my shift finishes when the sun comes up."
She let out a soft chuckle. "Touché."
She cleared her throat softly before taking a step closer and laying a hand on your arm. Her voice dropped low, soft. "Nurses, they like to talk. And you have been a hot topic lately, missy."
You tensed immediately, a nervous laugh slipping past your lips. "What—what are you talking about? Has my…work been called into question?"
She rubbed your arm with a squeeze. "No, no, nothing like that. People are just worried, maybe a little intrigued. Is there anything I should know, doll?"
"Is this about Dr. Abbot?"
She gave you a brief nod and you sighed, your head dropping forward. The exhaustion from the twelve hour shift was bordering on unbearable and all you wanted was to crawl into bed.
"I swear, nothing is happening. I would never do that, would never jeopardise my career like that. He just happened to notice my knee injury a few weeks back and has been helping when it hurts. I told Lena all this…" you trailed off, your voice dropping to a mumble.
She finished her cigarette, pressing the butt against the wall before chucking it in the bin next to her. She turned back to you, a look of understanding on her face and a glimmer in her eye.
"Okay, I just wanted to hear it from you." She pulled you into a side hug, squeezing tight. "I'll tell the rumour mill to pipe down, don't want you running off before you become an attending."
You both walked back into the ED, only one of you aware of the conversation that was happening on the hospital's rooftop.
The brisk morning air was biting on the roof, tingling Robby's cheeks as he pushed the door open and let it swing shut with a loud thud behind him.
Jack was leaning against the roof's railing, both arms braced against the cold metal with tension lining his shoulders. He didn't bother turning—there was only one person who knew to find him on the roof at this hour.
"What are you doing, brother?" Came Robby's gruff voice, partially swallowed by the early morning sounds from the city around them.
"Engaging in quiet contemplation. You?"
"Not what I'm talking about." Robby stopped beside his friend, resting his side against the railing with his hands in his pockets.
Jack shot him a side glance, "I have many talents; mind reading isn't one of them."
Robby raised his eyebrows, giving Jack a pointed look. "I'm talking about your resident."
"Crus? I've left him in charge for ten minutes tops, he can't have caused that much damage."
"Don't play dumb. It's not a good look on you."
"You're wrong, everything is a good look on me." Jack shot his friend a half smirk, the tension in his shoulders betraying his nonchalant behaviour.
Robby let out a frustrated scoff, growing tired of Jack's obvious deflecting. He straightened his posture and crossed his arms over his chest, showing his friend that he was serious.
"You know what's not a good look? Dragging your resident into empty patient rooms and massaging her fucking leg." Robby said, a sharp bite to his words.
Jack winced, dropping his head forward slightly. He didn't think word would get to Robby that fast.
"I'm just trying to help her." Jack grumbled, feeling like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It's not a big deal."
Robby let out a loud incredulous laugh. "Tell her to go see a goddamn physio, Jack!"
Jack sighed and shook his head, growing frustrated at this conversation. Tell you to waste money seeing a physio? When he was more than willing to help, to provide the relief you need?
"I want to help her."
For a second, everything around them froze. The wind came to a halt, the sounds of early morning traffic dissipated. All that was distinguishable was the sincerity in Jack's voice, the conviction behind his words. And that's when Robby knew that this—whatever it was, whatever Jack was feeling—ran deeper than what Lena had insinuated to him and Dana the day before.
Robby shook his head with a small, disbelieving laugh. "You're fucking screwed, my friend."
Jack twisted his wedding ring around his finger, trying to ground himself. He didn't want to accept his feelings for you, didn't want to unlock the door that was clearly labelled 'DANGER' in bright red letters.
"I'm moving her to the day shift."
Jack's reaction was instant.
He pushed off from the railing, crossing his arms over his chest and levelling a cold glare at Robby.
"No. She's my best resident." His tone was sharp, his annoyance bleeding through.
"It's just for a week, while Whitaker is visiting his family." Robby sighed as Jack stood strong, his shoulders moving in a shrug that said 'why should I care'. "You know we need all the help we can get on the day shift—you nightcrawlers can survive without her."
Jack didn't believe that for a second. He needed you on the night shift with him—needed it like he needed air to breathe. The thought struck him deep in his chest, a cold realisation seeping into his bones.
Robby clapped him harshly on the back, throwing an arm over his shoulders as he pivoted them to walk to the rooftop door.
"You could be more grateful—I'm saving your sorry ass from a gruelling trip to HR."
When Robby told you they needed you back on the day shift to cover for Whitaker you were hesitant at first. Not that you had much say in the matter, but the timing of it felt suspicious—Dana had just questioned you about the Abbot situation, and not even thirty minutes later Robby was pulling you aside for a chat about your schedule.
It didn't help that multiple pairs of eyes were not so subtly watching your conversation with your chief attending. You tried your best to not let your surprise show, offering Robby a small smile and a "no problem". One pair of eyes was harder to ignore than the others—eyes that you fantasised about more often than not, eyes that you had to pinch yourself from getting lost in.
Eyes that followed you as you said goodbye to your colleagues, engaging in excited conversation with Mohan and McKay who were ecstatic to have you back on the day shift. Eyes that didn't care that their obvious staring had drawn unwanted attention.
Ellis was finishing up her notes on a patient, tablet in hand as she prepared to pass them off to Santos. She was watching her night shift attending with a small smirk on her face—his forlorn puppy dog expression making her disturbingly pleased. Santos let out a snicker beside Ellis, her own eyes clocking Dr. Abbot's yearning disposition.
Ellis turned to Santos, both sporting matching smirks on their faces with a mischievous gleam in their eyes.
"Want to start a new bet?"
Jack was furious with Robby.
Actually, he was angry with a lot of people lately. He was quicker to snap, his patience wearing thin—on track to lose his title of being the 'fun dad' of the PTMC Emergency Department.
Robby had told him that you were only going to be back on the day shift for one week, just to cover while Whitaker was away. It had been three weeks since Whitaker had returned to the Pitt, and you were still on the day shift.
The night shift had been surviving without you, though barely hanging on by a thread. The main issue they were having? Abbot's perpetual foul mood.
The only time the night shift ever saw a flicker of something warm cross their attending's face was during shift change. It had them all raising their eyebrows, looking at each other knowingly, and digging into their wallets.
"Thirty bucks on Abbot making a move after a paramedic hits on her." Shen murmured to the group gathered at the Hub during shift change, him and Ellis keeping watch in case you or Dr. Abbot appeared. He had witnessed a paramedic hit on you once before, right in front of Abbot. He thought he heard a bone in Abbot's hand fracture from how tightly clenched his fists were.
"Nah," Princess breathed out. "I'm putting twenty on them being together for at least a month."
Perlah hummed next to her. "You thinking they got together after that bad date?"
Dana peered at the group huddled at the counter over the top of her glasses. "Have you seen how he's pining after her? There's no way they're together."
Ellis let out a little whistle, the signal for one of you nearby. The group split off in different directions, Shen slipping a handful of cash into Ellis' hand as they passed each other.
Robby hummed from his spot next to Dana, eyebrows raised as he read over a chart. "You know you shouldn't be entertaining them…"
Dana scoffed, her eyes tracking you as you stepped into Central nine. "You're one to talk—I heard you bet fifty on him confessing after she gets hurt."
"I bet twenty," Dana gave Robby a knowing look, raising her eyebrows at him. "What? I know my friend and I know his white knight complex."
"Yeah," Dana murmured quietly, "that's going to catch up to him one day." She gathered a stack of papers on the counter, stamping them down on the surface to straighten them. Her eyes flicked back up to Robby. "You really think he's going to do somethin' before she becomes an attending?"
Robby sighed, dragging a hand down the side of his face—his beard audibly scratching against his palm. "He stopped wearing his wedding ring a couple weeks ago. I think he's been holding himself back longer than he'd ever care to admit."
The first week you were on the day shift, Jack found himself walking into the ED twenty minutes earlier than he usually did. By the third week, he was standing at the Hub over an hour before shift change. He quickly found out his early arrivals were both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because it was an extra hour he got to see you; to hear you laugh at something Princess said, to admire you as you cared for your patients, to be by your side the second you let out a wince.
A curse because Santos was hell bent on torturing him. He knew she was doing it on purpose—she had a whole twelve hour shift to talk to you, to gossip about your personal lives, yet it seemed that whenever he was near you two all she wanted to talk about was your dating life.
"I know you're still pissed about Mark," Santos started, slinging an arm around your shoulder as you checked the board at the Hub. "But—hear me out—there's a pedes attending at Presby I want to set you up with."
Jack slowed down on the other side of the Hub, pulling up a random chart on a discarded tablet to act busy while his ears strained to hear the rest of your conversation with Santos. A pedes attending? Really?
You let out a disbelieving laugh. "You're joking, right? I am not going out with anyone you suggest ever again."
Santos groaned, throwing her head back dramatically. "How many times do I need to apologise? I'm sorry, okay—I promise Ben is the real deal, he won't make you pay for anything."
You shrugged her arm off your shoulder, turning to face her with your arms crossed. "Wow, that's a real high bar you got there, Trin. I feel spoiled," you drawled sarcastically.
She held her hands up in defence. "Fine, don't believe me. You're the one who's going to be sorry you let a catch slip through your fingers."
Her eyes glanced over to the other side of the Hub, catching the way Abbot was standing still with rigid shoulders and a frown pulling at his face. She couldn't stop the small smirk twitching her lips—he was definitely listening.
"Garcia can vouch for him, they did their residency together." She watched, delighted, as your arms loosened, your mouth moving side to side like you were considering it. "And," she dragged out, "he's exactly your type."
You rolled your eyes, but the small bite to your bottom lip gave away your interest. "What, emotionally unavailable?"
You watched as Santos eyes lit up, a slow smirk taking over her face as she subtly nodded towards where Dr. Abbot was standing.
"Old."
A rush of heat crawled up your neck and you elbowed her in the ribs. "Shut up," you hissed with wide eyes.
"You two done gossiping over there?" Dr. Abbot's voice barked out. "I'm sure your patients would love to know they bled out because you were busy planning a date."
You whipped your head to the side, your shocked eyes meeting his cold glare. His hands were gripping the counter's edge, his eyebrows raised as he gave you a pointed look.
You scrambled under his attention. "Sorry, Dr. Abbot, won't happen again." You shot Santos a sharp look before turning on your heels and hurrying towards the North nurses station.
Santos jutted her hip out and crossed her arms over her chest, levelling her superior with a knowing look across the Hub.
"What's the matter? You jealous, Abbot?"
He straightened up, clasping his hands behind his back. Everything about his posture screamed composed—except for the muscle that flexed his jaw.
"Get back to work."
Trinity turned back to the board with a hum, satisfaction thrumming through her veins. She was definitely going to win the bet.
The torture didn't stop there. No, that would have been too easy. Instead, Jack had to hear more about your dating life—this time at the end of a punishing twelve hour shift.
You were walking through the ambulance bay doors with Santos on your right and Mohan on your left. The three of you were fresh-faced in the early morning hours, each of you holding a cup of coffee in your hands. Jack's eyes were drawn to you instantly, catching the way the fluorescent lights brightened your eyes and highlighted the sleepy smile stretching your lips.
He was too busy getting lost in the mere sight of you to notice the sly look Santos threw his way.
"What is it that you like about older guys?" Trinity asked, nudging you with her elbow. Mohan let out a chuckle from your other side, suddenly finding her coffee very fascinating.
You shot Santos a bewildered look, your brows furrowing and mouth parting slightly. Before you could express your confusion, she continued.
"Is it the knee thing?"
"What?" You asked, a puzzled laugh lacing your words. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you bond with them over your upcoming knee replacements?" Santos asked with a cocky grin.
"Oh, shut up," you shove her shoulder lightly. "It's way too early for me to deal with your abuse."
The three of you reached the Hub, exchanging soft smiles and greetings with the night shift nurses. Your eyes flickered to Dr. Abbot briefly, his broad frame hard to ignore. He met your eyes for a second, giving you a small nod before turning to Lena.
"But seriously, I'm curious," Santos said, resting her elbows on the counter and cocking her head to the side. She didn't bother lowering her voice, gaining the attention of your colleagues scattered around the Hub—which, unbeknownst to you, was her full intention.
You narrowed your eyes at the mischievous smile on her face, a sense of dread tightening your throat. That look never meant anything good for you.
"How do you fuck your geriatric boyfriends when you've both got bad knees?"
A chorus of sounds echoed around the Hub.
Mateo snickered loudly behind his hand.
Samira let out a shocked gasp beside you.
Lena muttered, "oh dear."
Robby let out a long exhale, his mouth trembling in effort to not bark out a laugh.
"What the fuck, Trinity!" You exclaimed, slapping her arm harshly. Your response earned a few chuckles to sound out around you, causing the embarrassment you were feeling to clog your throat. Your wide eyes found Dr. Abbot's, his blank expression giving nothing away.
You quickly brushed past your amused coworkers, shoulder checking Santos on your way to the lockers. For a brief second, mortified tears blurred your vision. It was one thing for her to talk about setting you up on dates while working, but to make a joke about your sex life—in front of the unattainable attending she knew you had a crush on—was a step too far.
Jack watched as you bolted through the ED, a mix of emotions storming within him. He was irate with Santos, jealous about whoever these 'boyfriends' were, and concerned about you. He caught the flicker of hurt that crossed your face at Santos' question, the panic in your eyes when you looked at him.
And, he couldn't ignore the desire pooling low in his gut. Because it was something he had thought about—what position would feel best for you, what would guarantee you the most pleasure without hurting your knee. And he knew that if he ever was lucky enough to have you writhing under him, he wouldn't give a fuck about his leg.
Whilst Santos' jabbing was uncouth, it did confirm one important thing for him—you liked older men. Enough to want to fuck them.
That fact had his cock twitching in his scrub pants.
"You hear that, brother?" Robby murmured quietly, standing closer to Jack than he was a second before. "You might have a chance." Robby chuckled and gave Jack a pat on the shoulder before turning to the staff gathered at the Hub.
"Alright," he exclaimed, clapping his hands together once, "day shift, gather round."
The PTMC Emergency Department was a high stress, fast paced environment. You had seen multiple of your fellow coworkers take a tumble, faint from exhaustion, or be injured due to a patient's aggression. Every time it happened, Dana sternly directed them to the staff break room without fail. You had made it to your fourth year of residency without being dragged there once. That's not to say you didn't get injured, you just hid your pain better than others—one of the pros of living with chronic pain for so long (or a con, depending on who you asked). You were just two months away from becoming an attending, and you were determined to keep the record for the least amount of injuries endured during your time at PTMC—even if it was a record that you were the only one keeping track of.
Stupid Ogilvie and his lack of spatial awareness.
You let out a hiss as Dana pressed an ice pack against your knee. You were sitting at the small round table in the break room with your injured leg resting on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs.
"Oh, hush, you big sook," Dana said with a small teasing smile. The faint line between her eyebrows gave away her concern, though.
A small rush of air left your nose—something that might've been a laugh if you weren't preoccupied with the unbearable throbbing in your knee.
Dana brushed a stray hair back from your forehead, fixing you with a pointed stare. "I need to get back out there or else the whole place is going to fall apart." She poked your forehead gently, "you need to stay put, missy. Understood?"
You nodded with a small pout. "Yes, understood. No more life saving today," you grumbled out.
"Good. If you need anything…you're Ogilvie's patient now," she said over her shoulder, throwing you a wink before closing the door behind her.
"I never want to see his face again," you mumbled petulantly to the empty break room.
With nothing else to do but sit, you grabbed the tablet off the table and started to catch up on charting—or what you could catch up on without a hospital computer. Twenty minutes later you were groaning with your head in your hands, your good leg on the ground bouncing impatiently. Ten minutes of doing nothing and you were already bored shitless. You could hear the symphony of a busy ED calling to you through the closed door—voices shouting over one another, an urgent page being called over the speaker system, a child with a healthy set of lungs screaming.
Back in the ED, Jack was ripping off his blood soaked gloves in Trauma two. He had just finished performing a clamshell thoracotomy on his buddy Officer Riveria, who had been shot in the chest from crossfire during an armed bank robbery. Jack walked the short path towards Central, tearing off his SWAT vest and dumping it on a chair in the Hub—barely paying any attention to Dana who scoffed at his appearance.
He could feel his t-shirt clinging to his skin uncomfortably, sweat soaking through to his SWAT uniform leaving visible patches—which he couldn't care less about in that moment. He had been in the ED for half an hour already, and he had yet to hear your voice. It was unsettling.
Even during the most adrenaline inducing, hectic shifts he could still make out your voice above the noise. And last time he looked at the schedule, you were meant to be working the day shift.
"Hello to you, too," Dana mumbled, raising her eyebrows at Abbot's swivelling head.
"Hi," he glanced at her briefly before looking at the board, trying to see if you were assigned to any patients. "Where is she?"
Dana chuckled, shaking her head. Of course he noticed you weren't on the floor. "Who?"
Jack responded with your name quickly, just as McKay stopped next to him at the Hub—letting Dana know a patient was ready for discharge.
"Oh," McKay snorted, "Ogilvie knocked her down with a gurney earlier."
"What?" Jack seethed, levelling a glare at Dana—why wasn't that the first thing she said to him?
"Take it easy, soldier." Dana gave him a sharp look. "She's in the break room, she's fi—"
Jack didn't wait to hear the rest of her sentence, darting through the ED in a rush to get to you. He flung the door open to the break room with force, making you look up at him with startled eyes.
"Dr. Abbot? What are you doing here?"
He ignored your question, making his way to you in two long strides and squatting down next to your injured leg. You watched as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched tightly, an irritated huff leaving him. Your eyes wandered from his face to his shoulders, your eyebrows scrunching at his camo sleeves—was he wearing fucking SWAT gear?
"What are you wearing—"
"I'm going to fucking kill Robby," he seethed.
"Robby? What did he do?" You asked, your head swirling with more questions.
Dr. Abbot lifted the ice pack off your knee gently, drawing in a sharp breath at your red, swollen joint. His eyes snapped up to yours, a battle of concern and anger warring in the hazel depths.
"This wouldn't have happened if you were with me."
Jack realised his slip a second too late, watching your eyes widen in surprise at his words.
"If you were on the night shift," he mumbled quickly, his eyes darting back down to your injured leg.
A calloused finger pressed softly to the bottom of your knee, just below the swelling. A pained wince left you at the barely there touch.
"Fuck, sweetheart." Abbot whispered, his brows pulling together in worry. "This doesn't look good."
"I'm fine," you breathed out quickly, your heartbeat picking up at him calling you sweetheart again. "It's fine, it was an accident."
"It's not fine," he said sternly. "You're hurt."
"I've dealt with worse."
He let out a deep sigh, shaking his head at your stubbornness. He stood back up—his leg twinging briefly in complaint. He took a few steps back, leaning against the kitchenette and crossing his arms over his chest.
"Alright—if you say you're fine, stand up."
You met his raised eyebrows with a deadpan stare—your bruised pride fighting against the desire to submit to him, to let him take care of you.
You sucked in a breath, lifting your injured leg off the chair and placing it on the floor hesitantly. The pull of gravity had your knee aching in an instant, the swollen joint throbbing incessantly. You tried to keep your face blank as you braced both hands on the table, using it to support yourself as you rose to your feet. You put all your weight on your good leg, and Dr. Abbot clocked it immediately—his eyes glued to your legs as you tried to stand nonchalantly.
"Take a step."
That stupid stubbornness flared hot despite the agony you were in, not wanting someone—especially the attending you thought about obsessively—to take care of you. Well, the problem was how badly you wanted him to take care of you, and you refused to let that show—to be the damsel in distress.
You took a small step forward on your injured leg and crumbled in a second, trying to bite back a pained whimper and failing. Abbot was there before you could catch yourself on the table, one strong arm wrapping around your waist and a steady hand supporting your upper back.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," he mumbled low, his body so close to yours that you could feel his voice rumble through you.
Jack stood still, relishing the feeling of you in his arms. Your breath was warm against his neck, your curves soft beneath his hands, and he could feel you leaning into him. It was fucked up—you were injured, biting down your pain to try not be an inconvenience, and he wanted more. He wanted so much more.
Keeping his arm around your waist, he grabbed your bag hanging off the chair and hiked it up his shoulder. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket, drawing your attention to the gun on his hip—
What the fuck, since when was that there?
"What's your address?"
Your eyes snapped up to his face, your mind trying to process the sight of him in sweaty SWAT gear with a fucking handgun strapped to his hip. "Huh?"
He didn't look at you, thumb tapping on his phone. "I'm getting you an uber home. Give me your address."
"N-no, thank you, but I—"
He levelled you with a hard look, his eyes unrelenting. "This is not a discussion. Your address, now."
A thrill shot up your spine, his bossiness doing concerning things to your mind and body. You gave in, mumbling out your address—your body still actively aware of his thick arm wrapped around your waist, his warmth radiating through your clothes.
Jack grabbed your arm, slinging it over his shoulder and bringing you closer to his body—your perfume and something uniquely you cutting through the antiseptic and settling in his chest. His body screamed at him to turn his head, to bury his nose in your hair and inhale your scent like it was oxygen. His hand on your waist gripped tighter.
"What are you—" you started, shocked by his sudden closeness. The lines and freckles on his face were even more deadly this close.
"It's either this or I carry you. Your choice."
You slowly limped your way towards the door, consciously leaning as little weight on Dr. Abbot as possible—worrying about the strain you were putting on his prosthetic leg. Pain shot through your knee with every step you took.
"That's not gonna do, sweetheart."
He pulled you closer to him, essentially lifting you with every step. It took the weight off your leg, and had your breath stuttering at his strength.
Heat flushed throughout your body as you neared the Hub, your head dropping to ignore the curious and teasing stares from your coworkers.
"Hey, prince charming!" Dana's voice called over the rush of the ED. "This isn't your dumping ground!" Both your heads turned to see her holding his SWAT vest, shaking it with a pointed look before swinging her arm back and throwing it.
The hand steadying your arm on his shoulder lifted, catching the vest with ease. He handed it to you without a word, your free hand clasping around the slightly damp fabric.
It felt like it took hours to get to the ambulance bay, all the eyes on you two making you feel like an animal on display at the zoo. As you reached the doors, you faintly heard Javadi's voice behind you.
"Why didn't he grab a wheelchair?"
The uber was already waiting and Dr. Abbot helped you in the backseat before rounding the boot and getting in the other side. The door slammed shut, leaving you enclosed in the small space with your devastatingly attractive attending and crush.
"What are you doing?"
He grabbed your bag off his shoulder and the vest from your hand, putting them on the floor in front of him. His fingers clasped around your injured leg gently, lifting it and resting it on his lap.
"Making sure you get home safe."
The twenty minute drive to your apartment was quiet, the soft music droning from the car's speakers the only noise filling the uber. Dr. Abbot's hands rested on your leg the whole time, his thumbs rubbing absentminded patterns on your scrub covered shin.
Your brain stopped functioning approximately two minutes after the car pulled away from PTMC, when the first slow circle of his thumbs started. Instead of feeling the throbbing pain of your knee, you felt a throb grow north of it—slow strokes of fire coursing up your leg and gathering at the apex of your thighs. It was embarrassing, how desperately your body reacted to him and he wasn't even touching your skin.
You stared out the window the whole ride, despite how badly all the cells in your body ached to look at him—to map the lines of his face, to catch the way the sunlight coming through the window highlighted his stubbled jaw and changed the colour of his eyes. God, his eyes. You wanted to get lost in them, to watch them shift from honey amber to sunlit green—you wanted to know what colour they shifted to when dark with hunger, when dilated pupils eclipsed the sunburst irises.
Jack tried to keep his gaze locked on the seat in front of him, distracting himself with counting every individual stitch in the fabric. This was the fifth time he had placed your leg in his lap, but it felt different than the times previous. Maybe it was the protective anger curdling his gut—he had already drafted three carefully worded texts to Robby in his head—or the dangerous pull in his chest telling him that you were right where you belonged, next to him. All he knew was that the aching need to take care of you was now etched into his bones. Sitting next to you in the uber on the way to your place had nothing to do with him worrying about you as your attending—he was just a man needing to look after the woman he cared about deeply.
He couldn't stop his eyes finding the side of your face even if he tried—he was a moth to a radiant flame. He stored more details away in the overflowing file cabinet with your name on it; how the sunlight made your hair glow, how your lashes fluttered as you fought off fatigue, how despite the exhaustion and pain shadowing your face you still looked beautiful—ethereal. He wanted to worship at your altar.
Once the uber parked outside your building, he was quick to lower your leg—hands oh so gentle, again—and grab the bag and vest off the floor. He was out of the car before you could blink, opening your door and helping you out of the car with the strong hands you fantasised about daily. He offered the driver a quick thank you and it struck you deep in the chest—such a simple, kind act that you had watched men fail to do time and time again.
Your arm was back over his broad shoulders, one of his securely wrapped around your waist. It only hit you then how badly your body had missed the warmth of his pressed against you. And then something more frightening—exhilarating—hit you: Dr. Jack Abbot was going to be in your apartment.
Your step faltered, your heartbeat picking up in terror—or anticipation, only god knows.
"Thank you for your help—for the uber—but you should go—"
"No."
"Your shift is in a few hours, you should rest."
He let out a frustrated huff through his nose, turning his head to shoot you a hard look—his fingers on your waist tightening.
"Quit being stubborn and let me help you."
You opened your mouth to protest more, to say he's helped you enough, but the words died on your tongue before they had formed. You were sore and exhausted—that was the excuse you told yourself for letting your attending guide you into the building.
Your place was exactly how you left it—half a dozen medical textbooks littering your coffee table, your laptop still open on the dining table with sticky notes of varying colours covering the surface, a few dirty dishes stacked next to the sink. Your basket of clean underwear sitting on the couch waiting for you to put away. Because, of course the day Dr. Jack Abbot helps you home is your lingerie wash day.
Heat rushed up your neck as he helped you limp towards the couch, dumping his SWAT vest on the coffee table before grabbing the basket and putting it on the floor out of the way. You watched, intrigued, as red dusted along his neck and cheeks, his eyes looking everywhere but you.
His hand lingered on your waist as you sat down, before he cleared his throat and helped you get situated—placing a throw pillow under your injured knee and another behind your back. He started to take off your shoes, and it hit you at a dizzying speed how natural and domestic this all felt.
How nice it felt to have him in your home, taking care of you with no fuss. You can't remember the last time someone treated you with such care—the few times you asked your exes for help with your knee pain they made you feel like a burden.
Having Abbot treat you so gently, so delicately, only made the butterflies storming in your stomach increase tenfold. You were starting to feel sick, overcome with dangerous emotions at the hands of your attending.
You dropped your eyes to your hands fidgeting in your lap. "Thank you again, Dr. Abbot. For—"
"Jack."
You looked up at him to find him already staring down at you. Your hands started to shake.
"What?"
His voice was soft, low. "When it's just you and me, it's Jack."
You heart decided to find a home in your throat. "Oh…well, I appreciate your help," you smiled up at him softly, "Jack."
In that moment, Jack knew he was done for. He had noticed you only ever called him by his doctor title or last name, and now he knew why. His name sounded like it was made to slip from your tongue, like everyone else before you had said it wrong. He had to be careful—if you said his name with that little smile again, he was sure he would drop to his knees before you.
He stepped away from the couch, needing to do something else to distract his brain from the fantasy of you gasping out his name as he tasted you. He grabbed his vest and walked towards the kitchen—the open plan layout allowing him to keep an eye on you still.
You watched as he removed his gun from its holster, checking the safety was on before pulling the clip out, disarming it—the act alone sending a shiver racing up your spine. He didn't need to do that, but you figured he did it for your peace of mind—to ensure you felt safe in your own home. It had no right being that hot.
Your eyes landed on the gun and vest now sitting on your kitchen counter before you ran them over his sweaty uniform again, unconsciously biting your lip.
"So, you moonlight as a…SWAT medic?"
He started to look through your kitchen cabinets, pulling out a water glass. "My therapist said I needed a hobby."
"And all the men's shed's in Pittsburgh were at full capacity?"
He filled the glass with water, the side of his mouth quirking with a smirk. "Didn't meet the age requirement. I'll try again next year."
He brought the glass of water over to you, an amused glint in his eye.
"That where you scout for your dates? The men's shed?"
Your cheeks grew warm. "I am going to kill Santos," you muttered.
Your phone vibrated in your pocket and you pulled it out to see multiple texts from Santos. Speak of the devil.
Trin: (412) 858-5725
Trin: Ben's phone number
Trin: If your knight in sweaty swat gear doesn't make a move
You put your phone away quickly, grabbing the glass from the coffee table and taking a deep gulp to try soothe your nerves.
"Where do you keep your pain meds?"
Jack was still standing next to the couch, looking down at you with his hands in his pockets.
"There's a box under the bathroom sink," you told him. "First door on the left."
Jack returned less than a minute later, carrying your overflowing plastic container of pain medication—an eyebrow raised in surprise.
"Should I be concerned you're going to start a meth lab with these?"
"Medical textbooks are ridiculously expensive."
He chuckled in response, putting the container on the kitchen counter and grabbing a handful of pills for you. You accepted them with a small thank you, watching as he sat on the small armchair diagonal to you.
He nodded towards the textbooks splayed out on your coffee table. "How's the studying going?"
An involuntary sigh slipped out of you. "It's going fine, I guess." His furrowed eyebrows prompted you to elaborate more. "I'm—being on the day shift, I'm struggling to find the time to study." You watched his jaw clench and you quickly backpedalled. "I mean, that's not an excuse—I'm not trying to blame being on the day shift! It's my own poor time management, Samira seems to be doing fine. I just think the night shift suited me more…I miss you—it. I miss the night shift."
Your face was a furnace by the time you finally shut your mouth, refusing to look at Jack and instead glaring at the textbooks on the table like they had caused you grave pain.
"We miss you too."
Jack was struggling to control his breathing, feeling angry at Robby for keeping you off the night shift for the past month. Angry at himself for not pushing harder to keep you with him. It was obvious the day shift was not what was best for your well-being; here you were in front of him injured—by a day shift intern—, exhausted from the long shifts, and barely finding the time to study for your attending boards. He would bet his good leg that the only thing in your pantry was packets of ramen.
He took the lull in conversation to look around your apartment properly, a faint smile curving his lips as he spotted the decorations and trinkets that were very you. Something fond gripped his chest at the photos on your bookshelf. There was one of you and Santos on a night out—tipsy smiles and arms slung over shoulders—another of you and Ellis in your scrubs pulling the finger at the camera, and one on a higher shelf that had his heart tumbling.
It was of the night shift, everyone crammed into a small diner booth after a particularly rough shift. You two were sat next to each other, his head leaning back on the booth seat as he slept and your head turned to him with a soft smile on your face. He remembered the day it was taken—everyone called him grandpa for a week afterwards for falling asleep—but he didn't remember you looking at him like that. Like he hung the moon and the stars.
He cleared his throat, trying to get rid of the emotion clogging it. He opened his mouth and said the first thing he thought of. "No cat?"
You lifted your head, looking at him quizzically. "I've never had a cat."
"What about the one we talked about?"
"Oh, that cat." You shrugged, "someone else adopted the little guy before I could."
"That sucks." And because his jealously won out over his logical mind when he was near you, he continued. "Does that mean you're still dating assholes?"
You laughed nervously, crossing your arms over your chest. "Do we have to talk about my sorry excuse of a dating life?"
Jack stayed quiet, not sure how to downplay his interest in your dating life—in you.
You sighed. "No, I'm not dating assholes—I'm not dating anyone at the moment, despite Trin's persistence."
Jack let out a gruff hum, feeling both pleased that you're not wasting your time dating and annoyed at the reminder of Santos' terrible matchmaking. "So I've noticed."
You winced. "Sorry, I'll tell her to stop talking about it at work. Not that she listens to anything I say, but it's unprofessional."
Jack dragged a hand along his scruff, tempted to tell you that it was the jealously souring his gut that bothered him, not the unprofessionalism.
"How's your knee?"
You shifted your injured knee on the pillow, relieved when you only felt a dull ache instead of sharp throbbing. "Stiff, but the meds are kicking in at least."
"Did you get that cream I recommended?"
You started to get up from the couch, lifting your leg and clenching your teeth when the pain came back."Yeah, but I can go get it. You've done more than enough, you should—"
Jack was by the couch in less than a second, putting a gentle but firm hand on your shoulder to keep you seated. "If you tell me to go one more time, I swear to god."
You looked up at him, your breath catching at his broad frame towering over you.
"I don't want you to think I'm a burden." Your voice was smaller than you would've liked, a crack lacing through.
Jack's heart fractured at your words, his walls starting to crash down. "You're not a burden to me. I want to help you."
The sincerity in his voice made yours shake. "Why?"
He took a deep breath. "For reasons I shouldn't say out loud."
Your heart stumbled before picking up, feeling like it was going to beat out of your chest.
"Jack…"
"Don't. Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you have no clue what you do to me."
But, you didn't know what you did to him. This was the first time you were aware he might've shared a fraction of the feelings you had for him.
"Let me take care of you and then I'll go, okay?"
You gulped, now feeling unsure of where you stood with your older attending. You gave him a small nod.
"Okay."
He stepped back, looking both satisfied and torn at your response. "Good."
"The cream, it's in my bedroom—but I'll go get it."
"No, you can't even walk by yourself. Stay there, I'll get it." He raised an eyebrow at the panicked look on your face. "Unless, you don't want me in your bedroom. You hiding dead bodies in there or something?"
That got a small laugh out of you, and he felt his shoulders relax the slightest—some of the tension from his almost confession dissipating.
Jack Abbot in your bedroom was a thought you had way too frequently, but that wasn't what had you stubbornly trying to stop him from getting the pain relief cream. It was because you knew the cream was in your nightstand—the same one your small collection of vibrators were in.
You were an adult. Owning a vibrator or two was normal. Jack was also an adult, you're sure he's seen sex toy's before. So, you sucked in a breath and put your big girl pants on.
"No, it's fine. I just—the cream's in the top drawer of the nightstand on the left."
Jack found your bedroom easily in your small apartment, your perfume and scent hitting him hard as soon as he pushed the door open wider. He stood still for a second, breathing in a deep lungful and feeling himself get even more addicted—if that was possible. He beelined for the nightstand, opening it and finding the cream he had recommended to you what felt like a lifetime ago. His hand faltered, his gaze finding the toys next to the cream—sticking out like a sore thumb. Your hesitation about him coming into your room suddenly made complete sense.
His cock twitched in his pants at the sight of them alone, and his traitorous mind didn't take long to supply him with the fantasy of you using the toys on yourself—laid out on your bed in front of him, listening to his commands as he told you how to fuck yourself.
He adjusted himself in his pants, shaking his head to try rid himself of the thoughts before walking back into your lounge.
You watched as Jack came back with the cream in hand, nerves tightening your throat at the deep red covering his neck and cheeks. He definitely saw the vibrators.
He didn't say a word, just waved the cream at you and sat on the other end of the couch—moving the pillow under your leg aside so he could move closer and rest your leg in his lap. Despite this not being the first time he's helped with your knee, it felt entirely different. Maybe it was his half confession lingering in the air, or the fact that you've been wound tightly for so long. Either way, the first touch of his fingers on your bare skin as he rolled your scrub pant over your knee had your core clenching desperately, embarrassingly.
The late afternoon sun streamed through your sheer curtains softly, painting your apartment in a dreamy haze that softened the edges of your mind. Neither of you spoke, the soft sounds of your breathing filling the room. His touch was featherlight on your knee, gently prodding to assess your pain—his intense gaze never leaving your face.
The first slide of the cream on your inflamed joint offered a small reprieve, a small sigh leaving your lips.
"This okay?"
You nodded, staring down at his hands on your leg—noticing the absence of his wedding ring. They drifted higher, rubbing the cream into the tight thigh muscles above your knee. A gasp slipped from you as his fingers pressed deeper, rolling a knot that had formed due to the tension from your injury.
Your eyes flicked up from watching his hands, finding his glued to your parted lips. They stayed there for a second longer before meeting yours and your breath caught in your throat. You could see where the amber bled into green, the faint blue ring on the edge of his irises. You watched his pupils dilate, his eyes darkening like a storm rolling through a forest.
Your eyes dropped to his lips, the soft light highlighting the stubble framing his face and making the cupids bow on his top lip stand out—looking incredibly enticing and kissable.
You both leaned in slowly, the thread between you pulling tighter. His breath brushed against your lips and the tension you'd been harbouring for months—years, even—snapped. You closed the distance, pressing your lips to his in what you wanted to be a tender kiss but was anything but—your desperation bleeding out of you.
He breathed in through his nose sharply, his hands on your thigh tightening before he returned your kiss slowly. One of your hands bunched the fabric of his SWAT top, the other sliding up the back of his neck and finding its place in his silver curls. You pulled him closer, kissing him with more urgency.
A moan rumbled in Jack's throat at the feeling of your hand tugging his hair, and he brought a hand up to cup your jaw—losing himself in the press of your soft lips against yours. His hand on your thigh gripped tight and pulled you closer, briefly forgetting that you were in pain.
He sucked your bottom lip between his, nibbling on the plump flesh and drawing a soft whimper out of you—your hips trying to rock despite the awkward position of you half pulled onto his lap.
The sound had Jack's cock jumping eagerly, still half hard from thinking about you fucking yourself with your toys. His hand on your jaw slipped to grasp the back of your neck, tilting your head back. His tongue ran along your bottom lip and you opened for him without hesitation. The first caress of your tongue's against each other drew matching, low moans from both your chests.
You felt your core grow wetter and you needed more, your hand fisting his top travelling down to slide under his layers of clothes and touching his solid, yet soft, abdomen.
The feeling of your hand touching his skin had reality crashing down on Jack, making him pull away from your lips with visible effort. Your mouth chased after his with a small whine, the hand in his curls trying to yank him back to you.
"We shouldn't," he panted, his breath hot against your lips.
"Please," you whispered, not caring how desperate you sounded.
He dropped his forehead to your collarbone, a shaky moan leaving him at how needy you sounded and the intoxicating scent of you wrapping around him.
"You're injured, I'm your attending, this is—"
You grabbed his hand clutching your thigh, dragging it up until his fingers grazed your scrub covered core. All logic and reasoning faded from his mind as he felt the heat radiating through your clothes. He was shocked for a brief moment, that your aching need for him matched his own for you.
"Touch me, please. Make me feel good."
Jack thought he had died and gone to heaven—those sweet words whispered into his ear sounding even better than he had dreamed.
"Fuck," he breathed into your scrub top, his hand moving and cupping your core. A gasp shot out of you and you ground your hips against his hand.
His head lifted and he peppered light kisses on the side of your neck—his stubble scratching your skin lightly. You pushed his head harder into your neck, desperate for him to take more. He let out a chuckle at your eagerness.
"You always this needy?"
His teeth sinking into your neck stole any response you may have had, a moan leaving your lips instead. His kisses grew in confidence, his mouth leaving trails of spit across your skin as he relished in the sounds he was pulling from you. His hand on your core moved, his palm pressing harder against your clothed clit—your hips rocking faster in response.
You pulled his head from your neck, his dark eyes meeting yours before he lunged for your mouth, his kisses turning punishing—teeth clashing, tongues fighting for dominance, stubble scratching and burning your skin.
The warmth in your core transformed into a raging fire—you had never been this turned on by a kiss before. You could feel slick oozing from your cunt, your underwear sticking to your core where his hand was moving against you. You were sure you were leaking through your scrubs, and you might've been embarrassed if it weren't for the lust lighting up your body.
Jack pulled back, his hand stilling against you causing you to let out a displeased whine. He looked down at his hand, an expression of awe on his face as he saw his palm with a light sheen of wetness and the dark patch on your pants.
"You're wet." He said, like it was a miracle.
You nodded, both hands gripping his jaw to pull his lips back to yours. He turned his head, still looking at his hand in amazement. It had been a long time since he last touched a woman, but he didn't remember them getting this wet from some kissing and light groping.
Your lips found his neck, lavishing the wrinkled and freckled skin with the same attention he gave you. You bit along his jaw gently, soothing the bites with a wet glide of your tongue. His chest vibrated with a deep groan and you doubled your efforts, sucking on a spot below his ear. The sounds he was making made you even more wet, small whines getting stuck in your throat as your need for him ricocheted.
"Fucking hell, sweetheart." He groaned, his dick starting to leak from your mouth on his neck and the little sounds you let out. "You're gonna make me come in my pants if you keep doing that."
His words stroked the fire in you higher, your nerves singing with pleasure at the fact you were unravelling him just as he was you.
He pulled you away from him and stood up, watching as your hazy eyes blinked up at him unfocused, a small frown pulling your kiss swollen lips down.
He hooked an arm around your back and the other under your thighs, lifting you off the couch.
"Jack, your leg—"
"Is fine. Let me do this."
He ignored the strain on his amputated leg, carrying you the short distance to your bedroom. He laid you down on your bed gently, taking extra care to not jostle your knee.
You sat up on your elbows, biting your lip as he stood at the edge of your bed—not moving, just staring down at you with his mouth slightly agape.
"You have no idea how long I've thought about this. How long I've spent wanting you."
Your chest stuttered at his admission, heat licking up your spine at the raw want in his voice.
He leaned down, placing his hands either side of your head and kissing you slowly, tenderly. Your hands settled in his curls, your lips responding in kind—your chest aching with something far more dangerous than need.
He trailed kisses down your jaw and neck, nuzzling his nose into the junction where your neck met your shoulder and inhaling deeply. An almost pained groan tore from his throat and it made you arch up into him in need.
His hands gripped your hips and lifted you further up the bed, your head resting on your pillow. His thumbs rubbed on the sliver of bare skin your bunched scrub top exposed, his questioning eyes meeting yours. You lifted your arms up before he could ask, and he pulled the fabric over your head—throwing it somewhere behind him.
His eyes dropped to your chest and he licked his lips, his hand slipping behind your back to undo your bra clasp. He pulled your bra straps down your shoulders slowly, like he was unwrapping a delicate present.
"Jack," you breathed out, impatience lacing your tone.
He dropped his head, kissing along the swell of your breasts.
"Didn't know my name could sound so sweet until you said it." He mumbled into your skin.
He finally pulled your bra away, throwing it in the same direction as your top. He sucked in a sharp breath at your exposed breasts, his eyes closing briefly as he gathered himself.
"You're beautiful."
Then he latched onto one of your nipples, sucking lightly and pulling a gasp from you. A large hand cupped your other breast, his thumb rubbing circles around your nipple—the dual simulation making fire sprint down your abdomen to your core. Your hips rocked underneath him, and he chuckled at your desperation—the sound vibrating through your body.
Your hands found the hem of his SWAT top and pulled, wanting to see the thick muscle he hid underneath scrubs. His touch left you for a second as he pulled his top off, exposing the black t-shirt underneath. And you swear you'd never seen a simple t-shirt look so hot before. It was tight around his bulging biceps, his muscular abdomen pressing through the fabric. You only had a second to ogle before he was stripping it off as well, leaving you with a sight you had only dreamed about.
The only word in your head at that moment to describe Jack Abbot was thick. You knew he was big, but seeing it without clothes felt surreal. You ran your hands over his bare chest, marvelling at the muscles jumping beneath your touch. His skin was dusted in freckles, a patch of light hair covering his chest that was soft under your fingers. His shoulders were broad and your jaw ached to cover the sturdy flesh with bites.
You gripped his shoulders and pulled him down, your lips meeting in a desperate kiss that had you both moaning. Your hands travelled down his shoulders to his back, pulling his bare chest down to meet yours. The feeling of his pecks against your breasts had you sucking his bottom lip with need.
You slid a hand down his bulky abdomen, revelling in his body jerking under your hand. You dipped a finger in the waistband of his camo pants, pulling slightly before moving your hand down and cupping his hard cock through the fabric. The feel of him had your core clenching—he was big, bigger than you had ever taken. It sent a thrill coursing through you and you gripped him harder.
"Shit," he hissed, grasping your hand and pulling it away from him. "Not today, sweetheart. It's all about you now, okay?"
He kissed down your chest, lavishing at your breasts again and you let out an impatient whine, pushing his head down to where you needed him most.
"Stop teasing."
You could feel his lips curve into a smirk against your skin. "But you sound so pretty."
He sucked harshly on your nipple, pulling it between his teeth and biting down. Your hips shot off the bed with a gasp, your knee throbbing from the sudden jolt but you didn't care. He repeated his ministrations on your neglected nipple before—finally— his kisses travelled down your stomach and stopped at the waistband of your scrub pants.
His lips sucked light marks along your lower stomach and hips, his fingers toying with your waistband and dipping under before tracing the marks his mouth left.
"Jack, please." You whined, your need echoing in your quiet room.
"You sound so good begging, baby."
He pulled away, hooking his fingers around your pants and underwear—slowly pulling them down your legs like he had all the time in the world. A groan rumbled out of him at the sight of your slick clinging to your underwear, a line keeping them connected to you until they reached your knees. He doesn't think he's seen anything hotter.
He was careful pulling your pants down over your injured knee, pressing a light kiss to your inflamed skin before your pants were finally off of you. He grabbed a spare pillow near your head, propping it under your knee and adjusting you so you were comfortably spread open with no weight bearing down on your knee. He kept his eyes on your face the whole time, checking for any hint of discomfort.
"You tell me if it starts to hurt, okay?"
You nodded in response.
"Words. I need words, sweetheart."
"Yes, I'll tell you, Jack. Just touch me already, please."
His eyes left your face, travelling down your heaving body and ending at your core. Your need was glistening all over your mound and a moan vibrated through him at the sight. He brought a hand to your core, his fingers lightly trailing down your wet slit making your hips jump off the bed. His other hand pressed flat against your lower stomach, his weight holding your hips down.
"You're fucking soaked. This all for me?"
You nodded quickly, your breaths coming quick—pent up from months of wanting and his merciless teasing.
"Yeah? I get you this wet?"
"Yes, Jack—only you. Been wet since I saw the SWAT uniform." The confession slipped from you, need obliterating your filter.
His face morphed into a shit-eating grin. "That right, pretty girl? I'll make sure to wear it more often."
He pulled away from you and you groaned in annoyance.
"What the fuck, Jack!"
He chuckled at your impatience, a cocky smirk plastered across his face. He sat on the edge of your bed, quickly pulling the leg of his pants up to take off his prosthetic leg and leaning it against your bed. He turned back to you, lowering himself between your legs—the feeling of his breath against your core making your thighs twitch.
"Just getting comfortable. No more teasing, promise."
And then he was licking a long strip up your dripping slit, his dark eyes holding your gaze captive. You threw your head back, a sigh of relief leaving you. One of his hands gripped the thigh of your injured leg, keeping you steady as the other pressed down on your lower stomach again. He licked torturous and slow, his eyes closing as he made out with your lower lips.
"Taste so fucking good, better than I imagined." He moaned into your core, eliciting a gasp from you.
Your hands found his soft curls, gripping tight as he feasted on you. You tried rocking your hips to chase the friction but his strong hand kept you still, making you whine pathetically.
His tongue found your clit, alternating between flicking it and drawing circles around it. Fire built up in your core quickly, gasps of his name and please falling from your lips.
Jack's cock was painfully hard, precum leaking and dampening his pants as he listened to the sweet noises you let out because of him. He knew this was going to be ingrained in his brain forever—you panting beneath him, all desperate and needy, his taste buds overloaded with your delectable nectar. You were better than any drug and he was irrevocably hooked.
His tongue dipped down to your entrance, circling it twice before plunging inside your walls. Your core clenched down at the intrusion and he moaned into your core—delicious vibrations spreading up to your clit.
"Yes," you gasped, hips trying to chase the pleasure his mouth was unleashing. His tongue started to thrust in and out of you and a hand left his hair to grip his hand on your stomach. "Please, feels so good."
Obscene slick sounds filled your room, your core drenched from your arousal and Jack's spit. His tongue went back to your clit, the hand on your thigh moving up and tracing light fingers around your entrance. Jack watched in hunger and fascination as your core clenched in anticipation.
"You want my fingers? Be a good girl and tell me how bad you need them."
Your whole body lit up at him calling you a good girl. You opened your eyes to see him already staring at you, his gaze heavy and hungry.
"Yes—fuck, please—Jack I need them so badly. Want you to fuck me with them, please."
You didn't need to beg for long, one of his fingers dipping into you and curling against your walls. A moan slipped out at you, your walls clamping down on the single digit.
"Fuck, you're tight." He moaned into your clit, sucking it into his mouth harshly. You let out a wanton moan, your hips pushing against his hand holding you down. Another finger slipped inside you and he pushed them deeper, thrusting them against the spongy spot that no other man cared to find. You mewled, embarrassingly needy as a familiar tension built in your core.
"Oh my god, right there," you moaned out and his fingers picked up their speed, curling to stroke against that spot over and over. A third finger joined in and your eyes shot open at the stretch. His mouth doubled down on your clit, sucking harshly and nibbling gently.
"You gonna come for me?"
Incoherent babbling spilled from you—his name, please, and fuck being the only words your brain seemed capable of forming.
Jack was grinding his hips on your bed, feeling like a teenager ready to bust from the first moan that you let slip free. His cock was pulsing in his pants, so close to coming already.
"Yeah, that's a good girl. Come on my fingers."
The hand on your stomach pressed harder and the tension in your core shifted, still familiar but also different—tight and overwhelming. One last sharp suck to your clit had you soaring off the edge, your whole body tensing and head throwing back as pleasure rushed through you like a roaring fire. You came with a loud cry of his name, your ears ringing and white spotting your vision. You felt wetness gushing from your cunt, warm and sticky—amplifying and drawing out your release until it bordered on painful.
Jack groaned against your core as you gripped his fingers tight, sucking them in deeper as you squirted over his face, his hand, your bedsheets. Your fingers in his hair pulled as you panted and heaved beneath him. He pulled his mouth off your clit, moaning out your name as he spilled in his pants—your release making him come untouched. He continued moving his fingers inside you, drawing out your orgasm with his eyes focused on where release was squirting out of you with every thrust of his fingers.
"Good girl. You did so good."
Your fingers in his hair trembled, yanking softly as you tried to squirm away from his touch. "It's too much, Jack." You whined and he finally relented, drawing his fingers out of you with a loud, sinful pop. Your half open eyes met his, watching through a hazy fog as he lifted his soaked fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean—a deep groan tearing through him and you almost moaned at the sight.
He kissed up your body slowly, sucking and biting on a nipple and drawing a yelp out of you—your overstimulated body shaking underneath him.
"That was fucking incredible," he whispered into your neck, sounding starstruck. "You're incredible."
You giggled softly, his stubble tickling your neck. "That was all you." One of your hands brushed along the broad expanse of his shoulders, the other toying with the curls at the top of his neck. "I've never done that before," you admitted in a small and dazed voice.
He continued to nibble on your neck. "What, hook up with your boss or squirt?"
You slapped his shoulder lightly. "Both."
"Pleasure was all mine, sweetheart."
He removed his head from your neck, soft eyes gazing into yours before he leaned in and kissed you sweetly. His arms wrapped around your back, pulling your chest to his as he kissed you deeply—pouring everything he couldn't say yet into the kiss.
He pulled back, his eyes roaming around your face trying to memorialise this moment in his brain. He caught sight of the clock on your nightstand, a frustrated groan vibrating his chest as he saw he had to be at work in just over an hour. He dropped his forehead to yours for a few seconds, before pushing himself off of you with pained effort.
"I gotta go get ready for work. I—uh, need to clean myself up."
You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion before looking down, finally spotting the dark wet patch on his camo pants.
"Oh."
He put his prosthetic leg back on, standing and looking back at you still naked on your bed—spread out and glistening in your own release. He quickly walked to your bathroom, grabbing a clean towel from the cupboard and wetting it in the sink. He returned to your room, hit with the overwhelming smell of you—your perfume, your natural scent, your release. It had him debating calling in sick to lay tangled in the sheets with you, making you feel good until you passed out.
He cleaned you up gently, the soft press of the damp towel on your sensitive cunt making you twitch and flinch away.
"Easy, baby. Almost done."
He pressed a kiss to your forehead once he was done, a thumb brushing across your cheek.
"Okay, now I really have to go or Robby will send out a search party."
You bit your lip, your come down leaving you feeling exposed and vulnerable. "What…what does this mean?"
Jack didn't want to leave you alone, the uncertainty in your eyes making his chest ache. "We'll talk about it properly later, yeah? Just rest now—I'll order you some food."
He grabbed you some pyjamas out of your dresser, leaving them folded next to you on the bed. He left you with instructions on how to look after your knee—despite your insistence that you had been living with the pain for over a decade and you were a doctor as well, you knew how to take care of your injury.
After your front door clicked softly behind him you stared up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, your mind still not comprehending that you had hooked up with Jack Abbot—and he had made you come harder than you ever have in your life. So much was still left unsaid, but there wasn't a cold ache in your heart like you expected at the uncertainty. You trusted Jack, and you trusted that he wouldn't leave you spiralling for too long.
Just after seven pm your phone lit up with a text from Robby.
Robby: You're back on the night shift once your knee is better. Rest up.
A smile took over your face, a sigh of relief leaving you. You knew Jack was responsible for the shift change, and it had warmth spreading through your body from your chest.
Not even twenty minutes later, your screen flashed with texts from Trinity.
Trin: DID YOU AND ABBOT FUCK
Trin: Don't even try to lie to me
You: We didn't fuck
Trin: Then why is he smiling like he won the lottery
Your lips stretched into a grin.
You: Maybe he did?
Trin: Tell me what happened right now
Trin: I'm gonna be pissed if Robby won the bet
You: What bet, Trinity?
Trin: Shit gotta go! Someone's dying
You: Someone is always dying. Did you guys make a bet about Jack and I?
Trin: SMS ERROR: The phone number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.
Trin: …did you just call him Jack?!?!?!?
You were drafting a profanity filled response to her when a text from Jack came through.
Abbot: Dinner is 10 minutes away. Hope Vietnamese is all good.
Abbot: Ice your knee afterwards.
You didn't see Jack for seven days after that. He text you throughout the week, checking in and assuring you that you would talk but not over the phone—that you deserved more than that. The swelling in your knee eased by day three, and by day six it barely hurt anymore. You were under strict orders to not even think about the hospital, and you only left your apartment to go for walks around your neighbourhood—you didn't even go to the grocery store, there was no need to when Jack arranged groceries to be delivered to your front door.
He called you a couple times after a long shift, just wanting to listen to your voice as he struggled to sleep. He sat on the phone while you studied for your boards, giving his input when you started to ramble and spiral about a topic you thought you didn't understand—to which he reminded you that you were one of the most capable residents he'd seen walk through the PTMC doors. His confidence in you helped with the spiralling, and only made your need for him build to dizzying heights.
Neither of you brought up what happened at yours, both silently agreeing that it was a face to face conversation. It didn't stop you from thinking about it every night though, about him. You didn't ask him to come over before or after his shifts, not wanting to come on too strong despite how badly you wanted to see him again.
It was on day seven of not seeing him that you said fuck it. You were basically climbing the walls by that point, growing restless from doing nothing but sitting and studying and dreaming about all the ways Jack could fuck senseless. You knew it was his first scheduled day off in two weeks and while you should've let him rest, the demon he had unlocked inside of you didn't care.
You made it to mid afternoon before you sent him a text.
You: Hey, you busy?
Jack: No. What's up?
You: Think you could come over so we can have that talk?
Jack: I'll be there in 30.
True to his word, Jack knocked on your door twenty-eight minutes later with a takeout bag in his hand.
"Hey, I got us some sandwiches from the new deli on—"
You didn't give him time to finish, yanking on his sweatshirt's collar and dragging his lips down to yours. A shocked noise sounded in the back of his throat before he responded in earnest, his free hand wrapping around you waist and pulling you into his body. He staggered into your apartment, blindly closing the door behind him as you kissed him with a bruising intensity.
He pulled back to catch his breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly. You moved your mouth to his neck, sucking and nipping his neck as the desperation you'd been feeling for the past week clawed at your chest and core. You slipped your hands under the hem of his sweatshirt, relishing in the heat of his bare skin beneath it.
"Slow down, sweetheart." He chuckled, his hand moving from your waist to grip your jaw and pull you back. You let out a small whine, your brows furrowing in annoyance. "Did you ask me to come 'round for a booty call?"
You huffed. "No—I mean yes, but I wanted to talk too." You stepped back from him, feeling a drop of embarrassment for how you pounced on him. You took the takeout bag from his hand, offering him a soft smile. "Thank you for getting food."
"Of course."
He followed you as you made your way to the kitchen, putting the food on the counter and turning back to him with a sheepish expression.
"Thank you for everything this past week. The groceries, the late night—for you—study sessions. It…means a lot."
He stepped forward, resting his hands on your hips before pulling you into a hug—his strong arms wrapping around your back making you melt into his embrace. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders and you nuzzled into his neck with a soft, content hum.
"Anything for you, sweetheart." He mumbled into your hair. Your heart soared in your chest.
He felt the tension from the last week dissipate from his body now that you were back in his arms. He hadn't realised just how stressed he was until that moment.
He pulled back slightly, keeping an arm wrapped around your back as a hand cupped your jaw. He leaned in, kissing you softly before resting his forehead against yours.
"Hi."
You giggled in response. "Hi."
"I haven't stopped thinking about you, about this."
Your hands gripped his curls, pulling him down for another bruising kiss. His hands slid down your back before resting on your ass, giving it a light squeeze and making you sigh into his mouth. You traced your tongue along his lips and he opened willingly, his moan ringing throughout the kitchen as he tasted you again. You pushed your hips flush to his, grinding against the hard length you could feel growing in his pants.
You whimpered into his mouth. "Please, I need you."
He pulled his mouth back from yours an inch, his hands still groping and squeezing your ass. "Thought we were gonna talk?"
"After."
He laughed, the wrinkles on his face deepening. "You're a little minx, you know that?"
"Only for you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" He pressed a kiss to your cheek, another to your jaw, a line down your throat. "I heard you've got a thing for old men."
You sighed, tilting your head back to give him better access. "Thought I did, but I think it's just a thing for you."
He groaned against your throat. "You can't just that, baby."
"Why not?"
Jack's mouth moved to your ear, catching your lobe between his teeth and tugging. "Makes me want to skip the talking." He whispered low into your ear, your body wracking with shivers.
"Jack Abbot, you're a goddamn tease."
He pulled back fully, hazel eyes swirling with desire locking onto yours. "If we do this, it changes everything. I'm not—you're it for me. I'm not letting go of you."
"Fine by me."
He smiled, shaking his head lightly before diving back down to kiss you. He walked you backwards through your apartment, leading you to your bedroom like he had done it a thousand times before.
"How's the knee?" He mumbled against your mouth, pushing you back against your bedroom door once he closed it.
"Better. Swelling's gone, minimal pain."
He pulled back, squinting his eyes at you. "And you wouldn't be lying to me?"
"Never."
His mouth quirked up, an appraising look in his eyes. "Good girl."
A whimper slipped out of you and his eyes lit up.
"You like that? You like when I call you a good girl?"
You nodded, one of your hands gripping his shoulder and the other slipping into his curls. He gave you a peck on the lips before moving down to kiss your neck, mouthing at the spot below your ear that had you unleashing sighs and soft moans. One of his thick thighs slotted between your legs, pressing against your core and making you dizzy.
His hands grasped your hips, dragging you back and forth on his strong thigh. Your hips followed his lead, sparks shooting throughout your body from your clit. You could feel the wetness starting to leak out of you, making the friction even more delicious. Breathy pants and sighs slipped from your lips, your hips rocking faster as your body lit up under his touch. His fingers pressed harder into your hips, grunts tickling the skin of your neck as he got achingly hard from you getting yourself off on his thigh.
"Yeah, like that, pretty girl."
He latched his mouth onto your pulse point, sucking hard and making your head drop with a thud against the door.
"Jack," you breathed out. "Please."
"Tell me what you need."
Your hand on his shoulder trailed down the front of his sweatshirt, landing on his hard bulge and squeezing. His broken moan sounded in the quiet room.
"You. Fuck me, please."
"You need it that bad, huh?"
You nodded eagerly, giving him another squeeze before his hand gripped your wrist and pulled it away.
"Shit—yeah, okay. I'll give you what you need."
He spun you around, walking you towards the bed and pulling your top off. He let out a groan as he saw you were braless, your already hard nipples ready for him to feast on. He pushed you down to sit on the bed, pulling his sweatshirt over his head. Your hands grasped the waistband of his pants, trembling with anticipation as you worked the button open and zipper down. His hands found yours, pulling them away from him and you huffed in annoyance.
He moved his hands to the waistband of your leggings and pulling them down slowly. You fought back the frustrated groan working it's way up your throat—you didn't need his slow hands, you wanted him to fuck you dumb.
He ran a finger down your underwear, a damp spot already formed. He pressed down on it, earning a soft moan from you and his cock twitched in his pants. His finger moved faster, more slick soaking your underwear and he became addicted to the sight—addicted to the way your hips moved forward eagerly. He gripped both hands around the fabric and pulled them down your legs, much to your relief.
"No foreplay. Trust me, I'm already wet enough." Your desperate voice sounded out, your hands making their way back to his pants. He let you pull his pants and boxer briefs down to his knees, your wide eyes latching onto his cock as it sprung free against his stomach.
You were right. He was really well hung; thick and long, curving slightly to the left. You felt your mouth watering, wanting nothing more than to choke and drool on his length. Maybe next time.
"Did you pop a viagra before you came over?" You teased, your lips curving into a smirk as your eyes met his.
He squinted at you, giving your thigh a light smack. "Watch it, sweetheart."
Your nerves sang from his smack, and you felt the strong urge to roll over onto all fours and ask him to slap you again—though you knew he would just flip you back over because of your knee.
He toed his shoes off before pulling his pants off all the way, giving you a good look at his stupidly big thighs and his prosthetic leg. Your breath caught at him standing fully naked before you—he was beautiful; his freckles, wrinkles, and scars telling you a story of a long life that you hoped you would continue to be a part of.
"Don't need a little blue pill when I've got you. Just need to think of you and I'm already half hard."
"That was strangely sweet."
He leaned down, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. One of your hands found his cock, using the precum leaking from the tip as lube to slowly drag your hand up and down his length. He groaned into your mouth, his hips jerking forward into your touch.
He pushed at your shoulders, encouraging you to lay back on the bed with your legs dangling off the edge. He grabbed a pillow, slotting it under your hips so they were tilted up.
"I'm gonna take the leg off, okay?"
"Whatever is comfortable for you, I really don't mind."
He took his prosthetic off, the process quick and like second nature. He rested his amputated leg on the bed beside your thigh. "There might be a bit of adjusting, but we just need to communicate. That okay with you?" You nodded your agreement.
He leaned over you, one hand next to your head as the other came up to squeeze your breast and roll your nipple between his fingers. He kissed you passionately, his tongue slipping into your mouth and stubble scratching your skin. You moaned into his mouth, grabbing his cock and tugging it slowly, teasingly.
His kisses grew sloppy as your pace picked up before he pulled back, resting his head on your collarbone.
"You got a condom?" His warm breath elicited goosebumps across your skin.
"I'm on the pill. And clean."
His cock jumped in your hand at your insinuation and he stood back up to get a good look at you. His sweet girl laid out on her bed before him, telling him he could fuck her raw. Yeah, he was pretty sure he had died and gone to heaven—or hell, either worked.
"You sure?"
"Please," you breathed out, dark and lidded eyes gazing up at him desperately.
"Fuck, don't know how I got so lucky."
He brought his cock to your soaked core, dragging it back and forth with ease—the tip catching on your clit making you gasp. He repeated the motions until you were writhing under him, pretty mouth falling open and moaning out his name.
"Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me." He rasped out, his control thinning by the second.
"God, I want this so badly. I want you—I have for so long, please." You whined, snapping his restraint.
He grabbed your legs, resting your ankles on his shoulders in the butterfly position. He gripped your hips before he brought his tip to your entrance, captivated by your tight hole clenching at the slight press of him. He pushed in slowly, a guttural moan leaving him as your walls gripped tightly.
"Shit—fuck, you're tight."
You let out a whine, your cunt stretching to accommodate his girth. Your chest heaved with heavy pants, your core lighting up with pleasure and only half his length was in you. Your hands found his forearms, your fingers digging in as he pressed into you more. A wail left you once he was fully in, your walls clenching impossibly tight. You both stayed still for a few seconds, both your staggered breaths filling the room. You squeezed around him and he let out a pained groan.
"That's—you feel so fucking good."
"Move, please." You begged.
He pulled his hips back, leaving just the tip in before he thrust back in harshly.
"Fuck!" You yelled, his cock hitting against your sweet spot perfectly. He picked up the pace, his hips alternating between slow, dragging thrusts and harsh, quick thrusts—his eyes watching your face carefully, learning what made you whimper and your eyes roll back. His grip on your hips tightened, tilting them up as he delivered a harsh thrust that had a cry leaving your lips.
"You like that? Does that feel good?" You nodded mindlessly, pressure building in your core as your room filled with the sounds of your pleasure and skin slapping against skin.
"Don't stop, Jack—oh, god—"
He groaned out as you squeezed even tighter around him, his release nearing embarrassingly fast. Your nails dug into his skin, a hiss leaving him at the burning sensation. He moved a hand from your hip to your core, rubbing tight circles on your clit. Your back arched as a loud moan escaped your chest, echoing throughout your room and probably being heard by the neighbours.
He kept his pace on your clit as his thrusts sped up, the effort making his face shine with a sheen of sweat.
"That's a good girl. You close, sweetheart?"
You mewled at his praise, nodding your head and uh-huhing as the fire licked higher. Your stomach clenched as your orgasm built, and you could feel Jack's nearing—his thrusts starting to lose rhythm.
"Come inside me. Please, Jack." Your eyes shining with tears met his as you begged, and he almost blew his load right then.
"Tell me you're mine," he gritted out through clenched teeth.
"I'm yours—only yours," you gasped out.
"Fuck, I'm gonna come. Shit, sweetheart—oh fuck." Jack moaned out, and the sound combined with the dual simulation on your cunt had you coming with a sharp cry—warmth spreading out from your core, your body feeling weightless and mind going fuzzy with pleasure.
You clenched down on his cock as you came, your slick walls keeping him locked deep and he rutted two times before coming—spilling in you with a long groan.
He brought your legs down from his shoulders and collapsed on top of you, peppering your chest with kisses as his cock softened inside you.
"That was…" He started.
"Yeah," you laughed softly, your arms wrapping around his shoulders and holding him to your chest. "Pretty good for an old man," you couldn't help but tease him, earning another smack to your hip.
"Smartass."
After showering and eating you found yourself back in bed with Jack, lying next to him with your head on his bicep, one leg slung over his hip and a finger lazily tracing his chest—mapping his freckles like constellations. His free hand was running a path up and down your thigh and hip, goosebumps erupting from his touch.
You turned your head slightly to look at his face. "Did you know there was a bet about us?"
He turned to give you a bewildered look, before realisation slowly dawned on him.
"Well, that explains Robby pestering me with questions all week. Kept asking if I was getting laid, apparently the smile on my face was concerning."
You laughed softly, your heart glowing at the fact he was caught smiling at work because of you. "What did you tell him?"
I've been on a liking spree so that I could put this list together of all of the best fics of Shawn's characters I've been reading lately. This list is in no way comprehensive but I've done my very best to put everything I've been loving on it
It is also 100% smut
JACK ABBOT
quarantined by @itslowkeyatthenightshift
you and your attending butt heads—and it’s no secret around the ED that Dr. Jack Abbot is harder on you than the other residents. He pushes you further, critiques you sharper, expects more—and you’re done with it. Just as you’re about to go to Dr. Robby to request a switch to days and finally put some distance between you and him, your patient—and his patient—tests positive for COVID-19. Suddenly, you’re both exposed, and with hospital protocol leaving no room for argument, you have no choice but to quarantine together.
do you want the kitchen tour? by @witchywithwhiskey
when your already bad date takes a turn for the worse, the head chef of the restaurant comes to see what he can do to help. when he offers to give you a tour of the kitchen, you jump at the chance to escape, and your bad night turns into something else entirely.
behind closed doors by @andrewmiinyard
you took over jack and robby's spare room a few months ago and now you and jack are constantly at each other's throats. robby has finally had enough and he's hoping some forced proximity will do the trick. seems like it works a little too well.
temperature control by @mrshatosy
Jack Abbott was supposed to find a safer hobby. He wasn’t prepared to find you.
you have no idea by @geminiwritten
even after swapping from nights to days, you just can’t seem to escape the inconveniently attractive night shift attending. then a ptmc night out, a sparkly dress, and a not-so-innocent game of never have i ever leads to dr. jack abbot making sure you can never utter the words “never have i ever finished during sex” ever again
the art of mutual benefit by @softundermoonlight
“I will pay for your coffee,” you add quickly, stepping forward and leaning into his space. He keeps shaking his head, so, in a moment of pure madness, and lacking better ideas, you just say: “I’ll go down on you.”
gentleman's instinct by @sun-snatcher
Sometimes you're reminded how merciless Abbot can be. You indulge in it.
semper fi by @hirukochan
Jack Abbot finds himself feeling oddly protective over the new night shift attending. He tells himself it's natural. You were the young widow of a Marine, a military spouse who brought the greatest sacrifice for her country - your husband. He watched you push on with gritted teeth, haunted by your own demons and trauma, all for the little girl depending on you. It was only natural. Any serviceman would feel an obligation towards your well-being. Any serviceman would want to know you were safe... happy... So how come, he can't help but feel like he is stealing another man's life?
ANDREW CODY
bambi series by @miasvelvetvoid
One secret changes everything. As the Cody family’s carefully buried truths come to light, you find yourself caught between running from the people you love and fighting for them. In the end, loving Pope Cody doesn’t just change your life, it changes the entire family.
here is my hand that will not harm you by @erwinsvow
against better judgement, you send a letter to a man at folsom with very sad eyes. against even better judgement, you send letters every week for years until he stops replying one day. and against everything you know, when he shows up at your door, you invite him inside.
sweetheart by @pearlessance
Everyone knows that Pope Cody's girlfriend is a real sweetheart. What they don't know is that, behind closed doors, you're a real fuckin' freak, too.
late shift by @in-ky
Being the Cody’s on-call emergency nurse isn’t easy. A dislocated shoulder turns into late night gunshot wounds and before you know it, you’re part of the family. After a rough night, Pope needs some TLC. And who else can help him if not his favorite nurse? You’re the only one who can stitch him up, physically and emotionally.
break me down and I'll call you mine by @flowersforbucky
other than the men he brings home on occasion, you’re the only person who knows that deran cody is gay. when your best friend becomes anxious that people are growing suspicious of his sexuality, you suggest telling people that the two of you are dating. everything is going perfectly…until his brother is released from prison and you start feeling things that you haven’t felt in years.
fate. by @andrewmiinyard
the three times you decided to flirt with pope cody and the one time you decided to take it one step further.
crush by @pittrabbit
the aftermath of overhearing that conversation between pope and baz
worthy by @stellamarielu
you tell andrew you want to start a new life with him— away from the chaos of his family, and he agrees with another future promise on his mind
found out by @love-quinn
as his favourite waitress at the only diner in town that’ll still serve him, you’re pope’s girl. doesn’t matter if you have a boyfriend, everybody in town knows you belong to andrew cody. especially your poor neighbours on the other side of your apartment’s paper thin wall. you’d usually try and be more considerate of the noise, but with your boyfriend in the trunk of his car, pope needs everybody to hear exactly what he was doing on the night of the third. for alibi purposes.
TITUS DANFORTH
the hunt and the vow by @sargeant-bxrnes
you broke up with titus danforth this morning. by nightfall you’re running through his family’s forest with a seven-minute head start and one rule: if he catches you before sunrise, you marry him.
the devil's favorite by @hirukochan
In all the years Titus had been alive, no woman had ever captured his attention like you did. Titus could not explain it, he just knew, from the second he first met you, he needed you like air. And he'd move heaven and hell if necessary to get you. Not his father, not yours, not the Lawyer, Mr Le Bail or his demons he had watching over you could ever stop him.
the lottery by @thatcorporategirlie
You return to the estate after learning Chester has fallen ill, and learn that the beginning of a new game is about to unfold.
mrs. danforth by @rr-after-dark
As Titus Danforth's sugar baby, you don't know much of his secretive, wealthy lifestyle. But when he accidentally gets you pregnant with a potential Danforth heir, it's decided that you'll be joining the family. There's no manual as you're plunged into their world of extravagance and violence.
hazard pay by @spikedfearn
The Danforth estate was built to swallow screams, and tonight you’re the one cleaning up what the hunt leaves behind. When Titus Danforth arrives bleeding, furious, and far too aware of your hands on him, the private medical room becomes its own kind of trap.
please let me know if any of the links aren't working. I want to make sure everyone gets credited for their amazing work :)
// richeeduvie's work for THE PITT can be found here! // aka I got tired of linking every masterlist in every other post and forgot this was the smart thing to do lol //
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.
・。JACK ABBOT MASTERLISTS ・。
➥ MASTERLIST 1
➥ MASTERLIST 2 (SFW BLURBS)
➥ MASTERLIST 3 (NSFW CONTENT)
・。 SERIES LISTS ・。
➥ CRASH!AU SERIES LIST
➥ BABE AND RAPTURE SERIES LIST
➥ WHISK ME AWAY SERIES LIST
➥ LEGGY FIC COLLECTION (girldad!jack)
.✦ ݁˖ God. All the things he’d do to you when both of you would have a silent agreement to finally bear all the things you’ve been holding in at the skin, under the sheets–where he couldn’t help, sorry kid, but be rough in every fantasy he’s having, because he’d finally be inside you in every one of them, and hopefully at that point, there’d be no fucking guilt or gruff self hatred for imagining fucking you and holding you and having you. .✦ ݁˖
・。LINKS TO TAGS ・。
➥ JACK ABBOT X READER TAG
➥ CRASH!AU TAG
➥ ONLINEGIRLFRIEND!AU TAG
.✦ ݁˖ He smothered the promise to stop smothering you. But for your sake, maybe he has fish it out of his throat, because he’s not going to be able to handle you crying like that ever again. He won’t make it to the point where he can finally have you if you hurt like that in front of him again. Do you hear him? Does he hear himself?
He won’t make it. So. Maybe it’s best to stay out here, even if it feels like death. It’s okay. He’s felt worse. .✦ ݁˖
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.
➥ MICHAEL "ROBBY" ROBINAVITCH MASTERLIST
➥ ROBBY X READER TAG
.✦ ݁˖ Hours later, Robby replays the conversation in his head, fixating on what he said and what he didn’t. Was he your type? What he meant was: Tell me what he looked like, the way he looked at you, if you'd like him, and find it easy to imagine something deeper with him, and maybe I can figure out if I am. There will never be a day when he says that part out loud. .✦ ݁˖
.✦ ݁˖ Maybe it’s because all he can think of is Jack Abbot walking into his apartment, which is stupid—but he’s thinking of it, and thinking of how mr. clean freak would look around and decide you deserve better, as if you’re his girlfriend. You’re not. You’ve made that more than apparent.
…You do deserve better. It’s just not nice to know that you might agree. .✦ ݁˖
I noticed that some of the links in part 1 stopped working so here's part 2 (sorry if you were tagged already in part 1). I'll keep adding to this list here. Most of these fics have smut so 18+ minors do not interact!
My favourite series:
My favourite one shots:
Take Care & Listen (Brendon Park x reader) | @rr-after-dark
My favourite blurbs/drabbles:
he gets hard seeing you in high heels (Pope Cody x reader) | @cuti3-81
Forever (Pope Cody x fem!reader) | @kisscoabbot
Semi-public sex with perv!mean!tennis coach!robby (perv!mean!tennis coach!Robby x female!reader) | @robinavitchgf
in case of emergency (Robby x attending!reader) | @miniswritinblog
Jack's Human Utah (Jack Abbot x reader) | @mrsmckay
hot tub with dbf!jack (dbf!pervy!jack x reader) | @bloodnguts17
A Very Happy Birthday (Jack Abbot x reader) | @thatfanficstuff
Sweetest Little Belly (Michael Robinavitch x Fem!Reader) | @rhettsunshine
stepdad!robby loves his mini me (stepdad!robby x f!reader) | @robinavitchslut
Needy husband!Pope (Pope Cody x reader) | @velvet-lane
Toxic Foreplay (Titus Danforth x f!reader) | @in-ky
Making prejac Sammy fuck a fleshlight (Sammy Bryant x reader) | @valleyanimalz
⭒ Jack Abbot ⭒ Part 02 ⭒ Part 03 ⭒ Part 04 ⭒ Part 05 ⭒ Part 06 ⭒ Part 07 ⭒ Part 08 ⭒ Part 09 ⭒ Part 10 ⭒ Part 11
⭒ Michael “Robby” Robinavitch ⭒ Part 02
⭒ Frank Langdon
⭒ Dennis Whitaker ⭒ Part 02 ⭒ Part 03
⭒ Brendon 'The Shark' Park ⭒ Part 02
𐙚 Multi/headcannons for multiple characters
⭒ Accidentally calling you his “Wife” | @therobbycuepitt
⭒ seeing reader wearing their scrubs | @lovebugism
⭒ 𝐎𝐡 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲, 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 | @croigealai
𐙚 Dr. John Shen
Hospital Barbie | @wackapedia
When you were assigned to “oBsErVe OpErAtiOns” as part of a vaguely defined Strategic Initiatives role (read: nepotism), no one expects much, least of all, The Pitt’s freshest attending, Dr. John Shen, who’s too busy keeping patients alive and admins at bay.
Midnight Oil | @duskbornraven
You get hurt trying to check out the local hot doctor who visits your coffee shop. He winds up checking you out as well.
Work Crush, Pt. 2, Pt. 3 | @dontcurbyourenthusiasm
Let Her Know | @yougotthat-write
Does John Shen know how to deal with heartbreak?
Change Of Pace | @marvelous-slut
Meet The Father | @/marvelous-slut
Rest My Chemistry | @silens-oro
John really needs to keep his mouth shut on quiet nights
Foot In Mouth Disease | @popcornpoppypop
You come home after pulling a double on your period, excited for your day off. John unintentionally ruins it.
Sugar, Yes, Please | @imaginesofwonder
Jealous Shen | @starlord-s
Imagine | @/starlord-s
Flirting | @skymouth
Answering his phone | @justalittlepitt
𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 | @martyrmurdock
revelations are made when john shen walks into the pitt without his usual iced coffee
The Magical Glass Tumbler | @boiohboii
Imagine | @youvebeenlivingfictional
in retrospect | @/youvebeenlivingfictional
over the counter | @theunsanctionedgoth
The Shens | @eden031
Javadi and Whitaker meet a hot headed neuro resident only to find out that she is not just that.
Wife surprise | @/eden031
Shen is assaulted during his shift and the night shift meets his emergency contact.
Understanding misunderstandings | @/eden031
Shen watches his favourite resident talk to Robby before shift change, later he hears the nurses gossiping about her crush on an attending. He comes to the only logical conclusion: she has a crush on Robby.
helping hand | @shawnsarmfreckles
So Easy (To Fall In Love) | @peterpparkrr
The new Night Shift Attending and the Night Shift’s Nurse Practitioner are both idiots.
space, and the absence of it | @whimsywho
or the one where a bit of distance makes the heart grow fonder
𐙚 Trinity Santos
Loathing | @/inlovewithquestionablecharacters
Your fellow intern Santos hates you….or does she?
BLOODY MESS - PART 1, part 2 | @/dreamingofagoodfic
a bar fight leads to trinity to treat jack abbott’s bloody-faced daughter (and maybe falls for her too…)
i care a lot | @gorgeys
it only took getting assaulted for you to find out trinity’s love language is violent acts of service
fix you up | @criminalyapping
mistaken identity | @/criminalyapping
accidents happen | @auroracalisto
making a fruit tray for your girlfriend goes really well, up until the moment you slip up and hurt yourself. under the impression it wasn’t really that bad, you get to the emergency room and, well, it’s the pitt. you’re lucky they had a bed open.
Blurb | @/auroracalisto
Bad Idea Right, Part 2, Part 3 | @thedilfydoctorshow
How was Trinity supposed to know that the cute vet student that saved her cat's life was her bosses daughter???
Robby's daughter!reader x Trinity Santos
Broken hand | @marvelslut16
Reader breaks her hand and meets the prettiest knight in shining armor doctor she has ever seen.
you wake up in a hospital room at ptmc and you have no idea how you got there or why. but when your night shift attending comes bursting in the room all frazzled and worried, things get even more confusing. especially when he's saying he's your husband.
genre: jack abbot x nurse!reader, lover to stranger to ??? it's amnesia!!, 18+ smut, mdni, nsfw (just Jack having to take care of himself because he's feeling a lot of things at the moment, multi-part
word count: 3600
(a/n: can yall let me know if you'd like daily updates or weekly? I've got a large portion written, but don't want to overwhelm!! thanks for all the kind words !)
Jack was fine. Everything was fine.
When the doctor cleared you to go home, he rushed to get the house in order. Things were a mess, rightfully so, every waking moment was spent at your side at the hospital. And honestly he didn’t think you’d give him shit for it. You didn’t know how you used to get on his ass about leaving a butter knife teetering on the edge of the kitchen sink. He’d always claimed he would be back to use it. And you were always right, when he inevitably didn’t.
You were in the passenger seat of his car now, looking out the window watching the parking garage go past as you spiraled your way down it.
"You don't have to do the thing." you said, without turning from the window.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you use a very careful and quiet voice when talking to me." You glanced at him sideways. "I'm not going to break."
He was aware that he was doing it and had been modulating every word and every movement like he was defusing something delicate. He couldn't entirely stop. Marriage had given him an encyclopedic knowledge of exactly how much you could handle and in what quantities, and that knowledge was currently running headlong into the fact that you had no idea he had it.
"Almost home." he said driving on the route you always took home.
He took a glance your way and watched as your eyes scrunched up. Mind searching for that home he was talking about. “I don't know where we live."
It was a good house, you'd found it one year into their marriage, had spent three weeks arguing about it the way you argued about most things, which was thoroughly and ultimately arriving at the same conclusion from opposite directions. You had loved the garden. Jack had loved the kitchen and you bought it for both reasons.
He pulled into the driveway and cut the engine and sat for a moment. You were looking at the house through the windshield trying to recognize something that wasn't offering itself up. "It's nice." you said finally.
"You picked the paint color." he said, and then immediately wondered if that was the right thing to say. Too much. Too pointed. He needed to stop narrating her own life back at you.
But you almost smiled. "Did I?"
"You made me hold up seventeen samples in different lights. Over three days."
You looked at the soft grey blue of the front door, the warm white of the siding as you got out of the car. He followed you up the front path and unlocked the door, and you stepped inside, and he watched you stop.
The house was full of you.
That was the only way he'd ever been able to think about it. You had a truly alarming number of throw pillows and strong feelings about where the couch should face and a small army of plants that lived on the kitchen windowsill.
You touched things as you walked through the front entryway. The frame on the hall table, the first vacation. A photo you'd taken of him squinting into the sun that he'd complained about and you'd framed anyway. The chalkboard on the kitchen wall covered in your handwriting, grocery lists and reminder notes. The row of plants on the sill, each in a different pot, each clearly thriving under someone's committed attention.
You picked up a small succulent in a yellow pot, turned it over in your hands and set it back.
This was hard.
This was something else. This was watching someone walk through a room full of evidence of who they were and find it all equally foreign.
You stopped at the chalkboard and read. “This is my handwriting. I wrote this. "Do not under any circumstances park in the spot next to the blue dumpster or Gary will lose his mind.'" You turned to look at him. "Who's Gary?"
Despite everything, he felt the corner of his mouth move. "The dry cleaning guy.”
"And I know our dry cleaning guy on a first name basis?"
"You know Gary's whole situation. He told you about his daughter's recital once and you've asked about her every time since.”
You stared at him. "Seems like a lot to know for some dry cleaning."
"You know something about everyone that you meet." he said. "It's..you do that. You always have."
You looked back at the chalkboard, finally letting yourself smile and Jack’s heart twisted. That smile that he fell so deeply in love with. That smile that makes him want to reach out and envelop you in a hug that he’s been wanting to give since he saw you in that trauma bay.
You turned to face him fully, arms crossing over your chest. "Where do I sleep?"
Well, with me.
He wanted to say it so badly. He’d been sleeping like shit. Needing to feel you against him to get even a wink of good enough sleep.
But it would be too much too soon. "Upstairs." he said. "I'll show you."
He took you up and opened the door at the end of the hall and watched you take it in. Your shared room, it was impossible to tell where his things ended and yours began.
You stood in the doorway for a long moment. "Where is the guest room?"
Something broke in his chest and he didn’t know how much he had left to break, but kept his face even. "Across the hall."
You looked at him "I'll take that one."
“I don’t mind taking the guest room. Neuro said maybe sleeping in a familiar environment might help..” But his voice slowly trailed off. He watched you starting to fiddle with your necklace, a habit he’d become all too familiar with and understood as you were feeling anxious. “Or, okay, yeah the guest room is great.”
He got you towels and showed you where the extra blankets lived and which shower knob was a little funny and how you had to twist too many times to get it to run hot. You listened to all of it and thanked him like a polite houseguest, which was terrible and he hadn't anticipated how much it would be.
At the door to the guest room you paused. "Jack?"
It was the first time you'd used his name. His actual name, not Doctor. He wasn't prepared for it and he wasn't sure he could have been.
You looked at him for a moment, searching for something. "Thank you. For..all of this. I know it's not.." You rubbed at your eyes and Jack could see tears pricking at them. "I know this isn't how it's supposed to be."
His hands were on fire. He wanted to reach out and run them up your arms. Wanted to wipe away the tears. “It’s okay. I am here for you. Know that.”
You held his gaze and nodded once and went inside, the door closed quietly behind you.
He stood there in the hallway for longer than was strictly necessary and then he went across the hall to the room and sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the space beside him.
He'd slept alone for years, before you, and it had never bothered him the way it did in this moment, which was probably the point. The difference between not knowing what you were missing and knowing exactly.
He reached over and turned off your bedside lamp and lay back, staring at the ceiling.
He thought about the very beginning of the two of you. When he started to take on this idea that you were going to be more of a presence in his life than he’s planned for.
This specific memory of you in a trauma bay calling him out in front of four people and then meeting him in the hallway afterwards with a coffee and the most unimpressed expression he'd ever seen on another human being, saying that patient needed you to actually listen and you know that, and him standing there thinking holy shit. who are you?
Like he'd been waiting for you without knowing it.
He was going to have to do this very carefully. He was going to have to be patient in a way that did not come naturally to him and he was going to have to do it without any of the shortcuts that came from three years of accumulated trust.
...
The guest room has a window that faces east. You discover this at 6:04 a.m. on your first morning in the house you apparently own, when the sun comes through blinding you. You lie there for a moment with your arm over your eyes and then you lie there for a while longer because there is nowhere you have to be and that is a weird feeling.
You are on medical leave for two weeks. The neurologist was very clear about this. You are also, you remember in the next breath, in a stranger's house.
Except it isn't. That's the thing you keep running into but its odd. This guest room you're lying in is decorated in colors you would have picked and you know this because you recognize your own taste even when you don't recognize the choices.
You sit up and your head protests. You're going to have to do that with more care from now on. The smell of coffee is coming from downstairs and your body has apparently decided that this is your first adventure of the day.
You find the bathroom and your things are in it. Your shampoo, your brand of face wash, a toothbrush. You think about Jack Abbot moving through this bathroom with your shampoo in his hands and the thought is so strange.
When you go downstairs, he is already in the kitchen.
This should not be a surprising sentence given that it is his kitchen, but the version of Jack that exists in your memory does not overlap onto this one in any useful way. This version is in grey sweatpants and a worn t shirt and he is standing at the counter with his back to you making coffee.
He doesn't hear you come in. Or he does and he doesn't want to startle you. You're not sure which.
He opens the cabinet to the left of the machine and reaches for the second shelf without looking, and gets your mug. You know it's your mug because it's slightly chipped on the rim and green and has a small frog on it that is wearing a raincoat, and it is not the kind of mug that would belong to the Jack you know.
He fills it and puts exactly the right amount of creamer in it. He just pours and stops at precisely the point your brain says yep.
When he turns around, his eyes go from you to the mug and he crosses the kitchen, holds it out, and you take it and you look down at it for a moment. "You know how I take it."
“Very much so.” He smiles at you and you can’t help feel a warmth rush through you.
It’s a thrill seeing Dr. Abbot smile. Something, well now that you think about it, he never offered up to anyone at PTMC. You had made a bet with John one time to see if you could make him laugh and never succeeded. And even though you couldn’t remember the exact moment where your relationship changed from just an attending to romantic, you think if he in any way smiled at you like that, it would have been then.
He leans against the counter and drinks his own cup and looks out the kitchen window at the garden. You walk up next to him and peer out. It’s the garden of someone who actually tends to it diligently. Beds along the fence, something climbing the far wall, a small table and two chairs on a stone patio that look used rather than staged.
"Did I do that?" you say. "The garden?"
"Yours and the garden's mutual agreement, mostly. It does what it wants. You negotiate."
"Do you garden?"
"I pull things when you tell me to pull them."
You take your first sip of coffee and it is perfect. You look at the garden and think about a version of yourself that grows things, that negotiates with soil and weather and it feels true in the way everything in this house feels true. Slightly out of reach but recognizable, like a word on the tip of your tongue.
"I want to go back to work." you say. You can feel yourself grasping for some sense of normalcy. Nursing is what you know. You’re good at it and you desperately need something good right now.
Jack is quiet for a moment. "They said two weeks."
"I can't." you stop to find the best words. "I need something that's mine. That's the same. The hospital is the same. My hands know what to do there even if my head is.." you gesture vaguely. "I need that."
“I’ll make some calls.” The way he’s looking at you hurts. You know it’s killing him.
Was this your usual routine? Would you have been in his arms by now?
"Thank you."
He nods and turns back to the window. "I'll make some breakfast. Eggs okay?"
You blink. "You cook?"
He looks at you and laughs a little. "You were very surprised the first time too."
You sit down at the kitchen table. Your spot, you assume, is the chair facing the window, because it has the best view of the garden and that is clearly important to you. And you watch Jack make eggs in sweatpants in the kitchen of the house you share, and you drink your perfect coffee. And all you can think is whoever I used to be, she’s a lucky girl.
...
The day after that is the same, and different. He works. You don't, yet. You learn the house room by room. You find a bookshelf in the living room where his books and yours are completely integrated, alphabetized together without apparent concern for ownership, and you stand in front of it for a long time.
You find a drawer in the kitchen that is inexplicably full of takeout menus and twist ties and a single AA battery and one very small notebook with the words do not throw away on the cover that turns out to be a log of every plant in the garden including their names.
There's a small rosemary bush called Pip.
When Jack comes home from his shift he looks tired. When he comes into the kitchen, he stops when he sees you perched on the island, plant book in hand.
"Hi." he says. After a moment, "How was your day?"
"I read about Pip." You waved the book towards him
His expression is fond. "He's doing well." he says carefully. "I water Pip sometimes when you've been called to do a morning shift."
You stare at him and think about the version of this man who haunts your actual memories. Closed off, impersonal, half a degree below cold and then you think about a man who waters a rosemary bush for you. And calls it by it’s government name you’ve given it.
"I'm not.." you stop. "It's not that I think you're lying. About any of it. I can see that this is real, I can see that everywhere in this house. I just.."
"You don't have to explain it." he says.
"I just need to arrive there myself." you say. "On my own. I can't be told about it, I have to find it. Does that make sense?"
He is quiet for a moment. "Yes. That makes a lot of sense."
You smile up at him then and you watch as he takes a catalogue of your face. He’s still standing across the room, but you can see as his eyes slowly move from your face, down. Over your body, down to your legs that are more exposed than you wanted them to be, but apparently all you own is small pajama shorts.
You can’t help the heat that blooms across your face. And for a moment you are both stood there, staring at each other. You feel a tug, a pull in his direction, but he’s still your attending to you.
You clear your throat. “TIme for bed, goodnight.” And you quickly walk past him, brushing him just slightly on your way towards the stairs.
...
Jack stood in the kitchen for a full minute after he heard the guest room door close.
The way you'd looked up at him with that almost smile still warm on your face, and then your eyes had gone somewhere they hadn't meant to go, and his had too, and the air in the kitchen had changed into something he recognized and had no business recognizing right now.
He turned the cold water on at the kitchen tap and drank a glass of it standing over the sink.
The problem was that three years of marriage had left him with a detailed and vivid knowledge of his wife that did not simply switch off because you'd forgotten it. He knew the way you looked in low light. He knew the sound you made when something surprised you. He knew in great detail, what it was like to reach for you in the dark and have you reach back.
He put the glass down and pressed his hands flat on the counter.
You'd been standing there in those pajama shorts and you'd smiled at him, and for few seconds he'd forgotten every resolution he'd made to help you get better. The image wouldn’t leave him. It stayed burned in the back of his eyelids, a dull ache presently settling low in his hips.
He sat in his chair in the shower for a long time with the water colder than was strictly pleasant and tried to think about literally anything else, which was not a strategy that was working.
His brain, unimpressed with his attempts at discipline, served up the memory he least needed right now with the cruelty of an organ that had no stake in his personal conduct.
He had not been, prior to you, someone who moved quickly toward anything that required vulnerability. He'd had a therapist once who described him as relationally avoidant and considered this both accurate and an understatement, and he hadn't argued the point.
And then there had been you, appearing in his life. By the time you’d gotten married he'd been half in love with you for two years anyways. So, the first time you had sex, it had been the best night of his life, which he recognized was a significant claim and stood by it.
Because of you.
He reached down, his fingers wrapping around himself, slick with soap and the water that he now turned back to hot. The first touch made his breath hitch, his thumb tracing the heavy, leaking length of him as he began a slow stroke. He closed his eyes and he wasn’t in the shower anymore. He was back in your bedroom at your apartment.
That first time.
He remembered the exact sound you made when he first pushed your thighs back. That soft catch of air in your throat. He remembered the friction, the overwhelming warmth of you wrapping tight around him and the way you’d looked up at him, completely undone.
Jack’s grip tightened, his pace quickening as his hand moved in a hard rhythm. He arched his back into the spray, his teeth gritting as the friction built.
He remembered you laughing when you’d awkwardly shifted and lost footing on the edge of the mattress and the sheer intimacy of it had shattered whatever restraint he had left. You’d pulled him down by the shoulders, your slick skin sliding against his, anchoring him.
“Fuck.” he choked out into the steam.
The recollection of your tightness, of the desperate way you had clung to him, drove him over the edge. He fisted himself with a relentless speed.
He buried his forehead against the wet tile, his hips snapping forward blindly against his own palm as the tension coiled into something explosive.
He was completely trapped in the memory of you, matching the rhythm of his hand to your phantom gasps, until the pressure broke and he boiled over. His body shuddering violently as he spent himself against the tile.
He turned the water off and sat there for a while. He could want her and not show it. He'd been doing that for the better part of what felt like forever before they got together.
He was going to be so unrelentingly patient that it would probably annoy him in retrospect.
He dried off and got into bed and listened to the house settle and thought about the way her shoulder had felt against his arm for a brief second in the kitchen.
summary: the three times you decided to flirt with pope cody and the one time you decided to take it one step further.
content/warnings: in my mind this takes place like during s4 but there's nothing really specific about it, pope calls himself andrew in his mind, canon typical violence/drinking/drugs, all the cody boys are here but mostly craig, reader is drinking alcohol and has hair/wears dresses/heels/perfume, sub!pope, fingering, a good ol handy, a little dirty talk, unprotected piv, creampie, really just an unseen amount of fluff from me tbh NSFW + MDNI! 18+ ONLY!
wc: 10.2k (oops)
notes: omg my popey.... i love him so much. i got carried away with the plot (kinda a first tbh) but i wanna take care of him so bad. i need to bite his arms
credit: gif taken from this set by @wesandresons :)
—
The first time Andrew met you, it was in his bedroom.
Throughout Andrew’s life, many people have come and gone through the doors of Smurf’s house. It would take another lifetime just to count them all.
The parties started when he was young and never ended. The faces blurred together for Andrew now, not that he could really bring himself to care all that much in the first place. Just like Craig’s girlfriends or Smurf’s boyfriends, nobody was ever really a permanent fixture in Andrew’s life. Not if they weren’t family.
He knows that everyone thinks that he’s different. That he’s weird. He notices their looks when he lingers around the pool, in the kitchen, when he’s just sitting on the couch. His own brothers even, a lot of the time. Everyone eyes him like a ticking time bomb, just waiting for him to go off.
Andrew doesn’t really mind, though. Or, if he did, he'd become numb to the feeling a long time ago. In fact, he’s probably become numb to a lot of feelings. But Andrew doesn’t know any other way to be. He’s just Pope and he has been for a very long time.
This party in the Cody household wasn’t different from any other. Booze, drugs, and a big mess Andrew would definitely have to clean up later. The music is loud, bass turned up too high, and Craig is attempting to jump off the roof into the pool again. Amidst the cheers, Andrew thinks about the rest of his brothers and wonders for a moment where exactly it went so differently for him, or if he was just simply born that way.
His brothers seem okay with being in the spotlight. Even his nephew seemed to fare better than him, assimilating perfectly into every situation that arose, especially when people were involved. Andrew was never like that.
J must have gotten it from Julia.
Andrew was never a people person. He was always out of place, like the Cody that just didn’t quite belong, all jagged edges. The parties always send him into the corners of his mind that he didn’t really like venturing into.
The pounding of the bass is getting to him.
He pulls open the door to his bedroom hoping for a moment of silence, when he’s greeted with a pair of bare feet hanging off the edge of his bed. The figure doesn’t stir when he enters, so he creeps in further and shuts the door quietly. He turns his head, scanning now that he has a better view of who exactly is in his room.
You’re laid on his bed, eyes shut, hugging your phone to your chest like a stuffed animal. You’ve clearly come to escape the crowds of the party, same as him. Andrew can’t help as his eyes drag up your legs all the way up to where your short dress shows just a little too much of your thighs. He notices your heels as well, placed nice and neat beside the bed.
“Who are you?” It comes out a bit more gruff than Andrew anticipated and your eyes finally flutter open. It takes you a minute to notice him but when you do you’re shooting up to your feet, spine rigid. It’s cute, he thinks, the way you panic. You startle like a small puppy.
“Oh my god,” you squeak, clearly embarrassed. Your hands fall to adjust the hem of your short dress, much to Andrew’s disappointment. He gives you a once over; it’s half assessing what exactly you’re doing in his room and half just taking you and your skimpy outfit. “I’m so sorry. Is this your room?”
Andrew gives a small nod and you wring your hands nervously. You’re taking him in now, a Cody brother here in front of you, live and in the flesh.
“So which one are you?” you ask, head cocked. Now that you know this is his room, he notices you assessing him in a different light. People always do —it didn’t bother Andrew much anymore but with you he feels a twinge of shame in his stomach. “Deran? Or, um…”
Andrew knows that you’re searching for his name. His nickname. It had to be since there was a short list of people who called him by his real name. Pope Cody is known by everyone in Oceanside. Andrew Cody, on the other hand, is not.
“Andrew.” he supplies, voice softer than before. Now you’ve been added to that very exclusive list. You repeat his name back to him, voice a little warm, no doubt from one of the many drinks that the Cody’s provided. Then you introduce yourself and Andrew attempts to burn your name into his memory.
“Okay, Andrew. Are you hiding too?” Now that he hasn’t kicked you out, you take a seat on the edge of his bed. He notices the compression of where your body laid just a few minutes before on his neatly made and pressed sheets but doesn’t say anything. He likes the sound of your voice too much to interrupt you. “Or just making sure nobody is defiling your room.”
“I’m not hiding,” he replies, crossing his arm over his chest. The strap of your dress falls and Andrew tries not to get distracted. “This is my house. I’m free to go where I please.”
“Fair enough. I’m hiding,” you shrug. A beat of silence passes and you pat the spot next to you, inviting him to sit on his own bed. Andrew is curious enough to oblige, sitting on the other end of the bed, putting distance between you. He doesn’t miss how your shoulders drop slightly in disappointment. “My friend is here with Craig and they’ve conveniently disappeared... I don’t even want to know what they’re doing.”
“I have a few guesses.” Another one of Craig’s girlfriends. The giggle of a girl coming from Craig’s room that Andrew had heard when he was walking by suddenly made a lot more sense.
He wills himself not to flinch when you scoot closer to him, closing the distance he deliberately put between the two of you. Andrew was interested, too interested, and that worried him.
Pope Cody wasn’t allowed to want.
“Is it okay if I stay here with you?” you ask, and Andrew’s heart flips. He clears his throat, hoping that you don’t see the blush that’s creeping it’s way up his neck. “I’m just not really sure how long it’s going to take and I would much rather be in here.”
With you, hangs unspoken in the air.
“Sure.” Andrew likes the way you smile when he answers, a small flash of teeth. You scoot even closer and tuck your bare feet under you. You’re so close now that your knee is nudging his thigh. He can smell your perfume from here and it’s heavenly compared to the sweat and chlorine laced air outside. “I don’t really want to be out there either.”
“So, Andrew,” His name sounds like honey when it’s falling from your lips and he wonders how often he can make you say it. The feeling that settles in his chest when you say it is too addicting for him to live without it now. “Not really a party person?”
“No. But my brothers are.” He gestures vaguely to the door, the music pounding on the other side of the wall and then his hands retreat back to his lap. He can feel your eyes on him, but not in the usual way he always tends to notice. You scan him with a kind of curiosity that he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“I’m not really a party person either,” you agree, glancing at the door he had just gestured towards. You look a little sad, even. It makes Andrew’s fingers twitch.“My friend said she needed some moral support coming to meet this guy. So I came, and then she ditched me like an hour ago.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a shitty friend.” Andrew says plainly and he’s caught off guard when you let out a laugh.
“Yeah, I guess,” You shrug, shoulders still shaking with remnants of laughter. Andrew has turned his head fully now to look at you but he doesn’t really understand why you’re laughing. “But maybe it’s like fate, or something.”
“Fate?” Andrew echoes, even more confused than before. You lock eyes with him and he has to resist the urge to break it, enthralled enough by your gaze to ignore the awkward feeling settling in his chest.
“Yeah. Like maybe it’s fate that she left? Because then I wouldn’t have hidden in a cute guy’s room and got to talk to him.” He can tell that your mind is elsewhere, but his eyes are still on you. There’s a dreamy look painted on your face and he’s so distracted he almost misses the fact that you called him cute. Almost.
He opens his mouth to respond but your phone beats him to it, the shrill sound of your ringer filling the empty room. You look at him sheepishly and turn your head to answer as if that would give you the privacy you were looking for. It doesn’t work because as soon as you hit accept, he can hear what he assumes is your friend’s voice on the other side of the line.
You get up and he watches you nod along to the conversation. You’re not doing a lot of talking, but your friend definitely is; he can tell by the murmur of her drunken chatter and the sound of the music pulsing on the other side of the line. You’re kind enough to let her continue on for a bit longer before you let her know that you’re coming, don’t move!
Then you’ve turned back to Andrew, tapping your phone on your palm as you try to find the right words to say. You look genuinely apologetic —for what, Andrew doesn’t know. The silence stretches long, and Andrew is the first one to break it.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says plainly. You don’t really owe him anything, although the look on your face makes him feel otherwise. You take a step closer, poised like you want to take a seat next to him again. Andrew wants you to, but he won’t admit that part out loud.
“I know. I want to-” you start, but your phone starts buzzing like it’s possessed, cutting you off. A quick glance is all it gets; you’re quickly scanning the messages before returning your attention to him. Your phone doesn’t stop vibrating. “It’s hard to leave when you’re looking at me like a lost puppy.”
Andrew chooses to ignore that comment, instead turning to grab your shoes from the side of the bed next to him. He offers your heels to you, arms outstretched, closing the distance between you just like you had before. You give him a small smile as you take them from him, fingers brushing his just a beat too long. The way it sets his nerves alight is also something that he chooses to ignore.
“Thank you,” you say, slipping your strappy heels back on. Andrew looks everywhere but you as you bend down to tie them up, feeling the blush creeping up once again. Once you’re straightened up he gives you a small smile in return, watching as you pull your phone back out again. “Sorry for messing up your bed. I’ll make it up to you next time.”
You say it so definitively, like you somehow know there will be a next time. Before he can reply, you’re giving him a shy wave goodbye, sliding out the door. The music leaks in for a moment when you open it, blending in with the cheers of partygoers outside. When you close it he’s back to the silence of his room, alone. He had come in there looking for a moment to himself but now that you’re gone, he can’t help but want the opposite.
Andrew really hopes that there will be.
—
The next time Andrew met you, it was in Deran’s bar.
He could count on one hand the amount of times he actually sat at Deran’s bar for any other reason besides work. It was rare that he ever got to enjoy a beer, much less have a moment of free time. But between Deran’s insistence and Craig’s staggering frame, Andrew agreed to stay for one drink.
He’s on the dregs of his beer when he notices Craig straighten up in his seat and saunter over to the front door of the bar. Andrew’s head turns and suddenly he’s glad he came, perking up the same way his brother had just moments ago. A girl comes out to greet Craig, looking like his usual type, and he slings an arm over her shoulders, steering her towards the bar with a sly smile.
Then you walk in and Andrew almost falls off his stool in surprise. You’re dressed differently than when he first met you, softer and more casual. Both of you look like you’ve just come from the beach, donned in shorts and tanks, hair curled from the salt water in the air. It makes his heart skip a beat.
You walk in far more hesitantly than your friend, like you’re not too sure if you belong or where to put yourself. Andrew can empathize with the feeling. He watches as you scan the bar; maybe for your friend, or maybe for another place to hide. You lock eyes with him once you finally notice his presence at the bar and you begin to make your way over. Andrew isn’t sure if he should break eye contact but he can’t help it, eyes darting away before they make their way back to yours.
“Fancy meeting you here,” You take the seat next to him, flashing him a grin. Andrew mumbles something under his breath, but you’re not deterred. In fact, you scoot your stool closer to his. You’re laying it on real thick, but he has to admit that he kind of likes it. “You come here often?”
“You know Pope?” The moment is interrupted by Deran, who sets down a full glass of beer in front of you. He’s got a bemused look on his face, eyes darting between you and his brother. Andrew tries his best not to frown, especially at the use of his nickname when you only know him by Andrew. From the expression on your face, he can tell that he’s failing. Your eyes flicker with some kind of recognition, like you were suddenly recalling the name that you had forgotten the last time you met.
“Yeah, I do,” you nod, not even acknowledging the fact that his own brother had just called him by a completely different name. You gesture to his empty glass, the one that he had set aside to fully focus on you when you approached. “And I think I owe him a drink.”
“You do?” It slips out of both Deran and Andrew’s mouths, disbelief on both their faces. It comes out a bit rougher for Andrew, while Deran inquires like you just told him that unicorns were real. You handle both questions with grace.
“Well, I said I’d make it up to you next time,” You smile, pulling the glass that Deran set down closer to you. His brother leans in closer, clearly interested in what exactly was going on between the two of you. Andrew tries to shoot his brother a glare before you look back at him but he doesn’t have enough time. “So, are you going to have a drink with me, or what?”
“Yeah.” Andrew says, perhaps a bit too eagerly as Deran snickers under his breath. He slides him a beer as well, a knowing look painted all over his features. Andrew takes it with a scowl, but his expression softens when he looks back at you. You bring the beer to your lips with a smile and Andrew can’t help but smile back.
Two and a half beers later, Andrew’s face is a lot warmer and you are a lot closer. You’re so close that he can feel your shoes scuffing the edge of his newly polished boots, but he can’t bring himself to care. He likes when you giggle at his jokes; the way that your eyes shine. Andrew can feel his brothers’ eyes on the two of you; he even catches his nephew looking his way a few times.
But for the first time in a while, Andrew doesn’t really want to shrink away. He’s tuned out the background noise, even your friend’s obnoxious drunk laughter at Craig’s pretty mediocre jokes. Because, in reality, Andrew is not the type of guy that a lot of girls like. And Pope especially, is not. But here with you, he lets himself believe that maybe just this once, he’s allowed to have something just for him.
“I like your smile,” You break the silence the two of you were sharing once the conversation you were having earlier came to an end. Andrew hadn’t even realized that he was smiling. He had really just been using the silence to soak in your presence; you still smell the same as you did when you met the first time. Wearing the same perfume that you left on his sheets and pillows just a few weeks ago. He didn’t want to admit how many times he shoved his face into them, chasing your scent before it faded. “It’s cute. I like your teeth.”
There it was again. That word. Cute. It’s not a word anyone used to describe Andrew, probably not since childhood. Or possibly maybe never. He almost wants to swing his head around to see if the rest of his family had heard.
“You really think I’m cute?” He can’t help but ask. It might be the beers or the way you look at him or the fact that he can feel your body heat, but his brain is a bit fuzzy. You look over at him, eyes a bit glazed over from the alcohol. Now he can feel you examining him again, looking him up and down.
“I guess cute isn’t really the word for a guy like you.” His heart sinks at that, wondering what you really think about him now that you know Pope and not just Andrew. He knows the stories that circle around Oceanside about him and he’s not sure if he’s ready to hear the ones that you’ve heard.
“A guy like me?” Andrew echoes, trying his best not to sound so sad. His mood perks up when he feels the heat of your gaze taking him in, seemingly a bit unguarded, presumably from all the alcohol.
“Yeah. You’re all built and…” You look around, trying to place a word to describe him. Then you lay a hand on his arm and Andrew stiffens for a moment but he softens quickly, leaning into your touch. You look pleased that he allowed you to do that, smiling like you’re ready to take a bite of him right then and there. “I don’t know. Strong. Thick. Handsome.”
Andrew is sure that he’s red all the way up to the tips of his ears. He’s also pretty sure that he saw Craig choke on his drink at your comment a few stools down from you, but he decides that’s a later problem.
“Thanks,” he says gruffly and it’s really the only word that he can get out of his mouth, embarrassingly. You shoot him a smile, and it’s all sweet and a little too enticing. Andrew wouldn’t be surprised if he was leaning into you, ass halfway off his stool.
“Sorry, I’m being a bit forward, aren’t I?” you say, swirling whatever was left of your beer. He tries to shrug nonchalantly but it doesn’t really work. “I just get flirty when I’m tipsy.”
“So you don’t think us meeting again is fate?” He’s teasing, half smile tugging on the edge of lips. You giggle and Andrew basks in the sound. He can’t remember the last time someone made him feel like this. The last time he wanted to be so close to someone.
“I never said that,” You’re hiding a cheeky grin behind your glass and Andrew desperately wishes that he could see it. “You do believe in fate then?”
Andrew has to think about it for a moment. He’s not sure, really. Lots of fucked up shit has happened in his life and it would be cruel world if that was the fate that the universe had in store for him. Then again, he’s done some terrible things as well, so maybe it was what he deserved.
“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. Andrew stares into his drink and reflects on all of the things he’s done, the crimes he committed. Julia. Cath. They swirl around in his mind, weighing on his conscience. Then he looks at you and they all seem to float away. “Maybe.”
“Well, let me know when you decide.” He thinks that you can probably sense his hesitancy or the spiral that it sends him down when he thinks about it too hard, so you pump the breaks. He almost can’t stand the way you’re looking at him, eyes wide open and curious. Andrew is unsure of which version of him that you’re seeing or what exactly is going through your head. He doesn’t have the courage to ask.
“Okay.” he says, a bit too distracted by the pieces of hair that have fallen in front of your face as you turned to take another sip, shielding his view. His hand flexes as he resists the urge to push them away.
Then, like you could read his mind, you tuck them behind your ear and shoot him another look. You open your mouth to say something, but you’re interrupted by Craig, who is steering your friend in your direction. Andrew’s hand flexes again as this time he suppresses the urge to hit Craig for cutting in.
“She just puked in the plant over there, and I’m pretty fucked up, so…” Craig isn’t subtle in what he’s asking and Andrew notices the worry flicker across your face as you take in your friend, who can barely stand up on her own without his brother gripping her shoulders. You mutter under your breath and he thinks he hears you basically cursing out Craig.
“Okay, just… take her outside. I’ll be out in two minutes.” you say, and Craig stumbles off, your friend in tow. Then you turn to Andrew, an apologetic look on your face that’s becoming all too familiar to him now.
“Is she going to be okay?” His gaze wanders to the door swinging shut behind the pair. You wring your hands nervously, standing up from the stool. Gathering your things a little frantically, you shrug. Andrew deflates a bit as he watches.
“Yeah, I think so. She’ll probably just puke into her purse on the way home or something,” Once you’ve gathered everything in your arms you give a deep sigh, turning your full attention towards him. He notes that you seem a little deflated too, but he’s not sure if it’s because you’re leaving him or because your friend and Craig seem to be deeply irresponsible individuals. “I’m sorry. Again.”
“It’s okay.” Your lips curl with a small smile, still tinged with a bit of anxiety. It’s cute when you lift your free hand up in a small wave, the same way you did last time, and then you’re gone. Your perfume is still lingering in the air when Andrew turns back around and it’s his turn to smile. It melts when he sees Deran standing behind the bar, a smug look on his face.
“You got it bad, man.”
—
After that, Andrew sees you a lot more often.
Your friend and Craig seemed to have made things very exclusive, because now she’s basically living at Smurf’s house. Which means that, since you’re her best friend, she invites you over quite frequently.
You two haven’t been able to have a moment alone since that night at the bar, much to Andrew’s disappointment. The brothers have been busy planning a job, which meant that he was in and out pretty often. His mind was elsewhere though, distracted by the way you brushed arms in the hallway on his way out or when your eye contact lingered longer than usual.
So, maybe that was why the job went a little awry.
They got what they needed to, but not without a fight. The boys trail into the backyard one after the other, everyone bruised and cut up. It always annoyed Andrew when his brothers were impulsive; he was the one that was always suffering the consequences.
He quickly notes that you’re laid out next to the pool in your swimsuit, your body shimmering with sweat under the sweltering sun. Andrew watches a bead of sweat drip from your neck to the valley between your breasts. Time slows as he watches, licking his lips. He barely has time to drag his gaze away before Deran is wheeling on Craig.
“Why are you always pulling this crap?” Deran almost has a finger in his face, gesturing angrily. Craig just rolls his eyes in response, pushing past him and giving him a glare. Andrew can see the tension tight in their shoulders as they both seethe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude.” Craig shoots back, making his way back to the house. Tension has been high between the two lately, just like always, trapped in a toxic cycle.
It seems to snap for Deran, especially after the job, and he jumps on Craig’s back, knocking him over. The commotion is loud, Craig hitting the ground with a loud thud. Deran throws the first punch and Craig’s skull cracks hard against the pavement. Craig is quick to recover though, probably due to his size, and it’s a full blown fist fight in seconds.
The two exchange blows for a minute before Andrew and J rush forward to pull the two of them apart. They don’t put up much of a fight and the two of them stalk off in different directions; Craig into the house and Deran out of the yard. J shakes his head and follows after Craig, hands shoved into his pockets.
A quick glance proves that the pool chair you were on just moments ago is left empty, your drink still sitting on the ground next to it. He assumes that you snuck out once his brother hit the floor, probably wise enough to know how the situation was going to unfold. He can see your figure in the window padding around the kitchen, blurred from the distance.
Andrew closes the sliding door behind him when he enters the kitchen and he finds you there, skimpy bikini and all. You’re rummaging through the fridge and he takes the opportunity to take in the view before you shut the door.
You’re holding the carton of orange juice when you turn, finally taking in Andrew’s state. The cut on his eyebrow, the bruise beginning to bloom on his cheek and his torn up knuckles. You make your way towards him, your brow furrowed in concern.
“Are you okay?” He hides his hand instinctively when you ask, which you definitely notice. You rub the back of your neck with your free hand, a bit sheepish. “I heard, uh, your brothers fighting.”
“Oh.” Andrew frowns as embarrassment clouds his thoughts. Will this deter you from coming back? He really hopes not. He’s silent as his eyes follow you as you grab yourself a glass and begin pouring.
“Yeah, oh.” You shoot a glance in the direction of J and Craig’s rooms, eyebrows raised. “So, back to my question. Is everything okay?”
Andrew contemplates his answer for a second, not sure how much detail to go into. You eye him in the same way that you always do and he is suddenly keenly aware that this is the first moment alone you’ve had together in ages. Pushing that thought aside, he settles on two words: “It’s complicated.”
“Right,” you scoff, making your way around the kitchen island. Andrew can’t help but watch you move, all bare shimmering skin and he shifts a little as all his blood flows downwards. He sucks in a sharp breath as you settle in beside him, resting your arm on the counter. Your sweat and tanning oil smears all over the stone island but he’s too focused on how close you are to be bothered by it. “That’s why you guys all look like shit. Did you guys get in a fight or did you guys do that to each other?”
“Like I said, it’s complicated,” he repeats and you set your glass down, a serious look on your face.
“Andrew, I know who you guys are,” you say and now he’s shifting uncomfortably instead, the sentence shattering any sort of lust filled haze he was just on the precipice of falling into. “I can keep a secret, don’t worry. I just… want you to be careful, okay? That’s all.”
“I’m always careful,” he replies and you huff in disbelief, but it also seems like you can’t help but smile. It’s a nice sight and it even makes him brave enough to take a step closer to you, finally being the first to lessen the gap between you two.
The proximity and the way you look up at him has the haze settling in once more. Andrew wants to reach out and toy with the strings of your bikini bottoms but he thinks better of it. His tongue darts out to wet his lips and he almost has to physically shake his head to rid himself of the thought.
“I’m sure you are,” You scan him up and down, examining his cuts and bruises. Though, Andrew swears that he can feel your gaze linger on his arms and his chest. It makes a shiver run down his spine. “But if this is you careful, I’d hate to see when it gets messy.”
“I don’t do messy,” he emphasises, his mind wandering back to the oily smudge you’ve left on the counter. You give a familiar giggle and your hand comes to rest on his arm, and he immediately forgets all about it again. This is the first time you’ve broken the touch barrier between the two of you on purpose and Andrew’s stomach flips at the thought. The heat of your hand is searing through his shirt and he’s glad you can’t feel the goosebumps that are rising under your palm.
“I know, Andrew. I’ve watched you clean,” you joke. Andrew loves hearing you say his name, his lips parting as you do so. He tries to pull his mind away from all the different things he would do to you to keep hearing it slip from your lips.
“Where’s your friend?” he asks, desperate to change the topic to anything but him and his family’s line of work. You let out a sigh, making your way back to the fridge. The door swings open and you start rummaging through the freezer like you lived at the house. Really, at this point, you kind of do.
“I’m not sure,” you say, voice a bit muffled from behind the freezer door. “Her and Craig are probably doing lines off each other’s chests or something.”
You pull out a bag of frozen vegetables, shutting the door behind you and approaching Andrew once more. You hold it out to him and he cocks his head in confusion. Rolling your eyes, you grab his bad hand and place the bag on top of his knuckles, still bloody. The cold dulls the stinging that Andrew had learned to ignore too early on in life.
“Why do you hang out with her?” He all but blurts out, but he can't help it. There was plenty of time for Andrew to watch you two interact when you were over, and you seemed more like a tired mother than a best friend. Plus, Andrew figured that if he could keep you distracted with conversation, you wouldn’t let go of his hand just yet.
“She’s been my best friend since, well, forever…” Pressing the bag into his knuckles further, your hand grips his gently and he can’t help but look at you while you fiddle with the frozen bag. “And if I don’t take care of her, who will?”
“I know the feeling.” Andrew says sincerely. He can’t remember a time in his life when he wasn’t a protector, an enforcer, a guard dog. You look up at him now, eyes soft. He feels his gaze soften in return, lips parting.
“I can see that,” you hum like you’re contemplating his words. “Is there someone taking care of you?” The question catches him off guard and he almost jerks his hand back reflexively.
“I don't need anyone to take care of me.” It's a statement that doesn't fully ring true; he thinks about the people who have tried and what he’s lost. It's better off this way, perhaps. But he also thinks you probably wouldn't like that answer.
“Everyone needs someone, Andrew.” Coming from anyone else, he thinks he would refuse. But from you, he feels a bit more inclined to agree. You sound sincere, he feels. Or he just likes you too much to think about disagreeing.
Maybe he does need someone, but no one was ever up for the job. At least no one that knew him —all of him.
A door slams in the distance and you flinch at the loud noise. Not a moment later your friend is rushing past the pair of you, clad in a similar bikini to yours. She’s crying though, mascara streaking as she pushes her way into the backyard. Andrew watches as your head turns to follow her, eyebrows pinching in concern. She sits down on one of the lounge chairs outside, shoulders shaking as she cries silently. You look back at Andrew with a frown and just like always, he knows you have to go.
Maybe his fate is that the universe just wants to cockblock him forever?
“She and Craig probably got into another fight,” you sigh, chewing your lip. You take his uninjured hand and place it on top of the bag, looking up at him. Your face is stern as you speak, like he’s a dog that got caught chewing on the couch legs. “Keep it iced, okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”
You pat his hand gently, soft smile on your lips. You always say that. Soon. Like you know that you're going to cross paths again. That he’s a permanent fixture in your life.
He watches you walk away, eyes on your swaying hips in your cheeky swimsuit bottoms. He’s still staring when you sit down next to your friend, rubbing her back comfortingly.
Andrew stands alone in the kitchen, half hard, frozen bag of vegetables still pressed to his torn knuckles. The worst part is, he’s not even sure what exactly had made him hard; the sight of your body in your tiny swimsuit and the feeling of your hand in his or watching you take care of your friend so tenderly.
Yeah, Deran was right. He is so fucked.
—
If Andrew thought that he couldn't get you off his mind before that afternoon, now you were all he thought about.
When he was making lunch, when he was cleaning his guns, when he was fisting his cock in the shower, trying to keep quiet. All he could think about was you. Your perfume, your smile, your body. Your touch. He wanted to feel it all over his body, soft skin against the raised bumps of all his scars.
So the fact that you weren’t around as often anymore made things more difficult for him. Your friend and Craig seemed to be on the rocks, which means she was around less and less. Which means that you were barely around.
You said you’d talk to him soon and then promptly stopped being invited around, and the thought of how exactly he would get to see you again had him pacing. He didn’t want to scare you off, so he had to pivot towards more conventional methods. Which meant waiting around until Craig had finally got bored enough to start texting your friend back again.
Weeks passed and he rarely saw you, just in flashes; by the pool, walking through the front door, lounging on the couch. He barely had the chance to look in your direction lately, much less have any type of conversation with you. The distance made him hungry, desperate enough to try to flip the odds in his favour.
“What about a party?” He suggests to his family one afternoon, all of the Cody’s crowded in the living room. All three of them turn their heads, looking at him like he’s grown an extra limb. The room is silent as they all try to process the words that came out of his mouth. “What?”
“Pope wants to throw a party.” Deran states, like saying the words out loud may help him truly understand them. “Why?”
“Don’t worry about it,” He crosses his arms over his chest, aware that he’s become a bit too defensive just a beat too late. All pairs of eyes are still on him and he shifts on his feet uncomfortable. “Just do it.”
“You won’t hear me complaining, man.” Craig says on his way out, clapping a hand on Andrew’s shoulder before he goes. The remaining Cody’s watch him go, and then eyes are back on him. He doesn’t want to answer any other questions, so he turns on his heels before they can ask any and follows his brother out.
So that’s how he ended up here.
This party was the same as the rest. Andrew wasn’t around for most of it; he had some loose ends to tie up for his family and he always elected to be out of the house whenever there was something going on, especially now that he had the choice. When he returns, he sees the same damage as always; trash in the pool, people passed out on the lawn, empty solo cups and wet footprints littered across the hardwood floors.
And Andrew does what he always does. Starts cleaning up. He wasn't really sure what his plan was, if he's being honest. He knew you always liked to linger once the parties were done, to make sure your friend was okay. Andrew was hoping that you were a creature of habit with this idea. Seems like right now, it's just delegated him to the role of janitor with no reward.
He starts out by the pool; toeing the stragglers to wake up and get off his property, sifting the garbage out of the pool and throwing the random discarded bikini tops into the trash bag right after it. It’s already the late hours of the morning when he finishes up outside. The neighbourhood is silent besides the sound of the chlorine water softly lapping at the tiles of the pool. Then he makes his way inside and starts tossing out everything in the kitchen, trying not to think about exactly what was occurring when he was gone to make this sort of mess.
“Do you need some help?” A small voice asks and he whirls around on instinct. He turns to face you and he almost wants to drop the black trash bag he’s holding out of shock. Andrew gives you a once over and you look so similar to the first night that he met you that it makes his heart skip a beat in his chest. A short dress and barefoot, except this time your heels are nowhere to be seen. You seem a bit groggy, dark make up smudged around your eyes. He oscillates between dwelling on how beautiful you are and wanting to get on his knees to see exactly what you got on under your dress.
“It’s late.” Is what he says instead, continuing his job of cleaning up. There’s a thousand unsaid things with those two words and it seems like you somehow know him well enough to answer all of them.
“Craig said I could crash on the couch,” you say, beginning to collect some of the empty cans off the kitchen counter. Andrew tries to level a look at you, to let him do it, but you give him a look straight back and continue. “And I want to help you. Doesn't seem like anyone else is.”
He accepts that and you two clean in silence for a few moments, working alongside each other. His eyes can’t help but follow you as you flounce around the kitchen, picking things up and tossing them into the bag into his hand. And then you speak. “So, why am I the only one helping you?”
He furrows his brows, pausing for a second as your words catch him off guard. Andrew glances over at you once more and you’re looking at him expectantly. He can’t help but feel compelled to answer, although your big fluttery eyes may play a small part in that. Trying to ignore the blood rushing downwards, he answers. “What do you mean?”
“Um, I mean there’s like, at least two or three other people who live in this house,” He can basically hear your frown as you speak, unceremoniously throwing another piece of trash into the bag. “Why am I the only one helping you clean up? The mess of a party that they threw?”
Andrew has never really thought about it before. He supposes this has always been his role, cleaning up after his family. Solving their problems. Making the bad things go away. Doing the messy work.
“I don’t need any help,” he says simply, voice gruff. He tries to ignore the heat of your disappointed eyes on him as he turns around, but he can still hear your loud sigh. You notice that he’s trying to avoid your gaze, so you catch his forearm in your hand. His muscles twitch under your touch, warmth seeping through your skin. Andrew slowly drags his gaze up from your hand on his arm to your face and he can’t help but soften. “I got it.”
“I just meant that you’re always taking care of everyone else, Andrew,” you explain, hand still on his arm. Your voice is soft in the way that he likes; a tone that seems to be reserved just for him. “Cleaning up after everyone. Making sure they don’t kill each other. Craig’s told me that you’ve bailed him out plenty of times.”
Andrew frowns. He doesn’t like the idea of his brothers talking about him when he’s not around, especially to you. He scowls at the thought, tying off the full garbage bag and placing it aside. He tries to pull away to grab another bag and continue, but your grip tightens on his arm.
“I’m serious. Just leave it for them to deal with for once,” You pull him back towards you, but he feels conflicted. He doubts anyone would actually do it if he left it for them to do —he’s seen the state the house gets into when he’s gone. Andrew hesitates for a moment, but all thoughts fade from his mind when your hand slips from his forearm into his palm, fingers twining with his. All he can do is stare while his brain tries to catch up to what’s happening. “Come on.”
You pull him along and it doesn’t take much effort to have him following. Continuing to stare, he’s got half a mind to hope that his mouth isn’t hanging open. He realizes where you’ve taken him in Smurf’s just a beat too slow as he enters the room.
His room.
He turns to face you slowly and the expression on your face is unreadable as you shut the door behind you. It reminds me of the first time that he saw you all that time ago. The room is silent for a moment as you two take each other in. Andrew hopes that you can’t hear the shaky breath that he lets out from across the room.
“Sit,” you command, gesturing to the bed. Andrew doesn’t waste any time obeying, sitting on the edge of the bed, feet planted firmly on the floor. His hands rest on his thighs, clenching and unclenching anxiously. You approach him slowly, closing the distance until he’s face level with your torso. The position has him blushing —he’s sure his face must be red. He tilts his head up to look at you and you take one step closer. His legs part naturally to accommodate you, bracketing your figure.
“Will you let me take care of you, Andrew?” you ask, hand sliding into his hair. He struggles to not let out a groan, blood rushing straight to his dick. He’s so distracted by the feeling of your nails scratching along his scalp as he leans into your touch that he barely even registers the question.
“Okay.” It comes out quiet and breathy, but it feels loud in the silent room. He watches the ends of your lips curl up into a smile, his eyes fluttering. You take the hands that were settled on his thighs and place them on your hips. Taking the opportunity to appreciate your body, his hands run over your curves slowly as he sucks in a sharp breath. He doesn’t break eye contact with you as he does so, too enraptured to take his eyes off you. It makes him twitch in his jeans when you lean a little closer, breath fanning over his face.
A few moments pass as you let him feel your body; he’s practically drooling at the feeling. Once you’ve decided he’s had his fill you climb into his lap, straddling him. He’s sure you can feel how much he wants you, the heat of your clothed pussy on his jeans making him all the more hard.
You barely give him a second to breathe before you’re catching your lips in his, your mouth parting instantly. The kiss is slow and sensual and it has him letting out a broken whimper into your mouth. That seems to spur you on, fingers gripping the front of his shirt to kiss him even deeper.
Andrew doesn’t even know how many times he imagined doing this with you. At this point he’s lost count, but this was beyond anything that his mind could ever put together. The smell of your perfume envelopes him and your body is so warm under your thin dress that it sets his nerves alight.
He can’t help just taking a bit more, big hands gripping your hips and grinding you against him. The small moan you let out as he does so has his hips bucking. Hands still roaming, he instinctively slips his tongue into the kiss. The fact that you continue to rock your hips against his once he lets go of your waist makes him dizzy. The kiss is wet and desperate and all Andrew wants is to get closer, greedy hands grabbing.
Then he feels your fingers drift to the hem of his shirt and he lifts his arms, allowing you to pull it off. The sensation of your nails dragging across his chest sends a shiver down his spine. His hands had settled on your thighs, gripping so tight that he’s sure he’s leaving marks. He feels bad, but then he decides that he’ll kiss them as an apology later, if you’ll let him.
You stop grinding and scoot backwards a little, moving further down his lap. He opens his mouth to ask why, but then your hands are at his belt buckle and the words die in his throat. You’re quick to undo his jeans, wasting no time in pulling him out and taking him into your hands. Your hands are much softer than his rough and calloused ones, warm against the hot fletch of his length. His head tips back as you begin to stroke him slowly, eyes to the ceiling as he lets out another shaky breath.
He had always imagined what your touch would feel like wrapped around him like this, letting himself imagine it was you touching him instead of himself when he was alone. The way you twist your wrist languidly, like you know exactly just how to get him going, has his mind going blank.
“Do you like that?” You mutter, tucking your face into his neck now that he’s made the space. The way you kiss slowly up the sensitive skin of his neck makes his mind fuzzy. He can’t seem to get the words out, so he gives a slow nod instead. “Good.”
The praise makes his hips stutter, fucking into your fist. You let out a small laugh, presumably at how desperate he is for you. A low moan escapes his mouth as you swipe your thumb over the head of his cock, swiping away the precome leaking from the tip. Your touch disappears for a moment and he tips his head back forwards to you, looking at you through hooded lids. He watches as you spit into your palm and resume your actions, his jaw dropping open ever so slightly. Andrew feels drunk, the slick shlick of you stroking him filling the room.
He thinks you can tell that he’s getting close. He knows that his hips won’t stop rising to meet your touch: a dead giveaway. It’s almost embarrassing how fast you get him there, cock leaking in desperation as he whines. Your hand slips away and he groans out loud at the loss of sensation. His mind is still fuzzy and he almost misses your fingers wrapping around his wrist, guiding his hand across your body and under your dress. Looking down at where your hands meet, his breathing almost stops when you dip his fingertips past the waistband of your lacy panties.
“Don’t you want to feel how wet I am for you, Andrew?” you breathe into his ear. The words affect him deeply and he lets out a strangled noise, but he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed with you on top of him like this.
“Yes,” he says, voice hoarse. He sounds absolutely wrecked as he swipes a finger along your wetness, sickly slow, brows furrowing as he watches your lips part at his touch. You’re dripping for him; he can feel the wet patch you’ve left on your panties against his knuckles as he slides a finger into you. It’s your turn to moan, and he swears at the sound, “Fuck.”
He pumps his finger in and out slowly, basking in the feeling of you sucking him right in. You surge forward and capture his lips in yours, kissing him breathlessly. You let out a whimper into his mouth as he slips another finger alongside the first. His breath catches in his throat as he feels you flutter around his digits, velvet walls pulling him in even deeper.
Andrew loves having you like this, your dress bunched around your hips, giving him a full view of your pussy covered in lace as you grind your clit into the palm of his hand. It’s all too much for him; he drops his head to your shoulder, breathing in the scent of your perfume. He thinks of all the times he’s touched himself to the scent of you; whether that be from the sheets from the first time he met you or the way that it lingered in his room after a conversation with you, long after you’ve gone.
His pace quickens and he can feel your legs shaking against his while your hips buck, practically riding his hand. You’re mewling now, coming apart on his fingers the same way you do in his dreams. He feels you clamp down around him and he can tell you’re going to cum seconds before you tell him. He can barely hear it, words lost in your soft whimpers. A rush of wetness is slick against his palm as you let out a moan so loud that Andrew remembers there are other people in the house.
Eyes never leaving yours, he pulls his fingers out from your panties and brings them to his mouth. The way you taste has his eyes almost rolling back into his head, licking up the cum that had dripped down his fingers. He wants to get his head between your legs real fucking bad and eat you until the sun comes back up or until you’re begging him to stop. His cock aches with the desperate need to fuck you, eyes trailing down to your chest as you pull off your dress and toss it aside. He decides to save it until later. Maybe round two?
He’s appreciated your body countless times as you tanned by the pool, but the view of you on top of him, being able to touch you the way he wants, has his blood running hot in his veins. He could die under you right now and he’d die a happy man.
You push him down onto the bed with a soft push and his back lands against his freshly pressed sheets. Lifting your hips, you pull his jeans and boxers down, leaving them to pool at his ankles where his feet are still planting firmly on the floor. He kicks them off and moves further up the bed, loving how you giggle as he jostles you.
Your tongue swipes across your lips and you settle yourself into position, the lace of your panties scratching intoxicatingly against his cock. Mesmerized, he watches as you hook your fingers into your panties and pull them aside, not even bothering to remove them before lowering himself down onto his length.
The two of you let out a needy noise as you sink down, taking him to the hilt. You look absolutely beautiful, the sight of you absolutely fucked out for him making his cock impossibly harder. His hands fly to your hips as you begin to grind again, much like you were earlier.
He lets out a sharp inhale through his nose and his hands fly to your waist, eyes hungry. You’ve spread your cum across the short hairs at the base of his dick, whining as you chase your high. You get tired of the grinding and lift your hips, bending forward and resting your forehead against his. His eyes are on yours as you slam your hips back down, eyes fluttering shut.
The pace you set is brutal, hips pistoning as you ride him. The force of it has the frame of his bed swaying, headboard making impact with the wall every time you drop your hips. That combined with the volume of both the noises you two make as you ride him is more than enough to hear through the wall or the door.
“So good, baby. Feels so fucking good,” he coos, lost in the way you fuck him. The wet slap of skin on skin is absolutely sinful, echoing in the room and mingling with the heavy breaths you let out. He’s got one hand on your ass and the other on your breast, overwhelmed with the need to memorize every part of your body. “Been fucking dreaming about your pussy.”
“Oh my god, Andrew,” you whine, hips moving fast. He can feel you clenching around him, trapping him in your cunt like a vice. He can barely keep his eyes open, lids low from the pleasure. You’re squeezing him so fucking tight that he swears his vision is going white. You straighten up and place a hand on his broad chest, using it as leverage to hit a whole new angle.
Andrew feels himself brush against your walls and it has his jaw dropping open as his entire body shaking at the feeling. He’s close but you’re closer, nails digging into his flesh and your moans grow more high pitched, picking up the pace. You don’t stop moving your hips when you cum around him, barely able to keep yourself upright. The feeling of you tightening around him and the sight he catches of your cum glistening around the base of his dick has him moments away from falling over the edge.
“M’gonna cum,” he slurs, hands around your waist to hold you in place as he fucks up into you now. Still sensitive from your second orgasm you squeal, falling even farther forward into his chest. Soft grunts are punched from his chest every time his hips meet yours, taking what he needs from you.
“I want it so bad,” you babble mindlessly, voice dripping with pleasure. He’s never heard you like this before, but now he can’t imagine ever living without it. His thrusts are messy now, determined to hear you beg some more. “Please, I need it.”
“Yeah?” He barely even notices himself speak, too busy fucking into your pussy to think of anything else. He’s so close that his arms are shaking, thick muscles twitching in anticipation. He almost wants to cry, overwhelmed by the way he’s buried so deep inside you. “You want me to pump you full of my cum, baby?”
“Please,” you whine, voice cracking with need. The sound of it has Andrew’s hips faltering as he does exactly that, swearing sharply as he does so. His entire body jerks from the feeling, so wracked in pleasure that he can’t control it as h. You let out a moan alongside his as he fucks him cum back into you, nice and slow. Once the overstimulation gets to him his hips come to a stop, sweat beading on his forehead.
You fall limp on top of him, the deep rise and fall of your chest matching his. He wraps his two big arms around you instinctively, pulling you closer against him. Andrew basks in the quiet, punctuated by nothing other than your quiet breathing, closing his eyes.
“You okay?” Your voice is muffled against his chest, warm breath fanning over his skin. He’s got a hand running absentmindedly up and down the bare skin of your back, still sticky with sweat. “That wasn’t too much?”
“No,” he rumbles, voice soft. His fingers are still skimming as allows himself to take in the moment for just a beat longer. Then he’s got you under him, flat on your back. He loves the way you look up at him, legs still wrapped around his waist. He noses his way into your neck, noticing that his scent is intermingling with yours the more time you spend with him. His hands begin to roam once more and he can feel his blood rush downwards when you look at him with your big curious eyes. “Not enough.”
If Andrew had any say in it, you two were in for a long night.
—
In the morning, Andrew is the first to wake up. He always had trouble getting to sleep, sometimes staring at his ceiling for hours in the night, but the warmth you brought to his bed had pulled him under within minutes.
He turned his head to face you, eyes flicking over your face as the amber light of the sun painted your face. You were clad in one of his shirts, the plain black looking much better on you than it ever did on him. Andrew shifts slowly so as to not wake you and slides out of bed.
The walk to the kitchen is quiet, like it usually is in the morning considering the fact that the rest of his family regularly kept late hours, so he was surprised to find Craig, already seated at the bar, tucking into a bowl of cereal. He looks up and sees who it is, his face twisting into something much more smug as he takes another bite.
Andrew is quick to pull a face back, not interested in hashing out his night with Craig, who clearly wants to hear all the details. Instead, he starts to clear the mess that his brother had left out while he assembled his breakfast. Craig waits a beat, like he expects him to change his mind, but Andrew stays silent.
“Pope, man-” he starts, but a door creaks shut in down the hall that distracts him, leaving the unfinished sentence in the air. Then you turn the corner, still only in his shirt, and Andrew realizes that it wasn’t the noise that caught Craig’s attention. Your hair is still mussed and you’re rubbing the sleep out of your eyes when you approach him. You wrap your arms around his wide torso and his arm settles at your waist. Natural as if you’ve done it a million times before. Andrew allows himself to smile at the feeling, not even caring that his brother is watching with a shit eating grin on his face.
summary: for the past eight long months, jack has had the twelfth floor of the orpheus building all to himself. the calmness was nice, but he missed knowing that there was a living soul next door. little did he know that, in a slow spring morning, he would meet his new neighbour. and the love of his life.
warnings: angst, fluff and smut. this series contains talks of grief, ptsd, self worth and finding love after your partner has passed. most chapters contain smut and each one is labelled with their own warnings. she/her pronouns and afab!reader. the girls used in the series moodboard are not face claims for reader, they are how i imagine them while i write, but there’s no specific descriptions of body type, race or ethnicity. all lowercase for styling purposes.
main story
⚜️ chapter one*
⚜️ chapter two*
⚜️ chapter three
⚜️ chapter four*
⚜️ chapter five
companion pieces
⚜️ a new year’s interlude (set between chapters two and three)*
⚜️ theo gets a bath interlude (part of the 1k followers celebration - set between the new year’s interlude and chapter three)
⚜️ birthday interlude (part of the 1k followers celebration - set during chapter one)
⚜️ jackpot (part of the domaystic 2026 event - set between chapters three and four)
* smut found in chapter.
domesticblisss 2026. comments and reblogs are appreciated. dividers by @/uzmacchiato and @/bronzewasp
summary: After escaping your abusive boyfriend, you get pulled into the dangerous world of the Cody family and unexpectedly become the center of Pope Cody’s obsessive attention. As dark secrets unravel around you, Pope grows fiercely protective, pulling you deeper into his chaotic life until the line between safety and danger disappears completely. andrew ‘pope’ cody x f!reader / cw: DD:DNE, hard warning for smurf, naiveish!reader, she’s naive until she isn’t, not timeline specific, could be season one related but idfk tbh, pope says two words and reader is on her knees (who wouldn’t be), I imagine pope has his curly hair, possessive!pope, obsessive!pope, bestie!deran, deran goes crazy, the brothers really like reader except baz is sneaky with smurf, abusive relationship, damsel trope, reader has doe eyes and is called bambi, maybe ooc characters, drinking, reader is super taken by pope the second she meets him, murder!!!, blood, gore, canon violence, SMUT!! (they shower together it’s steamy, soft!dom pope, voyeurism,pervish!pope (my favorite), mentions of choking, dacryphilia, unprotected piv, creampie), mentioned sexual assault (not on reader), mention of sexual predators. word count: 14.8k amalia’s love note: 1000 followers special!!!! love you all thank you so much for supporting me always. If you hate this don’t say anything i’m extremely sensitive rn. Also i rewatched euphoria last week and totally based her bf off nate lol. credit to: The Deer’s Cry by Isabella Albuquerque
The music hit you before the house even came into view. Heavy bass rolled through the humid Oceanside air hard enough to rattle the windows of the massive beachside property perched at the edge of the cliff. The Cody house glowed gold against the dark, crowded wall to wall with people drinking, smoking, laughing too loud. Surfboards leaned crooked against the fence. Expensive cars packed the driveway bumper to bumper. Jetskis and dirt bikes sat scattered across the lawn like abandoned toys. Somewhere in the backyard a girl shrieked with drunken laughter loud enough to cut through the music.
You stumbled through the open gate barefoot, your pink heels dangling from two fingers. Your chest burned from running. Tears blurred your vision, hot and humiliating.
Your knees were scraped raw from slamming against the pavement after Nate shoved you down outside the bar. One side of your face still throbbed where he’d slapped you hard enough to split the inside of your lip maybe fifteen minutes earlier.
You hadn’t thought about where you were going. You’d just run.
And somehow your body dragged you here.
To the one place you’d been specifically told not to come.
Deran had mentioned the party offhandedly two days ago while fixing the walk-in freezer at the bar, half buried in tools and swearing at the wiring. Your shifts there had been sparse lately while finals swallowed your life whole, but somehow the routine of seeing him had become one of the few stable things you had left.
You weren’t even sure why your feet brought you to him.
Maybe because Nate hated him.
Maybe because Deran was one of the only people who ever looked at Nate like he saw exactly what lived underneath his skin.
Or maybe because somewhere along the way Deran Cody had turned into the closest thing you had to family. The older brother neither of you would ever admit out loud you needed. You knew things about him nobody else did. Dark things. Ugly things. And he knew yours too.
Which was exactly why he’d warned you more than once that Smurf’s house was not somewhere he wanted you.
You pushed through the side yard, adrenaline making you dizzy.
Nobody stopped you. Nobody really noticed you at first. You probably looked like every other fucked up girl stumbling through Oceanside at two in the morning. Mascara smeared under your eyes, dress strap hanging broken from one shoulder, blood drying on your knees.
The kind of girl people learned not to look at too hard.
Bodies crowded around the pool. Drunk girls danced in bikinis beside giant speakers while shirtless guys launched beer cans into the water. The whole place smelled like chlorine, weed, sweat, tequila, salt air.
Then Deran saw you.
His face changed instantly.
Not confusion. Not surprise.
Fear.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, already crossing the yard toward you. Fast. “What happened?”
Your throat tightened before the words could even come out. “I know you said not to come here, but-”
Deran grabbed your arm carefully, fingers surprisingly gentle as he turned your face toward the pool lights.
The second he saw the bruise blooming across your cheek, something in his expression went cold. “That fucking asshole hit you?”
You looked away automatically.
That was answer enough.
“Craig,” Deran barked sharply.
A blond guy sitting on top of a cooler looked over immediately. Beside him, another man with dark hair and calmer eyes straightened from his chair too.
“What happened?” the dark-haired one asked.
Deran didn’t take his eyes off you. “Her boyfriend hit her.”
Craig stood so fast the cooler tipped sideways behind him. “Are you fucking serious?”
“It wasn’t-”
“Don’t,” Deran snapped instantly. The sharpness of it made you flinch. His jaw clenched hard enough you could see the muscle ticking beneath the skin. “Don’t do that shit.”
You’d seen Deran angry before. At customers. At his family. At himself.
This was different. This looked dangerous.
“Where is he?” the dark-haired man asked calmly, already getting to his feet.
Baz, you remembered suddenly. That was his name.
You swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I ran.”
Deran looked like he wanted to tear somebody apart with his bare hands.
Then another voice cut through the tension behind him.
“Well,” she said smoothly. “Who’s this?”
You turned slowly, still clutching the broken strap of your dress against your chest.
Smurf Cody stood near the patio doors with a cigarette balanced elegantly between perfectly manicured fingers.
Beautiful in a way that didn’t feel warm. Sharp blonde hair untouched by the humidity. Gold jewelry glittering beneath the lights. She looked at you the way people looked at horses before buying them. Assessing. Calculating.
Like she could find every weak spot you had in under thirty seconds.
Deran exhaled through his nose. “Smurf.”
She ignored him completely.
Her eyes stayed fixed on you.
“You’re pretty,” she said casually. “Too pretty to be crying over a man.”
Heat crawled into your face immediately.
“This is Bambi,” Deran said tightly. “My best friend.”
“Friend,” Smurf repeated, amused.
And suddenly you understood an alarming amount about Deran’s issues.
Smurf stepped closer, gaze drifting over the ripped strap hanging off your shoulder, the bruise on your cheek, the blood on your knees.
“A boy do this to you?”
You nodded once.
Her expression barely changed.
“Hm.”
Something about the sound chilled you more than if she’d yelled.
Deran snatched his keys off a folding table. “We’re gonna go find him.”
Baz stood slower, calmer. “Deran.”
“I’m not gonna fucking kill him,” Deran snapped.
Craig gave a sharp laugh. “I might.”
Smurf waved her cigarette lazily through the air. “Just don’t bring cops back to my house.”
Then her eyes flicked back toward you.
“You can stay here tonight, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I couldn’t-”
“Yes, you could,” Smurf interrupted smoothly. “You look half dead.”
Deran turned toward you again, still vibrating with restrained anger.
“You good here?”
You nodded slowly, though you weren’t entirely sure that was true.
His jaw flexed as he looked around the party.
“Stay inside.”
Then the three of them disappeared through the side gate.
And just like that, they were gone.
You stood awkwardly near the pool while the party swallowed the moment whole. Nobody cared. Nobody even really looked twice. Music still blasted. Somebody cannonballed into the pool. A girl stumbled past you laughing with glitter smeared across her chest.
The world kept moving like nothing happened.
Smurf tilted her head toward the house. “Come inside.”
The kitchen felt strangely quiet compared to the chaos outside.
The bass still pulsed faintly through the walls, but softer now. Distant. Smurf moved around the massive kitchen like she owned every atom inside it. Which, honestly, she probably did.
“You hungry?” she asked.
“A little,” you admitted nervously.
She opened the fridge, pulling containers out without ever really stopping watching you.
The house was beautiful in an intimidating sort of way. Expensive without looking staged. Polished wood floors. Massive windows overlooking the black ocean. Family photos lining the walls.
Every room felt lived in.
Claimed.
Smurf moved through it like royalty.
Which, in a deeply fucked up way, she was.
“You and Deran sleeping together?” she asked casually.
You nearly inhaled your own spit. “Oh my God, no. No.”
Not that the idea itself was horrifying. Deran was objectively attractive and you had functioning eyes. But it was also probably one of the least likely scenarios imaginable considering Deran had spent the better half of your friendship pointing out hot men to you with alarming enthusiasm.
“Hm.” Smurf pulled leftover pasta from the fridge. “That’s disappointing. He needs prettier girlfriends.”
You laughed nervously.
“I’m serious.”
The smile fell from your face.
You genuinely couldn’t tell if she was joking.
Smurf handed you a plate before leaning against the counter, cigarette balanced between two fingers as she studied you openly.
“You’re too soft for my boys anyway.”
The statement landed strangely hard. It irritated you more than it should have. She didn’t know you. Not really. The first thing she’d ever seen from you was this version. Crying. Bruised. Shaking.
Weak.
“I’m just his friend,” you said quietly.
“Mm.” She lit another cigarette. “Girls always think they’re just friends with Cody men.”
She pointed at you lightly with the cigarette.
“Especially the pretty ones.”
You looked down at the plate in your hands.
“Does the boy do this often?”
You hesitated. “Sometimes. He was angry tonight.”
Smurf’s expression stayed unreadable.
Cold almost.
“You should learn now,” she said quietly. “Men don’t hit women they love.” She took a slow drag from the cigarette. “They hit women they own.”
The bluntness stunned you into silence.
Before you could answer, movement outside the kitchen windows caught your attention.
Someone sat near the fountain in the backyard, half hidden in the shadows.
You hadn’t noticed him before.
Large frame. Broad shoulders curled slightly forward, elbows resting on his knees. Dark curls falling over his forehead. Freckles dusted across skin that disappeared beneath the sleeves of a faded gray t-shirt. Around him the party carried on at full volume, people screaming over music, splashing into the pool, stumbling through clouds of smoke.
But he sat completely still.
Just watching.
His eyes moved slowly across the yard, detached from all of it like he existed outside the noise.
Then his gaze landed on you.
And stayed there.
Something twisted low in your stomach.
Not fear exactly.
Awareness.
Like some instinct deep in your body already knew who he was before anybody said it.
Smurf noticed immediately.
“Oh,” she murmured softly, almost amused. “There’s Pope.”
Pope.
The name alone tightened something in your spine.
Deran had warned you about him enough times.
If you ever meet Pope, avoid him.
Why?
Because he’s fucking weird.
You glanced back toward the window.
Pope was still staring directly at you.
Not smiling. Not moving. Just staring with an intensity that made your skin feel too tight.
“He just got out,” Smurf said casually, like she was discussing the weather. “Prison makes socializing difficult.”
You didn’t know how to respond to that.
“He’s harmless,” she added after a second.
The way she said it somehow made you feel the exact opposite.
“You should say hi.”
“No, I’m okay-”
“Pope!” Smurf called loudly through the open sliding door.
Your stomach dropped so fast it almost hurt. You shot her a horrified look while she smiled lazily around her cigarette. For a second you genuinely wondered if she was fucking with you. Testing you maybe. You still couldn’t tell when Smurf was being genuine and when she was setting somebody up for entertainment.
Outside, Pope lifted his head immediately.
“Come meet Deran’s friend,” Smurf called.
Your palms started sweating.
A minute later the sliding door opened.
Up close, he was even bigger than you expected.
Not polished like Baz. Not clean-cut like Deran.
Pope looked rough in a way that felt accidental instead of curated. Sharp eyes. Scarred hands. Thick shoulders that made the kitchen suddenly feel smaller. There was something restless underneath his skin even while he stood perfectly still.
And he looked at you like he was trying to figure something out.
“This is Bambi,” Smurf said smoothly.
Pope kept staring.
You shifted awkwardly under the weight of it, suddenly hyperaware of your ripped dress and smeared mascara.
“Hi,” you said quietly.
“Hi,” he echoed.
His voice caught you off guard.
Soft. Almost gentle.
Smurf looked between the two of you with obvious amusement sparkling in her eyes.
“Well,” she said, pushing off the counter. “Try not to scare her, baby.”
Then she disappeared down the hallway, leaving you alone with him.
Silence settled heavily into the kitchen.
You looked literally anywhere except directly at him.
“I like your dress,” Pope said suddenly.
You blinked. “Oh. Thanks.” You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear awkwardly.
“It’s ripped.”
Your eyes dropped to the broken strap hanging off your shoulder.
“I guess, yeah.”
Pope leaned back against the counter, arms folding loosely across his chest, but his eyes never left you.
You tried focusing on the food instead.
“You’re bleeding,” he said after another moment.
You looked down at your scraped knee. Blood had dried in messy streaks down your shin. “Oh.”
Without another word Pope opened the freezer and grabbed an ice pack.
When he handed it to you, your fingers brushed accidentally.
He pulled his hand back immediately.
Too fast. Like the contact surprised him.
And maybe you imagined it, but for half a second his entire expression changed when you looked at him directly. Something almost startled flickered across his face before he looked away.
You didn’t know it, but Pope spent most of his life disconnected from people. Numb to them. Detached. But there was something about you standing in his mother’s kitchen bruised and trembling with those wide, wet doe eyes fixed on him that hooked somewhere deep beneath his ribs before he could stop it.
Maybe it was how vulnerable you looked while still trying to pretend you were fine.
Maybe it was the softness in your voice.
Maybe it was the fact that you looked at him without immediately looking afraid.
He didn’t know.
He just knew he liked it.
“Thanks,” you said quietly.
He nodded once.
Now he was the one avoiding your eyes.
God.
Deran was right.
He was weird.
Not creepy exactly.
Just… off.
Like his brain worked differently from everybody else’s.
You glanced toward the backyard where music still pounded through the walls.
“You don’t like parties?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Pope’s eyes shifted toward the window again. “Don’t like all these people in my space.”
You made a small oh with your mouth before he continued.
“They always break stuff.”
That felt oddly reasonable coming from him.
“You ran here?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
You shrugged awkwardly. “I knew Deran was close.”
Pope considered that for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
“You trust him.”
“I do.”
Another silence stretched between you.
“He said Nate hurts you sometimes.”
Your head snapped up. “Deran told you that?”
The question slipped out sharper than you intended.
Why would Deran tell them about you? About your relationship? About the ugly parts of it?
Had he told all of them?
Or just Pope?
Pope frowned slightly, like he could tell your mood shifted but wasn’t fully sure why.
“He said he doesn’t like him.”
That sounded far more believable.
You relaxed a little, pressing the ice pack carefully against your cheek.
Pope watched the movement intently.
Not flirtatiously.
Not even curiously.
Just intensely.
Like he noticed every little thing your body did.
It made you hyperaware of yourself. Of the way you sat. The way your fingers trembled slightly. The way your dress slipped against your skin.
You cleared your throat quietly.
“So…” you started. “What exactly do you think your brothers are doing right now?”
Pope didn’t answer immediately. You could practically see him debating how honest to be.
“Probably beating the shit out of him.”
Your stomach twisted hard.
“You think?”
Pope looked genuinely confused by the question.
“Yes.”
And somehow the certainty in his voice scared you more than the answer itself.
Nate hit the pavement hard enough to split the skin across his cheekbone.
The crack echoed through the empty marina parking lot like a gunshot.
Before he could even suck in a breath, Craig grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright again like he weighed nothing.
“You like to hit women?” Craig snarled.
His fist slammed into Nate’s ribs hard enough to fold him sideways with a broken wheeze.
Nate choked violently, gasping for air that wouldn’t come.
The marina stretched empty around them. Black water crashed against the docks below while Baz’s truck headlights cut harsh white beams across the pavement. Boats rocked slowly in the distance, chains clinking against metal poles in the wind.
Deran paced nearby like something feral trapped in human skin.
He couldn’t stop moving.
Every few seconds his eyes snapped back to Nate, rage crawling visibly beneath his skin like he was seconds away from tearing him apart with his bare hands.
“You touch her again,” Deran snapped, voice low and shaking, “I’ll fucking drown you myself.”
Nate spit blood onto the concrete.
“She’s a lying-”
Craig kicked him hard in the stomach before he could finish.
Nate crumpled with a strangled noise.
“Wrong answer,” Craig muttered.
Baz stayed leaned against the truck, cigarette glowing faintly between his fingers while he watched the scene unravel with the exhaustion of someone who already knew this was spiraling too far.
“Enough,” he said finally.
“Enough?” Deran barked. He turned so fast the movement itself looked violent. “He beat the shit out of her.”
Nate groaned weakly on the pavement, curling onto his side.
Deran looked down at him with something far worse than anger.
Hatred. Pure, ugly hatred.
The kind that sharpened every edge of his face until he barely looked human anymore.
“We should tie a fucking cinderblock to him and dump him in the ocean.”
Craig immediately pointed at him. “That’s what I said.”
Baz rubbed a hand down his face slowly. “And then what? We explain a dead body to Smurf?”
Deran ignored him completely. “He put his hands on her.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word. Almost disbelieving. Like his brain still couldn’t process the image of you standing in Smurf’s backyard bruised and crying.
Nate coughed wetly, trying to push himself up onto one elbow.
Huge mistake. Deran crossed the distance so fast Baz barely had time to move.
He grabbed Nate by the front of his shirt and slammed him against the side of the truck hard enough to rock it violently on its suspension.
“You think you get to touch her like that?” Deran hissed.
Nate cried out as the back of his head cracked against metal.
Craig’s expression shifted instantly.
The amusement disappeared. “Hey,” he said carefully now. “Deran.”
But Deran either didn’t hear him or didn’t care.
“You think because she stays with your sorry ass that means you can keep doing it?” he snapped. “You think she belongs to you?”
Nate’s face had gone pale beneath the blood smeared across it. “I didn’t mean-”
Deran slammed him against the truck again.
“Bullshit.”
Baz straightened immediately, cigarette dropping to the pavement.
He pushed off the passenger door and started toward them fast.
“Deran.”
Warning this time. But Deran didn’t back off.
He sidestepped Baz entirely, grabbed Nate by the throat with one hand and yanked him upright again. His other hand caught the open passenger door.
“You feel like a big-”
Deran slammed the truck door into the side of Nate’s head. The sound cracked through the marina.
“-tough-”
Another slam. Nate screamed this time.
“-man?”
The final hit sent Nate collapsing onto the pavement in a limp heap, blood streaking down the side of the truck.
Silence hit for half a second except for the waves crashing below the docks. Even Craig froze.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
Nate lay sprawled on the concrete unmoving for a second too long.
Baz moved immediately, shoving past Deran to crouch beside him.
“You trying to fucking kill him?” Baz snapped.
Deran stood there breathing hard, chest rising and falling violently. But he kept staring at Nate like he still wasn’t done.
Like every instinct in his body was screaming at him to finish it. Craig glanced toward Baz briefly. That look alone said enough. Even Craig was getting nervous now.
Nate finally groaned weakly, curling into himself as blood dripped from his nose onto the pavement.
“She always made me fucking crazy,” he slurred through swollen lips.
The second the words left his mouth, Deran snapped again. He lunged so violently Craig barely caught him in time, grabbing him around the waist before he could get to Nate.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Craig barked, struggling to hold him back now.
Deran fought against his grip anyway. Actually fought him.
“She was crying!” Deran shouted. “Did you see her fucking face?”
“Yes,” Craig snapped back. “I saw it.”
Deran shoved hard against him, chest heaving violently.
“I should kill him.” And the terrifying part was nobody thought he was bluffing anymore.
Baz stepped between them now, calmer than both of them but visibly tense for the first time all night. “We scare him,” Baz said firmly. “That’s it.”
Deran laughed once. “You think this shit scares him?”
Nate stayed curled on the pavement bleeding and shaking, but Deran still looked unsatisfied. Like nothing short of irreversible damage was going to quiet the rage clawing through him.
Three days later the bruise on your cheek had finally started turning yellow around the edges. It still hurt when you touched it.
You stood behind the bar beside Deran, wiping down glasses while music hummed low through the speakers overhead. The lunch rush had died an hour ago, leaving the place quieter than usual. Sunlight spilled through the open windows facing the street, warm salt air drifting inside with the sound of traffic and distant waves.
Craig sat at the far end of the bar half drunk already, arguing with Baz about whether or not a guy outside had stolen his parking spot.
“You can’t just threaten people with a wrench every time you get annoyed,” Baz said flatly.
Craig looked genuinely confused. “Why not?”
Deran snorted softly beside you while restocking bottles.
For the first time in days things almost felt normal. Almost. Nate was in a coma.
Nobody said it out loud, but everybody knew Deran had gone way too far at the marina.
You tried not to think about it.
Tried not to think about how part of you felt relieved.
The bell above the front door chimed. Then the entire room changed. You felt it before you even looked up.
Deran froze beside you instantly. A man stood in the doorway.
Older than Nate by maybe twenty years. Thick build. Weathered face. The kind of man who looked mean even standing still. His eyes swept across the bar once before landing directly on you.
Your stomach dropped so hard it made you dizzy.
Because Nate had his father’s eyes.
“Oh,” Craig muttered quietly. “Fuck.”
The man walked inside slowly. Every instinct in your body screamed. You backed up automatically.
Deran moved immediately, stepping in front of you slightly. “What do you want?” he asked coldly.
Nate’s father ignored him completely. His eyes stayed fixed on you. “So,” he said slowly. “This is where the little bitch that ruined my son’s life works.” Your breath caught.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Deran’s expression darkened instantly. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
The older man finally looked at him.
“You’re Deran Cody.” Not a question. “You put my son in the hospital.”
Deran didn’t answer. Didn’t deny it either.
The man laughed once under his breath, but there was nothing amused about it. “You know what Nate told me?” he asked, eyes flicking back toward you. “Said she cries real pretty.”
Your face went cold. You took another step backward unconsciously. And then you felt someone beside you. Solid. Quiet.
Pope.
You hadn’t even seen him come out from the back office. Your fingers wrapped around his arm before you could stop yourself “Andrew,” you said quietly. Nervously.
The name felt strange in your mouth after hearing everybody call him Pope for days.
But his real name fit him more somehow.
Pope looked down at your hand gripping his forearm. Normally he hated being touched. Most people knew better than to try. Craig once joked Pope reacted to physical affection like a feral dog. But he didn’t pull away from you. Didn’t tense. Instead he shifted slightly closer. Enough that your shoulder brushed against his chest.
And instantly, unbelievably, the panic inside you eased. You couldn’t explain it, Pope made you feel calm. Safe. Like if you stayed close enough to him nothing terrible could reach you. The feeling settled through your chest warm and strange and deeply confusing.
Nate’s father noticed immediately. His eyes narrowed. “That your new boyfriend?” he asked cruelly. “You spread your legs for the whole family now?”
Deran lunged forward instantly.
Baz caught him hard across the chest before he could reach him.
“Deran.”
“No,” Deran snapped violently.
But Pope moved first. He stepped fully in front of you now, blocking you from view entirely. The shift was subtle. Terrifyingly subtle. His face stayed calm, but something in his eyes changed.
“You should leave,” Pope said quietly.
Nate’s father laughed. “And what?” he sneered. “You gonna stop me?”
Pope tilted his head slightly. “Yes.”
Silence dropped heavily across the bar.
Nate’s father took another step toward you anyway.
You grabbed the back of Pope’s shirt tighter instinctively. The movement made Pope go completely still.
Then Nate’s father pointed directly at you.
“You think you’re safe now?” he snapped. “Girls like you always go back. You’ll crawl right back to him if he wakes up.”
Something cracked across Deran’s face.
“You need to get him out of here,” Baz said carefully.
But nobody moved. Nate’s father laughed again, uglier this time. “You Codys think you’re untouchable?” He looked around the bar. “Whole family’s fucking rotten.”
Then his eyes landed on you again. “And you.” Your body stiffened instantly. “You should’ve kept your mouth shut.” Pope stepped forward once.
Nate’s father finally seemed to realize something dangerous stood in front of him. Because for the first time since walking in, he hesitated. Then he scoffed and backed toward the door. “This ain’t over.”
The bell chimed again when he left. Silence swallowed the room immediately after.
You were still clutching Pope’s arm. Still half hidden behind him. Nobody pointed it out.
Deran stared at the door long after the man disappeared outside. That same frightening stillness settling over him again.
Baz saw it immediately. “No,” he said firmly.
Deran didn’t look at him.
Craig leaned back slowly against the counter. “He threatened her.”
“No,” Baz repeated harder.
But Deran was already somewhere else mentally. You could see it happen. That cold detached look settling into his face.
Pope glanced back toward you then. His eyes softened slightly when he saw how shaken you still were. “You should go upstairs,” he said quietly.
Deran owned the apartment above the bar. You’d slept there the last two nights because the idea of going home alone suddenly made your skin crawl. You nodded slowly. Your fingers slipped from Pope’s arm reluctantly. The loss of contact felt immediate. Strange, Pope noticed it too.
Something unreadable flickered across his face before he stepped back.
“I’ll lock up,” Deran said flatly.
Baz looked between both brothers and swore under his breath.
Later, long after you finally drifted asleep curled against the arm of Deran’s couch upstairs, the brothers left through the alley behind the bar. The city had gone quiet by then.
Streetlights reflected off damp pavement. The ocean air felt colder at night, heavier somehow, carrying the distant sound of waves crashing somewhere beyond the buildings.
Deran locked the back door without a word.
Pope stood beside the truck waiting calmly, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie. His face looked unreadable in the dark.
Deran slid behind the wheel while Pope watched the apartment windows upstairs for one last second. The living room light was off.
Satisfied, he climbed into the passenger seat. The truck rolled silently out of the alley.
They found Nate’s father exactly where they expected. At the same liquor-stained dive bar off the harbor road where guys like him spent every night slowly rotting themselves from the inside out.
Deran parked across the street beneath a dead streetlamp.
The windows of the bar glowed dim yellow against the dark while old motorcycles lined the curb outside. Inside, Nate’s father sat hunched over the counter already half drunk, laughing too loudly at something the bartender said. Pope watched him quietly through the windshield. “You think he hits women too?” he asked.
Deran’s jaw tightened. Neither of them asked how the other knew that he did. Some things were obvious.
An hour passed. Then another. Neither brother spoke much.
Every once in a while Deran drummed his fingers once against the steering wheel before stopping himself again. Too much energy sitting beneath his skin. Too much anger still trying to claw its way out.
But Pope stayed perfectly still.
Around two in the morning Nate’s father finally stumbled out of the bar alone.
The brothers followed. His truck drifted lazily between lanes as he drove through the sleeping streets of Oceanside toward the edge of town. Small houses gave way to emptier roads. Fewer streetlights. Fewer witnesses.
Finally he pulled into a narrow gravel driveway beside a run-down one story house near the marshes. No nearby neighbors. No barking dogs. Perfect.
The porch light flicked on as he staggered toward the front door fumbling with his keys.
Pope watched carefully from the passenger seat.
Deran killed the engine two houses down. The darkness swallowed the truck instantly.
Ten minutes later the kitchen light inside the house flicked on briefly before disappearing again. Then nothing.
Pope checked his watch. “Give him twenty.”
Deran nodded once. The wait almost killed him. He sat leaning forward slightly, jaw clenched hard enough to ache while rage simmered quietly beneath his skin. Every time he closed his eyes he still saw you standing in the bar clutching Pope’s arm with fear written all over your face.
Girls like you always go back.
The memory alone made his hands tighten.
Twenty-three minutes later Pope opened the passenger door. The brothers moved silently through the yard.
Pope picked the back lock in under thirty seconds.
The house smelled stale inside. Beer. Cigarettes. Old grease. A television played quietly somewhere in the living room.
Nate’s father had passed out half reclined on the couch with an empty bottle hanging loose from one hand. Pope closed the back door carefully behind them.
The man woke slightly at the sound. “Huh?”
Deran moved first. He crossed the room in three steps and drove his forearm across the man’s throat hard enough to pin him against the couch before he could fully react.
Confusion flashed across the older man’s face. Then recognition. Then fear.
“What the fu-”
Pope grabbed the bottle before it hit the floor. Quiet. Always quiet.
Nate’s father struggled violently beneath Deran’s grip now, but alcohol slowed him down. Age slowed him down more.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.” Deran said quietly.
The man wheezed against his arm. Pope stepped closer calmly, expression empty. Pope looked at him the same way somebody looked at a broken appliance they needed to get rid of. “You scared her,” Pope added softly.
Nate’s father started fighting harder then. Panic setting in.
Deran slammed him backward against the couch again hard enough to daze him.
“Left her scared in my fucking bar,” Deran hissed.
The older man reached desperately for the side table. Phone. Weapon. Anything.
Pope caught his wrist instantly. Then twisted. A wet crack echoed through the room.
The scream barely had time to leave his mouth before Pope clamped a hand over it.
“You should’ve stayed away from her,” he said.
Afterward, they cleaned everything carefully. Pope wiped surfaces while Deran staged the kitchen. A shattered beer bottle near the counter. Water spilled across the tile.
The body positioned wrong enough to look accidental but believable.
A drunk man falls hard enough onto the corner of a counter and sometimes he doesn’t get back up. Sad. Common. Forgettable.
By the time they left, the house looked untouched.
The brothers washed their hands at a gas station fifteen minutes later. Deran scrubbed blood from beneath his fingernails in silence while Pope leaned against the sink watching the empty parking lot through the window.“You think she’s asleep?” Pope asked quietly.
Deran nodded once. Pope looked back down at the water running pink briefly before turning the faucet off. Then they drove to the hospital.
The city was beginning to pale blue with early morning by the time they parked in the visitor garage.
Nate’s room sat on the fourth floor.
Critical condition. Machines breathing for him. Deran stared through the small window in the door for a long moment before entering. Nate looked smaller like this.
Bruised face swollen beyond recognition.
A machine beeped steadily beside him in the darkened room.
Pope closed the door quietly behind them. Nate’s eyes fluttered weakly at the sound. For one horrifying second he almost looked aware. Then his gaze landed on Deran. Fear flooded his face instantly.
Good, Deran thought.
He should be scared.
“You should’ve left her alone,” Deran said softly.
Nate tried to speak. Nothing came out around the breathing tube.
Pope walked calmly to the door, peeking once through the narrow window toward the empty hallway before looking back at his brother. Deran stepped toward the bed.
And by the time the sun finally rose over Oceanside, Nate’s room had become just another tragedy inside a hospital full of them.
It had been a few weeks. A few strange, chaotic, strangely comfortable weeks where the Cody family somehow became woven into your life before you fully realized what was happening.
You’d officially met everyone now.
J had shown up at the bar one afternoon quiet and observant, watching everybody with the same careful expression Pope wore sometimes. Nicky was sweet in an exhausting sort of way and latched onto you immediately after discovering you owned actual skincare products. Lena adored you after exactly ten minutes because you sat on the floor with her and helped untangle one of her necklaces without getting annoyed.
And Smurf… Smurf had become dangerously fond of you. Not in a normal way either. It felt more like she’d picked you out. Like she was studying you the same way she studied her sons. Watching your reactions. Learning your weak spots. Encouraging certain behaviors while quietly steering you away from others.
You noticed it more lately.
“You apologize too much,” Smurf had told you three nights ago while helping you clean up after dinner.
You blinked. “What?”
“You say sorry before you even speak sometimes.” She handed you a wine glass. “Men smell weakness, sweetheart.”
You laughed awkwardly. “I think that’s a little dramatic.”
“No,” Smurf said calmly. “It isn’t.”
Then she’d taught you how to hold eye contact during confrontation like it was a lesson worth learning.
And weirdly enough Pope started hovering more whenever Smurf was around. At first you thought you imagined it. But then you noticed how he lingered nearby anytime Smurf cornered you into conversations. How his eyes tracked the two of you constantly. How he interrupted more. Redirected you away from her. Like he knew something you didn’t.
Which honestly happened a lot with the Codys.
You were beginning to realize there were entire conversations happening beneath the surface around you. Things you weren’t understanding.
Like the fact that none of them ever talked directly about what they actually did.
You heard rumors, obviously. Everybody in Oceanside heard rumors about the Codys. Crime. Robberies. Violence.
But then Deran would make you coffee exactly how you liked it without asking, or Baz would walk you to your car after work, or Craig would spend twenty minutes teaching Lena how to cannonball properly into the pool while Pope sat nearby staring at you like you hung the fucking moon.
They didn’t feel dangerous around you. Not really. Just damaged.
And Pope… Pope was becoming something else entirely. Possessive wasn’t even the right word anymore. It was quieter than that. More constant. Like gravity. He always knew where you were in a room. Always noticed immediately when another man looked too long at you. Always positioned himself close enough to touch you somehow without making it obvious.
His hand brushing the small of your back. His knee pressed against yours under tables. His fingers curling around your wrist absentmindedly while you talked.
And the eye contact.
Jesus Christ.
Pope looked at you like he physically could not stop.
Sometimes it genuinely made you nervous how intensely he listened whenever you spoke. Like every word mattered. Like every facial expression was something worth memorizing. But you liked it more than you should’ve. Way more.
Which was probably why you found yourself currently squeezed tightly beneath Deran’s arm at one of Smurf’s massive pool parties wearing a bikini that barely qualified as fabric. A bikini Smurf picked out herself.
You should’ve known that alone was dangerous.
“Oh my god,” you muttered earlier that afternoon holding the tiny black swimsuit up between two fingers. “This is insane.”
Smurf looked unimpressed from her closet doorway. “No, sweetheart. It’s expensive.”
“It’s basically underwear.”
“Exactly.”
You laughed nervously. “Nate would’ve had an aneurysm.”
Smurf’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Good.”
And somehow you ended up wearing it anyway.
Now music pounded through the backyard while bodies crowded around the pool beneath strings of warm patio lights. Somebody was doing shots off a surfboard table. Craig had already thrown two people into the water fully clothed.
Deran sat beside you on one of the lounge chairs, arm hooked around your shoulders mostly because he was still paranoid about men approaching you at parties now.
You leaned comfortably against him sipping from a drink while laughing at something Nicky screamed near the pool.
Then you felt it. That familiar feeling. Being watched. Your eyes lifted automatically across the crowded backyard. Pope sat near the outdoor kitchen talking to Baz.
Well. Baz was talking. Pope was staring directly at you. Even from across the yard you could feel the intensity of it.
His eyes moved slowly over you once before locking back onto your face. Heat crept into your chest immediately.
Deran noticed your distraction and followed your gaze. “Oh my fucking god,” he muttered.
“What?”
“He’s doing it again.”
You looked innocent. “Doing what?”
“Looking at you like a psychopath.”
You snorted into your drink. “He’s not that weird.”
Deran turned toward you slowly. “Yes,” he said flatly. “He is.”
“I think you exaggerate.”
“Yeah?” Deran barked out a laugh. “Because you don’t work with him.”
You frowned immediately. “What work?”
The second the question left your mouth, Deran’s expression shifted.
“Nothing,” he said.
“That sounds weird.”
“It’s not.”
“You literally just made it more suspicious.”
Deran rubbed his forehead already irritated.
“You ask too many questions.”
“And yet you avoid all of them.”
“Smartest thing I’ve ever done.”
You narrowed your eyes slightly.
Again. That weird feeling.
Like everybody around you knew something you didn’t. Before you could push further, Craig suddenly cannonballed into the pool hard enough to soak half the patio.
You yelped as cold water splashed across your legs. “CRAIG.”
He surfaced laughing wildly. “That was for saying i’m six foot something with shampoo-commercial hair and I only have exactly three surviving brain cells fighting for fourth place earlier.”
“Was I wrong? You do have shampoo-commercial hair.”
Craig pointed dramatically. “See?”
While everybody argued around the pool, your eyes drifted back toward Pope automatically. Still watching you. Except now his expression looked darker somehow.
You followed his line of sight downward and immediately realized why. Deran’s hand rested against your bare thigh.
Oh. You bit back a smile.
“Your brother looks homicidal,” you murmured.
Deran glanced over again. Then groaned loudly. “For fuck’s sake.”
“What?”
“He’s jealous.”
You nearly choked on your drink laughing “Pope? No.”
Deran stared at you like you were stupid “Bambi. He follows you around like a stray dog.”
“That is so mean. Don’t be mean to him.”
“It’s accurate.” He rolled his eyes.
Your smile widened despite yourself. Because maybe Deran wasn’t entirely wrong. Pope looked at you differently now. Not subtle either. Everybody noticed. Especially Smurf.
You caught her watching the interaction from near the grill with an amused little smile pulling at her mouth.
“You should go sit with him,” Deran muttered.
“What?”
“Before he burns holes through my skull.”
You laughed harder. “You’re being dramatic.”
Deran looked back toward Pope. Then immediately removed his arm from around your shoulders. “Nope. Absolutely not. Go.”
“Deran-”
“I’m serious. He’s freaking me out.”
You looked back across the yard again. Pope hadn’t looked away once. God. It should not have affected you this much. But it did.
Because unlike every other guy who looked at you, Pope never seemed distracted. Never checked his phone mid conversation. Never split his attention elsewhere.
When he looked at you, he looked only at you. Like the entire room disappeared.
You stood slowly from the lounge chair.
Almost immediately Pope straightened slightly where he sat.
Deran watched the reaction happen and muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath.
You crossed the backyard toward him through the crowd.
Pope tracked every step.
By the time you reached the outdoor kitchen, Baz was already smirking into his beer.
“Well,” Baz drawled. “There’s the reason he hasn’t heard a word I said in ten minutes.”
Pope ignored him completely. His eyes flicked slowly over your bikini again before settling on your face. “You cold?” he asked immediately.
You blinked. “What?”
“You’re shivering.”
“Oh.” You laughed softly. “The pool water.”
Pope grabbed the towel beside him without hesitation and held it out. Your chest tightened a little. Always paying attention. Always noticing.
“Thanks, Andrew.”
The second you said his real name, something changed in his expression. Softened. It happened every single time. Pope loved when you called him Andrew. Loved it in that deep quiet way he loved most things concerning you.
Baz noticed too because of course he did “Oh my god,” Baz muttered. “You’re whipped.”
Pope didn’t even deny it.
You smiled trying to hide your embarrassment while taking the towel from him. Pope’s hand settled automatically against your thigh once you sat beside him.
Possessive. Casual. Like it belonged there.
And weirdly enough you let it stay there without thinking twice.
Across the yard, Deran watched the interaction happen before looking deeply exhausted. Smurf appeared beside him sipping wine. “Told you,” she said smugly.
Deran sighed. “This is gonna end in a body. Hopefully not hers.”
Smurf smiled wider. “Probably will be.”
The party got louder the later it got.
Music pounded through the backyard hard enough to shake the deck beneath your feet while bodies crowded shoulder to shoulder around the pool. The entire property glowed gold against the dark ocean behind it, strings of lights hanging from the balcony while drunk strangers danced barefoot across wet concrete.
Craig had somehow started an argument about sharks. “No, listen to me,” he insisted loudly, pointing with a beer bottle while half sprawled across a lounge chair. “If sharks can smell blood from like five miles away then obviously they can smell cocaine.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Deran said flatly.
“It’s literally dissolved in your bloodstream.”
“That’s not how drugs work.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I absolutely know that.”
J sat nearby trying unsuccessfully not to laugh while Nicky filmed the entire thing on her phone solely for future blackmail purposes.
“You’re embarrassing yourself,” she informed Craig cheerfully.
Craig pointed at her dramatically. “History’s gonna vindicate me.”
Beside you, Pope stayed stretched back against the outdoor couch with one arm hooked lazily along the cushions behind you. Well. Not really behind you anymore.
At some point during the conversation you’d shifted closer without thinking until your shoulder rested fully against his chest, your legs tucked partly beneath his along the couch. And Pope loved it. You could tell.
Not because he said anything. Because every time you touched him he got quieter. More focused. Like his entire body locked onto the feeling immediately.
His hand rested against your thigh now, large fingers spread lazily over sun-warmed skin while everybody argued around you. Every so often his thumb brushed absentminded little circles there.
Every single time it happened, his eyes flicked down toward your face. Checking. Watching your reaction carefully like he still hadn’t fully processed the fact that you let him touch you this much.
You leaned your head back slightly to look up at him. “You’re awfully quiet tonight.”
Pope’s eyes dropped to yours instantly. The height difference forced you to tilt your chin up slightly from where you rested against him. “I’m listening.”
“To Craig talking about drug-sniffing sharks?”
“Yes.”
You laughed softly.
Pope’s eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long afterward.
Across from you, Baz noticed immediately and smirked into his drink. The man was obsessed with you. Not even subtly anymore.
Smurf sat nearby with a glass of wine watching the entire interaction unfold with careful amusement. Like she was observing a particularly entertaining science experiment in real time.
You were halfway through making fun of Craig’s shark theory when a girl suddenly approached the couch hesitantly.
You recognized her vaguely from high school. Not close friends. Just familiar enough to know her name if somebody said it out loud. She looked relieved when she spotted you.
“Oh my god,” she said softly. “There you are.”
You frowned slightly. “What?”
“I’ve been trying to find you.”
Beside you, Pope’s hand engulfed your thigh more firmly instantly. Protective. Alert. His eyes lifted toward the girl carefully now.
Confusion twisted through you. “Why?”
The girl glanced awkwardly around the group before looking back at you. “You didn’t hear?”
Something in her tone made your stomach tighten immediately. You laughed nervously shaking your head. “Hear what?”
“Nate’s dad died.”
Everything around you seemed to go strangely muffled. Like somebody dropped water over your ears. “What?” you whispered.
The girl nodded quickly. “Yeah. Cops are saying he got drunk and slipped in his kitchen or something. Everybody’s freaking out because he was like… such a good guy..”
A good guy. Yeah fucking right.
You felt Pope’s entire body go still behind you.
The girl kept talking nervously. “And Nate…” Your chest tightened instantly. “He died Wednesday morning at the hospital.”
The words hit like ice water. Your body instinctively pressed backward into Pope’s chest before you even realized you were moving. And immediately Pope’s arm wrapped fully around your waist. His fingers slid beneath the tie of your bikini bottoms absentmindedly, anchoring you against him.
The touch made heat crawl up your spine despite the panic suddenly flooding your chest. Around you, every Cody had gone silent.
Especially Smurf. All of them watching your face carefully now. Measuring your reaction. Because you knew what happened at the marina. You looked between them slowly, heartbeat suddenly roaring in your ears “How?” you asked quietly.
The girl shrugged uneasily. “They said his ventilator malfunctioned or something. Like some weird glitch.” You suddenly became hyperaware of Pope’s hand tightening slightly against your waist. The girl laughed awkwardly into the silence. “Crazy, right? Anyway, his mom’s doing a service for both of them next week.”
Nobody answered her. Because now the atmosphere felt wrong. Heavy. You swallowed hard.
Your brain started racing violently. Nate dead. His father dead. The ventilator made no sense. The kitchen accident made too much sense.
And suddenly every rumor you’d ever heard about the Codys stopped sounding like rumors at all.
You looked toward Deran slowly. His expression stayed unreadable. Too unreadable. Like none of this was actually news to him.
Baz somehow looked calmer than everybody else which honestly made him scarier. Craig wouldn’t meet your eyes anymore. Even J looked tense now.
But Pope was only watching you. Like your reaction mattered more than the deaths themselves.
The girl shifted awkwardly under the silence. “I just thought you should know.”
“Yeah,” you said faintly. “Thanks.”
She disappeared back into the crowd quickly after that. But the weirdness stayed.
The party still raged around you. Music blasted through the backyard. Somebody screamed after getting shoved into the pool fully clothed again. Bottles clinked. People laughed too loudly. But around the couch, tension settled heavy and suffocating.
You sat stiffly against Pope’s chest now, barely realizing how tightly you’d pressed yourself into him. His hand stayed firm against your waist, thumb moving slowly against your side like he was trying to soothe you. Or maybe soothe himself. You honestly couldn’t tell anymore.
“Nate died?” you said finally, voice sounding distant even to yourself.
The words felt unreal. Deran exchanged a quick glance with Baz. Craig stared down into his beer bottle. J watched everyone carefully from the edge of the chair, quiet like always.
Smurf leaned back calmly, wine balanced elegantly between her fingers while sharp interest glittered behind her eyes.
The whole thing suddenly felt deeply wrong.
You looked around slowly. “Why is everybody acting weird?”
“No one’s acting weird,” Deran answered way too fast.
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “Yeah, you are.”
Pope’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly when your voice rose.
You looked up at him instinctively. His eyes were already on your face. Always.
“You okay?” he asked quietly. And somehow that almost made it worse.
Because he sounded genuinely concerned while everybody else looked tense as hell.
You swallowed hard. “I don’t know.” The girl’s words replayed violently in your head.
You suddenly stood up. “I need to leave.”
Pope immediately straightened beside you. “Hey-“
“I just…” You rubbed your forehead shakily. “I need a second.” Your fingers grabbed the nearest sweatshirt off the couch blindly before pulling it over your bikini top. You barely noticed the sleeves swallowed your hands completely.
Pope did. His eyes locked instantly onto the oversized hoodie hanging off your body. His hoodie. Something sharp and possessive flashed across his face so quickly only Smurf caught it.
Interesting.
You pushed through the side gate quickly. The metal slammed behind you. The second you disappeared down the street, Craig exhaled loudly.
“Good job not acting suspicious as fuck, guys,” Baz said sarcastically.
“Shut up,” Deran muttered.
Smurf swirled the wine slowly in her glass. “She knows something.”
J frowned slightly. “About what?”
Smurf’s eyes stayed fixed thoughtfully on the closed gate. “That girl didn’t react like someone upset her ex-boyfriend died.” Her expression sharpened slightly. “She reacted like she’s scared.”
Baz leaned forward now. “You think Nate told her something?”
“I think,” Smurf said carefully, “our sweet little Bambi is smarter than you boys thought.”
Pope stood immediately. “She’s not gonna say anything.”
Smurf’s gaze flicked toward him knowingly. “You sound very sure. You willing to bet your freedom on it?”
“I am.” The certainty in his voice shut everybody up briefly.
Because Pope trusted you completely. And honestly? That made him the most dangerous person in the family right now.
Smurf looked between her sons slowly before nodding once toward the street “Follow her.”
Deran groaned immediately. “Come on. She ran out of here looking terrified. She just found out her ex died.”
“And?” Smurf snapped lightly. “You think that girl’s stupid? She’s putting things together.”
Baz stood first. “Let’s go.”
But Pope was already moving toward the driveway before anybody else.
Because he knew the look on your face when you got overwhelmed. And more importantly, He wasn’t about to let anybody else get to you first.
Your hands shook so badly on the steering wheel you nearly blew through a stop sign.
The tires screeched slightly when you corrected too hard. Everything felt wrong.
Your thoughts kept colliding into each other faster than you could process them. Nate yelling. Nate crying the first time he begged you not to “ruin his family.”
Nate’s father smiling at barbecues while flipping burgers like some suburban dad straight out of a Home Depot commercial. Pretending he wasn’t a lousy drunk behind closed doors.
The hidden files on the computer. Your best friend sobbing in that video. God. Your stomach twisted so violently you thought you might throw up. The apartment complex came into view too fast.
You parked crooked and barely remembered shutting the car off before climbing out. The apartment you once shared with Nate was dark when you stepped inside. And it still smelled like him. Stale beer. Laundry detergent. Old cigarettes soaked into fabric and walls. You hated it instantly.
It hit you all over again why you hadn’t come back since the night he hit you. Why staying with Deran had somehow felt safer than being alone here. Your chest tightened hard.
The silence inside the apartment felt wrong now. Haunted.
You moved quickly toward the entertainment center near the living room wall, panic making your movements jerky. Books hit the floor one after another while you ripped them off the shelves searching.
“Come on,” you whispered shakily under your breath. “Come on, please…”
Your fingers slipped against the wood paneling behind the shelf before finally catching the loose edge. Relief hit so hard it almost made your knees weak. You pulled the hidden disk case free from inside the wall.
“Oh my god,” you laughed breathlessly to yourself. Not happy. Just relieved.
Your grip tightened around the case as you turned and nearly screamed. A solid wall of muscle stood directly in front of you. You stumbled backward violently before realizing it was Pope. A startled sound escaped your throat. His hand shot out immediately, grabbing your forearm gently before you could trip over the books scattered across the floor.
Your eyes snapped upward.
All four brothers stood inside the apartment doorway. The sight of them there made your pulse spike instantly.
“What the fuck?”
Pope stepped closer first. “Hey,” he murmured softly, saying your name like he was trying not to scare you. Too late. You took another step backward anyway.
“How did you even know I was here? Nobody answered immediately.
And for the first time since meeting them, the Cody brothers looked exactly like the stories people whispered about. Craig leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed, expression unusually serious. Baz’s eyes moved carefully around the apartment, taking everything in automatically. Deran looked tense enough to snap.
But Pope only looked at you. Or more specifically At the disk case clutched tightly in your hands.
Your heartbeat sped up immediately. “You followed me here?” you asked carefully.
Baz spoke first. “What’s that?”
Your fingers tightened around the disk instinctively. “Nothing.”
You shoved it behind your back too quickly.
The second Deran stepped forward with that cold unreadable look on his face, you regretted it. “Bambi,” he said carefully. “Why’d you come here?”
You looked between all of them uneasily. The atmosphere had shifted. Not violent exactly. But serious. Focused. Like they were trying to solve a problem.
Pope took another slow step closer. “You scared us.”
A nervous laugh escaped you. “So your solution was following me to my apartment?”
“Yeah,” Craig muttered. “Because you looked like you were about to have a fucking breakdown.”
Your eyes lifted back toward Pope automatically.
His gaze dropped briefly toward the disk behind your back. Then back to your face.“What’s on it?” he asked softly. And somehow him asking gently broke you more than if he’d demanded it.
Your throat tightened. “It belonged to Nate’s dad.” You swallowed hard. “It’s why he said I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”
Every single one of them went still. The memory of that night at the bar flashed visibly across their faces. Deran’s expression darkened immediately.
You stared down at the disk case in your hands. “A few months ago Nate’s dad let me borrow his computer,” you said quietly. “I found videos on it.”
Baz’s face flattened instantly. “What kind of videos?”
You looked sick even trying to say it. “Girls.” Nobody spoke. “High school girls.”
Craig swore quietly under his breath.
“One of them was my best friend.” Your voice cracked instantly. “She was crying and he was hurting her.” Pope’s face changed. You sniffed shakily and kept talking too fast now, words tumbling over themselves. “She went missing our senior year. They found her body all the way out in Point Loma.”
Silence slammed into the apartment. Pope looked genuinely frightening now. Not toward you. Toward the thought of somebody making you cry like this.
Craig sat down hard on the couch suddenly, elbows braced on his knees while he dragged both hands down his face. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered.
You rushed your words out quicker now through tears. “I wanted to go to the police but Nate kept begging me not to ruin his dad’s life and then we started fighting more and more and…” Your throat closed painfully. “The night he hit me was because I told him I was done protecting them.” Your breathing shook. “It had been seven years since she died and-” You stopped hard, trying to steady yourself. “Her parents invited Nate and me to breakfast every year after they found her body.” Your voice cracked again. “And I had to sit across from them pretending the person I was sharing my life with didn’t know his father murdered their daughter.”
Deran looked disgusted. Actually disgusted.
Pope stepped toward you immediately. His hand lifted carefully, fingers brushing against the side of your face almost hesitantly. “What…” he said softly, eyes searching yours. “What do you mean he knew?”
You swallowed hard. “Nate helped him.”
Even the air in the apartment felt different afterward. “That asshole helped his father?” Deran asked flatly. Not remorseful. Just colder somehow.
You nodded shakily. “He knew the whole time.” Tears slid down your cheeks faster now. “He wasn’t shocked when I told him what I found. He was angry I wouldn’t look the other way anymore.”
Baz rubbed a hand slowly over his mouth processing everything. Then finally he held his hand out toward the disk carefully. “Can I see it?”
You hesitated. And for one awful second, fear curled low in your stomach. Not because you thought they’d hurt you. Because suddenly you realized you didn’t actually know what these men were capable of. Now here they stood in a dead man’s apartment after silently following you across town.
You looked toward Pope carefully. He noticed the hesitation instantly. And it visibly hurt him. Something shifted in his expression almost imperceptibly. “Hey,” he said quietly.
Your eyes lifted toward him. “We’re not gonna hurt you.” The sincerity in his voice made your chest ache.
You nodded slowly before handing Baz the disk case.
Baz opened it carefully while Craig leaned over trying to see too. Deran cursed quietly under his breath almost immediately. Inside sat a plain burned CD labeled in black marker.
S. DAVIS — 3/18/2009.
“Her name was Sarah,” you whispered.
“Jesus Christ,” Craig muttered again.
You looked away immediately, humiliation mixing violently with grief in your chest. “I know I should’ve gone to the cops sooner.”
You completely misunderstood the look passing between them. You thought they were judging you. Wondering why you stayed quiet so long. You didn’t notice the other realization settling in instead.
That Nate and his father being dead suddenly looked a whole lot less suspicious if this ever surfaced.
“No,” Pope said immediately. Your eyes lifted toward him again. His expression softened instantly the second he saw your face. “You tried.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Because nobody else had ever said that to you. Not Nate. Not yourself. Pope stepped closer carefully now. Close enough that you could smell him mixed with the smoke and beer still clinging faintly to the oversized sweatshirt hanging off your body. His sweatshirt. You suddenly became aware you were still wearing it.
Pope noticed you realizing. His eyes dropped briefly toward the sleeves swallowing your hands. Something possessive flickered low across his face again. Then he looked back at you. “You were trying to protect people,” he said quietly. Your throat tightened painfully “Sarah deserves justice.”
Baz looked up from the disk then. “We can help with that.”
You blinked at him. “What?”
Deran nodded slowly now. “You take this to the cops, they’ll actually listen.”
“Especially now,” Craig muttered darkly. “Perfect dead suburban family man bullshit kinda falls apart once this gets out.”
You stared at all of them. “You’d help me?”
Baz feigned confusion by the question. “Why wouldn’t we?”
You almost laughed at that. Because ten minutes ago these men silently appeared in your apartment like something out of a nightmare and scared the hell out of you without even trying. And now they were calmly offering to help expose a predator.
Nothing about the Codys made sense.
Pope stepped even closer. Close enough that your pulse stumbled slightly. “You don’t gotta do this alone anymore,” he said softly. “I’ll take you to the cops myself.”
And the terrifying thing was you believed him immediately.
The police station took almost two hours.
Two exhausting, emotionally draining hours of sitting beneath fluorescent lights while detectives asked careful questions and copied files from the disk. You felt nauseous the entire time.
Pope never left your side once. Not once.
He sat beside you in stiff silence through every interview, large body angled slightly toward yours the whole time like some unconscious shield. Every time your voice shook answering a question, his eyes lifted immediately to your face.
One detective finally asked if he was your boyfriend.
Pope answered before you could. “Yes.” The word came out flat and immediate. You turned toward him in surprise. Pope didn’t even look at you. Just kept staring at the detective like daring him to question it.
The detective only nodded slowly and moved on. But your stomach had flipped violently anyway. Because Pope didn’t say things casually. Everything with him felt carved in stone.
By the time you finally walked back outside, the sky had gone dark. You stood near the parking lot rubbing your arms tiredly while Pope watched you carefully beside his truck.
“You okay?”
“No,” you admitted honestly.
Pope nodded once like he expected that answer. “You wanna stay alone tonight?”
The thought made your stomach twist immediately. Nate’s apartment suddenly felt unbearable now, and you knew Deran had Adrian over. You looked at him quietly. “Can I stay with you?”
Pope’s entire body went still. You noticed. Because you’d started learning him now. And Pope looked at you like you’d just handed him something precious.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, okay.”
The drive to his apartment was quiet.
Pope drove one-handed, occasionally glancing toward you like he was checking to make sure you were still there. The apartment complex itself surprised you.
Small. Quiet. Nothing flashy.
Inside surprised you even more. Everything was spotless. Painfully spotless. You stepped inside slowly while Pope locked the door behind you. The apartment looked almost untouched. Counters completely clear. Shoes lined up perfectly near the wall. Blankets folded sharply across the couch. Not a single dish in the sink.
“You actually live like this?” you asked softly. Pope shrugged. “It’s cleaner than a hospital in here.”
“I don’t like mess.” You looked around again. The apartment felt exactly like him somehow. Every object carefully placed where it belonged. Even the air smelled clean.
Pope watched your eyes move around the room intently. Like he cared whether or not you approved.
You smiled faintly. “I like it.”
The tension visibly left his shoulders.
God. That should not have affected you as much as it did. You turned toward him fully then. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping me today.”
Pope frowned slightly like the answer was obvious. “You needed help.”
“I know but…” Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “Nobody’s ever really done something like that for me before.”
Pope stared at you so intensely your chest warmed. “You don’t gotta thank me for taking care of you.” There it was again. That dangerous kind of devotion sitting quietly beneath everything he said.
You swallowed hard. Pope’s eyes immediately dropped to your throat moving. Jesus Christ. The man stared like it physically hurt him not to touch you. “You can shower if you want,” he said suddenly. “I’ll find you clothes.” You nodded quickly mostly because you needed a second to breathe.
The bathroom was just as obsessively clean as the rest of the apartment. White towels folded perfectly. Everything organized. You caught yourself smiling slightly while turning on the shower. Of course Pope folded towels properly.
You stripped slowly, exhaustion finally crashing into your body as steam filled the room. The hot water felt almost painful against your skin at first. You closed your eyes beneath the spray immediately. For the first time all day, your brain quieted.
A soft knock sounded faintly through the bathroom. You barely heard it over the water. “Bambi?” Pope’s voice.
You called back weakly, “Yeah?”
“I got clothes for you.”
You hummed something unintelligible, eyes still closed beneath the water. A second later the bathroom door opened quietly. Pope stepped inside carefully holding a folded shirt and sweatpants. Then he froze. The glass shower door was partially translucent from the steam. Enough to see your silhouette beneath the water. Your head tilted back slightly. Wet hair slicked against your shoulders. Water tracing down your body slowly. Pope stopped breathing for a second.
You didn’t notice him immediately. Eyes still closed while water poured over your face. Pope should’ve left. Instead he stood there completely motionless staring through the steam like a man starving to death. His jaw flexed once hard enough to hurt.
Then you opened your eyes. And saw him.
For one suspended second neither of you moved. Pope looked almost caught.
Your heart started pounding instantly. But you weren’t scared. Not even a little. Because it was Andrew. Obsessive, strange, intense Andrew who looked at you like you were the only thing in the world worth seeing.
Slowly, you reached forward and pulled the shower door open wider. Steam curled out into the bathroom. Pope stared at you silently. Water dripped down your skin while his eyes moved over you openly now. No pretending otherwise.
Your voice came out soft. “You gonna just stand there?”
Pope swallowed hard. “You want me to come in there?”
You stepped closer instead of answering. Close enough now that steam dampened the front of his shirt. Then your fingers curled around the front of it gently and pulled. Pope came willingly. The second he stepped beneath the hot water, your mouths crashed together hard.
It wasn’t soft. Weeks of tension snapped all at once.
Pope kissed like he thought about it constantly. Hands immediately gripping your waist hard enough to bruise while yours tangled into his damp hair. A low sound left his throat when you kissed him back harder.
“You sure?” he murmured roughly against your mouth.
You answered by dragging his shirt upward impatiently. That nearly killed him. Pope pulled back just enough to yank the shirt over his head before grabbing your face again immediately. His hands were everywhere now. Like he couldn’t decide where he wanted to touch you most.
Your chest. Your waist. Your thighs. Always pulling you closer. Always needing more.
You kissed down his jaw while your fingers worked open his belt beneath the spray of water. Pope’s breathing turned uneven instantly. “Bambi,” he muttered warningly. But his hands tightened against you anyway.
You looked up at him through wet lashes. The eye contact alone almost destroyed him. Because Pope loved your eye contact. Loved seeing exactly what you felt while touching him.
You pushed his jeans down just enough to make him curse softly under his breath before his mouth found yours again harder this time. The steam thickened around both of you while water poured over his shoulders. Everything about him felt overwhelming up close. Big hands. Heavy breathing. The intensity. Even kissing you, Pope watched your face constantly like he needed every reaction. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered suddenly against your mouth.
The sincerity in it made heat rush through you instantly. Pure Andrew.
Your fingers slid across his chest slowly and Pope actually shivered beneath your touch. That realization alone nearly made you dizzy. Because this terrifying man, this obsessive, dangerous Cody, looked completely undone by you touching him back. His hands stayed locked around your waist beneath the spray of hot water while your mouths moved together desperately, steam thickening the air around both of you until breathing felt difficult. Not because of the heat. Because of him. Because every time you touched him, Pope reacted like it meant something.
Your fingers slid through his wet hair and his entire body tensed instantly. A rough sound left his throat before he kissed you harder, backing you slowly against the cool shower wall. “Andrew,” you breathed against his mouth. His forehead dropped briefly against yours while he stared at your face through wet lashes, breathing uneven.
“You keep doing that,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Calling me that.”
You smiled softly. “Well do you like it.”
“Yes.” Always honest. You laughed quietly and Pope’s eyes locked onto your mouth again instantly. Like he couldn’t help himself. The intensity of it made your stomach twist pleasantly. Water ran down his chest while your hands moved lower, tracing slowly across muscle and scar tissue. Pope shivered again beneath your touch and the realization almost drove you insane. This terrifying man who scared half of Oceanside looked completely undone just from you touching him gently. Pope suddenly grabbed your thighs without warning. You gasped softly as he lifted you effortlessly against him. His mouth found yours again immediately. Your legs wrapped around his waist instinctively while his hands held you securely like he never wanted to put you down again. Which honestly,
he probably didn’t.
Pope kissed down your jaw slowly before pressing his face briefly against your neck. Not even kissing for a second. Just breathing you in. The intimacy of it made your chest ache. Then suddenly he pulled back just enough to look at you again. Really look at you. Water dripped from his dark hair into his eyes but he barely blinked.“You wanna stop?” he asked quietly.
The question caught you off guard. Because despite all the intensity, all the possessiveness simmering beneath his skin Pope had been careful with you from the beginning.
You shook your head immediately. “No.”
Pope stared one second longer like he needed to make absolutely sure. Then he kissed you again and carried you straight out of the shower. You laughed breathlessly against his mouth as water dripped onto the bathroom floor.
“Andrew…”
He barely let you finish speaking before pushing open the bedroom door. The room matched the rest of the apartment perfectly. You didn’t even fully process it before Pope lowered you onto the mattress and climbed over you immediately. The second your back hit the sheets, something in him snapped. Like having you in his bed meant more than it should. His large hands slid beneath your thighs while he kissed you deeper, slower now, finally able to touch you without interruption.
You tugged him closer instantly. Pope practically groaned into your mouth. “You want me close,” he muttered against your lips almost like he was amazed by it.
“Yes.” His eyes flashed dark immediately. Pope loved hearing that. Loved anything that sounded like you choosing him. He kissed you again rougher this time while his hands moved over your body constantly. Your waist. Your hips. Your stomach. Like he couldn’t stop touching you long enough to think straight. Pope kept pulling back just enough to look at you. Watching your face every time you touched him. Every little sound you made. Every reaction. It was almost overwhelming how focused he was on you.
You reached up brushing damp hair back from his forehead gently. Pope froze for half a second. “What?” you whispered.
“You’re…” He swallowed hard. “You’re nice to me.”
The quiet sincerity behind the words hurt your chest unexpectedly. Like he genuinely wasn’t used to tenderness. You touched his face softer this time. “Andrew.”
His eyes shut briefly. You realized suddenly that Pope Cody would probably let you ruin him completely if you asked. The thought hit hard. Because underneath all the danger and obsession and intensity Pope was touch-starved in a way that felt almost painful. Every gentle touch visibly affected him. Every kiss. Every time your fingers dragged through his hair or across his shoulders. He reacted like he’d remember it forever.
Your hands slid down his chest slowly while he kissed along your throat, breathing rough and uneven against your skin.
“You smell good,” he murmured distractedly.
You laughed softly. “That’s a weird thing to say during a makeout.”
“I know.” Again with the honesty.
You smiled into another kiss while Pope’s hand tightened slightly against your waist. Like he physically needed to keep part of you underneath his hand at all times. His mouth moved slower now, deeper, tension simmering heavy between you both while the room stayed quiet except for uneven breathing and the occasional creak of the mattress beneath his weight. His mouth broke from yours only long enough to drag his lips down the line of your jaw, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below your ear. The sound you made, breathless, broken, pulled a low hum of approval from his chest. Pope's hand slid from your waist to the small of your back, pressing you harder against him until there was nothing between you and the heat radiating off his body. “You have no idea,” he murmured against your neck, voice rougher than it had been moments ago, "how long I've been thinking about this."
You tilted your head back, giving him more space, and he took it without hesitation, tongue tracing down your throat, teeth sinking just enough to make you gasp. His other hand came up to cup your jaw, tilting your face so he could look at you. Those dark eyes, half-lidded and burning, swept over your expression like he was memorizing every detail. “I need you to understand something first.” His thumb traced over your lower lip, tugging it down just slightly. “If we do this-“ He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “You belong to me. Not for tonight. Not for the weekend. You’re mine. You understand?”
The possessiveness in his voice sent a shiver straight through you, pooling heat low in your belly. You nodded, breath catching, and he shook his head slowly.
“Words, sweetheart. I need to hear you say it.”
“Yes,” you whispered, voice steadier than you expected. “I understand. I'm yours.”Something flickered in his gaze, satisfaction, hunger, and a tenderness that made your chest ache. His hand slid from your jaw to the back of your neck, pulling you into another kiss that wasn't gentle. It was claiming. His tongue swept into your mouth, and you moaned against him, fingers curling into muscle. He pulled back just enough to look at you again, breath mingling. “Such a good girl.” The words hit you like a live wire.
Pope’s hands cupped your breasts letting his knuckles drag across your skin as he went. His eyes dropped to your chest, and he let out a slow exhale. “Fuck,” he breathed. “You're so gorgeous.”
He didn't rush. His mouth followed the path his hands had taken, kissing down your collarbone, over the swell of your breasts, tongue circling your nipple and your back arched off the mattress. He sucked hard, then softer, then hard again, switching between the two until you were writhing beneath him, fingers tangled in his curly hair. His hand moved to your other breast, thumb rolling over the peak while his tongue worked the first.
“Please,” you gasped.
“Please what?” He lifted his head, dark eyes finding yours. His lips were wet, his jaw tight with restraint.
“Please-I need-“ You didn’t know what you needed.
“I know what you need.” His hand slid down your stomach, fingers circling your hip bone. “But I want to hear you say it.”
You swallowed, heat flooding your cheeks even as your hips bucked into his touch. “I need you inside me, Andy.”
The name, Andy, did something to him. His pupils dilated, his breath caught, and for a second he just stared at you like you'd given him something precious. “Say it again,”he commanded, voice rough.
“Andy.”
His mouth crashed into yours, hungry and desperate, and his hand finally, finally, slipped further fingers sliding through slick heat. He groaned into your mouth when he felt how wet you were. “That's for me,” he muttered against your lips. “All this, just for me.”
You nodded frantically, and he rewarded you by pressing two fingers inside you without warning. A cry tore from your throat, not pain, but pleasure sharp enough to make your vision blur. He curled them, found that spot immediately, and your hips jerked.
“Yeah,” he breathed, watching your face. “Right there. I know.” He worked you slowly at first, dragging his fingers in and out while his thumb pressed against your clit in tight circles. Your hands gripped the sheets, your moans growing louder, more broken, until you felt that familiar tension coiling in your gut.
“m’close,”you whimpered.
Pope shook his head, pulling his fingers out. “Not yet. I want to feel you come on my cock.” Your whine of protest died in your throat when he sat back on his knees, eyes fixed on you as he stroked his hard cock, and you watched, transfixed, as his head fell back and he let out such a deep groan. He was hard, thick, the tip already glistening. Your mouth went dry. Pope tightened his hand around his shaft, stroking once, twice, moving his head so. he never broke eye contact with you. “You want this?”
“Yes, fuck-yes, Andy.”
He leaned over you, bracing one hand beside your head while the other guided his cock to your entrance. He didn't push in, not yet. He just let the head rest against you, teasing, letting you feel the heat and the pressure. “Tell me you're mine.”
“I'm yours.” Your voice cracked, desperate. “I'm yours, Andy. Please-“
He pushed in. Slow. Impossibly slow. Every inch of him stretching you open, filling you until you couldn't breathe. Your eyes rolled back, a strangled moan escaping your lips. He paused when he was fully sheathed, letting you adjust, his forehead pressed to yours. “Fuck,” he whispered, voice shaking. “You feel-fuck.” He started moving. Long, deep strokes that hit exactly where you needed him. His pace was steady, controlled, each thrust a deliberate claim. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper, and he groaned at the angle. “Yeah, just like that.”
One of his hands found yours, fingers interlacing, pinning it to the mattress beside your head. His other hand, you saw it twitch toward your throat, saw the want flash in his eyes, and you tilted your chin up in silent invitation. But he pulled his hand back, gripping your hip instead.
“I can't,” he said, voice strained. “I can't, God, I want to, but I can't stand the idea of hurting you.”
“It wouldn't hurt me,” you breathed. “I want it.”
“I know you do.” His thrusts grew harder, faster, chasing his own edge. “But I won't. I'll give you everything else, every fucking thing, but not that.”
You wanted to argue, but the way he was fucking you made any thoughts impossible. He angled his hips, and suddenly he was hitting a spot that sent electricity through your entire body. Your nails dug into his back, and he hissed in pleasure.
“That's it. Let me feel you.” The pressure built again, faster this time, and your mouth fell open in a cry. Pope watched your face, drinking in every expression, and when your eyes welled with tears, from the intensity, from the sheer overwhelming pleasure, his breath stuttered. “Fuck,” he groaned, his rhythm faltering. “Look at you. Crying on my cock.”
The tears spilled over, tracking down your temples into your hair. He lowered his head and licked one off your cheekbone, the gesture strangely tender in the midst of the brutality of his thrusts.
“You're so beautiful like this,” he murmured. “So perfect. I want you to come. I want to feel you squeeze me.” His hand slipped between your bodies, fingers finding your clit and rubbing in tight, fast circles. That was all it took. The orgasm crashed through you, violent and consuming, your body arching off the bed as a broken scream tore from your throat. Pope kept moving through it, fucking you through the aftershocks, groaning as your walls clenched around him. “That's it,” he panted. “Fuck, that's it.”
He didn't stop, couldn't stop. He flipped you onto your stomach in one smooth motion, pulling your hips up and entering you from behind. The new angle was deeper, harder, and you buried your face in the pillow to muffle your cries as he took you apart. His hand tangled in your hair, pulling your head back just enough so he could lean down and speak against your ear.
“You're taking me so well. You feel that? That's me inside you. No one else. Ever.”
Words failed you. All you could do was moan and push back against him. His pace grew erratic, his grip on your hip bruising. “I'm gonna come inside you. Fill you up. You want that?”
“Yes-yes, Andy, please-“
His hand slid around to your front, fingers pressing against your clit again, and you felt a second orgasm building, impossibly fast.
“Come with me,” he commanded. “Now.”
Your body obeyed. The second wave hit as he drove into you one last time, burying himself deep, his groan long and guttural as he spilled inside you. Hot pulses of release filling you, and you felt every one.
He collapsed forward, chest heaving against your back, his lips pressing lazy kisses to your shoulder. Neither of you moved for a long moment, just breathing, just existing in the aftermath.
Finally, he pulled out slowly, and you felt the warmth of his cum trickling down your thigh. He turned you over gently, gathering you into his arms, his hand stroking your hair with a tenderness that made your eyes well up again. “You okay?” he asked softly.
You nodded, voice gone. Pope stayed wrapped around you for a long moment afterward, both of you breathing hard in the dark quiet of his apartment. The room smelled faintly like steam and laundry detergent and him. His forehead rested against the back of your shoulder while one large hand spread slowly across your stomach, almost absentmindedly keeping you pulled tightly against his chest. Like he physically couldn’t let go yet.
Finally, he shifted carefully, easing you up the sheets. His movements slowed immediately the second he saw your face twist slightly from sensitivity. Instant concern. “You hurt?” he asked softly.
“No,” you whispered quickly. “No, I’m okay.”
Pope searched your expression another few seconds anyway. Making sure. Then he leaned down pressing a slow kiss against your forehead before reaching toward the nightstand for a towel. The tenderness of it nearly undid you. He cleaned you up carefully, almost shy despite everything that had happened minutes earlier. Every time you flinched slightly from sensitivity, his hand smoothed automatically over your thigh or stomach in silent apology.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.
You nodded, throat tight. Pope noticed immediately. “You’re crying.”
You touched beneath your eye in surprise.
God. You were.
“I don’t know why,” you admitted quietly.
Pope’s expression softened instantly. He climbed back beside you without hesitation and pulled you into his chest again, one arm wrapping tightly around your waist while the other hand moved slowly through your damp hair. The repetitive motion felt calming immediately. Safe. “Do you regret it?” he asked after a moment.
Your head lifted quickly. “No.” The answer came so fast it visibly affected him. Relief crossed his face so openly it hurt your chest “No,” you repeated softer this time. “Not even a little.”
Pope stared down at you in silence. Then his hand moved gently across your cheek. “You sure?”
You nodded. And maybe it was emotional exhaustion or the intimacy of being held like this, but suddenly your chest ached with it. Nobody had ever touched you like Pope did. Like your comfort mattered more than his own. Like he was constantly paying attention. You curled closer instinctively beneath the blankets. Pope immediately tightened his arm around you. His eyes dropped toward the top of your head where it rested against his chest. “You fit good there,” he murmured quietly.
You laughed softly against his skin. “That’s such an Andrew thing to say.” The second the name left your mouth, his fingers tightened slightly in your hair. He loved that name from you. Loved it in that deep quiet way he loved everything involving you “Y’know you’re the only one who calls me that,” he said.
“Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
You tilted your head up enough to look at him. Pope was already staring back down at you. Of course he was. You smiled sleepily. “You stare a lot after sex too, huh?”
“I stare at you all the time.”
You laughed quietly and his expression softened watching it happen.
For a while neither of you spoke. Pope kept tracing slow patterns against your back beneath the blankets while you listened to his heartbeat under your ear.
What if you and Jack are in a relationship and one day, Jack gets injured at work and passes out. When he’s regaining consciousness, he calls out for his dead wife and doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t want you to touch him bc he thinks he’s still married. He’s got a touch of amnesia and thinks that his wife is still alive. Robby and Dana finally get him to calm down but the damage is done and you’ve started to move out by the time he’s discharged.
Robby is letting you crash at his place and knows you’re contemplating moving to a different hospital so that you don’t have to see Jack ever again in a professional setting. Robby tries to convince you not to leave Jack bc he’s in love with you and had been planning on proposing to you soon. But now, he doesn’t know that you can ever move past this.
Hiya,
I hope you like this one, it will probably need a part two if people are interested.
It had been ten days since the car accident and Jack still hadn’t woken up.
You had been left with a bruise on your head, a couple of broken fingers, and your body covered in Jack's blood.
You hadn’t left his bedside, not even to eat or change your clothes, any attempt from your friends had fallen on deaf ears as you had sat in the uncomfortable hospital chair and held onto the hand of your boyfriend.
The ICU doctors hadn’t really pushed you away, not after Robby had taken them aside and explained who you were.
From then on they made sure you had a blanket and something to eat at regular intervals.
Not that you ate much, instead choosing to only eat when Dana or Robby made you.
“It won’t do to have you die before he wakes up.” Dana had tersely said as you had refused to touch the sandwich put in front of you.
But you knew what wasn’t being said.
It was likely he wouldn’t wake up.
The doctors had already spoken to Robby and you, explaining (mainly to you) that he had been down too long, that the injury to his head would mean that the man you knew was probably gone.
You had denied it all, explaining to the doctors and to Robby that he was strong and this isn’t the kind of thing that would keep him down.
The doctor had just nodded and Robby had opted to just hug you instead of rebutting your arguments.
----------------
The days passed and there were no changes, Jack was still unconscious and you were still by his side.
On day eleven Dana had forced you into the shower, almost drowning you under the warm water as she washed your hair and scrubbed the dried blood from your skin.
On day twelve, you left the hospital for half an hour to stand in the park across the road and cry.
On day thirteen, Robby had come in with pamphlets, outlining possible outcomes and options.
On day fourteen, Jack's lawyer walked into the room and explained that the documents you had randomly signed one day had ended up being power of attorney and guardian documents which meant you had control on what happened to Jack in the event he doesn’t wake up but doesn’t die.
On day fifteen, you were removed from the room by Robby, who made you sit outside and stare at the sky for an hour.
“Jack would kill me if I didn’t look after you.” he had stated as you had thrown hurtful words at the older man.
You sat on the cold concrete step of the hospital and stared up at the sky, it was a beautiful day with an endless blue sky.
“He’s not going to wake up is he?” you said quietly, every word tasting like vinegar on your tongue.
“He might, but if he does he will not be the man we knew.”
“Four tours of Afghanistan, a literal bomb that took his leg, the death of his wife and never ending shifts in the ER, he has survived them all.” You prattled off Jack's accomplishments, “And he gets done in by a drunk driver on the way to brunch?”
“Life’s not fair.” Robby shrugged but his eyes grew red as he settled on the step next to you.
“Its not how he ends, it can’t be.”
“And if it is?”
You lean into his shoulder and echo his earlier shrug.
“Do you know what my friends said when I admitted I was dating an older man. That one day I would have to bury him.”
“Thats harsh.”
“Yeah, they suck,” you admitted, “But they are not wrong, sixteen years difference is a lot. I just thought-”
You paused and Robby turned and pulled you to him, “You thought?”
“I thought I would have more than two years. We had so many plans, tickets to Paris next month, the house has been gutted to its foundations and we just worked it all out you know. We have a life.”
“He might pull through, it is Jack.”
You look up at Robby and smile a little, “You’re lying but thank you.”
-----------------------------------------
Jacks moved from the ICU to another wing of the hospital, filled with people just like him. Unconscious and without a timeline for waking.
You don’t spend every waking moment by his bedside, this wing doesn’t allow that. You’re limited to visiting hours and your world settles into a waiting game.
You go home, to the stripped walls and concrete slab, making phone calls to contractors to make the house livable again.
“No, I don't care about the flooring, just give me a god-damn floor.” you had hissed down the line to the sales person, while your fingers typed away on your keyboard cancelling your flights. Paris would have to wait.
You return to work and you sit at your desk, attend meetings and drink terrible coffee.
Robby gives you updates on the comings and goings of the ER, at first you thought it was because he was trying to distract you but as the days went by you realised he was missing Jack just as much. You had replaced your boyfriend as Robby’s sounding board for all things hospital related and you ended up using Robby as yours for all house related questions.
“What are skirting boards?”
“Are they required?”
“Why are there a million shades of eggshell and why do I hate all of them?”
“Gloria wants me to somehow be at three management meetings today.”
“They are scheduled all for the same time.”
You laugh at the last message as you settle down into the chair by Jack's bed, these wings chairs are comfier than the ICU’s and you sit back one hand scrolling on your phone and the other grasping jacks, your thumb gently running up and down his hand.
“Robby thinks we should go for the Grand Piano Quarter for the living room- which is white but like a grey white which looks okay- once we put up pictures.” you ramble showing the colour to the unconscious Jack, “It has shades of peach in it if you squint so that should be good with the flooring, which someone picked out from the reno company.”
You rambled on, your hand in his as you ‘showed’ him how the house you had both funneled your life savings into was shaping up.
------------------------------
You had met Jack at a coffee shop on a wet and windy day.
You had been huddled over your laptop trying desperately to finish a report for work while on your fourth cup of coffee. Jack had very politely asked to sit at the end of your table to finish his tea and you had obliged.
You had been deep into the report not realising that you had been talking out loud to yourself until Jack settled into the chair next to you and started answering your mutterings.
“I don’t think that's how you spell though.” he said pointing at the angry red squiggle under one of the words.
You had practically jumped out of your skin which had made him laugh and had brought you back down to reality.
It should have been an ick, having someone who knew nothing about your work trying to help you, but instead Jack spent more time just trying to make you smile then talking down to you, so you stayed in your spot, your fingers hovering over the keyboard as he chatted.
You had asked him out as soon as the report had left your inbox, closing your laptop and demanding you buy him dinner.
The rest was history.
--------------------------------------
Jack wasn’t going to wake up.
That was the final verdict from the doctors after the fourth week, Robby had held your hand the whole time they spoke, snarling at them to dumb down their words for you.
His body was okay, the swelling on his brain had settled, but whatever bruising had occurred in the accident had done the damage and it was unlikely that he would recover.
You had pulled away from Robby at that and went back to Jack’s room.
“You need to wake up,” you whispered to him as you settled yourself on the bed, wrapping yourself around him. The bed was tiny and you didn’t fit comfortably but you needed Jack, you needed to be close to him.
“I need you to wake up and tell me everything's okay. Please Jack-” you sobbed, you had tried not to cry over the last few weeks, even as everything had pressed upon your shoulders, the bills that were piling up, the decisions that needed to be made about your home, the friends who were absent when you needed them, the right side of your bed that was so cold you were sleeping on the couch, everything was now too much.
“I don’t want to do this alone, please Jack!” you begged into his chest.
His chest was rising and falling with every breath he was taking.
“You’re breathing, just please wake up!”
You didn’t know now if you were screaming or crying as you clung to him, your fingers wrapped tightly around his hospital gown, as you failed to catch your own breath.
Then a calm fell over you, and you turned to look up at him. He could be sleeping, with his greying curls settling on his brow and face was serene, it could have been any morning when he had settled into bed after a night shift and you had slowly woken up, curling around him and settling in for a doze.
But it wasn’t and you knew this isn’t what he would have wanted.
“It’s okay-” you say as you rise up, finally aware that you had had an audience to your breakdown, Robby and Dana stood in the doorway their eyes fixed on you.
“You can go Jack, it's okay. I’ll be okay, Renee is waiting for you,” Jack's ex-wife’s name had Robby moving towards you, his arms outstretched as if to hold you tight but you shook your head, “You can go, I’ll be fine.” With a kiss on his forehead you left the room, unable to handle the enclosing walls and the rising pressure in your chest.
You have one foot out the door when you hear an intake of breath and a croaky voice call out.
“Renee?”
You turn, a smile forming as Robby leans over his friend, his face gone from friendly to professional as he shines a light in the other man's eyes.
“Quit it! Where is Renee?” Jack snarls, trying to sit up and swatting Robby away, “Where is my wife?”
summary: handling your marriage with a really great doctor, and a really bad husband.
warnings tagged per each chapter :)
part 1 - your husband works in the er on christmas night. you show up injured, and he's too busy to care for you. when his intern orders a psych eval for you, he refuses to acknowledge the stress you're under because of him.
part 2 - jack's guilt from the christmas incident brings him back to therapy. when his therapist suggests a couple's session to work on your dynamic, things don't go as planned.
part 3 - robby finds out that jack denied your psych eval. jack finds out that robby is in love with you.
part 4 - santos spots you at the new year's party and spends her night trying to figure out who your husband is. when she confronts you, you're forced to face the harsh reality of your marriage to jack.
part 5 - robby takes you to go see jack at the hospital. what you don't expect is the confession he makes to you that flips your friendship upside down. then, the confession jack makes that may just upend your marriage altogether.
part 6 - your first week of separation from jack, where you come to find what's been holding you together this whole time.
Hello lovelies, thank you so much for 400 followers! It blows my mind that there are 400 people who enjoy my blog and the things I write! I’m so grateful for each and every single one of you 🫶 To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to share some of my recent favourite fics and highlight some of the amazingly talented writers on here (almost all of these fics have smut so minors do not interact)!
My favourite series:
To Be Loved Is To Be Known (Dr Michael Robinavitch x reader) | @shoniebalognie
Eye of the Hurricane (Andrew "Pope" Cody x fem!reader) | @romantic-insomniac
Show Me How (Dr. Michael Robinavitch x reader) | @cicadasexfest
Sweet as Pie (headchef!Jack Abbot x pastry chef!fem!reader) | @di1fluvr
Shared Custody (Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x reader) | @cinnxmxngxrl
Love You Anyway (Andrew "Pope" Cody x F! Brother's Best Friend reader) | @rynwrites4fun
Redamancy Series (Andrew "Pope" Cody x f!Reader) | @softundermoonlight
Jack x controversially young gf!reader | @eternalabbot
Robby x controversially young gf!reader | @eternalabbot
My favourite one shots:
imgonnagetyouback (Dr. Robby x f!resident!reader) | @robinavitchslut
You Belong To Me (Pervy!Robby x Nurse!reader) | @shoniebalognie
Forever Mine (Pervy!Robby x Nurse!reader) | @shoniebalognie
Hard To Get (Dr. Robby x reader) | @bluetimeombre
My Best Friend (Bsf!Andrew "Pope" Cody x Fem!reader) | @rhettsunshine
I Pay For It More Than I Did Back Then (Jack Abbot x Shy!Fem!reader) | @ceriseangels
Just Ride (Dr. Robby x f!reader) | @robinavitchslut
Hate (Titus Danforth x f!reader) | @yournamesnob
Temperature Control (Jack Abbot x fem!reader) | @mrshatosy
I'm Not Afraid Of Hard Work, I Get Everything I Want (Michael Robinavitch x Fem!reader) | @ceriseangels
Slim Pickins (Jack Abbot x reader) | @seewhoyouwanttosee
then, there is the opportunist (Brendon Park x fem!reader) | @jackrrabbot
You're Just In Time, Make Your Tea And Your Toast (Sabbatical!Robby x Fem!Waitress!reader) | @ceriseangels
teasing uncle!robby (uncle!Robby x reader) | @robinavitchslut
Baby Fever (Jack Abbot x peds!f!reader x Michael "Robby" Robinavitch) | @di1fluvr
Until the Water Runs Clear (Jack Abbot x f!resident!reader) | @kissalready
stepdad!Robby finds your OF account (stepdad!Robby x reader) | @robinavitchslut
your dad's best friend jack abbot helping you with your "virginity problem" (dbf!Jack Abbot x reader) | @valleyanimalz
robby taking advantage of his young, pretty intern (toxic!bigdick!perv!robby x intern!virgin!fem!reader) | @drjohncarters
ErectileDysfunction!Robby (Dr. Robby x reader) | @cinnxmxngxrl
we always want what we can't have (perv!Jack Abbot x Robby's wife!reader) | @yournamesnob
flick the tip (andrew pope cody x f!reader) | @grimgasm
Finals Season (Michael "Robby" Robinavitch x fem!reader) | @rollerskategirl
Brett Richards x fem!reader | @belleeebelleee
My favourite blurbs/drabbles:
Class Time (Professor!Robby x student!reader) | @shoniebalognie
Grant Reilly, Yours (Grant Reilly x reader) | @wistfulyears
telling robby you want to have a baby with him (Dr. Robby x f!reader) | @robinavitchslut
Breeding kink with icky!stepdad!Robby (icky!stepdad!Robby x female!reader) | @robinavitchgf
Andy (Andrew "Pope" Cody x fem!reader) | @firewalkwithmme
he gets hard seeing you in high heels (Pope Cody x reader) | @cuti3-81
Forever (Pope Cody x fem!reader) | @kisscoabbot
Semi-public sex with perv!mean!tennis coach!robby (perv!mean!tennis coach!Robby x female!reader) | @robinavitchgf
in case of emergency (Robby x attending!reader) | @miniswritinblog
Jack's Human Utah (Jack Abbot x reader) | @mrsmckay
hot tub with dbf!jack (dbf!pervy!jack x reader) | @bloodnguts17
A Very Happy Birthday (Jack Abbot x reader) | @thatfanficstuff
Sweetest Little Belly (Michael Robinavitch x Fem!Reader) | @rhettsunshine
stepdad!robby loves his mini me (stepdad!robby x f!reader) | @robinavitchslut
Dividers by @robinavitchslut
I will be updating this list with new fics as often as possible! Pls let me know if you do not want to be tagged or if any links don't work!
Trilogy Summary: You have made peace with loving Jack Abbott quietly.
Chapter Summary: Jack Abbot could be a real bitch; grief just made him efficient with it.
Reader is ex-MSF (doctor's without borders) and a current attending PTMC
Rating: Mature (M)
Word Count: 8k
Tags/Warnings: hurt/some comfort, grief, lot of talk about death, cancer (brief), slow burn, no pay-off in this part, friendship, lots of cursing, deeply incorrect medical information
Author's Note: this story and my last one were both kinda angsty. I'm normally not an angsty writter, and yet. Also the title is a direct rip off of a dimension20 quote (thank u emily axeford, the woman and storyteller you are, no one is doing it like you) and another story I posted on ao3 about Whittaker's religious trauma.
-- -- --
“Every time I page your department you’re the only one who answers,” Jack said sliding up to you as you stood at the nurse’s station with your laptop. He had paged infectious disease for a basic STI consult. Not exactly something you were often called for.
“Well, you’ve managed to insult everyone in my department. I’m the only one who is willing to tolerate you,” you replied looking up at him.
He looked more haggard today. Instead of his normal shit-eating, sardonic smile, the grin on his face was thinner and seemed almost fragile. You didn’t like it when Jack seemed fragile. He must have caught your study because he batted away your attention.
“I called you down here to evaluate a patient, not me,” he said.
“You paged infectious disease, actually, not me. Did you know I’m not even on call? But you insulted Yasmine so much that she refused to come down here.” You asked.
“I’ve said worse to you than anything I’ve said to her,” Jack replied.
“I seem to recall punching you the first time we met,” you pointed out.
“I also seem to recall you broke your hand because you had such shit form,” he replied.
“Shit form,” you repeated under your breath. He was right, but rude to bring it up—even if you brought it up first. “Stop bullying my doctors. I’m tired of coming in on my day off.”
“Tell your doctors to be less sensitive.”
“We’re infectious disease, Jack. We’re going to be slow and methodical. Page someone else if you want speedy results. Hell don’t page us at all. It fucks up our metrics.”
“I don’t care about metrics. I care about patients,” he said sharply.
“In what world did I say I didn’t care about patients?” You asked exasperated. “This is why people find you difficult, you know.”
“And yet it hasn’t scared you away, yet.”
“It would be a real feat if you managed it now. You were like this when we met and back then you carried a gun,” you said. Jack snorted.
“Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“It was a lifetime ago. Our friendship has its learner’s permit.”
“So we became friends when you punched me in the face?”
“Nah. We became friends when you patched me up and taught me how to punch someone without breaking my hand. Was useful a few times after that.”
“Well, glad I was good for something back then,” he said.
-- -- --
A decade and a half ago you were starting your first placement with MSF, stationed on the outskirts of Syria. The civil war had decimated the country and the humanitarian need was substantial. The heat was comparable to growing up in the southern United States, so it was not the shock to your system that it was to others on your team.
No, what rattled you was the destruction of a place that was once so beautiful. There were pieces of history and culture lost to ravages of human hatred and greed. Families were forced out of their ancestral homes and yet were grateful to be alive. The grief of your surroundings settled in between your bones. Sometimes, on bad days—days where you lost and lost and lost—the grief that lived amongst the rubble threatened to swallow you. You would bury your head in your thread bare bedding, attempting to stifle any emotion that might escape.
It was on one of these bad days that the US military swaned in and tried to take over your camp. By no means were you in charge of the camp. As an infectious disease doctor, you were in charge of a lot of logistics—more than other doctors—but nowhere close to an authority figure.
When a bright eyed Seargant and his platoon (gaggle? cadre? you still were unclear what the terms were) of half a dozen 20-somethings traipsed into your camp telling you to move for “your own good”, well you lost it a little.
“Fuck off, Uncle Sam,” you snapped as you and your fellow workers went about disinfecting materials.
Along with ensuring cholera and diphtheria didn’t rear their ugly heads—you were also in charge of ensuring proper disinfectants were used on equipment. Two nurses, one from Lagos and one from Burmuda, were helping you.
“Ma’am,” the auburn haired man started.
“It’s doctor, actually,” you snapped.
“Doctor,” he said. You could hear the patience thinning in his voice. Good, yours was thinning, too. “We have the authority to ask you to move.”
“No, you don’t,” you said. You had no idea if they did or not. But fuck the colonizing, imperialist US military if they thought moving doctors was going to be easy.
“Doctor, it isn’t safe,” the man said.
“We’re well aware our job isn’t safe thanks.”
“There has been insurgent fire nearby,” he snapped.
He was about your height. He looked bulky with all the gear strapped to his person. He also looked sweaty. There was a smattering of freckles across his cheeks and neck. You wondered if he knew that just today you had tried and failed to treat sepsis, or had to deal with such a bad case of gangrene the surgeons ampuated, you wondered if this fresh faced military yes-man had an inkling of the grief his presence had caused in the region.
Perhaps it wasn’t fair to blame one person for centuries of violence and unrest, but you were getting tired and losing the optimism that had sent you across the globe in the first place.
“Oh no,” you said mockingly. You looked at your nurses, your friends. “Did you guys realize what we heard last night was gun shots and not fireworks?”
They stifled their laughter and took the sonogram wand out of your hand while you focused on your stand off with the military man in front of you. His uniform read “Abbot”.
“Look, lady,” he started. “My job is to secure the area. You aren’t in charge. So take me to whoever is.”
“Find them yourself, fucker,” you snapped. “Some of us have a job that isn’t destabilizing a region.”
“Watch your mouth,” one of the young men behind Abbot said looming closer.
“You’re a child,” you said to him. And he was. He couldn’t have been older than 19. When you were 19 you were getting blind drunk at frat parties conning men out of alcohol and loose change for fun.
“Doctor,” Abbot said, he sounded exasperated. “I don’t have time for this. Your camp is in our way.”
“Our humanitarian camp is in your way? Oh no! Poor US Military.”
For some reason, out of the many jabs you’d thrown at him in those few minutes, that was the one that made him step into your personal space. You felt, more than saw the large automatic weapon he held.
“I’m sure you’re thrilled with your position on your high horse but incredibly enough the world isn’t black and white. You’ve seen nothing. You’ve not seen the fear in people’s eyes when they’re being shot at. You haven’t seen the carnage that an IED does to a human body. You don’t know anything. You’re helping pregnant ladies and that’s great, but some of us are doing real medical work.”
You noticed two things. The insignia on his uniform that marked him as a doctor, too. And that his jaw was much, much harder than the punch you threw with your fist.
“Fuck!” You said at the same time he said,
“Did you just fucking punch me?”
You heard your friends, Sunday and Patricia, shouting as one of the children that followed Abbot began manhandling you to the ground. One moment you were standing clutching your injured hand and the next you were on the ground. The man yanked your arms behind your back. You were a lot of things, stubborn—sure, but you were definitely smart, which is why the feeling of a gun’s muzzle against the small of your back made you freeze.
“Get off of her!”
“That is a violation of our UN Charter!”
At the same time you heard the thunder of footsteps approaching from your camp, a pair of ziptie handcuffs were being placed around your wrists and you faintly heard someone say your were being arrested. You were pretty sure that was illegal—but there wasn’t much you could do with a giant weapon pointed at you. The pain in your hand was taking up a lot of your brain space, so it was hard to keep track of the other happenings across the camp.
You were shoved in the humvee while Abbot apparently went to talk to the camp facilitators about moving the location. You fumed. The fury sat heavy in your chest as you glowered at the two young men who put you in the car, one of which wouldn’t even make eye contact with you.
You flexed your hands against your bonds and shifted so they wouldn’t press so intently against your radial nerve. You continue to stare daggers at the boys until the door next to you opened as Sergeant Abbot got in the car.
“You’ll be released tomorrow morning,” he said. “We’ll have to take you to our base and process you before we can officially release you.”
“Suck my dick,” you snapped.
“Right,” he said signing. He ran a hand over his face, “Did you hurt your hand?”
You went silent. Your hand was throbbing and you suspected it was broken, but you weren’t going to tell him that. If you were being released tomorrow you’d have Sunday patch you up when you got back. Hell, you’d do it yourself to avoid talking to these men any longer than you had to.
“Your camp director was a lot kinder than you.”
You said nothing.
“Still said no to moving the camp.”
You did your best not to smile, but you suspected everyone knew.
“Tough break for the most powerful military in the world,” you said. Abbot just snorted.
“Where did you go to medical school?”
“UNC Chapel Hill,” you said clipped.
“UPenn myself,” he said.
“An Ivy League medical school and you’re out here instead of making millions of dollars?”
“Same could be said for you.”
“UNC isn’t an ivy,” you snorted.
“Sure, but it’s prestigious,” Abbot pressed.
“What can I say? The MSF recruiter had really good pens,” you replied blithely.
To your surprise Abbot laughed.
The rest of the short ride passed in relative silence. Although you caught a sharp glance Abbot threw at the man who’d arrested you. There seemed to be a unique tension in the humvee you knew you were not responsible for. You suspected your arrest was made more out of emotion than anything else.
When the vehicle arrived at the small base, you were processed and briefly interrogated about any terrorist connections you might. Honestly, it didn’t seem like their heart was in it. The questions weren’t particularly difficult and the interrogator seemed bored more than anything.
By the time you were given a shitty cot in the medical tent, your hand was discolored and the throbbing was beyond painful. Unfortunately, that’s when Abbot found you.
He wasn’t in his whole uniform anymore but was wearing a sand brown T-shirt with sweat stains and patches, with his fatigue pants. You couldn’t help but appreciate the way his shoulders filled out the shirt and the confidence with which he walked through the tent.
More than that, you noticed the kindness he doled out without reservation. He spoke to each person, patient or military personnel. He spoke to people who were clearly native Syrians in badly accent Arabic. You knew it was badly accented, because it sounded a lot like yours.
His smile lit up the whole tent and you hated it. You hated that you found him hot. You really hated that you wanted to see him without his shirt on. More than that you hated that he was going to notice your hand when he came over. You weren’t sure you could handle him touching you. This man is the reason you were detained and half-assedly interrogated by the US Military.
And yet.
And yet when he realized that you broke your hand he reset the dislocation carefully and wrapped your dominant hand delicately. He made a joke about how all good doctors need to be ambidextrous anyways and you laughed. You noticed he had a light bruise on his cheek but nothing compared to your broken hand. It was embarrassing.
“You don’t punch well,” he said after he had brought you dinner. It was about as good as what you would have gotten back at the MSF camp.
“I noticed,” you replied ruefully. The acidity in your tone had worn off throughout the day.
“Did you tuck your thumb?”
“What?”
“Did your tuck your thumb in your fist?”
“Maybe?”
“Well that’s why. Here stand up,” he said.
You were both in the medical tent. There were a couple men in the back corner already asleep so for all intents and purposes it felt like you both were alone. He showed you how to wrap your fist and hold your body so the next time you threw a punch it wouldn’t end with broken bones, at least not yours.
The feeling of his calloused hands on your skin sent tingles up your spine. You allowed him to maneuver your hands, shoulders, and hips at his whims. There was a traitorous part of you that wished he would bend you over the desk he was working at and fuck you senseless. It had been a good two years since anyone had fucked you well and you knew in your bones the grief that lived ever present in your body might abate for just a second if you let this man put his hands on you.
Then you saw the black band on his finger.
“You’re a good teacher,” you said instead of voicing any of your less than professional thoughts.
“No shortage of idiots to teach in this place,” he said chuckling. He had sat back down in the office chair and you leaned back on the cot.
“I think we both know my opinion on that,” you replied. He smiled and said,
“Well, I appreciate you letting me teach without telling me to “suck your dick” this time,” he said.
“Night is still young, Abbot,” you replied laughing. You crossed your legs and looked at him. “How’d you end up here?”
“I was poor and wanted to go to medical school,” he said simply. “Serving my country was a plus. What about you?”
“I already told you about the pens.”
“I’m being serious.”
You took a deep breath. What was the harm in a hint about your traumatic back story? It wasn’t like you’d see him again after this. People knowing too much about you always made you feel exposed.
“My fiancé cheated on me and we had matched to the same hospital. Different residencies, but same place. I’ve always been a bit…rash, but as soon as I sat through the presentation for MSF I knew that I couldn’t do anything else. Did my infectious disease/emergency medicine residency in Antwerp and then they sent me here,” you said.
“This is your first placement?” He asked.
“Yeah, I’m on month five. I’ll go on break in a few weeks,” you said.
“How are you finding it?”
You hesitated.
“Sad,” you finally said.
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
You couldn’t help but think maybe your experiences were more aligned than previously assumed.
The military returned you to your camp the next morning. Despite thinking you wouldn’t see Jack Abbot again, every so often the two medical teams would trade for materials. During the hand offs, you and Abbot would chat and joke. You grew to look forward to the weeks the military stopped by, well you began looking forward Jack, at least.
His group was only in the area for a couple months before moving on, but it was enough time for you both to become good friends. He told you about his wife and even you fell a little in love with her. He told you about his life in Pittsburgh and how he didn’t think he was going to reenlist. Over the past few weeks, you realized the two of you had become real friends.
The last night before his crew shipped out to a new location he handed you a piece of paper. It had his email, domestic phone number and address on it.
“Don’t be a stranger. My wife couldn’t believe I made a friend halfway across the world,” he said.
“Honestly, I’m only friends with you to steal your wife,” you told him.
“I can’t blame you. Although, now I’m less than thrilled I’ve been teaching you to fight,” he sighed.
You laughed and knocked your shoulder against his. “You’re a good friend, Jack. Stay safe, okay?”
“You too, Rocky,” he replied.
“I hate that nickname,” you sighed.
“And that’s why I’ll never let it go.”
-- -- --
“Why did you teach me to fight all those years ago?” You asked the man in front of you.
This seemed a better direction for the conversation than badgering him about what triggered his melancholy. The lines on his face spoke to age, but it was his eyes that held the grief which had been such a consistent companion of his.
“Because your punch was pathetic,” he replied.
“Fair,” you agreed. “But for the rest our overlap those next few months you taught me how to protect myself and make sure that any future punches weren’t pathetic.”
Jack sighed and ran a hand over his face. It was the same thing he did all those years ago, he was just…grayer now. “You were the first person I’d met since my wife that hated the US military. It was before I was ready to hate them and…”
“You needed people in your corner not theirs,” you said realizing.
“I knew that my required service was almost up. Darcy and I had talked about joining up with MSF. She was a fantastic anesthesiologist. But Robby recruited me before MSF could and so, we stayed stateside. You told me I was a good teacher and I guess I wanted to prove you right,” Jack told you.
You had only met Darcy a handful of times before she passed away. Each time you liberally flirted with her just to watch Jack’s face go red with annoyance. She was everything Jack claimed her to be and more. She was charming, smart and beautiful. More than that, she was also funny and creative, perhaps a bit dorky.
One of the few nights that you had spent in Pittsburgh during your furlough from MSF had been spent wine drunk in their garage while badly throwing clay in her at-home pottery studio.
You still had the lumpy, misshapen mug sitting on your mantel.
A few months after that night, Darcy had been killed by a drunk driver and you worried Jack was going to follow her.
You wondered if Jack felt that way about you when your friend died. The reason you were no longer with MSF was two-fold: you had been in harm’s way one too many times (some people would say shot, but that felt dramatic, it was on a bit of a wound in your thigh) and your best friend had contracted a particularly aggressive cancer. You had volunteered to help care for her while she was in treatment.
For a year and a half, most of your life was consumed by ensuring Farah was going to chemo, taking her medication, eating, had someone nearby to comfort her when she inevitably threw up what she ate. You also made sure to do your own physical therapy and recovery, but Farah was the priority.
You watched your best friend, the platonic love of your life wither away and die.
Grief had followed both you and Jack. But perhaps that was life. Grief was part of living. It was the contrast that ensured joy was felt and appreciated.
That is what you tried to tell yourself at least.
“What happened tonight, Jack? That consult was basic and not something you’d normally page us for.”
You had noticed he had seemed fragile earlier, but at your soft tone, the one dedicated for moments like this—moments when the world seemed to be too much—you saw the facade Jack had so painstakingly built begin to crumble. Instead of pressing again, you squeezed his arm and stood.
“Follow me,” you said closing your laptop and leading him through the ebbing chaos of the ER. A few nurses and residents appeared before the two of you, but you redirected them before Jack could get distracted.
“The roof is closed,” he mumbled when you both got into the elevator.
“Not going to the roof. I’m fucking normal,” you said.
“And scared of heights.”
“That too,” you agreed.
The doors dinged opened to the infectious disease floor. In between your offices and the medical library was a small alcove that overlooked the river. There were two armchairs and you were pretty certain you were the only person that used them. At this time of night they were certainly deserted.
You sat Jack in one and took the other. Just barely, you could make out the reflection of Jack in the glass. He was sitting with his shoulders straight and near his ears. You relaxed back into the chair until your head was resting on the top and you were looking at the ceiling.
“It’ll be nine years next week,” Jack replied quietly.
“An annoyingly big yet unsatisfactory number,” you replied.
You both were staring out the window but through the reflection you watched Jack toy with the ring on his finger.
“I felt like I missed her less this year.”
You weren’t sure what to say to that.
“I don’t think she would be upset.”
“It certainly feels weird,” he replied.
“Hmm,” you replied, but you knew.
You had this great bright ball of golden sunlight that light in your heart when you were surrounded by your friends. And when Farah died that sunlight dimmed. You could go days without thinking about her, but then sometimes your fingers would itch to call or text her and you’d remember again.
She was dead.
Her phone number belonged to someone else.
There were no more inside joke or jabs.
There were no more impromptu phone calls or rants.
There was just no more.
The woman who had been most constant relationship in your adult life was dead and sometimes, you missed her so much it felt easier to join her than to wait it out.
“I lost a woman, victim of a hit and run tonight. Just a little too similar and a little too close to home,” he finally said after a bout of silence.
That you definitely understood. Farah had died nearly three years ago and working with cancer patients still made you jumpy. You’d take all the ER pages if it meant your colleagues would cover the oncology ward.
“That must have sucked,” you told him. “What a bitch.”
“What a bitch, indeed. Makes you question the point of it all.”
“What do you mean?”
“All of the things we’ve seen, all the things that have happened. How can people carry on? The only thing keeping me going is this fucking job—but half the reason I’m depressed is this fucking job.”
“I dunno,” you sighed. “Maybe for those moments of joy. The ones that fill your chest and you remember why life is so beautiful. And sure; they leave, but they always come back again.”
“I can’t remember the last time I had those moments,” Jack sighed.
“I write mine down,” you told him fishing a small notebook out of your bag. It was the size of your palm.
Inside was a simple numbered list. Jack flipped to a random page and saw:
76. A cat fell asleep on my lap purring. (6/8/2021)
77. Farah ate a full lunch and did not vomit! (6/9/2021) (I wish you would stop celebrating when I don’t vomit) (make me bitch)
78. Farah’s parents dropped by and weren’t passive aggressive (6/9/2021)
Jack smiled at the interplay between you both. He had not had the chance to meet Farah before she passed and you hadn’t taken him up on his offer to accompany you to the funeral. You watched as he flipped through the pages.
134. Mr. K finished antibiotics and his white blood cell count is rebounding. No one thought he was going to make it. (5/18/2023)
He flipped a few more pages.
179. Jack bought me coffee. I love having a beverage. (8/26/2023)
He laughed at that one. He remembered that day. It was a particularly rough night at the ER. Multiple patients came in with some kind of obscure parasite and it had taken you the bulk of the night to figure out what it was and where it came from. Jack was positive he was going to watch your normally cool demeanor finally combust.
He closed the notebook and before handing it back to you saw inscribed in the corner: it is what could be.
“It is what it could be?” He asked.
“What about it?”
“Isn’t the saying “it is what it is” something about radical acceptance?” Jack snorted handing you back the notebook.
“Sure, but sometimes radical acceptance means missing the opportunity for change,” you replied.
“There are things you just can’t change, Rocky,” he sighed.
“Sure, you, Jack Abbot, can’t single-handedly fix the healthcare woes in our country. But you can change how you teach the up and coming doctors—you have changed how you teach them. You are kinder, more empathetic, and far more thorough than anyone who taught us. I’ve seen too much to sit back and take it on the chin.”
He scoffed. “You’re an optimist.”
You shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve spent most of my career in war zones and instead of giving up, I figured out what I could do and then did it. I can’t change geopolitics—and the people that can certain have no intention to—but I can make sure my patients have clean equipment and bedding. I can make sure they’re treated with kindness and care. I can fight for them tooth and nail. I’m under no illusion as to what the world is like, but I refuse to be cowed by it. It’s easy to know the world is shit, but it’s harder to do something.”
“And what, you think I’m not doing enough?” He asked, his tone more acerbic than before. You sighed and thought for a moment before replying.
“I’m asking if maybe you’ve lived with your grief for so long that you’ve forgotten what it came from. Grief is love. It’s the remnants of what could have been. Love isn’t a feeling, Jack. It’s action. It buying your wife flowers when she had a bad day, or advocating for better hours because she’s always tired. Love isn’t passive, it’s active.”
He was scoffed. “No offense, Rocky. But you lost a friend. I lost my wife and my leg. Your grief ain’t got nothing on me.”
He said it in a light tone but you heard the edge to the comment. Suddenly, you were back in the Syrian rubble fifteen years ago, staring down a head strong sergeant. The anger and rage at being belittled reared up through your chest and settled in your throat.
You had matured over the years. Your first instinct was no longer to throw a wild haymaker. Instead you clenched your jaw, released it and said.
“I’m sorry you’ve had such shit friends, then Jack. Next time, text me when you’re having a bad day. Don’t have the hospital call me in on my day off. And be nicer to my doctors. I think I’ve hit my threshold of Dr. Jack Abbot for awhile,” you said simply.
You stood and walked a few steps to your office. You heard Jack say your name and stand after you. You badged into your department offices and let the door shut behind you. You turned the corner, opened your office door and sat down. Distantly, you could hear knocking on the offices.
Your office was an homage to your loved ones. Photos and Knick-knacks from friend and family filled the space. Photos of you and Farah from high school and college were appropriately cringey but the love and care was evident in the way you both held onto each other.
Angrily, you wiped away an errant tear and gathered your bag. Instead of walking out the front where you suspected Jack likely still was, you headed out the back through the medical library into the back stairwell and eventually the cold night air.
-- -- --
Your weekend plans were hospital free, thank god. You didn't have to think about patients or Jack or anyone for a blessed two whole days. Instead you spent Saturday cleaning your house top to bottom, blasting music far too loud for the size of house you lived in.
You took your dog to the dog park. You went to your favorite book store. You filled your day with things you loved.
And that night, when there weren't chores to do or errands to run or books to read, and you were laying in bed you couldn't help but think about the words Jack said to you the night previous.
"Your grief ain't got nothing on me."
It was something that had been a subtle constant in your friendship. Jack always seemed to hold your respective experiences against each other, measuring to see which of you was allowed to be sad and depressed. More accurately, measuring when you were and were not allowed to tell him he was being a depressed, defeatist asshole.
He was not always like that, it came in waves. Most days, he would grab the day by the throat, and force it to bend to his will. His iron will was one of your favorite and least favorite parts of him. But sometimes he was under this insane assumption that just because you never held a gun during your time in a warzone, meant that you hadn't seen or experienced the same things he had.
You had seen the trauma IEDs, land mines, and automatic weapons caused to human flesh. You knew exactly what the anguished cries of a mother who lost her child to starvation sounded like. You knew what the tears of children orphaned by conflict looked like. There were parts of war you did not know. You didn't know what it was like to take another life, but you knew the cost of war far better than he did.
It wasn't anything you ever argued with him about it. You weren't exactly keen to relive those memories. Still, you wished you could shake him, or slap him, and remind him that his suffering--while great--was not winning any competition. There was no competition to win.
Grief was ever present. It gnawed at your heart and lungs. Sometimes it kept you from breathing.
Tonight, you found yourself nearly swept under the high tide of grief. It was large and ominous. Overwhelming thoughts of anything else. All you could think about were the patients you had, the ones you lost, the ones who you saved but who weren't any better off, and even worse you kept thinking about Farah.
You knew what she would say to this: "Every experience reshapes and rebuilds you into something new. You're in charge of what that new things is. So make it great."
What you were feeling was more than just sadness at the dismissive nature of a friend, though. If you were honest with yourself--and in the dark of night, curled in the safety of your bed you could be--perhaps what you were feeling was more akin to heartbreak.
It's not like you held out hope that Jack was going to suddenly fall in love with you. In fact, you weren’t sure you would be able to handle that if he did. Because you knew Darcy, it felt messy in a way that was too uncomfortable to parse.
So you had kept your feelings to yourself.
It wasn't sad; there wasn't a perpetual ache in your chest because he didn't feel the same way. It was just the way life worked sometimes and Jack’s friendship was enough. The problem, however, came from how none of your romantic prospects held a candle to way that Jack made you feel.
When he spoke to you, his eyes never left your face. It was intense to get used to, but then it made you feel so seen. He never let you trail off in a story or get overshadowed in a conversation. In many ways, he knew you better than you knew yourself. He knew how to talk you down when someone at the hospital ignored your sepsis protocols, or how you carved out time each week to see your goddaughter, because you believed in the importance of having many adults in a child's rooting for them.
When you spent time together, it wasn't tedious or exhausting like it was with some people. Being around Jack added to that golden ball of sunlight in your chest, that held all the energy from your friendships. Being around him was energizing and exciting. Most of the time.
But every so often, it felt like he saw someone who wasn't you. Someone who was naive and unclear about the horrors of the world. As though you hadn't loved and lost. As though you hadn't seen the tragedies of war and destruction.
People were never just one thing, and Jack was not a perfect, idealized man that could do no wrong. He was human and had blind spots. Some of those blind spots hurt more than others.
Implying that your love for Farah was somehow less than his love for Darcy was not a hurt that would be easily healed.
Perhaps it felt like heartbreak because your love for your friend was so fundamental to how you viewed yourself. You gave up your MSF career to care for Farah as she went through cancer treatment. For nearly two years, each of your decisions had her in mind. Sometimes it was a terrible burden, but it was time you wouldn't trade for anything.
So to have Jack ignorant to the gravity of that friendship, maybe it meant he didn't know you as well as you thought--as well as you hoped.
And maybe that meant--maybe it confirmed--what you had always suspected:
Jack Abbot was not in love with you.
So the emotional balled up in you chest, battling against your ribcage felt like a reminder of all the grief that had long been present in your life, but this time it was the solidification of a grief that had been ignored. Your heart broke that night.
-- -- --
Sunday morning you were sitting on your front porch when you saw a familar truck circle the block. The first time, you thought you were seeing thing. But then your dog raised his head and began to wag his tail. Hank had always loved Jack. The third time you saw the truck, well, it was beginning to get old.
Finally, the fourth rotation of the truck resulted in him parking in front of your house. You could have gone inside, but there was a nosy part of you that was curious about what he was going to say.
He was stiff getting out of his truck and you suspected he came to your place straight from a night shift at the hospital. You stopped keep track of his shifts years ago--it was concerning how many hours each week he worked, better for you not to know.
He looked just as tired and haggard as he had on Friday night.
"Fourth time's the charm?" You asked as he limped up the steps to your porch.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied sitting down in the chair next to yours. He stretched his leg out stiffly and rubbed at the top of his thigh.
You didn't say anything and continued reading your book while sipping at your cooling cup of coffee. It didn’t taste like anything now. Hank, unaware of your inner turmoil at Jack's appearance, excitedly ambled over to him and sat in front of him expectantly.
"Well, at least someone is excited to see me," Jack said scratching the dog's ears.
"Fuck off," you snapped, angrier than even you had expected.
You refused to look at him, but out of the corner of your eye you saw Jack rear back in surprise. Most of the time you were the calm and collected one in the friendship; he was the the hotheaded. Slowly, Jack eased back to looking at Hank and eventually said,
"I'm sorry,” it sounded placating more than genuine.
"Thank you for that lackluster apology."
"Christ, Rocky, cut me some slack. It's the anniversary of my wife's sudden and tragic death."
"No," you replied simply.
"No?" he asked.
"You don't get to use Darcy as an excuse to be a dickhead. Unfortunately for you, I knew her too. So, try again."
He let out an angry huff and said, "You can be a real bitch, you know that right?"
"Not the first or last time I'll hear that," you said.
"What do you want me to say then?"
"I want an apology for assuming my love for my friends is somehow less than your love for your wife," you explained calmly.
“I spent almost twenty years with Darcy,” he said.
“I know, you were high school sweethearts. I’ve know Farah since freshmen year of college. She saw me through the same stages of life.”
“Darcy was my partner,” he snapped.
“And Farah was the one person who supported me no matter what. Just because I didn’t share a bank account and fuck her doesn’t mean I cared about her less.”
“It’s different!” He exclaimed.
“Sure, in the way we made decisions for most of our relationship, I agree. But for the last three years of her life, there was not a decision I made that didn’t consider her. She was deeply entangled with my life and when she died. It felt like someone had ripped out part of me.”
The conversation had started off angrily, but now you were tired. You wanted Jack off your porch and you wanted to get on with your peaceful Sunday. All of the emotion that had been building was released and you felt tears prick at your eyes.
Incredibly enough, you were an adult and didn't need to take out your emotions of the people close to you; instead you processed them and released them. The white hot anger and deep pit of despair had been felt and unfettered from your depths and now, all that remained was a weariness.
Jack's silence was stretching.
"I think we might just see the world in fundamentally different ways," you said standing.
"Rocky--" he started.
"Jack, don't," you said sharply. "I have spent the last nine years being a listening ear for your grief. I have been more than happy to do that. I knew how amazing Darcy was. Of course you'd grieve. But every time I bring up the things I've seen or expereinced, it's a competition I can't win. I don't really know how bad war is because I've never fired a gun, as though half the reason I left MSF wasn't because I was shot. Or I can't understand what it is like to lose someone important to you, because it wasn't my spouse. You don't own grief."
"You were shot?" He asked. The growing redness of his face was sudden pale.
"Yes? What are you talking about? I talked to you about it when I came back."
"No, you said you got hurt," he said angrily. The redness was back. "See, this is your problem. You keep all your thoughts and feelings inside and then get pissed when people don't read your mind."
"I do not," you scoffed.
"Really? I didn't even know Farah died until I saw the obituary. That was your best friend and you didn't tell anyone!"
"I wasn't exactly doing well that week, Jack," you said. "I held her hand as she died. I was having a hard time."
"This is the first time I've ever heard that! I had no idea you were there when she died! I had no idea you got shot! You don't tell anyone anything! Do you know how upsetting it is to never know what you're thinking or feeling? Friday was the closest you've ever gotten to telling me I've upset you. That's not fair. You talk about the importance of friendship all the time, but you're a shit friend sometimes."
It felt like he had slapped you. You were an open book. He could have asked you anything and you would have answered. It wasn't your fault he was perpetually uncurious.
Perhaps if you had more time to think or if you had been less upset, something less idiotic would have come out of your mouth next,
“Maybe you never showed an iota of curiosity about my life. I was convenient emotional replacement for someone you lost,” you said. You knew it wasn’t true as soon as you said it.
“Oh fuck you,” Jack nearly spit. “How dare you—“
“Deign to compare myself to her?”
“No, you asshole. Pretend like you aren’t important to me. Christ. You’re mean when you want to be,” he said almost ruefully.
You didn’t respond. You weren’t sure what to say. But you both felt the angry energy dissipate from the porch. You snuck a peak at the man next to you. He was pinching the bridge of his nose. It was a common pose you saw him adopt with particularly dense residents and medical students. Rude.
Eventually Jack said, “Have you spent our whole friendship thinking I didn’t want to actually know you?”
“No?” Even to your ears it sounded like a question. “Jack, I—“
“Nope, it’s my turn to talk now,” he said cutting you off. “Why did you never offer the information? Why keep it to yourself?”
"I didn't think you wanted to know."
"What?"
And if you thought you were heartbroken before, it was nothing compared the way Jack's voice broke on your porch just now.
"I just figured if you didn't ask, it meant you didn't want to know," you said.
"That's what you thought? And you were still friends with me?" he asked. You shrugged.
He sagged back into the chair and you found yourself sitting down next to him.
“Jesus I’ve been a shit friend.”
“No, Jack,” you began but he held up a hand.
"Rocky, I..." he started. "I always want to know. I just thought you didn't want to share."
"Oh."
"Why in the world did you think that I wouldn't want to know about your life? You're my friend."
You just shrugged, suddenly feeling very small.
"Maybe your friends have failed you," Jack said. He was looking at you and even if your eyes were firmly in front of you, his gaze bore into the side of your face. "How someone so vibrant and interesting could remain convinced that people around her don't want to know her is astounding to me."
"No, it's not anyone's fault," you started.
"I'm serious, Rocky. You're amazing. Do you just think no one wants to see that?"
Christ, it was too early for this.
"I think we've strayed too far from the topic at hand," you said, desperate to get him away from this topic. Jack
"That's fair. And you're right. I do hold my marriage above friendships. But I was thinking about it yesterday and I would be just as devastated if you or Robby died. As for the warzone shit...I still maintain not shooting a gun means you don't carry the same guilt I do, but maybe that's a good thing," Jack admitted.
"I'll agree about the guilt. I think we can share in the survivor's guilt, though."
“Fine, so glad we get to share something so special,” he grumbled.
You both lapsed into silence and eventually Jack said,
“What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Doing MSF?”
And so you told him. You told him about the constant battle against competing political groups, the fights for resources and the inability to get a good shower. But you also told him about all your friends around the globe. You told him about your travels during your furloughs—how Jordan was your favorite country you’ve ever visited.
You caught Jack watching you with something akin to awe. It made you uncomfortable.
“Stop that,” you grumbled.
“What?”
“Staring at me like that.”
“Sorry, Rocky, but unfortunately for you I kinda feel like I’m meeting a new person.”
“Fuck off,” you replied nudging him with your shoulder.
“Did Darcy know about any of this?”
“The blanket on your ottoman is from Jordan. I sent it to her,” you replied.
Jack snorted. “I can’t believe you told her and not me. I can’t believe I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough to try.”
“I dunno, it’s one of those things I think we learn as kids and we’re lucky if we figure it out by the time we die,” Jack replied sighing.
“I think you’re giving me too much grace,” you said.
“You’ve given me plenty over the years. I think you’re due some yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“But seriously, you told Darcy about Jordan and I’m just now learning about it?”
You laughed.
He sighed and leaned his head against your shoulder. “God I miss her.”
“I know,” you said grasping his hand in yours. “I doubt you’ll ever stop.”
“I wouldn’t get rid of this pain if it meant I didn’t know her. I imagine it’s the same with you?”
“For Farah and Darcy. I didn’t know her well, but she was magnetic.”
“She liked you a lot.”
“Feeling was mutual.”
“In another life, you probably could have stolen her.”
“In another life I would have tried.”
Jack hesitated, his thumb brushing absently across your knuckles. “Do you think…”
The bottom dropped out of your stomach. You panicked, desperate for him not to finish his sentence, for fear of what he might say, for fear of what it might do to the two of you. You’d made your peace with loving him this way quietly and distantly. The idea of him putting voice to it—acknowledging something you’d closed the book on years ago—felt like it could unmoor you.
But he let the silence collapse between you. “Nevermind, I think we’ve had enough emotions for one day.”
Relief hit you fast and sharp, “Thank god.”
-- -- --
another author's note: I've had this idea rattling around in my brain for awhile and I have no idea if people will like the same way I have, so thank you for reading if you got this far <3
Summary: You’re Jacks favourite resident, but you could be more you think, if it weren’t for the secrets you are both keeping. (2.1k) (Jack Abbot x Resident!Single Mom!Reader)
Warnings/Notes: There will be medical and child inaccuracies!!! I am an art student with 0 kids!!! I tried my best to research and have tried to leave things vague so please dont be mean. Injury, Broken Bones and everything that comes with a hospital setting. Feelings, Jack and reader both being a bit awkward. Part one of a series!!!
"Okay Rosie can you get your shoes on please?"
"Shoes on!" she enthusiastically replies as she walks clumisly over to the shoe rack by the door to retrieve her favorite pink trainers. She speeds back over to you where you check through her bag making sure shell have everything she needs for the day and plops onto the ground to put on her shoes. Rosie loved talking, as soon as she first made a noise shes barely stopped and words came soon after and it warms your heart to hear speech improve. "Take dino?" she says looking up at you as she gently bangs her feet together.
"You wanna take a dino?" she nods sternly. "Okay you can take one, but you need to take good care of it okay?"
"O'tay." She moves to the toy bin by the tv and rifles through it until she finds a soft cuddly triceratops which was just the right size for her to hold on her own.
Youd been lucky enough to find a daycare near you that works with your weird shift hours, evening befriending a few of the staff members, and Rosie loved it there (of course not as much as being at home with you) and got on well with the other kids and carers. It hurts your heart to leave her there and you wished you could stay with her all day but you needed to work, you needed the money, and seeing how much she enjoyed it helped soothe the pain but not quite enough.
"Okay honey, you ready for daycare?" you ask helping her to her feet and fixing her little pig tails.
"'aycare!" she says throwing her arms in the air, well as much as she can with her big puffy winter coat in the way. And with that you head out the door of your apartment and start the walk to her daycare.
The Pitt is quieter than usual. The usual beeping of machines and vauge shouting remains but theres no immediate stress inducing incidents waiting to greet you. You walk to your locker where you bump into Mckay, thankful shes working today.
"Morning." she says as she hands you a coffee and watches you stuff your belongings into the metal box.
"Oh my god, I could kiss you right now Cass." you say as you take the cup and letting it warm your hands.
"Tired? Little Miss keeping you up again?"
"No actually shes been really good recently." she frowns at you. "I just, I dont know. Its like I go to sleep but dont actually get any rest, like I wake up feeling worse than I did before."
She pulls you in for a hug and says, "I know that feeling. Youve got this though, lets just focus on getting through the day."
"Yeah I cant wait to see what it brings us."
You stare up at the board trying to get a vibe of the day when you feel someone walk up and stand next to you.
"What are you doing here? Hand offs shouldnt take this long." you say with a smile.
"Well I heard my favorite resident was in so I thought id pull a double." Jack says voice calm as usual but you dont catch the slightly hesitant look on his face.
"Oh sure, totally has nothing to do with you being a chronic workaholic or anything."
He smiles and looks at his feet. "Youve got me, but two things can be true at once you know. C'mon lets go to 12. Guy mangled his hand in a blender, I know those cases are your favorite."
And hes right. The cases some people hate -explosions, burns, mangled limbs- are the ones you love working on the most. Not one case is the same, the injuries are normally complex and keep you busy. To put it simply, you love your job. And you love working with Jack to. Some people find him a bit intimidating but once you actually spend time working with him the straight-faced serious demeanour soon melts away to reveal a sincere caring man with a good sense of humour and a serious (borderline unhealthy) dedication to his work. And what is clear to all your coworkers is that one Dr Abbot has a soft spot for you. Not one that impedes on your work and causes him to favour you, no, rather one that consists of quiet admiration and small gestures that he doesnt do for anyone else. If you ask Dana its the way he clears your workspace just the way you like if somethings misplaced. If you ask Cassie its how his eyes always look for you whenever he arrives. If you ask Robby its the way his eyes soften when he does finally see you, that and how Jack seemingly never wants to talk about you even though he knows his friend has so much to say.
"Its amazing how many people are putting their hands in blenders." you say as you both make your way towards 12.
"And waste disposal units. But we cant complain, keeps us employed." he says as he gloves up and leans against the door to open it and you follow him in.
The day shift keeps you busy as it always does but luckily today wasnt full blown chaos. You have one more case to see and then you can go and pick up Rosie and let her sleep in as you have the day off tomorrow and feeding the ducks doesnt require an early start. You follow Jack into pedes and are met with a little boy made to look even smaller by the large hospital bed hes layed on. The other thing you notice is that theres no family with him.
"Hey there James, im Dr Abbot and this is Dr Y/L/N, and youve already met Perlah." The little boy nods timidly. "We are gonna help you get that arm fixed up, okay?" Jack uses his foot to kick the rolling stool over to you letting you take the lead.
"Do you mind if I look at your arm James?" you ask, scooting closer to the bed. He remains silent still only answering in nods. "Thank you. How did you hurt your arm?"
He blinks some tears out of his reddened eyes. "I fell… at school."
You continue you to examine him as you speak, apologising softly when having to touch him pained arm. "At school? Youve been here a while?" Another solemn nod. "Im sorry about that buddy, well have you fixed up as fast as possible. Another round of pain meds and an X-ray. Most likely an impacted fracture, just a splint or sling, but I want to make sure just incase."
Jack nods -heart warmed by how good you are with the boy- and Perlah starts putting in the orders but you stay there for a minute. "Are your family here?"
He shakes his head this time. "No. My daddys at work and my mommy went home to sleep."
His words break your heart. You cant imagine how scared he must be, alone and in pain in the not so welcoming environment of the ER. She went home to sleep? While her sons in hospital. You take his uninjured hand and squeeze it softly, "Im sure she'll wake up soon and come and get you."
"Yeah…"
"And once you come back from your X-Ray, I happen to know that one of our doctors keeps a stash of candy at their workstation, ill let you pick whatever you want."
For the first time he perks up. "Whatever I want?"
You watch from a distance as James eats his sour patch kids as he looks at the splint that now sits on his injured arm and chats to Kiara. Once you pulled her to the side and explained his situation she promised to check on him and keep him company until a parent turned up or you were able to contact one. No luck. You would have stayed yourself but Rosie needs picking up but as youre pulling your stuff from your locker you cant get the image of that poor little boy from your mind.
"Hey, you doing okay?" you didnt even notice Jacks arrival, he has a tendency to sneak up on you probably from his military days.
An exasperated sigh leaves you as you close your locker. "Yeah im good just you know, feel like I might fall asleep standing up." He chuckles softly. "Do you… would you mind letting me know what happens with James? The impacted fracture? Im not in tomorrow and, I dont know I cant get him out of my mind. Like who leaves their kid alone like that? Alone. Terrified." You feel tears welling in your tired eyes as you think of your Rosie in his position, not that youd ever do that, but the thought still lingers. "Fuck, sorry." You wipe your eyes a little more aggressively than you mean to as you try to hide the evidence of your sadness.
"Dont apologise, its okay. We all have those cases that get to us and pedes cases are always the worst. Ill probably be heading out soon but ill ask Robby to keep me updated."
"Thank you, I- god, I really appreciate it." He just stares at you, his face riddled with concern. "I know im a mess you dont need to stare at me like that, asshole."
He laughs softly, shuffles closer only slightly and ducks to meet your eyes. "Apologies." An awkward silence before some stuttered words. "You-uh, youre not a mess, never a mess." The last part is muttered under his breath, like theres something more he wants to say but cant bring himself to say it outloud. "Go home, rest and enjoy your days off. Youve earned it."
The breath you were unaware you were holding comes out softly, suddenly faced with the weird, almost intimacy of this moment alone by the lockers. "Thanks Jack, same goes for you."
"Ill try."
"You better." and with that you head towards the exit missing the way Jack leans his head against the locker and fights a smile.
"MAMA!!!"
Rosies voice rings out the second you step through the threshold of the daycare followed by the hurried pattering of footsteps charging towards you.
"Hey baby!" You respond, crouching down to catch her in a hug (ignoring the pain in your knees) and spin her round. "How are you bubba? I missed you today." She giggles as you kiss all over her pudgy little face.
She wriggles in your arms silently asking to be put down. "Wook." (You are still working on her L's and R's.) She runs back into the main area and drags you along to a desk littered with papers and glitter.
Farah, one of the staff, approaches with a smile. "Are you showing mommy your drawings? Shes been working very hard on them all day." She pulls you into a hug having become good friends since Rosie started there. "How are you?"
"Im good, just desperate to be in bed. You?"
"The same, my shifts just about over and ive never been more thankful. The amount of bodily fluids ive been covered in today is unbelievable."
"Yeah tell me about it." You laugh before Rosies hand tugging on your scrub pants grabs both of your attention. "What have you got to show me honey?"
"Kitty." She points at the mess of glitter and pen on the paper, running her little finger over the scratchy surface. You tilt your head slightly now able to make out the cat in amongst the colourful chaos.
"Woaaahhhh thats so cool! Are you gonna bring this home?" She nods with a big smile. "Good I wanna put it on the fridge."
"Fridge!"
"Cmon lets get your coat on and get you home and in bed."
Your apartment is a bit chilly when you get home, so you take Rosies coat off before bundling her up in her favorite blankets on the couch while you work on warming the space. She entertains herself with her stuffed triceratops who now has a healthy coating of glitter before you scoop her up and get ready for bed.
Both of you fed, bathed and warmed up you head to her bedroom.
"No." She puts her hands on your cheeks, squishing them.
"Excuse me?" You smirk at her boldness.
"Mamas bed."
"Rosie weve spoken about this, you need to sleep in your big girl bed."
"No." Its so matter of fact, you wonder where she got this attitude from. "'Morrow."
"Big girl bed tomorrow?" she nods. Maybe its the exhaustion after the long shift or how much youve missed her today but part of you wants to give in even thought you know you shouldnt.
"Fine. But you have to sleep in your bed tomorrow."
"O'tay."
"Okay, you cheeky little lady. Bedtime." You turn to move back to your bedroom, ready to pass out for the night with your little girl right by your side.
Summary: When you find yourself in an abusive relationship, you never thought your attending Jack Abbot would become your protector and saving grace.
TW: talk of domestic violence , age gap relationship (reader is in late 20s & Jack is 49), flashback, ptsd, domestic violence, firearms, injuries, anxiety attack, vomiting, medical inaccuracies, mention of alcohol abuse; seizures. Not proofread.
Word Count: 3.3k
Authors Note: me when I take months between chapters only for them to be ass
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The first time you woke up from a seizure and didn’t find Jack, you panicked. The air felt warmer and heavier in his absence. There was no cold rag pressed on the back of your neck, no whispering in your ear, no dimming of the often harsh lights.
Waking up in the hospital room, shoulder throbbing and skin crawling, you began to pull and scratch at yourself; calling out for Jack, for your familiar. As Robby loomed over you, checking your vitals, your fingers pawed at him, forcing his hands off you. The room still spun when you sat up, but you needed to get out. Go home. Find Jack.
Home.
Jack.
Where was Jack?
“Hey, hey,” Robby put his hands on your one shoulder, “relax for me. You just had a seizure, Jack isn’t here, honey.”
This was the first seizure you had had in months. The stress of the evening weighing so hard that you barely had time to feel it coming.
“What hap— where did he go?” You felt itchy, the skin on your neck turning raw from the scratching.
“Hey,” he says again, softer this time, his hands trying to pull yours away from your throat, but you still fought. “Look at me.”
“Where is he?” Your voice cracks, your fingers still clawing at your neck like you could peel the skin away. “Robby— where is Jack? Please.”
“He’s at home.”
“Home? Why would he go home? Why would he leave me?”
“I brought you here. Jack isn’t coming.”
“No.” You shake your head immediately, your words coming out in broken pieces, the room tilting again. “No, he— he would be here. He’s always here. After— after—”
After every seizure.
After every nightmare.
After every time your body betrayed you.
Jack was always there. For every single moment. That’s probably the very reason he wasn’t here now. His constant presence in your life the past year making it impossible to care for himself. His unconditional love and support only leading to his own self neglect. You were alone now for no reason but your own selfishness.
The room feels too bright now. Too loud. Too empty, yet too crowded. You can feel yourself slipping, Robby sensing it too.
“Hey, stay with me. Take a deep breath.”
“Why isn’t he here?”
Robby sat beside you now, helping you find the memories of the night you wish you could have permanently forgotten. Helping you paint a picture of why you were here.
Then the visions slammed into you fast. The explosion. The hallway. The gun. His voice. His hands. The pain. His eyes. The moment the lights came back. The way his face broke when he saw you. Robby coming to get you. Your breath caught as you replayed it in your head. Over and over and over again. It all came back.
So you cried. You cried and cried. Hours turned to days. Days turned to weeks, and yet you still cried.
You stayed with Robby, him hiring a nurse to stay with you when he or Dana were on shift. It was mortifying. You spent your days locked away alone in Robby’s guest room, Dana offering to paint your nails or do your makeup. Anything that would bring some light back into your life.
“Alright, let’s see those nails.” Dana sat down at the edge of the bed, shaking a jar of polish. “Warmer weather is coming, so I’m thinking something bright. What about this pink, or maybe even orange?”
“My hands shake too much, you won’t be able to paint them.” You tried to smile. “But thank you.” You held out your hand and she watched as it trembled.
Ripping back the blanket she pulled off your socks with zero hesitation.
“Then I’ll pain your toenails. No worries, hun.”
“Oh you don’t— I’m sorry about my legs.” You tried to pull them back under the covers. “Last time I tried to shave I cut myself because of my tremor.”
“Okay, I’ll shave them when I’m done. Have a full spa day and everything.” She winked and went back to painting. She was your rock through this, her presence the only one that didn’t make your body panic.
Still, the seizures came more frequently now, the stress of Jack's absence leaving a hole in your heart and your mind. You felt ridiculous, not knowing how much you had depended on him until he was gone .
Every time you woke up it was someone else.
Robby.
Dana.
A strange nurse.
All kind.
All careful.
But not him. Not your Jack.
And that absence felt louder than anything else. Louder than your own heart beating in your ears when you woke up. Brighter and harsher than the lights that flashed before you slipped under.
Waking up, gasping, drenched in your own sweat, muscles screaming and stiff, you still called for him. You still reached out for him. Expecting him to be there.
“I want Jack.”
“I want him.”
“I need him.”
“Where is he?”
Never there.
“It’s my fault.” You whispered one day, curled up on Robby’s couch, absolutely exhausted from your seizure that morning. Every muscle in your body ached, your tongue bitten raw from your violent convulsions, and your eyelids fluttered shut every so often no matter how hard you fought to stay awake.
“You know that’s not true. You aren’t responsible for what happened.” Robby glanced up through his glasses and he sat in the armchair across from you, charting on his laptop.
“He stopped going to therapy because of me. He stayed up all night with me. He—”
“He made choices,” Robby cuts in. “His recovery is his responsibility. Not yours.”
“If I wasn’t so—” you gesture vaguely at yourself, at everything, “so broken, he wouldn’t have had to carry so much.”
Robby’s jaw tightened for a second before softening again. He set the laptop aside and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, scratching at his beard.
“He was loving you, and he’d do it all again in a heartbeat. That’s what Jack does. He carries you to the finish line. He carried me over the line a few times too.”
“What do you mean?”
“After Adamson…” he admitted, voice trailing. “Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t shut my brain off. Started drinking more than I should’ve. Thought I was hiding it.”
Your eyes opened a little wider. You’d never heard him talk about himself like this. Robby never allowed vulnerability to get in his way.
“Jack noticed before anyone else did, that I wasn’t eating, lost some weight,” he said. “Showed up at my apartment one night with groceries, threw out every bottle in the place, and sat on my floor until sunrise while I ranted about how I could have done things differently. How I killed Monty.”
Despite everything, a watery laugh escaped you. “That sounds like him.”
“Yeah.” Robby smiled properly this time. “Infuriatingly heroic.”
The room went quiet except for the ticking kitchen clock and the low hum of the refrigerator.
“He loves hard,” Robby said after a moment. “Sometimes so hard he forgets he’s human too.”
“And now look what happened.”
“ What happened was because he stopped taking care of himself,” Robby corrected. “Not because he loved you.” Across the room, Robby’s phone began to buzz on the side table. Both of you looked at it, Jack’s name lit up bright.
Right on time.
Every day at noon. Every day at six. Every night before bed.
He never missed one.
Robby let it ring twice before grabbing it. He looked at you first, always asking without words. You can only nod.
“Hey.”
“How is she?” Jack’s voice was rough, tired. Like he hadn’t slept.
“She had a seizure this morning.”
The line went silent for a beat too long.
“She okay?”
“She bit her tongue but other than that she’s alright.” Robby glanced at you. “Just wiped out.”
“Is she eating?” Jack asked next. “Still throwing up after?”
“She ate toast, managed to keep it down.”
“Did she sleep last night?”
“Some.”
You felt like a patient, Jack asking for your medical history. Asking about the details of your body. Your symptoms. Your pain. As if loving you now meant settling for your vital signs.
“She taking the Keppra?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, started Dilantin last night too.”
“Any more shoulder swelling?”
“Minimal.” Robby’s eyes softened when he looked at you. “She’s right here, you know.”
The room went very still.
“I know.” Jack’s voice cracked. “I’m not asking to talk to her.”
“I know,” Robby said back.
You hated him for that restraint. For making sure he could trust himself before allowing himself to walk back into your life.
“I uh— been working on adjusting my meds. Meeting with my therapist. Support groups. Feeling good, Robby.”
“Good.” Robby nodded once, even though Jack couldn’t see it.
“I’m doing what I’m supposed to.”
“I know.”
“Tell her I’m doing it.” There was something childlike in the statement. Something desperate.
“You can tell her yourself when you’re both ready.”
“Tell her I’m sorry anyway.”
You stood too quickly, dizziness crashing over you. Your healing shoulder screamed as you shoved the blanket off and stumbled toward the hallway.
“Hey—easy,” Robby started after you, rising from his chair.
“I’m fine, just tired.” Your voice came out sharp, broken. Then you kept walking, disappearing into the guest room and shutting the door with trembling hands.
That was the routine for 4 months. Robby told Jack to stop calling, to focus on his own healing— but Jack still called.
You found yourself living on autopilot, just existing in your own seclusion. You felt nothing anymore. Your brain scrambled into a million pieces. The light from your eyes vanished, or what was left of that light Charlie had extinguished.
So when Robby stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, you hardly acknowledged his presence.
“He’s ready.” He says, only above a whisper. Your eyes flick up to meet him. “Tomorrow, if you’d like to see him.”
“Where?” you ask finally, your voice smaller than you expect.
“Schenley Park, it’s easy. Public. I can be close by but give you two space.”
Robby watched as you nervously picked at the stitching on your quilt, your lips trembling as you fought back your tears. You wanted to go. More than anything you wanted to see Jack, to collapse into his arms and sleep soundly for the first time in months. But your stomach lurched high into your throat, and despite trying to swallow it back, you found your head in a trash can heaving.
Robby was beside you before you could fully drop to your knees, one hand gathered your hair while the other steadied your shoulder carefully, mindful of the injury that still lingered beneath the surface. Your entire body shook with the force of it, stomach empty but still trying to turn itself inside out.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay.”
You hated that phrase.
Because nothing about this felt okay.
Your ribs ached as you finally pulled back from the trash can, wiping your mouth with trembling fingers. Humiliation burned hot beneath your skin.
In that moment you wanted to die. You wished Charlie had finished what he started. Or you had just stayed. Certainly you’d be dead by now? At his hands? Of course you would.
For a split second you hated Jack. Hated that he saved you from that man. Saving you from what you so desperately wanted, death.
“You don’t have to go,” he said after a moment.
You rinsed your mouth weakly before leaning back against the headboard again. Your chest still spasmed every few breaths, body trying to settle after the panic ripped through you.
“What if I only see the man who I saw in the hallway that night?”
“You might… but you might see the man you knew before.”
Jack asleep on the couch beside you after seizures.
Jack making coffee exactly the way you liked it because your hands shook too badly in the mornings.
Jack tracing the scar along your collarbone absentmindedly while you fell asleep against his chest.
Jack laughing.
Jack humming under his breath.
Jack.
Your Jack.
Not the man in the hallway.
Not that stranger with the gun.
The man you loved.
“Okay,” you whispered shakily. “Tomorrow.”
And when tomorrow came you spent most of your morning in the bathroom throwing up your dinner from as far back as 2004.
When Robby pulls up to the park it feels too open— too exposed. There’s nowhere to hide out here; no walls, no doors, no place to barricade yourself if something goes wrong.
The park seems too bright. Or maybe it just feels that way after months of dim rooms and drawn curtains. The air was too thin, and Robby noticed as you took one deep breath after the other.
“You can still say no.” He stopped you on the path, hand on the small of your back. But in the distance, sitting on the bench, his elbows resting on his thighs, head hung below his shoulders— Jack. Your Jack.
“No,” you whisper. “I need to do this.” And your feet started to move. There was a hesitation in your step, your gate uneven against the gravel that crunched below your shoes. Every instinct in your body screamed at you to turn around but you kept moving.
Jack must’ve heard the gravel shift as you got closer because his head lifted. He stood quickly as if he were back in the Army and you were his Officer, you were almost expecting him to salute. He shifted his weight on and off his prosthetic, moving side to side.
“Hi.” He spoke softly, the way he would after a seizure, when everything was too loud. You had imagined hearing his voice again a thousand different ways.
“H-“ the words barely came out as your throat tightened like a vice grip.
“You look…” His voice cracked.
Tired. You looked completely and utterly exhausted. He noticed the difference in your complexion— the hue more grey and sickly. Your eyes said so much and yet so little, your expression unmoving as you stand before him with lifeless eyes. What had happened to his sweet girl? What had he done?
“You too.” You answered, the tension in his face and shoulders making him look so— so— sad?
Heavy silence settled between you. Jack noticed the slight droop in your shoulder, and the way your fingers twitched and trembled by your sides.
Four months.
Four months without hearing him laugh from another room. Without his hand brushing absentmindedly against your back when he passed you in the kitchen. Without the sound of his prosthetic against hardwood floors at night.
Without home.
Four months
Four months without Jack tracing and memorizing the scars on your back, admiring your strength and beauty. Without Jack watching you relearn something that once came easy, in awe of your resilience. Without hearing you snort when you laugh at something genuinely laugh. Without watching the way your tongue sticks out when you’re trying to focus.
Without you.
You sat at the far end of the bench, far enough to keep your distance, but not far enough that you could still smell the familiar scent of his cologne— pine and cedar. The smell that would often be the first to greet you when you’d wake up from a seizure.
“I rehearsed this you know,” he admitted after a long pause, his voice was rough. “What I’d say if you ever agreed to see me.”
You glanced at him, watching the way his unknowingly rocked himself forwards and back in his attempt to self sooth.
“Can’t remember a damn thing.” He finally chuckled dryly.
Despite yourself, your mouth twitched faintly.
Jack noticed. God, he noticed immediately.
His eyes flickered toward you so fast it almost hurt to see the hope there before he buried it again.
“You cut your hair,” he said softly.
Your fingers instinctively brushed the shorter pieces near your jaw. Dana had done it one night after another seizure left you vomiting and shaking on the bathroom floor. You’d hacked at it yourself first in a moment of weakness. Dana just fixed the damage.
“It was falling out,” you admitted quietly. “Stress.”
Jack’s jaw clenched so hard you heard his teeth grind.
“I did that too.”
You looked down at your hands.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said carefully. “I’m not here asking for that.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
“A chance to prove that night is not the man I am.”
“I know that’s not the man you are, Jack.” You whispered, not because you were nervous, but because your throat felt like sandpaper.
“I wasn’t taking my meds,” he admitted quietly. “I started thinking I didn’t need them.” His thumb rubbed over his knuckles compulsively. “Therapy got harder after you moved in.”
Your stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because you started mattering more than anything else in my life.” His voice was barely above a whisper now. “And I think some part of me thought if I focused hard enough on keeping you safe, then maybe I didn’t have to look at what was happening in my own head.”
You stared at him.
“I should’ve noticed,” you said softly.
Jack’s head snapped up immediately.
“No.”
The sharpness in his voice made you flinch instinctively.
Jack froze the second he saw it.
Every ounce of color drained from his face.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, recoiling back against the bench like he’d been burned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” But your body still reacted.
Jack swallowed hard, forcing his voice quieter.
“You don’t ever blame yourself for this.” His eyes locked onto yours with something fierce and broken all at once. “Do you understand me?”
The silence settled between you again, but more comfortable this time.
“I missed your seizures.”
You blinked at him in confusion.
Jack let out a shaky breath through his nose.
“That sounds horrible.” A weak, self-deprecating smile flickered across his mouth. “I mean— I hated seeing you hurt. God, I hated it. But taking care of you… It made me feel useful again.”
Your eyes burned instantly.
“You were more than useful, Jack.”
“I hate that I can’t fix this,” he admitted quietly. “That’s what I do, I fix things.”
He was starting to ramble now, losing a bit of control as he poured his heart out to you.
“I wanted you to hate me. Thought it would make all of this easier, but you kept worrying about me even after what I did to you. You said you loved—“
“I still do, Jack.”
“I asked my therapist the same thing over and over, ‘How do I know I’ll never lose control again?’” He laughed bitterly under his breath. “You know what he told me?”
“What?”
“There are no guarantees. Only accountability. Treatment. Consistency.” His jaw tightened. “Choice. And I choose you. Every time. Every single time, I choose you.”
You were crying now, tears flowing freely as Jack hesitantly cupped your face in his hands. You melted into him, your forehead pressed against his and you both lost control. Your noses touched, your lips brushing against each other softly— but you pulled back.
“I can’t go back there Jack, to your house. I can't go back.”
“Then we don’t. I’ll sell the place. I’ll build you anything you want, with my bare hands if I could. From the ground up. Anything you want. You want a pool? I’ll get you a pool. You want a big bay window in your bedroom? Lots of books? Wrap around porch to watch the rain? I’ll make it all happen for you baby.”
Your lips crashed, a moan escaping your lips as his hands pulled your flush against him. Then his hands roamed, up and down your back, in your hair, along your hips; he had to feel you, make sure this was real, that he wasn’t dreaming.
“Jack—“ you gasped into his mouth, but he just shook his head. He needed to hold you, to feel you, make up for all the time that was spent without you.
“I love you.” He whispered between kisses, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
pairing – dr. michael “robby” robinavitch x f!reader x dr. jack abbot; rabbot x reader
status: completed
rating: e (explicit)
summary: you hate conventions. you hate how stuffy they feel and the stuck up doctors you have to deal with. little did you know how this one would change your life.
warnings: fluff and smut. most chapters contain smut and each one is labelled with their own warnings.
she/her pronouns and afab!reader. the girl used in the series moodboard are not face claims for reader, they are how i imagine them while i write, but there’s no specific descriptions of body type, race or ethnicity. all lowercase for styling purposes.
main story
⚜️ one shot*
companion pieces
⚜️ consider pittsburgh (part of the 500 followers celebration)
⚜️ give a little bit* (part of the domaystic 2026 event)
* smut found in chapter.
domesticblisss 2026. comments and reblogs are appreciated. dividers by @/uzmacchiato and @/ethereal-illusions
