halfway through his list of reasons he's toying with himself through his pants, stroking and moving it, showing off the outline. his other hand is over your shoulder, gently brushing fingertips over your tit.
"you know i'm huge, right?" he says. "Pornstar big."
"Shut up."
"i'm serious. im massive. touch it and see."
when you go to reach, he's pushing down his pants to give you a proper handful of the biggest cock you've ever seen-
summary: you've always kept things casual. it's just easier that way. you've got a roster, a routine, and absolutely no intention of changing—until you realise you've made one very inconvenient mistake: falling in love with dr. jack abbot.
notes: okay, this took way longer than it should have because i burnt out trying to make all the "medical stuff" absolutely perfectly, then when i picked it back up i feel like the rhythm changed a little? hopefully for the better? i'm not sure if it's worth the wait, but i really hope y'all still enjoy! and as always, please let me know what you think!
warnings: swearing, blushing, italics, fwb type situation, jealousy, implied age gap, reader is in serious denial, medical descriptions, medical procedure descriptions (not graphic), most definitely incorrect medical information, sexual references, implied sexual relationships, making out (on shift), and one irritatingly handsome and unreasonably reasonable night shift attending.
word count: 15620
“Hey—oh, thank God.” You kick the door shut behind you. “Can you wait for me? I just need, like, five minutes.”
Ellis sighs. “Really? I was just about to leave.”
“Five minutes,” you say again, already moving toward your room.
You don’t bother shutting the door. You just drop your bag at the foot of your bed, pull the faded old U.S. Army shirt over your head, and shove your sweatpants down. Then you grab a fresh set of scrubs and pull them on, tying the drawstring quickly before opening your bag to check for your badge and stethoscope.
“Aren’t you gonna shower?” Ellis calls from the living room.
“We showered before I left,” you say, “but I didn’t have a clean pair of scrubs.”
Ellis gags. “Gross. Why’d you have to say ‘we’?”
You sling your bag over your shoulder as you step out of your room, grinning.
“Because we had some really great shower sex too.”
Ellis makes a dramatic vomiting noise as you both head out the door, her keys jingling as she turns to lock it.
“I thought Deran was your usual Thursday morning appointment,” she says.
You shrug. “Scheduling conflict.”
She turns and starts down the hall, glancing at you from the corner of her eye. “You are the schedule.”
“I’m restructuring,” you say lightly, falling into step beside her. “Don’t think Deran’s making the cut.”
Ellis doesn’t say anything else. She just watches you for a second—eyes narrowing, brows drawing a little tighter—before shaking her head and turning toward the fire stairs door. You both make your way down to the parking garage in silence, crossing the dimly lit basement until you reach Ellis’ car.
The drive to the hospital isn’t long. Ellis fills most of it complaining about a patient she handed off to McKay this morning who insisted his diagnosis was wrong because he’d googled it—and she’s still muttering angrily by the time she pulls into the hospital parking lot.
“I swear,” she says, yanking the parking brake a little too hard, “if I hear the words ‘but I googled it’ even once tonight, I’m going to lose my mind.”
You snort softly as you climb out of the car, slinging your bag over your shoulder before shutting the door. You both head inside through the ambulance bay, keeping out of the way of an arriving trauma as the paramedics wheel the gurney through—something about chest pain, you overhear.
“Trauma one’s open,” Dana calls.
“Dr. Toomarian, with me.”
Your head snaps up at the sound of Jack’s voice, your gaze landing on him beside the gurney as he guides it through the trauma bay doors, that familiar mask of focus already in place.
Then he looks at you, something flickering across his face.
“Hey—don’t disappear. I need to talk to you after this.”
You lift your hand, pointing a finger at yourself. “Me?”
He nods once before turning into the trauma bay, the glass door swinging shut behind him.
“Ooh,” Ellis murmurs as you both turn down the back hall. “You’re in trouble.”
You roll your eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Maybe he’s restructuring,” she adds, the corner of her mouth lifting. “Think you’ll make the cut?”
You shoot her a flat look. “Very funny.”
Ellis smirks as she opens her locker, shrugging her bag off her shoulder and shoving it inside. You do the same—moving on autopilot as you sling your stethoscope around your neck, clip your badge at your hip, and stuff your backpack in your locker before shutting the door.
You head back toward the hub side by side, both peering into the trauma bay as you pass. The patient is stable now, half-conscious on the bed while Jack gives orders and Jesse preps for transfer to a room for monitoring. Dr. Robby is in there too now, looking as tired as always with his arms folded and protective glasses pushed up on top of his head.
“Evening, ladies,” Lena says from behind the nurses’ desk. “Get a good sleep?”
“Always,” Ellis replies as she grabs a tablet from the rack.
“Good enough,” you mutter, tipping your head back to read the board.
“Mm.” Lena peers at you over the top of her glasses. “Well, maybe you should start prioritising sleep over extracurriculars.”
Ellis snorts beside you.
“Lena,” you gasp, voice thick with mock offence. “I don’t—”
You stop short as Jack steps up beside you, offering Lena a polite nod before looking back at you.
“You have my badge.”
You frown. “What?”
“My badge,” he says again, already reaching for the badge at your hip.
He unclips it from your scrub pants and holds it up, brows lifting just slightly.
“Attending physician, huh?”
You shrug. “Thought it was time I got a promotion.”
He huffs out a small laugh, shaking his head as he fastens the badge to his scrub top and fishes your badge from his back pocket. Then he steps in closer, his fingers grazing your hip as he tugs on the waistband of your pants and clips the badge where his had been.
“Try to keep track of it,” he mutters, already turning away.
You don’t respond. You just roll your eyes and turn back to the nurses’ station, where Lena is still watching you over the rim of her glasses, utterly unimpressed.
“You didn’t even notice?” Ellis asks.
You lift one shoulder. “I just grabbed it off the floor.”
“Okay,” Lena mutters, glancing back down at her chart. “I’m choosing not to know.”
Ellis shakes her head. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I know,” you say, tipping your head back again to read the board. “But you love me.”
She snorts, not even looking up from her tablet.
“Come on.” You bump your shoulder against hers. “Let’s go check out the elbow dislocation in One.”
“Fine,” she sighs, “but I’m not doing traction.”
You roll your eyes for what feels like the umpteenth time as you start moving, heading toward the North corridor with Ellis at your heel. When you pull back the curtain at North One, the man lying there is exactly what you expected—mid-twenties, gym shorts, red with embarrassment and trying not to wince even though the shape of his shoulder is very wrong.
“Alright, Mr. Donovan,” you say, pulling on a pair of gloves. “Let’s have a look at that shoulder.”
His eyes flick up to your face, the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Are you a doctor?”
“Sure am,” you reply as you step closer to the bed. “And with me is Dr. Ellis. She’s going to help me get that bone back in place, but first you’re going to have to tell us how you did it.”
He grimaces as you gently prod his upper arm.
“Yeah—uh—I was just at the gym,” he starts, voice strained.
“Benching?” Ellis asks.
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Let me guess—personal best?”
He nods again. “Yeah. How did you—”
“Happens more often than you think,” you cut in, your fingers finding the pulse at his wrist. “Move your fingers.”
He wriggles them slowly.
“Any numbness?”
He shakes his head.
“I was just putting the bar back,” he says. “My arm twisted a bit and it just… popped.”
You glance over your shoulder at Ellis, and she nods.
“Okay, Mr. Donovan—”
“You can call me Chase,” he interrupts, the corner of his mouth lifting a little higher.
You nod once. “Alright, Chase. We’re going to give you something for the pain and a muscle relaxant so it’s easier to get it back into place. Then Dr. Ellis and I are going to do the reduction.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Not much,” Ellis replies. “Maybe a little discomfort, but it’ll be quick.”
“Okay,” he mutters, wincing again as he tries to shift in the bed.
You look at Ellis. “Fentanyl and midaz?”
She nods, already turning away to find a workstation.
“We’ll be back in about five minutes,” you tell Chase. “Just as soon as a nurse administers the medication and it has enough time to kick in.”
“Five minutes, huh? That’s just enough time for me to figure out how to ask for your number.”
You snort. “Let’s just get your shoulder back in first, then see how you feel.”
“Ouch,” he chuckles. “Is that your subtle way of saying you have a boyfriend?”
You hesitate, taking half a step back from the bed.
“Uh—no,” you mutter. “No boyfriend.”
He smirks. “So I have a shot?”
You shake your head as you turn away, a faint smile pulling at your lips. “Like I said—let’s see how you feel after I manhandle your humerus back into its socket.”
He doesn’t say anything else—just lets out a quiet breath of laughter as you turn and step out of the room.
Your gaze flicks up as you reach for the curtain, and only then do you notice Jack standing there—arms folded, shoulders set, his hazel eyes fixed on you like he’s waiting for something.
“Oh—hey,” you say. “Need me?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. Just doing the rounds. Want a hand with the reduction?”
“Nah, I’ve got Ellis,” you reply, starting back toward Central. “But you’re more than welcome to supervise.”
He scoffs, falling into step beside you. “You don’t need supervising.”
“I know.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye, a smirk tugging at your lips. “But I know how you like to watch.”
His mouth quirks, like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Careful,” he murmurs.
“Or what?” you tease, stopping just before the nurses’ station.
His eyes are a little darker now, the tops of his cheeks dusted pink.
“You don’t want to find out,” he says, his voice low enough that only you can hear.
Something twists low in your belly—and you get the sudden, distinct feeling that you do, in fact, want to find out.
“Abbot,” Lena calls before you can say anything else. “Trauma inbound—cyclist versus vehicle, ETA three minutes.”
Jack pauses for a half a second—then nods. “Alright, let’s prep Trauma Two.” He looks at you. “You in?”
You pull a face, all mock disappointment. “Oh, I wish I could, but I’ve got that reduction…”
He gives you a flat look, the corner of his mouth pulling just slightly. “Mm. Tragic.”
“Good luck, though,” you add, flashing him a grin.
You turn away before he does, moving around the hub to grab a tablet and find your next patient. It isn’t long before the paramedics come crashing through the ambulance bay doors with a groaning patient on the gurney—and you take that as your cue to get back to the shoulder dislocation.
“Alright, Chase,” you say, pulling back the curtain. “Let’s do this.”
He gives you a lopsided smile. “I was hoping I’d see you again.”
Ellis snorts. “Midaz is working.”
You laugh softly as you step up beside his affected arm, adjusting the bed slightly before pulling on a pair of gloves. Ellis does the same, moving into position on the other side and bracing one hand against his good shoulder.
You look at her. “Ready?”
She nods once.
“Okay, Chase,” you say, one hand wrapping gently around his wrist. “Stay loose for me.”
You place your other hand at his elbow and bring his arm out from his body, easing it into position.
“Hey—relax,” Ellis says. “Don’t fight it.”
He lets out a breath, the tension in his body easing.
“That’s it,” you murmur, starting to pull his arm outward.
You feel the resistance from the dislocation, holding his arm steady until—his shoulder drops.
Ellis nods. “Good. Now rotate.”
You carefully rotate his arm out, slow and controlled, until you feel a small shift—the soft clunk of the bone slipping back into place. Chase flinches, inhaling sharply, then—
“Oh—” He blinks. “Oh, that’s—that’s way better.”
You give him a small smile as you guide his arm back in, keeping it supported while Ellis grabs the sling.
“Move your fingers,” you tell him.
He does.
“Any numbness?”
He shakes his head.
“Good.”
You move aside as Ellis steps in with the sling, fastening it over his shoulder before adjusting the bed again.
“Comfortable?” she asks.
Chase nods slowly. “‘M tired.”
“Then have a nap.”
You peel your gloves off and drop them in the waste bin, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm as you turn back toward Chase.
“We’re going to keep you here for a bit, okay? Just to monitor you and get an X-ray to make sure everything’s back in place.”
“You’re leaving me?” he mumbles, eyes half-lidded.
You shake your head, letting out a quiet laugh. “I’ll be back in a bit to see how you’re feeling, alright?”
He mutters something else as his eyes slip shut, but it’s too soft for you to hear.
Then, after a beat, Ellis looks at you. “Gonna give him your number?”
You roll your eyes. “Um, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm not—”
“Roster’s looking a little thin,” she says as she turns and steps out of the room.
You follow her, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugs. “Not that I’m keeping track, but… by my count, you’re down to one.”
You let out a short, disbelieving scoff. “Okay—well, not that it’s any of your business, but Andrew moved to Canada, and Craig got back with his ex.”
She glances at you from the corner of her eye. “And you dropped Deran, so—”
“Like I said,” you cut in, lifting your chin just slightly. “I’m restructuring.”
“Restructuring,” she repeats mildly, “or retiring?”
Before the words have even landed, she’s gone—slipping into North Five with her tablet in hand and that stupid little smirk still curled at the corner of her mouth. You can faintly hear her greet the patient as the door eases shut, leaving you confused and alone in the middle of the North corridor.
Retiring?
You blink, your brows drawing tighter.
Retiring?
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Retiring from what?
From having fun? Having casual sex? Blowing off a little steam in the most enjoyable way you know how?
It’s not like you’re some irresponsible party animal—you barely go out, you only drink on occasion, and the hardest drug you’ve done since starting med school is ibuprofen. In fact, you’d argue that you’re the opposite of irresponsible. You take your casual sex roster very seriously. You don’t take risks, you make sure every single one of your partners has regular sexual-health check-ups, and you make sure to actually get to know them before you even sign them up.
Which is exactly why you’re not going around giving out your number to random patients.
You need to know someone before you start something casual. You need to know that they’re not going to ask for more, that they’re going to be mature and understand exactly where you both stand.
You need to know that you can trust them not to be irresponsible.
Because the last thing you need is some trigger-happy idiot who isn’t wearing a condom getting caught up in the moment and finishing inside you. Not that you ever go without a condom.
Except for...
Well—except for Jack.
But that’s different. He knows what he’s doing. You trust him—and you’re on birth control.
So it doesn’t really matter if, occasionally, he finishes—
“You good, or are you just going to keep staring into space?”
Your head snaps up, heat flooding your cheeks as you meet Henderson’s gaze.
“Uh—yeah, sorry, I was just—”
He chuckles. “No need to apologise—but if you’re bored, I could use an extra set of hands in Eight.”
You tilt your head. “Worth it?”
“Forearm lac. Exposed tendon.”
You nod. “I’m in.”
The next few hours blur together in a steady stream of night shift weirdness—a woman with a mystery rash whose story evolves from laundry detergent to poison ivy, someone who decided Gorilla Glue was a reasonable substitute for hair gel, a fish hook through a hand with the fish still attached, and a DIY dentistry job with half the tooth left and a lot of blood.
You barely catch a break until your patient in Central Twelve—when you and Ellis absolutely have to leave the room before you both burst out laughing at the mortified man who insists he slipped and fell on a Buzz Lightyear action figure. Because how else would it get stuck up there?
In your defence, you had managed to maintain some semblance of professionalism right up until Ellis muttered under her breath, “To infinity and beyond, I guess.”
That’s when you lost it—muttering the first excuse you could think of before slipping out the door and doubling over with laughter.
“Oh my God,” Ellis says, wiping the corner of her eye. “I love the night shift.”
You press a hand to your stomach, still aching from the laughter.
“Stop—” you gasp, shaking your head. “I can’t go back in there.”
“In where?” Shen asks, appearing in front of you.
You and Ellis both go still for a second, the laughter dying down as you exchange a look.
“Actually,” Ellis says, turning back to Shen with a smirk. “I think this case might be perfect for you, Dr. Shen.”
You nod. “Oh, absolutely. We could really use your expertise on this one.”
Shen frowns. “What’s the case?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Ellis says quickly. “You’re better off seeing it for yourself.”
Shen isn’t stupid, obviously, but he is incredibly curious—as most doctors are. So despite the fact that both you and Ellis are doing a terrible job of hiding your amusement, he takes the tablet from your outstretched hand and opens the door to Central Twelve.
Ellis’ eyes go wide, but before either of you can say anything else, someone calls your name across the department.
“Trauma One—get in here,” Jack says, waving a hand.
You let out a sigh, tipping your head back for a split second before jogging across Central to meet the paramedics.
“Twenty-four-year-old male—fell onto a plastic prop sword,” the first paramedic says, guiding the gurney into Trauma One. “Penetrating injury to the left thigh, object still in situ. Bleeding controlled, pulses intact, GCS fifteen. Fentanyl given en route, vitals stable.”
You almost snort when you realise the man is dressed in a pirate costume, his plastic cutlass wedged about four inches into his anterolateral thigh.
“Alright, we’ll take it from here,” Jack says. “Can you tell us your name, sir?”
“Josh,” the patient replies, his voice strained.
“Stabilise the leg,” you tell Mateo, moving into position opposite him. “On my count—one, two, three.”
You shift the patient from gurney to bed, and the paramedics clear out.
“Josh!”
A young woman rushes into the room, clearly from the same party—wearing what can only be described as a very short, very inaccurate interpretation of a nurse’s uniform.
“Oh my God. Is he bleeding out?”
Jack glances up, his lips twitching when he spots the woman. “I don’t remember approving that uniform.”
You shoot him a look. “Very funny, Dr. Abbot.”
His eyes linger on you for a beat too long.
“Not that I’d object,” he murmurs.
You arch a brow. “The nurses might.”
“I’m not a nurse,” the woman says, indignant. “I’m a sexy doctor.”
You look her up and down again, your gaze catching on the small, laminated name badge pinned to her chest with ‘Dr. Feelgood’ printed in bold pink letters.
You hum. “Right.”
“Still not the sexiest doctor in the room,” Jack mutters as he moves around the bed.
Your eyes flick up, meeting his for half a second, the corner of your mouth lifting just slightly before you catch yourself and turn back to Josh.
“Have you had anything to drink tonight, Josh?” you ask.
Somewhere behind you, Dr. Feelgood starts to answer for him, but Bridget quickly steps in and guides her out of the trauma bay.
“I’ve got a dorsalis pedis pulse,” Jack notes.
Josh groans, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath.
“We’re going to get you something for the pain, alright?” you say, watching Olive insert the IV. “But first, I need to know what happened and how much you’ve had to drink.”
Mateo carefully cuts up the leg of Josh’s pants, fully exposing the entry site.
“I—ngh—I fell on it—” Josh manages. “It’s not even—not even real—fuck—”
Mateo turns away quickly, hiding his amusement.
“What about alcohol?” you ask again.
“Like—two beers,” he replies.
“Any drugs?”
“No—ah—no drugs.”
You nod. “Okay. Let’s give another twenty-five of fent.”
“Can we get surgery down here?” Jack asks as he steps back from the bed.
Mateo moves to grab the phone. “Calling now.”
Jack nods, folding his arms and lifting his head to look at you. “Alright. What’s next?”
“Repeat neurovascular exam, stabilise the object, don’t remove it, and get imaging before anyone touches it.”
He nods again. “Good.”
You try to ignore the way he’s watching you as you move to the foot of the bed, going through the motions of the neurovascular checks a little slower than he had just a minute ago.
“Pulses still intact. Cap refill under two. No numbness,” you report.
“Good,” he says again. “Keep checking. If that changes, we move faster.”
You nod once before turning back to Josh.
“Do you know when your last tetanus shot was, Josh?”
He shakes his head faintly. “No.”
“Okay, tetanus booster—” you glance up at Jack, “and antibiotics.”
“Which antibiotic?”
“Cefazolin?”
He watches you for a beat, the corner of his mouth lifting just slightly—then he turns to Olive. “You heard the doctor. Get him some cefazolin.”
You drop your head, biting back a smile as you watch Mateo start to clean the entry site.
“Let’s flag contamination risk for surgery,” Jack says, pulling off his gloves. “And X-ray for—”
“Position and fragments,” you cut in, finishing for him. “And CTA left leg to clear the vessels before removal.”
He tosses his gloves in the bin and turns back toward you, brows raised.
“Alright,” he says, mildly amused. “I can see I’m no longer needed in here.”
You flash him a small, smug smile before turning back to the wound.
“Entry looks clean, bleeding’s controlled—let’s pack around it and get him to imaging.”
Mateo nods and moves to grab more gauze, helping you pack carefully around the plastic blade so it doesn’t shift during transport. Jack lingers just long enough to make sure you’ve got everything under control before he steps out of the room, slipping back into the quiet chaos of the night shift.
You and Mateo quickly finish stabilising the leg before the nurses prep him for imaging. They’re just about to wheel the bed out when Walsh arrives from the OR, fighting a smile when she sees the pirate impaled by his own sword. You give her a brief rundown as you pull your gloves off and squirt a pump of sanitiser into your hands. She nods along, asks a few questions, then mutters something about prepping an operating room while they wait for imaging.
When you finally step out of the trauma bay, you spot Jack standing with Lena at the nurses’ station. You don’t quite catch all of their conversation as you walk past to grab a tablet, but you do hear something about ETA three minutes and decide to make yourself scarce before you’re dragged into another trauma.
You scan the board briefly, pick your next patient, then head toward the South corridor, already pulling up the chart for South Twenty on your tablet. You’re halfway through the patient’s intake when—
You stop—then take two steps back, turning your head toward South Seventeen.
“Deran?”
The man in the bed glances up, blowing a lock of dark blond hair out of his eyes.
He smiles. “Hey, doc.”
“What’re you doing here?” you ask, despite the obvious.
He’s got his left hand cradled in his lap, wrapped loosely in an oil-stained rag that’s already soaked through in places, blood seeping into the fabric and drying in dark blotches. His knuckles underneath are split and swollen, his pinky finger sticking out at an odd angle, the rest of his hand already blown out around it.
“I was helping a friend with his truck,” he says, glancing back down at his mangled hand. “The prop rod slipped, and the hood came straight down.”
“Ouch,” you murmur, stepping forward.
He huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah. Ouch.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Go for it.”
You set your tablet at the foot of the bed and step up beside him, leaning in as you gently lift the rag to get a better look at what’s underneath. It’s not that deformed—just swollen, and his pinky finger is obviously broken, but otherwise it’s mostly just bruising and superficial cuts. At least he won’t need stitches—maybe some steri-strips and a splint—but you’re more concerned about the dirty rag he’s got wrapped around it.
“What d’you think?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Am I going to make it?”
You tilt your head. “Maybe. If we act fast.”
He laughs softly, the sound ringing almost too familiar in your ears.
You straighten quickly, clearing your throat. “Do you—uh—have you seen a doctor yet?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just you.”
You nod once and pick up your tablet, flicking out of South Twenty’s chart.
“Cool. I’ll be your doctor—” You pause, glancing back at him. “Unless you think that’s a conflict of interest?”
His smile widens. “You mean the prettiest doctor in Pittsburgh’s gonna fix me up?”
You roll your eyes. “Just Pittsburgh, huh?”
“Well, I couldn’t say the world—that’d be way too cheesy.”
You snort. “All your lines are cheesy.”
He gasps. “All of them?”
“All of them,” you echo, keeping your eyes fixed firmly on your tablet.
“Wow,” he mutters. “Tough crowd.”
You shake your head, trying not to smile as you pull up his chart and make a quick note, effectively assigning yourself as his physician. Then you set the tablet back on the bed and turn to grab a pair of gloves.
“Alright, I just need to have a closer look before I can get you some pain relief.”
You nudge the stool closer to the bed and sit down, leaning in as Deran gingerly shifts his hand. You peel the rag back properly this time, murmuring an apology when he winces, and set the dirty thing aside before reaching for gauze and saline.
“This might sting a bit,” you say, already starting to clean the dried blood from his knuckles. “Let me know if you want me to stop.”
“Do I need a safe word?” he asks smugly.
Your gaze flicks up, unamused—then back down to his hand without a word.
“I’m gonna go with meatball,” he decides. “Because—”
“—your favourite thing in the world is a meatball sub from that deli on Carson,” you cut in. “I know.”
His brows lift. “Wow.”
Your eyes flick up again. “Wow what?”
He shrugs, wincing slightly as you turn his hand. “Nothing. I just… didn’t think you paid that much attention.”
You don’t look up this time, unsure what you could possibly say that wouldn’t turn this into a deeper conversation than you’re willing to have right now.
After a beat, Deran hums. “Still doing the whole unavailable thing, huh?”
You roll your eyes. “It’s not a thing, Deran. I work fifteen hours a day with hardly any phone reception, and my days off are spent catching up on paperwork and sleep. I am unavailable.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, glancing back down at his hand. “I guess I just figured since I hadn’t heard from you in a while, maybe some lucky guy finally managed to sweep you off your feet.”
You scoff, focusing a little too hard on wrapping fresh gauze around his hand. “Yeah, well—you’d be wrong.”
He grimaces when you turn his hand again, being careful not to bump his pinky finger as you finish dressing the cuts. Then you gently set it back in his lap and start cleaning up, swivelling on your stool to toss the oily rag and all the bloodied gauze into the waste bin.
“Alright,” you say, turning back. “Lift your hand for me.”
He lifts it slowly.
“Can you move your fingers?”
His eyes go wide.
You give him a flat look. “Just try.”
His expression twists as he slowly flexes his fingers, letting out a low, pained groan.
“Okay, that’s enough,” you say, scooting forward again. “Any numbness or tingling?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
You reach out and press gently against the tip of his pinky—until it turns white—then watch the colour return beneath his nail.
“Cap refill’s good,” you mutter, more to yourself.
He winces again as he lowers his hand back into his lap.
“So, what’s the verdict—is my weekend ruined?”
You snort. “Not entirely. I’ll get you some pain relief and order an X-ray. We might have to reduce the pinky, but I want imaging before I touch it—I need to see exactly where the fracture is first.”
“Well then,” he says, smirking as he lifts his right hand and holds up just the index and middle finger. “Good thing I’m right-handed.”
It takes a moment for the joke to land. You tilt your head, frowning faintly as you stare at his fingers.
Then it clicks.
“Oh my God,” you laugh, grabbing his hand and forcing it back down. “What is wrong with you?”
He grins. “What? You said it yourself—my weekend isn’t entirely ruined.”
You shake your head. “I didn’t think you meant that.”
“Well,” he says slowly, leaning in, “I don’t have plans yet, but if you’ve got time between paperwork and sleeping, maybe we could—”
“Everything alright in here?”
You turn to see Jack stepping past the curtain. He stops at the foot of the bed and clasps his hands behind his back, eyes flicking curiously between you and Deran.
You straighten a little and nod. “Yep. All good.”
“Except my hand,” Deran adds, lifting his injured hand.
“Right.” You shake your head once. “Deran, this is Dr. Abbot—he’s the senior attending on shift tonight.”
Then you glance back at Jack.
“Crush injury to the left hand after a truck hood came down on it. Significant swelling through the fifth digit with an obvious deformity at the pinky, plus some superficial lacerations across the knuckles. Neurovascularly intact—cap refill’s good, no numbness or tingling. I’ve cleaned and dressed the cuts, and I was just about to send him for imaging before we decide if the finger needs reducing.”
Jack nods once. “Good. Any pain management?”
You stand and nudge the stool back, picking up your tablet from the end of the bed.
“I was just about to order some ibuprofen and Tylenol.”
He nods again. “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”
You give him a small smile before turning back to Deran. “Hang tight—I’ll come find you once I get your X-ray results.”
He pouts. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
You roll your eyes, already turning away. “Unavailable, remember.”
Jack slides the curtain shut before following you out, falling into step beside you as you head back toward Central.
“You know him?”
You glance up from your tablet. “Uh—yeah. Old friend.”
He lifts a brow. “Friend?”
You give him a look. “What do you want me to say?”
He shrugs, letting out a quiet laugh. “Friend works.”
“Good,” you mutter, stopping at one of the workstations and setting your tablet down.
Jack pauses beside you. “Meet me in Central Twelve once you’ve put the orders in.”
You frown. “Why?”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“Because I’m your boss, that’s why.”
Then he’s gone, moving through the department with that faint hitch in his stride and an ass that absolutely should not look that good in scrubs.
You shake your head and turn your attention back to the computer in front of you, swiping your badge to log in. You quickly pull up Deran’s chart, make a few notes, and order the ibuprofen and Tylenol. Then, just because you can, you try to pull up Central Twelve’s chart—if only to annoy Jack by getting a head start—but there’s nothing in the system.
Great. Must be a brand-new patient.
You let out an irritated little sigh before logging off and grabbing your tablet again.
The door to Central Twelve is shut when you get there, which isn’t unusual, but immediately makes you fear the worst for whatever case Jack has waiting for you inside.
You take a breath, turn the handle—and freeze when you spot the empty bed.
“Shut the door,” Jack says, without looking up from the supply drawer he’s rummaging through.
You hesitate. “Am I in trouble?”
He sighs. “Do you ever just do what you’re told?”
You finally step into the room, shutting the door behind you before setting your tablet on the room cart.
“Sometimes,” you say. “Depends what’s in it for me.”
Jack straightens, turning toward you. “That’s a remarkably transactional approach to life.”
You shrug. “I believe in reciprocation.”
He takes a step closer. “That’s not what reciprocation means.”
“Really?” you ask. “Because last time I checked—in the shower, by the way—you were getting a pretty good deal.”
His mouth quirks. “Are you saying I owe you?”
You step forward. “Who’s keeping count?”
“Maybe I am,” he murmurs.
Before you can say anything else, his fingers catch the hem of your shirt and he tugs—just enough to pull you off balance. Then his mouth is on yours. Slow, deep, unhurried. As if there isn’t an entire emergency department waiting on the other side of that door.
He presses closer, his hand moving beneath your shirt, rough fingers digging into your hip as his mouth parts lazily against yours. His tongue slides along your bottom lip, pulling a breathy little sigh from the back of your throat as your fingers curl into the front of his scrub top. You tilt your head, leaning in, chasing more—and for a second it almost feels like he’s going to give it to you.
Then he pulls away.
Your lips follow instinctively, and he chuckles, taking a deliberate step back.
You blink. “What was that?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He steps toward the door.
“Dr. Toomarian’s got a patient to present.”
You stare at him. “Seriously?”
He reaches for the handle.
“South Sixteen.”
Then he’s gone, and you’re left watching the door swing shut with something strange and unfamiliar stirring beneath your ribs.
That was weird.
Not unpleasant. Not by any means. Just... unusual.
It takes you a little longer than it should to remember how to move. How to suck in a full breath, pick up your tablet, and head back out into the chaos of the night shift past midnight.
The department is exactly as you’d left it. Patients complaining about pain that could have been prevented with a little common sense. Doctors running on nothing but caffeine and questionable protein snacks. And Lena in the middle of it all, her glasses perched low on her nose as she scans the tablet in her hand.
“Hey,” you say, stepping up to the nurses’ station. “Got anything easy for me?”
Lena glances over the top of her glasses. “Easy left three hours ago.”
You sigh. “Come on. There’s got to be something.”
Her eyes flick back down. “I’ve got a Ms. Callahan in Central Nine. Migraine, vitals are fine.”
“Perfect. I’ll—”
“I’ve got this one,” Jack says, appearing beside you. “Dr. Toomarian needs a resident in South Sixteen.”
You frown. “But I—”
“Now.”
You stare at him for a second, wondering how the hell a man can kiss you breathless one minute then start barking orders at you the next.
“Fine,” you mutter, gripping your tablet a little tighter. “But when I’m admitted for emotional whiplash, I want it documented that you’re the reason why.”
Then you turn and head for the South hall before you’re tempted to say something even less professional.
You don’t normally snap like that—especially not at an attending—but something about the last fifteen minutes has crawled beneath your skin and stayed there, impossible to ignore. Your pulse still hasn’t settled properly. Your cheeks are still warm. And every time you think about Jack’s stupid little half-smirk after he’d kissed you, you’re annoyed.
You just can’t figure out why.
He doesn’t normally kiss you in the middle of a shift.
He doesn’t normally order you around like you’re a lost med student.
And he definitely doesn’t volunteer to see migraine patients.
But you don’t normally get this irritated. Especially not at Jack. The two of you are always messing around. Playing games. Flirting. It’s what you do. So what’s so different about tonight?
“Hey.” Ellis grabs your arm, stopping you just outside of South Sixteen. “You good?”
You blink. “Yeah. Why?”
“You look like you’re contemplating homicide.”
“And if I am?”
“I’d be obliged to remind you that we’re here to save lives, not end them.”
“Damn. Guess I’ll just have to wait until after my shift.”
Her eyes narrow, the corner of her mouth lifting just slightly. “Is this about who I thought I saw being taken up to imaging?”
You frown. “Who did you think you saw?”
“Deran.”
“Oh.”
You glance over her shoulder at the empty bed in South Seventeen.
“That was fast,” you mutter.
Her brows lift. “Wait. You’re his physician?”
You shrug. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“Isn’t my life a conflict of interest?”
She stares at you for a moment, amusement tugging at her mouth. “It’s one of those nights, huh?”
You sigh. “Yep.”
She puts a hand on your shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Then she gives you a brief nod and continues down the hall, humming a tune you don’t recognise as if to rub it in that she’s having a far more pleasant shift than you are.
You spend the next half hour alongside Nazely, talking her through a chest pain workup and reassuring the patient who’s convinced every twinge in his left arm is the beginning of the end. By the time you’ve reviewed the ECG for the third time and convinced him that googling symptoms at two in the morning isn’t a substitute for medical advice, you’re finally able to move on.
The shift settles back into its usual rhythm after that. Patients. Notes. Consults. A never-ending stream of questions from the new med student stuck on nights and equally never-ending complaints from people who should have gone to bed instead of doing dumb things that landed them in the ED.
It isn’t until two a.m. that you finally find yourself back at the nurses’ station with Ellis, sipping a vending machine energy drink she’d forced into your hand while the department enjoys a rare moment of relative calm.
“Shen said the Butt Lightyear guy went up for surgery.”
Lena tilts her head. “Butt Lightyear?”
“You don’t want to know,” you murmur into your drink.
“They tried removing it manually but were worried about the wings,” Ellis explains.
“The wings?”
She smirks. “Yeah. You press a button and the wings pop out.”
You shut your eyes. “Ouch.”
“Let me guess,” Lena says, peering over the rim of her glasses. “He slipped?”
Ellis nods. “Yep. Total accident.”
“Yeah, and the toy just happened to be completely covered in lube too,” you add.
Lena sighs. “Every day I learn something new against my will.”
You and Ellis both laugh as Lena turns away, seemingly done with this conversation—and the people of Pittsburgh judging by the defeated look on her face. You’re about to reach for your tablet to pull up the X-ray images off poor Butt Lightyear when a bright laugh cuts through the quiet hum of the department, drawing your attention toward Central Nine.
You narrow your eyes. “Why is he still in there?”
Ellis shrugs. “Not sure. I thought it was just a migraine.”
“Laughing pretty hard for someone with a headache,” you mutter.
Ellis glances at you. “Do you know who she is?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.”
You look at her. “What?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”
“I have no idea who she is,” you say, grabbing your tablet. “And frankly? I don’t care.”
Ellis nods. “Okay.”
“Good.”
Then you turn away before she can say anything else, heading toward the North corridor even though you have no idea which patient you’re actually on your way to see.
It isn’t long before you find yourself passing through Central again, peering into Ms. Callahan’s room to see if she’s been discharged yet. Which she hasn’t—but at least Jack’s not in there anymore. Not that it really matters to you, but you can’t imagine the rest of the department is thrilled about an attending wasting half the night on a migraine patient.
Ten minutes later, you walk past Central Nine again. Not because you’re looking this time—you’re genuinely just passing on your way to find a free workstation—but she’s still in there. And she certainly doesn’t look like she’s in pain anymore.
If you were her, you’d be demanding discharge papers by now.
The third time you glance at Ms. Callahan, she catches your eye, and you offer her a small, awkward smile before quickly glancing back down at your chart. The same chart you’ve been pretending to work on for the better part of fifteen minutes without writing a single coherent sentence.
“You know that’s Abbot’s ex, right?”
You blink. “What?”
Shen nods toward Central Nine. “Ms. Callahan. She’s Abbot’s ex.”
You glance back at the gorgeous blonde woman scrolling through her phone, not at all looking like someone suffering from a migraine.
“Oh.”
Shen nods slowly. “Anyway. He’s looking for you.”
You frown. “Who?”
“Dr. Abbot.”
“Why?”
Shen shrugs. “Didn’t say.”
You sigh. “Great.”
He watches you curiously as you log out of the computer and push your chair back.
“Did he say where?” you ask.
“South.”
You nod once. “Thanks.”
Then you turn and head toward the South corridor, but not without one last glance at the woman in Central Nine. The woman who apparently used to date Jack. The woman who, for reasons you still don’t entirely understand, is suddenly very difficult to stop thinking about.
You spot Jack standing beside the workstations in the middle of the South hall, frowning at something on his tablet. He looks tired now, his curls standing at odd angles thanks to the way he drags his hand through them after every stressful trauma patient—and he’s leaning his left hip against the side of the desk, shifting the weight off his right leg because three a.m. is always when it starts aching. Not that he’ll admit it.
“Shen said you wanted to see me.”
He glances up. “Your friend’s imaging came back.”
“And?”
“Hand surgery wants him,” he says, offering you his tablet.
You take it, glancing down at the X-ray images. “Fracture and tendon damage. Fantastic.”
You flip through the images and skim over the surgeon’s review.
“Okay. I’ll send him up.”
Jack takes the tablet back, his brows pulling together slightly.
“Have you eaten?”
You frown. “What?”
“Have you eaten anything tonight?”
“I had an energy drink.”
He stares at you. “That’s not food.”
You shrug. “I haven’t had time.”
“Make time.”
You roll your eyes. “Fine. I didn’t bring anything.”
He lets out a quiet sigh, glancing down at the tablet as he flicks out of Deran’s X-rays and brings up another patient’s chart.
“There’s a container in the fridge.”
You blink. “What?”
“Top shelf. Left side. Blue lid.”
Your brows lift. “You brought me food?”
He glances up again. “I brought extra food. It’s that pasta you like.”
As if on cue, your stomach grumbles. Loudly.
“Go eat,” he says. “I doubt surgery’s coming to collect your friend in the next twenty minutes.”
You want to argue. You really do. Because you don’t need to be looked after. You don’t need him to bring you food and make sure you eat and be all quietly caring like this. But God is this man a good cook, and you’d have to be an idiot to turn down free pasta at three o’clock in the morning.
“Fine,” you mutter, already turning away. “I’ll eat.”
“You’re welcome.”
You don’t look back. Because if you do, you might see the stupidly smug look on his face and it might make you smile. Then he’ll know he was right, and you absolutely cannot give him that satisfaction. So instead, you drop your gaze and watch your shoes move against the speckled linoleum until you reach the break room door.
You don’t even notice that someone else is in there until you reach the fridge and finally glance up.
“Oh. Hey.”
Ellis waves her fork. “Hey.”
You pull the fridge door open and immediately spot Jack’s blue-lidded tupperware.
You don’t answer. Not explicitly, at least. You just glance over your shoulder with what could be considered a very brief nod, then turn back toward the microwave and set the container inside.
“She’s his ex, by the way,” you say without thinking.
“Huh?”
You press the start button on the microwave before turning to face Ellis properly, leaning back against the kitchenette counter.
“The woman in Central Nine. Shen just told me she’s Jack’s ex.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Ellis stabs a piece of broccoli with her fork. “I know.”
You tilt your head. “How do you know?”
“I asked Dr. Abbot how he knew the patient,” she says, as if it were obvious.
“Oh.”
You glance back at the microwave, still humming, Jack’s container rotating slowly inside.
“What’d he say?”
Ellis sighs, stabbing a piece of carrot this time. “Just that they dated about a year after his wife passed, but he realised he wasn’t ready to move on yet, so he ended it. It was amicable. Now they’re friends.”
You frown. “Friends? He’s never mentioned her to me.”
Ellis finally looks up, something sharpening in her expression. “Why would he?”
You hesitate. “Because we’re—well, you know…”
Her mouth twitches. “I thought it was casual.”
“It is,” you say quickly. “I just thought he would’ve mentioned—”
“Does Abbot know who Deran is?”
You blink. “What?”
Ellis smirks. “You know, the guy currently sitting in South Seventeen? Mr. Thursday mornings, or—” she tilts her head, “I guess it’s former Mr. Thursday mornings now.”
“Well—not exactly, but that’s—”
The sharp beeping of the microwave cuts you off, and you turn quickly to silence it.
“That’s different?” Ellis offers.
You grab the container out of the microwave, shut the door, then yank open the cutlery drawer to grab a fork before turning back to face her.
“Yes,” you say firmly. “It’s different. Jack knows we’re not exclusive, but he doesn’t need to know who the other guys are.”
Ellis snorts. “Or were.”
You glare at her.
“Alright,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Then why do you need to know who she is?”
You stab a piece of pasta. “I don’t. I’m just... curious.”
“You mean jealous.”
Your head snaps up. “I’m not jealous. I don’t care what he does when he’s not with me. He can sleep with whoever he wants. He can sleep with every bottle-blonde in Pittsburgh for all I care.”
“I am not,” you protest. “It’s casual. We both know that. If he wants out, he can just say so. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone. I mean, sure, it’s fun when they’re good, but I am perfectly fine on my own. I don’t need someone interfering with my life. With my routine. I’m happy exactly the way things are.”
Ellis nods slowly. “Okay, Miss Independent. I get it.”
“Thank you.”
“Just to be clear,” she says, pushing her chair back, “you’re standing here eating his food because he told you to. Right?”
You open your mouth to argue, but she keeps going.
“Your hair smells like his shampoo. You walked into our apartment this morning wearing his shirt, and I’m pretty sure those are his socks.” Her gaze drops briefly to your feet before returning to your face. “You haven’t slept in your own bed once this week and, unless I’m forgetting somebody, you haven’t seen another guy in...” She pauses, pretending to think. “Wow. Almost four months now.”
You stare at her.
“And when you got that stomach bug last month,” she says, grabbing her container as she stands, “he called out of work just to sit on the bathroom floor with you for eight hours.”
She steps up right beside you, dropping her container in the sink.
“That’s not casual.”
The water runs for a few seconds as she rinses the container beneath the tap, then she sets it beside the sink and turns toward the door.
“Anyway,” she says lightly, reaching for the handle. “Let me know when you’re ready to admit you’re in love with him.”
Then she’s gone, leaving you alone with your pasta and your rapidly fraying nervous system.
You don’t move. You just stare at the door, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying to think about anything that isn’t that strange and unfamiliar feeling lodged beneath your ribs, insistent on being felt.
No.
It’s not—
It can’t be—
You would know if you were in—
Fuck.
You turn quickly and drop your container of food beside the sink before it ends up on the floor. Then you press both palms into the edge of the counter, as if that might somehow ground you.
This is ridiculous.
Ellis is just messing with you. She has to be.
You’re not in—
God. You can’t even think about that word.
You drag in a deep breath and grab the fork again, lifting it to your mouth.
It’s almost annoying how good it is. Infuriating, really. Because apparently being an emergency doctor, a SWAT physician, offensively attractive and unfairly charming isn’t enough. No. Jack Abbot just has to be an excellent cook too.
Jerk.
You finish the rest of the pasta as quickly as you can, trying not to be disappointed when the container is empty. Then you rinse it beneath the tap and set it beside Ellis’ tupperware.
Your heart is still beating a little too fast when you step out of the break room, and you have to shove your hands into your scrub pockets to keep them from shaking. You keep your head down as you make your way back toward South Seventeen, trying to focus on what you’re going to say to Deran and not how you may or may not feel about your attending.
“Hey,” you say, pulling the curtain back. “How are you feeling?”
Deran glances up. “Hey, doc. Long time no see.”
You squirt a pump of sanitiser into your palm and rub your hands together as you step up beside the bed.
“Been busy,” you say. “Are the painkillers working?”
He lifts his hand, wincing. “A little.”
You glance at the clock on the wall. “You could probably get some more soon.”
His brows pull together slightly. “Is that your way of saying I’m not heading home any time soon?”
You sigh quietly, dragging the stool closer to the bed and dropping down onto it.
“Not tonight, no. I’m sorry.”
He groans, tipping his head back against the pillow.
“I know,” you murmur, leaning in. “But one of our hand surgeons reviewed the images, and you’ve got a fracture right here.” You gently tap the base of his little finger near the knuckle. “I was expecting a break, but it’s lower than we’d like and close enough to the joint that this isn’t something we can safely reduce and splint in the ED.”
He lifts his head.
“There’s also some concern about the tendon around it,” you continue. “The finger was pulled pretty hard out of position, and the surgeon’s worried it may have damaged one of the tendons that helps it move properly.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll take you upstairs, get better imaging if they need it, and most likely repair everything at the same time rather than risk you losing function later.”
His brows draw tighter. “Repair?”
“The fracture. The tendon. Anything else they find once they’re in there.”
He lets his head fall back again. “Great.”
“You’ll be okay.”
“I know,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Just not exactly how I pictured getting to spend more time with you.”
You roll your eyes. “Really?”
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
You snort. “Hopefully not. If all goes well, I’ll be at home asleep.”
He sighs. “Damn.”
You push the stool back and stand. “Any other questions before I sign you off to surgery?”
He lifts his head, frowning slightly. “Yeah, actually. I wanted to ask you about that guy.”
You tilt your head. “What guy?”
“The one that came in here before. The attending.”
Your stomach drops.
“What about him?”
“I thought he was your boss.”
You fold your arms. “He is.”
“Huh.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s just—” He hesitates. “I don’t know. You just don’t usually look at your boss like that.”
You stare at him for a moment, trying to ignore the rush of your pulse in your ears.
“You sure you didn’t hit your head?”
His brows lift. “Wait. Did I hit a nerve?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Your eyes narrow. “Why don’t you just focus on the fact that you need surgery? Do you need me to call anyone?”
He shakes his head. “I already called my mom.”
“Good,” you mutter, already turning away. “Good luck in surgery.”
“Tell your boss I said hi.”
“Bye, Deran.”
His laughter follows you out into the hallway, but you refuse to give him the satisfaction of looking back as you yank the curtain shut.
You shake your head as you start down the corridor toward Central, as if that might somehow knock your errant thoughts back into place. You can still hear your pulse, still feel the heat crawling beneath your skin, your scrub top suddenly too warm and too tight.
The lights overhead are almost painfully bright now, the way they always get in the late hours of the night shift—but tonight their glare feels personal. Offensive, even. As if those buzzing fluorescent bars are shining brightly on everything you’ve worked so hard not to acknowledge. Not to feel.
Not that you’re feeling anything.
At least, not whatever it is Ellis thinks you’re feeling.
You just need a minute. One minute of quiet to come up with perfectly reasonable explanations for every stupid little thing she pointed out. Then your mind can stop running circles and you can finish your shift, go home, and get some much-needed sleep.
By tomorrow, all of this is just going to feel ridiculous.
Because that’s exactly what it is.
Ridiculous.
“Dr. Abbot,” Bridget calls from behind the desk. “Can you take a look at this for me?”
You stop short halfway between South and Central, watching as Jack moves from one end of the nurses’ station to the other. Bridget is already holding up her tablet, pointing at something on the screen while Jack leans in, brow furrowing just slightly as he squints at it.
He needs to wear his glasses. You’ve told him this countless times. Yet for some reason, he insists on reserving them exclusively for news articles, novels, and recipes.
Apparently, the PTMC emergency department isn’t worthy of his clear vision.
Your stomach lurches as your traitorous thoughts remind you of the time he’d worn them during sex. The time he’d insisted on keeping them on as he settled between your legs because he wanted to see you properly. He wanted to see everything.
You shake your head again, trying to push the memory away.
Jack leans a little closer as Bridget starts explaining something you can’t quite make out. Not that you really care to hear what she’s saying. You’re too busy watching the way Jack’s left hand grips the edge of the desk, his weight shifting toward it, lessening the load on his right leg.
It must be really sore tonight.
He nods along, murmuring something low as he taps on the screen. You know what comes next before he even does it. He lifts that same hand and it drags across his jaw, tilting his head just slightly as he tries to concentrate on whatever it is Bridget’s asking—but he’s tired. You know he’s tired. From the set of his shoulders to the way he’s shifting almost all his weight off his right leg, you just know that he’s counting down the hours to the end of shift.
Maybe you should feel guilty for not letting him get enough sleep yesterday.
His left hand adjusts its grip, the tendon in his forearm flexing as it does and for some stupid reason, you forget how to breathe. Just for a second.
“You alright?”
You blink. “What?”
Henderson frowns slightly, suddenly standing beside you with his tablet in hand. “That’s the second time I've caught you completely zoned out tonight. What’s going on?”
“Uh—”
You glance back at Jack just as he looks up, his gaze meeting yours briefly, a small smile tugging at his lips—and your treacherous heart leaps. It actually leaps.
What the fuck?
You clear your throat. “Yeah. No. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
Henderson—the perceptive bastard—glances toward the nurses’ station, and his eyes widen.
“Oh, shit. Did something happen between you two?”
Your stomach flips. “What?”
He gestures vaguely toward Jack. “You and Abbot. Did you break up or something?”
“What?” you say again, louder this time. “Why would you even—I mean, we’re not—we’ve never dated. Why would you think that?”
He tilts his head. “Really? I thought Ellis said—”
“Ellis?”
“Not just Ellis.”
Your eyes go wide. “Who else?”
He shrugs. “Everyone assumes you guys are together.”
“Together?”
He frowns. “You’re not?”
“No,” you say, almost too fast. “No. We’re not together, we’re just—it’s… casual.”
His brows lift, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Casual?”
“Yes,” you mutter, dropping your head into your hands. “Are you telling me the entire ED thinks Jack and I are dating?”
Henderson laughs. “Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Shen mention it.”
Your head snaps up. “People talk about it?”
Henderson shrugs. “It’s gossip.”
You open your mouth, ready to deny everything, when—
“Trauma inbound,” Lena calls. “Male, twenties. Motorcycle crash. Hypotensive in the field. ETA two minutes.”
“Shit,” Henderson mutters. “That’s not gonna be fun.”
Jack glances over at you again, calling your name across the floor. “Trauma Two. Let’s go.”
You hesitate, taking a step back. “I—I can’t. Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Henderson says quickly. “I can jump in.”
He’s already moving before he’s even finished speaking, weaving through the growing rush of staff converging on Trauma Two. You watch him for a second, taking another slow step back, then another—and just before you turn away, you glance at Jack.
He hasn’t moved. He’s still standing by the nurses’ station. Watching you.
Your stomach twists.
Then you turn away and keep walking down the corridor.
And fortunately for your rapidly deteriorating grip on reality, it isn’t long before Dr. Toomarian pulls you into a room to present a patient and you’re forced back into work mode.
The distraction helps, at first. You focus on the patient, answer questions, review scans, place orders, and for a few blessed minutes your brain remembers how to function. Then someone says Jack’s name and your pulse jumps for no reason. You hear a voice that sounds vaguely like Jack’s and your head snaps up. Someone calls for an attending and you catch yourself looking.
By the time you’re halfway through reviewing another chart, your pulse still hasn’t settled and you’re no closer to understanding what the hell is wrong with you, only increasingly certain that whatever it is, it’s getting worse.
Eventually you find yourself moving back through Central, your nose buried in your tablet as you scan the next patient’s intake form, determined to stay distracted. You’re just about to turn down the North corridor when you finally glance up—and there he is.
His brows lift, just slightly. “A word?”
Shit.
“Um. Sure.”
You tuck your tablet under one arm as you follow him around the corner toward the ambulance bay. Not quite all the way outside, but far enough from the nurses’ station that no one nosy can overhear.
When he finally stops and turns to face you, you’re reminded—quite aggressively—just how unfairly attractive Jack Abbot really is.
“What was that?”
You take a small step back. “What was what?”
He nods vaguely toward Central. “You completely dodged that trauma back there.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” You look away. “I just—I had a patient I needed to get back to.”
“We’ve all got patients,” he says, folding his arms. “But this is the ED. We treat the most critical patients first. That means traumas—you know that.”
You glance back at him, then down at your shoes. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just... a little distracted tonight.”
“Distracted?” he echoes. “Is this about your friend?”
Your head snaps up. “My friend?”
“The one you just sent up to surgery.” His jaw tightens, just briefly. “If I’m being honest, I’m not even sure you should’ve been his physician.”
You frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a conflict of interest.”
You scoff. “A conflict of interest? Seriously?”
He folds his arms a little tighter, making the sleeves of his scrub top strain around his stupidly thick biceps in the most distracting way.
“Yes.”
You lift your chin. “Alright. How’s Ms. Callahan, then?”
He blinks. “Who?”
“Central Nine. Your ex.”
He stares at you for a second.
“Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter,” you say quickly. “What matters is if you can treat your ex without it being a conflict of interest, then I can treat some guy I used to sleep with.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“So he’s not just an old friend.”
You tilt your head. “You knew that, Jack.”
For a brief moment, neither of you says anything. You can feel your pulse in your throat now, fast and uneven, and judging by the way Jack’s looking at you, you’re not doing nearly as good a job of hiding it as you’d hoped.
“Look,” you say, desperate to end this interaction. “I’m sorry I ducked the trauma. Really, I am. But Henderson was right there—it’s not like I left you hanging. I knew he’d jump in.”
Jack rubs a hand across his jaw, looking away for a second before glancing back at you. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. Henderson was there, I could have called either of you.”
You nod once, the knot in your stomach finally easing slightly.
“Guess I should stop playing favourites, huh?”
You frown again. “Favourites?”
He lifts a shoulder. “You’re always the first person I look for when I need a second set of hands.”
Heat rushes up the back of your neck, but you refuse to let him see it.
“What about Dr. Robby?” you ask, shifting your tablet against your chest.
He leans in slightly. “I’d still choose you.”
The words hit you square in the chest, settling somewhere deep behind your ribs. For a second, your lungs forget how to work entirely, and by the time you finally figure out how to breathe again, Jack is already gone.
You stand there for a moment, staring after him, waiting for your brain to catch up with whatever the hell just happened. Waiting for those words to make sense. But they don’t. Not entirely. They stay lodged in your chest even as you clear your throat and press a hand against your sternum, turning slowly back toward the chaos of the ED.
Whatever.
Maybe they don’t mean anything.
You shake your head as you glance down at your tablet, pulling up the chart you’d been focused on before all this. Before Jack told you he’d still choose you over his own best friend, who also happens to have more experience, more qualifications, and significantly better judgement than you.
Ridiculous.
You spend the next half hour cleaning gravel out of a drunk college student’s knee after he fell down the porch steps at a house party. Then you help Henderson with a nine-year-old girl who split her forehead falling from the top bunk of her bed, distracting her while he does the sutures. After that, you work through a mild pneumonia case with Nazely before treating a middle-aged man with a kidney stone. The orders, pain meds, scans, and paperwork all blur together, and by the time you finally check the clock again it’s almost seven.
“Shit,” you murmur, dropping down at desk near the nurses’ station.
You need to catch up on your charting if you plan on getting out of here any time soon.
“Hey.” Henderson sits at the computer across from you. “Little girl with the forehead lac just got discharged.”
You glance over at him. “Oh. Nice.”
“Her mom wanted me to thank you for helping her.”
You snort. “Between the drunk college kid and the old guy coughing up half a lung, it was my pleasure.”
Henderson huffs a laugh. “Apparently she’s been saying she wants to be a doctor since she was six.”
Your brows lift. “Really?”
Henderson grins. “And now she wants to be a doctor just like you."
“Yeah? Did you tell her not to go into emergency medicine if she values her soul?”
“Assuming you had one to begin with,” Robby cuts in.
You glance up just as he walks past, wearing that familiar half-smile of weary amusement with a coffee in one hand and his bag slung over his shoulder.
“And here I was worried you’d be in a good mood this morning,” you say, smiling sweetly despite your words.
His eyes narrow, but the corner of his mouth lifts a little higher. “Careful.”
You roll your eyes playfully, turning back to the screen in front of you as he continues through Central.
It takes exactly eight minutes before you’re interrupted again. Bridget taps you on the shoulder asking for your signature on a prescription, and just as you hand it back to her, the red phone rings. You watch Lena answer it with a tired sigh, both Jack and Robby looking up to hear what kind of chaos is inbound.
“Alright,” Lena says as she hangs up the phone. “Male, forties. Single-vehicle MVC. Hypotensive in the field, positive seatbelt sign. ETA four minutes.”
“I’ll take it,” Robby says, setting his coffee down. “Let’s prep Trauma One.”
He glances around the unusually empty floor.
“I’ll jump in,” you offer, pushing your chair back.
Henderson shoots you a look as you stand and turn toward the nurses’ station, pulling a pair of gloves from a box. It’s not that you really want to jump in on another case ten minutes before the end of your shift, but you haven’t had a trauma since Captain Stabby and his sexy doctor friend, and you’re starting to feel a little guilty about it.
“See,” Robby says, pulling on his own gloves. “There’s hope for you yet.”
You roll your eyes again as you follow him out to the ambulance bay, and it isn’t long before you hear sirens.
The ambulance careens in and pulls up right in front of you, the back doors flying open as the first paramedic climbs out, holding a tearful young girl in his arms. She couldn’t be older than four.
“Thirty-eight-year-old male, restrained driver in a single-vehicle MVC versus a tree,” the paramedic says. “Positive seatbelt sign, abdominal pain, hypotensive on scene, improved with fluids. GCS fifteen. Two IVs in place. Daughter was restrained in the back seat and appears uninjured.”
The second paramedic circles the van from the driver’s side and starts helping Robby lower the gurney.
Robby nods toward the daughter. “You check her out?”
“We did a quick assessment on scene, but we’ve been focused on Dad,” the paramedic says, still holding her.
“Alright. We’ll get somebody to take a look at her.”
The young girl starts crying harder as Robby and the other paramedic begin wheeling the gurney inside. You stay beside them, one hand on the man’s forearm as you watch his eyelids droop.
“Stay with me, sir,” you say, squeezing his arm. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Barry,” he murmurs.
“Where does it hurt, Barry?”
He winces. “My—my stomach.”
The gurney rolls through the second set of doors, and suddenly you’re back under the bright fluorescent lights.
“Abbot,” Robby calls. “Can you take a look at the kid?”
Jack appears before you can even glance over your shoulder.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he says, his voice soft as he gently takes the daughter from the paramedic’s arms. “Your dad’s in good hands. Come on, let’s get you checked out too.”
You continue moving with the gurney into Trauma One, where Jesse and Olive are already prepping monitors and equipment.
The paramedics help shift the patient onto the trauma bed before clearing out, making room for Jesse to start attaching monitors.
“Pressure one-oh-four over sixty-eight,” he reports.
Olive quickly cuts Barry’s shirt open.
“Seatbelt sign across the lower abdomen,” you say, pressing gently along his stomach.
He grimaces when you reach his left side.
“Left’s worse.”
Robby holds out a hand. “Ultrasound.”
Jesse hands him the probe as you squirt gel onto Barry’s abdomen.
“RUQ,” Robby says.
You glance up at the ultrasound screen. “Clear.”
“LUQ.”
“Clear.”
“Pelvis.”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Good,” Robby says. “FAST negative. He’s stable enough for CT.”
You turn to Olive. “CT chest, abdo, pelvis with contrast.”
She nods, moving toward the phone as the whole room finally takes a breath. The negative FAST isn’t a guarantee, but it’s a promising start.
Barry groans, trying to lift his head. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s Ellie?”
You press a hand against his shoulder.
“Hey, don’t try to sit up. Your daughter’s okay—she’s just outside with another doctor.”
“She’s okay?”
You nod. “She’s okay.”
He lets out a strained breath, settling back against the mattress and tipping his head back.
“Hold on.”
You move closer, gently pushing his hair back.
“Forehead lac,” you tell Robby. “About three centimetres.”
He glances over. “Alright. We’ll close it up before he goes to imaging.”
He strips off his gloves and reaches for a new pair while Jesse preps the suture tray. Olive is already cleaning up around Barry as you reach for some gauze to start cleaning the cut, gently pushing his bloodied locks of hair out of the way.
“Lidocaine,” Robby says.
You grab the syringe from the tray and hand it to him, more than happy to let your attending do the work while your adrenaline wanes and that familiar end-of-shift exhaustion sets in.
“Stay still for us, Barry,” you murmur, cupping the crown of his head. “This might sting a little.”
He winces as Robby injects the anaesthetic.
“Saline,” Robby says.
You hand it over before carefully plucking the last few stuck strands of hair away from the wound.
“How’s the pain?” you ask.
“‘S okay,” Barry mumbles.
“Forceps.”
You hand Robby the forceps, then the needle driver before he can even ask.
“Light,” he murmurs.
You reach up and adjust the luminaire until he raises his hand, signalling that it’s in the right spot. Then he pinches the edge of the laceration with the forceps and slides the needle through the skin. Easy. Effortless. Boring.
You glance up at the monitor, noting that Barry’s heart rate has finally dropped below a hundred.
“Scissors,” Robby says.
You grab the scissors from the tray and hand them to him, then go back to reading Barry’s vitals.
“You with us, Barry?” Robby asks.
“Yeah,” Barry murmurs.
“Can’t feel the needle, can you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
You let your eyes move slowly around the room, already holding gauze for Robby before he can ask for it. You feel him take it from your hand just as you turn your head toward the glass doors, gazing out at the beginning chaos of morning handover.
But it isn’t Ellis and Langdon arguing about God knows what that gets your attention.
Just outside the trauma bay, perched on the edge of a bed parked beside the nurses’ station is Barry’s daughter. Ellie, apparently. Her eyes are still red and puffy, but she’s not crying anymore. She’s got a pink hospital gift shop teddy tucked under one arm and her other hand wrapped around the tubing of a black stethoscope.
Jack is sitting on a stool in front of her, gently helping put the earpieces in her tiny ears with a soft smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Her little hands grip either side of the headset, adjusting it with a very focused look on her face.
Jack hands her the chest piece as he scoots a little closer to the bed, then points to his chest. You can’t hear what he’s saying, but you can make an educated guess.
Ellie’s tiny hand grips the bell as she presses the diaphragm against Jack’s chest, a small crease forming between her brows. Jack is watching her with that amused little half-smile, his gaze soft, one hand braced lightly on the mattress beside her so she doesn’t topple backwards.
Ellie says something, and Jack nods, schooling his expression.
She’s taking her job very seriously right now, and Jack is taking her very seriously.
“Doctor.”
You blink, glancing back at Robby.
“Yeah?”
He gives you a look. “Scissors. For the third time.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
You hand him the scissors and watch him snip the tail on the second-last suture, then you turn your attention back toward Jack and Ellie. She’s giggling now, with the diaphragm pressed to Jack’s cheek as he gently shakes his head, laughing too.
“Forceps.”
You grab the forceps and hand them to Robby.
His eyes flick up. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’re smiling.”
“No, I’m—”
Oh my God.
You are smiling.
You turn back toward Jack, and your stomach drops.
Oh my God.
You’re in love with Jack Abbot.
“Alright, Barry,” Robby says, peeling his gloves off. “We’re gonna send you upstairs for some imaging now, make sure we didn’t miss anything.”
You take one unsteady step back from the bed.
“Can someone call my wife?” Barry asks, his voice strained.
Robby nods. “I'm sure somebody already has, but I’ll check.”
Your hands shake as you pull your gloves off.
“What about Ellie? Can I see her?”
“Of course,” Robby says. “She’s right outside.”
Barry lifts his head slightly. “Am I okay?”
“Well, you’re talking to me, your pressure’s holding, and your FAST was negative. Those are all good signs.” Robby looks at you. “Isn’t that right, doctor?”
Your head snaps up. “Hm?”
He frowns. “You sure you’re alright? You seem—”
“I’m fine,” you snap, tossing your gloves in the waste bin. “I just—I have charting to do.”
Then you turn and march right out of the trauma bay, keeping your head down as you take an immediate sharp left. Ignoring the familiar voice that calls your name and makes your pulse scatter.
You don’t stop until you reach the picture wall. Only then do you drop down onto the bench, squeeze your eyes shut, and bury your face in your hands. You can’t scream. Can’t shout. Can’t drop to the floor and have a panic attack right here in the middle of the ED. So you just… breathe.
Okay. Maybe you’re being a little dramatic—but can anyone blame you?
You don’t want this. You can’t want this. You don’t have time for this.
Casual sex is easy. No strings, no stress, no reason to worry about anything other than saving lives and finishing your residency. That’s all you want.
Or… all you wanted.
Now?
Now you’re not sure what you want.
Of course you still want to save lives and survive your residency, but now you can’t imagine doing either of those things without Jack.
You can’t imagine another shift without knowing Jack is somewhere in the department. Or getting a difficult case and not being able to talk through it with him. You can’t imagine going home and not immediately texting him. Or having a bad day and not being able to talk to him about it.
You can’t imagine anything without Jack.
Which is terrifying.
Because it isn’t just sex anymore. It isn’t flirting or late-night texts or teasing glances across the floor. It’s the way he’s somehow worked his way into every part of your life without you even noticing. Every shift. Every conversation. Every stupid little story you save up to tell him later. He’s just there. Everywhere.
And now... he matters.
You sit up and drag in a deep breath.
You need to pull it together. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s not even a thing. It’s only a thing if you let it be a thing, which… you’re not going to do.
With another deep breath, you push off the bench and start heading back toward Central. All you have to do is finish your charting, then you can leave. You can go home, turn your phone off, and talk yourself off the ledge.
You just need a little space. A little time away from the hospital, away from Jack, and all these ridiculous feelings will—
“Hey. You okay?”
Your heart lurches, but you don’t stop.
“I was going to come over there,” he says, keeping his voice low, “but I didn’t want to—”
“I’m fine,” you murmur, without even looking at him.
His hand closes gently around your wrist, and your stomach flips so hard it’s almost nauseating.
“You sure?”
You finally stop, glancing up at him. At the concerned crease between his brows and the little downward quirk at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m fine,” you say again, pulling your arm out of his grip. “Seriously.”
He gives you a look. Not one that says he’s offended or at all upset by your attitude, but one that says he doesn’t believe you. A look that makes you feel far too seen. Far too known.
“I need to finish my notes,” you mutter, turning away before he can say anything else.
You turn down the North corridor and don’t stop until you reach the desks just outside the break room. Then you drop into a chair, swipe your badge to log in, and force your trembling hands to steady themselves over the keyboard.
It takes a significant amount of effort to focus on your charting. You stare at the blinking cursor for minutes at a time before finally managing to squeeze out a few—mostly coherent—sentences. You type Jack’s name at least five times without meaning to, and every time you do, your heart thuds obnoxiously hard beneath your ribs.
Fortunately, no one tries to interrupt you this time, and after forty painstaking minutes of glaring at that computer screen and forcing your wayward thoughts to stay on track, you finally finish.
Now you just need to handover your patients.
You find Langdon by the nurses’ station, standing just below the workboard with his hands in his pockets as he reads through the list of patients and their ailments.
“Hey.” You step up beside him. “You got a minute for handover?”
He glances at you. “Oh. Hey. Didn’t know there were still any night crawlers left.”
You frown. “Everyone’s gone?”
“Everyone but Dr. Abbot,” he says. “And you.”
Your eyes go wide. “Ellis is gone?”
He nods. “Saw her head out about fifteen minutes ago.”
You scramble to grab your phone out of your pocket, unlocking it to find two new notifications from Ellis. Seventeen minutes ago.
Ellis: Abbot said he’s giving you a lift, so I’m headed out.
Ellis: Need anything from the store?
Your stomach drops.
“Everything alright?” Langdon asks.
“Uh—yeah. Fine.”
You tuck your phone back into your pocket.
“I’ve only got two patients. Can you take them?”
He nods. “Of course.”
“Alright. Central Twelve came in with chest pain. Trops negative, ECG’s clean, waiting on the repeat. If that’s negative too, he can go home.”
“Mhm.”
“And South Nineteen’s the pyelo. Got fluids, ceftriaxone, feeling better. Medicine said they’d come see her, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Langdon snorts. “Got it.”
You nod. “Great. Thanks.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope.”
He smiles. “Great sign-out.”
“I try,” you mutter, already turning away.
You hurry across the floor toward the lockers, pulling your phone back out of your pocket to type a reply to Ellis as you walk.
You: You’re dead to me.
You: And toothpaste.
When you finally reach your locker, you quickly key in the code and pull the door open. You don’t bother removing your stethoscope or badge, or taking time to actually put your jacket on—you just gather everything into your arms and slam the door shut again. Then you turn and make a beeline for the ambulance bay.
Maybe you can catch a bus home. Or—hell—you’ll pay for an Uber if you have to.
“Hey, slow down,” Dana says as you rush past the nurses’ station. “What’s the hurry?”
“Sorry,” you call over your shoulder. “Just—really need to get home.”
You’re moving too quickly for her to press you any further. Thank God. Because the last thing you need right now is Dana and her infuriating habit of knowing things she has absolutely no business knowing.
You keep your head down until you make it all the way outside, and only then do you finally feel like you can breathe. You nod to a patient having a cigarette by the garden bed before turning the other way, pulling your phone out to order an Uber.
Only, you can’t remember the last time you ordered an Uber. Do you even have the app?
“You ready?”
You flinch. “Jesus Christ.”
Jack huffs a laugh. “Not quite.”
You glance back down at your phone, clutching it a little tighter.
“I’m this way,” he says, nodding toward the other side of the parking lot.
You hesitate. “I—uh—I was just going to grab an Uber.”
His brows lift, but he doesn’t look all that surprised. “You were?”
You nod. “Yeah. I’m good. Thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
You turn away, but he doesn’t leave. He just stands there, waiting, one hand holding the strap of his backpack that’s slung over his shoulder, the other buried in his pocket.
“Is there something going on that I should know about?” he asks finally.
“Nope,” you reply, too fast.
Then, for some ridiculous reason, you start walking.
“Where are you going?”
“The bus stop,” you say, without looking back.
He follows you. Because of course he does.
“You’re going to catch a bus?”
“Yep.”
He laughs again, but this time it’s more disbelief than dry amusement.
“I’m offering you a perfectly good, no strings attached ride home, and you’d rather catch a bus?”
That makes you stop.
You turn around. “No strings attached?”
He lifts a shoulder. “If that’s what you want.”
“What I want?”
“If you want me to just drop you off, I’ll just drop you off.”
You stare at him for a second, your pulse pounding in your ears.
“Just drop me off?”
He nods slowly, his brow creasing slightly.
“And then what?” you ask.
He tilts his head. “What do you mean?”
“Then you just leave?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Your throat tightens. “Stop saying that.”
He frowns. “Saying what?”
“If that’s what I want.” You drag a hand through your hair. “You keep saying it like this is entirely up to me. Like none of this has anything to do with you. Like it’s my choice and you don’t get to say anything or—or feel anything, and that’s not fair.”
He studies you for a moment, folding his arms across his chest in the most irritatingly distracting way.
“What are we talking about here?”
“I don’t know!” You throw your hands up. “This. Us. Whatever this is. I don’t know what we’re doing anymore, Jack. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with any of this, and you just keep showing up being completely reasonable all the time, which is really fucking annoying.”
His eyes narrow. “I’m... too reasonable?”
“Yes! God—” You laugh once, sharp and humourless. “Why are you always like this? Why are you always so calm about everything? We never talk about what you want. We never talk about how you feel. We just keep pretending everything’s fine and maybe that’s worked up until now, but I don't think it’s working anymore.”
“Okay,” he says evenly. “Tell me what’s not working, and we can talk about it.”
“Talk about it?” You stare at him. “Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about, because this—this isn’t anything. This is casual, Jack. It’s supposed to be casual. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe we’ve spent too much time together. Maybe we just need some space or—or something.”
His brows lift. “Is that what you want?”
You fold your arms, trying to reclaim some semblance of control. “Yes.”
Something that almost resembles amusement flickers across his face, but he schools it quickly.
“Okay,” he says again. “If you want space, I can give you space.”
“Seriously?” You let out another sharp laugh. “Of course that’s your answer. Do you see what I mean? This is exactly what I mean. I stand here and tell you maybe we need some space, and you’re just... okay with it? Just like that? No questions, no argument, no nothing.”
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Do you want me to argue?”
“Maybe!” You throw your hands up again. “I don’t know, Jack! Maybe I want something. Anything. Just some indication that this means something to you. Because every time I say something, you just... accept it. You just nod and go along with it like none of this affects you at all. Like if I said I wanted space, you’d give me space. If I said I wanted to end this, you’d end it. If I said I never wanted to see you again, you’d just stand there being completely calm and reasonable and tell me that’s okay too.”
You let out a shaky laugh, shaking your head as you look away.
“And don’t tell me that’s not true, because you spent half the night in Central Nine with your ex and I spent the rest of the shift pretending I wasn’t paying attention to that, which is insane, by the way. Completely insane. She was a patient. You’re a doctor. I know that. I know I’m being irrational.”
You tip your head back, squeezing your eyes shut for just a second before looking back at him.
“And that’s the worst part, because I know none of this is actually about her. That’s the problem. It’s not about her at all. It’s about the fact that you’re always fine. You’re always so calm and so reasonable and so completely unbothered, and I don’t know how you do that.” You let out an unsteady breath. “It's like—like none of this matters to you. Like you don’t care. Like you could just walk away from everything, from me, and be completely fine.”
Your chest is rising and falling too fast now, your heart is beating so hard you’re almost sure he can hear it.
He doesn’t say anything right away. He just watches you, the corners of his mouth softened by something that looks suspiciously like fondness. And suddenly you’re struck by the horrible suspicion that he understands exactly what you’ve been trying so hard not to say.
“You think I could just walk away from this and be completely fine?” he asks, his voice soft. “You think I could walk away from you?”
He steps closer, the toes of his boots barely inches from yours now.
“When this started, it was casual. I knew that. I knew you were seeing other people. I knew you didn’t want a relationship—and if that’s still not what you want, then okay. I’m not going to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. I’m not trying to be overly reasonable, and I’m certainly not trying to make you feel like you’re losing your mind.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
“When I ask you what you want, it’s not because I don’t care what happens. It’s because I do. It’s because I’d rather be patient than push you into something before you’re ready for it. And if space is what you need right now, then I’ll give you space.”
His gaze holds yours.
“But don’t mistake that for indifference. Because there’s no version of this where walking away from you is easy. There’s no version of this where I don’t care. And if one day you tell me that’s what you really want, then I’ll respect it. Not because it’s what I want. Not because what I feel doesn’t matter. But because I respect you.”
His expression softens again.
“Do you understand?”
You nod slowly, your throat suddenly too tight for words.
“Now listen to me.”
He lifts a hand and pinches your chin gently between his thumb and forefinger.
“I know you’ve had a long shift. I know you’re exhausted. I know you’re standing here trying to convince yourself you haven't completely lost your mind, and I’m not trying to make your day any harder than it already is—but I need you to hear this.”
His eyes search yours, earnest and unguarded.
“I love you too.”
For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. With your breath caught somewhere in your chest, your mouth slightly open, and your heart trying to punch its way through your ribcage.
His lips quirk. “You alright?”
“No,” you breathe.
And then you grab the front of his shirt and kiss him.
His hand drops from your chin to your neck, fingers pressing in just slightly as he kisses you back. Firm, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world and has decided, without hesitation, that he only wants to spend it on you.
He steps closer, tilting your head back as his mouth parts against yours. A soft, helpless little noise breaks at the back of your throat, and you can feel his lips curl in satisfaction. Then he kisses you harder, deeper, his other hand finding your waist as his tongue presses past your lips.
You step in until there’s nothing left between you. Nothing but hospital scrubs and the fact that you’re standing in the middle of a public parking lot right now.
And for a second, neither of you seems to care.
The hand at your waist slides higher, pulling you closer as his mouth moves slower. Not because he wants less, but because he knows he’s got you. Because after months of patience and uncertainty, he knows he can finally take his time.
Your fingers bunch tighter in the front of his shirt, and he smiles again.
“Don’t,” you murmur against his mouth.
He doesn’t say anything. He just kisses you again, gentler this time. A lingering press of his mouth against yours. Then another. His thumb brushes against your neck as he tilts his head, stealing one more kiss that feels almost unfairly tender after the way he’d just been holding you.
Then he pulls back completely.
You stare at him.
He stares back.
Your lips are still tingling, your hands are still fisted in the front of his shirt, and your heart is still beating hard enough to crack a rib.
The corner of his mouth lifts a little higher.
“Still catching the bus?”
You immediately let go of his shirt. “Shut up.”
He laughs properly then, letting you turn away and start marching toward one end of the parking lot.
“My car’s the other way,” he calls.
You stop, close your eyes, then slowly turn around.
Jack is still standing exactly where you left him, with his hands in his pockets and looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“Shut up,” you say again.
His smile only widens.
You roll your eyes and start walking again, brushing past him with as much dignity as someone can reasonably muster after having a complete emotional breakdown and then immediately making out with their boss.
You don’t need to look back to know he’s following you.
You just know.
And by the time you finally reach his car, you realise you’re smiling.
synopsisyou and Trinity decide you've had enough of being the casual booty call, agreeing to play hard to get to prove to your partners you can go without them. easier said then done
warningsmut. oral (f! receiving) fingering, language, pinv, unprotected sex, MDNI. slight praise kink. no use of y/n
authornotethe way in which i need to be driven mad by this man using me is concerning to feminism
main masterlist. other Robby fic
“I don't get it!” said Santos for... well, you had no idea how many times she'd repeated herself but you were considering making it a drinking game. Every time she said she 'didn't understand' you resolved to take a shot. “I thought we were fine, doing great and casual- what- what is casual?”
Whitaker's hand hesitated in the air like they were in class. “Well I think by casual she means-”
“I know what casual means, Fuckle-berry,” said Santos quickly. “But it was casual now it's just weird.”
You nodded along, humming.
She groaned, hands running through her hair in frustration. “I don't get it!”
You took a long gulp of your wine.
“How do you handle it?” Trinity asked, arms wide in question at you.
“Me?”
“Yeah, how do you and Robby do casual?”
“Oh- we... it's- um-” you stumbled over your words, hoping that if you let it up long enough she'd take it back and start on her problems again. She didn't and she stood in front of you and Whitaker, waiting for an explanation.
The whole thing between you and Robby had started about the same time Santos and Garcia started. In an awkward confrontation that was you and Trinity bumping into each other in your shared bathroom, both your hairs messed up and both supporting bruises suspiciously in the shape of lips on your necks.
When you returned to your room you and Robby waited eagerly to see who would flee Santos's room. Neither too shocked to find Garcia.
“It's um?” Trinity asked.
“It's going,” you said into your wine glass, finishing it and pouring in more. The truth was for a while things had been odd, on your end more so.
Casual was a label you thought you could do, that when Robby said to you a week after sleeping together, his sheets over the both of your bodies that he liked keeping it simple. Sex. Release. You thought you could do it.
Almost three months since then and you were regretting it because every time you saw doctors eyes lingering over Robby, every time you heard his 'seven-week rule' and every time you saw happy couples fawning over each other in the ED your stomach twisted.
You didn't realise you wanted that until it was dangled in front of you and snatched away all in the same minute.
Trinity's brows rose. “Oh?”
You looked to where Whitaker was next to you, hoping for sympathy. You only found curious eyes. “It's just different than before.”
“Different how?” asked Dennis.
“Is it still casual?”
You scoffed, mumbling under your breath. “Yeah to him.”
“You want to be more?”
You didn't know if she was accusing but your room-mates expecting eyes on you heated your body in shame and embarrassment. “And you don't with Garcia?"
“Ok, enough!” suddenly Whitaker stood up. “The two of you, we need to sort this out.”
With a vacant seat next to you Trinity plopped herself down and you gave her your wine. You just decided to take the bottle.
“I cannot stand it anymore, okay! The two of you, we're gonna change this,” he said. “Trin- no more pining and waiting for Garcia to call at like one am.”
She was wanting to retort but only folded her arms over her chest as he carried on.
“And you-” he focused on you. “Need to stop crying over Robby. You guys can do better.”
“Yeah in a world where we're not working twelve hour shifts five days a week,” you said. The idea of casual hook ups wasn't anything new to the ED, not even the hospital. It was easy way of escape without the pressure of dating when all their time was spent saving lives or charting about saving lives or studying how to save lives.
On the coffee table in front of you Trinity's phone pinged and she reached for it like it was seconds away from self-destructing.
She tucked her phone into her chest to read the text before slamming it back down.
You caught a glance at the words and the contact. Can't make it tonight, I'll hit you up tomorrow- G
“You're gonna leave them,” he said.
You and Trinity sat up. “What?”
“No!”
There was a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“Okay- I take it back,” he said, surrendering. “Then how about give them a taste of their own medicine.”
“Their medicine?” you asked.
Whitaker gently nudged the empty glasses and cans of beer aside, perching on the edge of the coffee table, appealing to the two of you. “How many times have they cancelled plans, or said you couldn't come over to ask you to come over two hours later?”
You hadn't realised how perceptive he was.
“Now, make it so you guys call the shots. They want to come round, you say no.”
The idea was new to you. You'd always wanted Robby. You spent half your spare time wanting him and the other half having sex with him. You'd never even wanted to say no.
“So then we what, don't have sex?” asked Santos.
“You will,” he said. “You create distance, get them wanting and crying or what-whatever and then they'll realise they've messed up.”
You thought we was giving them too much credit.
Santos chuckled. “Huckleberry, are you telling us to play hard to get?”
He thought about it, eyes moving as if he was calculating it. “Yes!”
That's how plan 'hard to get' started. It was agreed you and Santos, the next time Garcia and Robby asked you to come over you'd say no.
Easier in practise when you work with them.
The next day was a slower day, un-usual in that sense. It meant everyone had more time to linger around each other.
“And so I said to him- officer-” said Myrna, lying on the bed between you and Robby. She'd seizure, hurt her leg and needed it disinfected and cleaned- not for the first time in her life. There was a mix of glass and gravel that needed plucking out and apparently the attending of the ED had nothing better to do that join you in the task. “What would you have done if you caught your third husband eating out another woman?”
“And did he say shoot him?” asked Robby. He was bent over the same leg as you, your heads so close you were either gonna head butt or kiss. Not likely over the state of her leg.
“No, he didn't say anything, he just arrested me!”
Robby hummed, his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. “Imagine that.”
“You know Myrna sometimes I can't tell if all these stories are true,” you said, taking a small bit of glass and adding it to the pile you'd already created.
“Oh they're all true, honey, I never lie. Unlike Mark that two faced bastard.”
“Which one was Mark?” you asked.
“The fourth husband. Good body and shit everything else!” she said with a wheeze. Abruptly she grabbed your hand. “Are you single?”
Robby glanced up at you, creases of amusement at the corner of his eyes.
You looked away first. “Why, you asking me out?”
“If you're single, stay single!” she said. “Men, all they are are liars! Lying bastards! And babies! I hardly even shot the guy!”
“Am I so bad, Doctor?” asked Robby looking over the frames of his glasses at you.
Was he so bad? No. He was short-tempered sometimes, moody, didn't accept help from anyone. But you knew he could be gentle, you knew his true belly laugh and the smile he gave at mornings when you were still in bed. You just wish you knew if he ever saw himself staying in that bed a little longer, if he ever wanted to make breakfast and take the day together, stealing moments throughout.
“No,” you said, looking back down to her leg that was almost clean. “You're not.”
Myrna was oddly silent but you could see her head moving between the two of you. “Don't go there sweetheart,” she said, a word of warning. “This one might look fun but he's all danger and heartbreak.”
“Me? No,” said Robby with an air of un-care. “I'm a teddy bear.”
Five minutes later you and Robby were instructing Perlah wrapping her leg before throwing off your gloves and leaving her to it.
“How many husbands you think Myrna had?” he asked.
“Oh there's no telling,” you replied, fetching her chart to finish off the notes. At some point someone had put a star next to her name, as if she was VIP.
Robby leant next to you, scanning around the ED. “Any plans tonight?”
“On a Wednesday? Nop.”
“Wanna come over?”
There was an abrupt and loud clear of a throat.
You hadn't realised Whitaker was there but he was watching the two of you, closely. When you met his eyes he gave a small subtle shake of his head.
Robby looked. “You got a cough, Whitaker?”
He cleared his throat, sliding down in his chair. “No.”
The agreement. It was all fine in practise but how were you supposed to say no when you just said you had no plans and you really wanted to have sex with him! It was the glasses, you were sure that was what did it. The way he pulled them on and pulled them off, the focus it gave him and the way they slipped down his nose.
“So, tonight?” he asked again, voice low.
Only a few people knew, like your room-mates and you were sure others had guessed. Robby wanted to keep it private. Or a secret, you'd never asked for clarification.
You caught Whitakers gaze on yours, watchful. He didn't say anything but you wondered if he'd be disappointed. Would you even be disappointed in yourself? “I can't tonight.”
“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Okay.”
He didn't sound annoyed. He didn't sound anything. It was impossible to tell.
“Yeah, we just- there's this thing-”
“Thought you had no plans?” he asked, an almost amused rise in his brows.
Ah. “It's like- not a plan- just a- a room mate thing. You know?”
Robby looked to Whitaker as if to confirm.
He nodded. “Yeah! Every Wednesday. We watch films.”
“Films,” you confirm.
“And talk.”
“We talk.”
Robby nodded. “Sounds thrilling.”
“Robby!” Dana called. “Got a trauma, woman in her thirties. Five minutes.”
“Got it," he said but he was still slumping over the counter. He took his time moving, stretching up till his shirt rode up enough to expose that slither of skin that held so many promises. “Some other time then.” His hand ghosted the small of your back before he disappeared.
You watched him go, realising you wouldn't spend the night buried in his bored but sleepless and restless.
Whitaker replaced Robby at your side. “See? Doesn't that feel good?”
You answered truthfully. “No.”
That night you, Santos and Whitaker sulked on the sofa, face masks over your faces with a bowl of popcorn left on the table and a shitty movie filling the silence.
Your phone lay face up with nothing from Robby and from Trinity's expression you figured she'd had nothing either.
You'd been to the bathroom once, took your phone with you and debated texting him but you never got that far. You only flicked through texts, casual one's at first. Small 'Are you coming over?' or 'You left your shirt at mine.' There were some dotted from him, on times you were both too busy to meet where things got more... riskier. His texts started simple but you could always catch on to his wants, leading his want.
Things like 'Thought about you today,' or 'you looked good today,' but he never just complimented you for the sake of it.
The texts didn't help so you turned your phone off and re-joined the two all the while your head and heart were in bed with Robby.
The next day passed like another dry spell.
It was busy- too make up for the quiet day beforehand. You didn't have time to greet Robby before being thrown into the chaos from a pile up on the highway. All day your bodies shuffled past each other, his hands lingering on your arms when he passed or always standing next to you in trauma.
It felt something like punishment.
Or a test.
By Friday you were crawling out of your skin, still dealing with the ramifications of the last two days. You hadn't even seen that Robby had text you the night before, so exhausted from work you crashed only spotting his name on your phone the morning you woke from the blare of your alarm.
“You're avoiding me,” he said, kneeling at the computer you typed furiously at to get your charting down. It was a casual move he used, usually un-tying and re-tying his shoes. This time, he simply knelt, seemingly done with pretence.
“What? No.”
“I've barely seen you the last few days," he said, wetting his lips. “Is there something wrong?”
“No, no, I've just been super busy,” you said, tapping on the computer.
Robby shuffled next to you. His hand laid next to yours. He didn't take your hand or stop you but his fingers fidgeted like he didn't know what else to do with himself. “Did I do something?”
You looked down at him, spotting the crease between his brows. “No.”
It was the closest you'd got to seeing him vulnerable.
“So tonight?” he asked. “Feel like I'm losing my damn mind.” His finger was light as it traced your hand, slowly drawing circles.
Tasting Robby was like the first sip of alcohol. It always left you wanting me. Sweet. Bitter. Whatever. You were just left wanting and nothing else, which was why you went crawling back every time. Why saying no had never crosse your mind before. Why the smallest touch from his hand was leaving you in shivers.
You squeezed your eyes shut. “I can't tonight-”
Robby smirked, breathing out a puff of air.
“I would,” you said quickly, turning in your chair to face him. “Believe me, I would, it's just... Trinity is going through some stuff and I just- I don't want to leave her alone, you know.”
It was the truth. Trinity was taking Garcia's silence worse than you or Dennis had anticipated. You knew there was more going on, you only wanted to be there to help her.
Robby perked. “You need me to speak to her?”
“No, no, it's just stuff. She'll be okay I just, want to be safe.”
He nodded but his finger fell from your hand. “Okay.”
“Doctor Robinavitch!” his name was called by the familiar dread of Gloria.
He sighed under his breath as he pushed himself up. “Oh so help me, God.”
By Saturday you were sure Robby thought you were lying and sort out to punish you. He was practically glued at your side all day long. He didn't ask to see you, didn't put his lips near you. But he lingered.
“Okay we don't have a lot of time, there's a lot of bleeding,” said Robby in the face of a trauma, looming over you. “We'll do a Hilar flip.”
“A Hilar flip, are you serious?” said Trinity.
“No other choice.”
You gulped, staring down at the bleeding and misplaced lung. “I've never done one of them before.”
“I'll talk you through it, we'll go easy,” he said, coming at your side. “You're gonna rotate the lung one-eighty, very slow. Very gentle.”
Perhaps it shouldn't have been as erotic as it was. The way his chest heaved against your back, his arm stretching along yours to hold your hand and guide it through the blood to his lung. His face was concentrated next to yours but his breath was hot on your cheek and breathless.
“Go slow.... go slow. Easy.... gentle.... just like that, there we go,” he uttered against your ear.
“Blood loss is slowing down.”
“There we go, you got it,” he mumbled as you slotted it back into its place. “Okay-” Robby moved on like your whole body wasn't trembling. You had to carry on trying to save the guys life after it, like you weren't picturing his entire body draped over yours, whispering filthy things in your ears.
“Thought I was watching a porno there,” said Santos as you all fled the room when the guy was stable.
“Jesus-” you caught your breath, throwing off the gloves and running your hands through your hair, trying to get some air to your neck that sweat.
Santos chuckled to herself. “So does Doctor Robby talk you through it?”
“Trin-” you snap.
“Does he praise you? Is that the kind of thing you're into.”
You didn't respond, hiding in the bathroom to throw cold water onto your face and calm the rush of blood but you could hear Santos outside the door. 'This is a teaching hospital!' she teased.
It became a thing you had to do, get away from him. You couldn't be distracted when dealing with patients. It was bad enough working with him when all you could think about was fucking him!
But Robby seemed to insist in helping you.
“Gaping wounds like this, under the skin we use sub-Q to bring it together,” he instructed as started the stitching for a mans wound on his leg. It was just like anything else, hardly a teaching wound when you knew how to do it. As it was under tissue and there was just no other nurse around Robby insisted.
“Five-O under skin, three-O after that,” he said.
“You think you could show me?”
You both knew you didn't need to be shown but Robby still gave you a small smile and sat on the stall, coming close to you till his meaty thigh was against your own. His hands- though gloved as yours were- still grazed yours as he took the instruments to do it.
“Guide it through... it's finer so you want to extra gentle... lotta care...”
You hummed but you couldn't say you were watching it with keen eyes. You weren't watching the way the stitches came together just the way his hands flexed, his fingers moved.
“Start deep... all the way in... bury the knot in... yeah, see how it comes together just like that?”
You nodded with an absent mind.
Robby held the equipment out to you. “Go ahead.”
You hesitated. Maybe you should have paid more attention.
He all but shoved them into your hand. “You're a big girl, you got it.”
Santos's voice played it your head. Were you into this?
With a breath you steadied yourself and went in. As he had before Robby leant over you, his body practically weighing you down.
You took the thread under the skin, pulling together just like he had.
“Bit deeper-” Robby's hands guided your arms. They were as light as a feather at your elbows before slowly sliding down your arms with a firmer hold, leading the threads.
You remembered his tight hold on you when he wanted you in place on the bed, when he was was dragging clothes off your body or wrapping a hand around your neck-
Robby called your name, watching you expectantly. His eyes were softened at the edges but they grew darker, the smallest bit of a smirk at the corner of his lips. Like he knew exactly what he was doing to you.
“Right... sorry-” you went as deep as he instructed, knowing his face was concentrated on you and your hands.
“Do you want me to leave?” asked the patient.
If he could leave his leg and leave it would've been great.
“We'll get you out of here in no time,” said Robby.
You'd thought that maybe the stitching at taken so long it was almost time to leave. Maybe you could talk to Whitaker and Santos about this hard to get thing. It was only eleven and you had more than six hours left with situations that constantly brought you and Robby together. Even when it didn't, there he was, whispering words of encouragement.
“You got this... nice and easy.... doing really good there...”
Or the simple phrase that had you hiding in the bathroom for five minutes.
“Good girl.”
When the end of the day came you ran out of there, gasping in air and rushing back back to your place.
“Hey,” you greeted walking through the door.
Trinity was already there, looking like she was ready to leave, jacket thrown over her scrubs she hadn't changed out of even though she finished an hour before you. “Hey.”
“Where's Huckleberry?”
“Oh he's at Amy's tonight.”
You scoffed. “Woah. What a speech about doing better and playing hard to get but as soon as the chance comes to play farm. So, movie tonight? I can order pizza?”
“Actually, I'm just on my way out too,” she said. “Garcia called.”
You slumped. Your entire body slumped. Your heart gave up. “What? I thought we all made a deal?”
“We did, I played hard to get now she wants to see me,” she said.
“I haven't seen Robby in three days!”
“So go to his, get dicked down, girl,” she said, moving past you with a breeze. “I'm sorry, we can talk about how much of a bitch I am when I'm back from having the best sex yet! Later!”
She was out the door before you could chastise her. You shut it after her, falling upon it.
You'd ran from the ED to stay strong, to avoid another interaction with Robby that would have you climbing his bones in an empty room. You'd happily have done it with the teasing he'd subjected you to all day. For your friends and the promise you'd made you remained strong.
You'd never do that again.
Saturday night after the longest shift of your life and you had the place to yourself. It was rare. Either Denis or Trinity were home or you were spending the night at Robby's.
Your phone was heavy in your pocket.
Call him.
But the problem still lied un-answered. You were still at Robby's beck and call, begging for his attention. Begging him to be hard thinking about you so he could fuck you into the mattress to be professional the net day and treat you like you were just another MR.
You didn't want special treatment so to say, didn't want him to give you the easy patients or get you into the traumas more. You just wanted a smile, or a glimpse of .... love.
Maybe your friends were okay with what they had. You weren't.
You turned your phone off for the night and stripped from your scrubs, changing into a large shirt and blasting music Trin hated and Denis claimed to hate (but you'd heard him playing your playlist in the shower). For a crazy night alone you caught up on washing several pairs of scrubs and anything else, cleaned out the freezer leaving you barren of anything to eat. Maybe you'd even iron some normal clothes-
That's at least what you were thinking when there was a knock at the door.
You'd hoped it was Denis or Trin coming back, tails between their legs, keys forgotten.
Robby stood on the other side of the door.
You stood, frozen, shocked to see him there. He was just as still, waiting with raised brows. “Doctor Robby. Is everything okay?”
His backpack was slung over his shoulder, his scrubs only slightly dirtied from the day. But his eyes were alive and his body didn't sag with exhaustion like usual. His eyes darted back behind you. “Can I come in?”
You held open the door, closing it slowly behind you.
Robby had only been to your place once before. He looked the open living space open with interest. Typically your meet ups were at his, on account he lived alone and his bed was much nicer to be down on than yours.
“Er- Whitaker and Santos aren't home, if- if this is a hospital thing.”
“It's not,” he said, lowering his bag at the sofa.
“Oh?”
He turned, leaning against the back of it. “It's a me and you thing.”
“Oh.”
His arms flexed as he folded them over his chest, the green of his top under his scrub bunched at the forearms. His head ducked, trying to get a read on you. “So?”
You rocked on your heels, realising the shortened of the shirt you wore. Not that it wasn't anything he had seen before. “So...”
“What's going on?” he asked. There was still nothing in his voice to give away his true thoughts, only a slight edge of urgency.
“What-what-what do you mean?”
Robby listed off what he saw was wrong like symptoms. “You've been avoiding me, you never answered my texts, you didn't want to see me the other night nor tonight though you have the place to yourself-”
“I didn't realise they were gone,” you said.
“Okay so every other time?” he asked. “If I did something you can tell me. I'm a big guy, I can take it.”
It was a chance to voice up every ill thought you'd had but all you could think about was how big he was. Standing there, jutted on the back of the couch with his scrubs around his arms and thighs.
“You didn't do anything,” you said, though you weren't looking at his eyes more his arms.
They flexed again like he knew what he was doing. His voice dropped, finally to something you could name. “So tell me. what's going on.”
If you threw yourself at him you knew the chances of him taking you to bed were high, but the chances of you regretting it in the morning when he had rolled out of bed, dressed and left you were higher.
“I just-” you blew out a breath, readying yourself for the dismiss. “I don't think I can do this anymore.”
Robby waited like he was listening to the words re-play. His head lowered as he nodded, taking it in. “May I ask why?”
“It's the casual thing,” you rushed out before you could take it back. “I don't think I can do casual. I thought I could, but I-I can't.”
He nodded, chin tucked into his chest and for a moment you thought you really had upset him. But then he straightened up, pushed himself from the sofa and shrugged. His boots thudded heavy as he stepped to you slow. “Okay then.”
Was this the moment when you got the door for him on the way out?
“Okay, so... um.... I guess I'll see you-”
Robby's hands grasped your cheeks and he kissed you quick, hard. His lips tasted as they always did with a hint of mint-freshness. They were rough as always as they worked against yours, opening you up to him as always-
You brushed away, shaking your head. “I um- Robby I can't-”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. He stepped closer to you, the heat of his body waving over you. “We don't have to be casual anymore, I don't want to be casual- not anymore.”
Everyone knew Robby only knew casual. Only selected few ever got past seven weeks. Heck you hadn't counted how long this had been going on for, maybe ten weeks but that could be nothing. You were good sex, that was all.
“Robby-”
“Listen, listen-” he said, arms waving around you before settling on your forearms. “You don't want casual, neither do I. You want me to ask? You want me to ask you to be my girlfriend, I'll ask.”
“Robby you don't date,” you tried to tell him.
He scoffed. “I date. But not anymore, not if I have you.”
Had word of the deal got out? Was Robby just tired after his shift? Delusional?
“Hey, hey-" his hands ran through your hair, cradling your cheeks. “I should've said it earlier, I know but I want this. I want serious.”
His eyes crinkled as he looked at you, the edges of his gaze soft. “You don't just have to say this. You can have anyone else-”
Robby's head ducked into the crook of your neck, brushing your hair back and pressing light kisses to the expanse of your neck. “I don't want anyone else, I want you.”
Your body awakened in shivers that he elicited.
His fingers wound to the front of your body, slowly peeling away the buttons of the shirt till it pooled at your ankles. He didn't move to ravage you, his lips remained light as they kissed down your neck, finding your collarbone and working a mark there.
Your hands wound up his arms, clutching at his shoulders. “Robby-”
“Not this time,” he uttered against your collarbone.
You knew what you called him when it was you and him. “Michael-”
“Good girl.”
You moaned out at the words, the moan you'd held all day revibrating around your flat.
He slowly kicked odd his boots and helped you throw off his scrub top before he kissed you again.
You only got a short glimpse at the body you craved before his tongue, hot and heavy, slid into you mouth, bathing in the warmth. His hands were rough as they studied every inch of your body, fingertips digging into skin.
“I want you, sweet girl,” he mumbled against your lips as you scaled your hands under his shirt and along his stomach till your fingers skimmed under his waistband.
His mouth opened against yours, groaning at this slightest touch. “Oh-”
His arms scooped you up, bringing your body up and flush against him as his arms were strong on your back, kissing you. It was all wet tongue and soft lips as he stumbled back on the edge of your couch.
“Santos will kill me if we have sex on our couch,” you gasped.
Robby rose a brow. “Oh, we're having sex?” he teased.
“I should hope so.”
You kissed you hard again, wetting the both of your mouths in delectable smacks of your lips. The two of you stumbled away to your room and his body caged you in as the two of you fell atop your sheets.
You crawled up the bed as Robby's face fell between your chest. His tongue made wet paths from each breast, taking a nipple in his mouth and his hand groping at the other one till you withered against his body.
“Michael-”
He moaned into your breast and shoved a meaty thigh between your legs. “Grind on me,” he demanded.
Your body did against him as if it only listened to his command.
He mouthed your other breast, groping where his tongue had pressed before. All the while you body moved against his thigh, dragging your pussy against him.
“Yeah.... jus' like that... god.... can feel you.... so good,” he uttered as he jutted his thigh against you.
Your hands went to his shoulders, messaging the skin there until he came back up your body and shoved his tongue down your throat again. Your arm wrapped around his neck, keeping him into you.
All the while you wet down his scrubs.
“You want serious?” he uttered against you, pulling back enough to see you.
You nodded, hair splayed over your pillow.
Robby nodded along, eyes hooded. His hand slid down between your bodies. “I can do serious.”
His finger slid into you, working in and out in slow thrusts. But even the meassured curl of his finger had you holding him, back arching from the bed.
“Mmph-”
“Don't be quiet,” he said, nuzzling his head in you neck, biting the skin there. “Don't do that.”
Another finger curled in and you moaned on. You weren't quiet usually, there was nothing more than Robby liked than being loud. Everything was measured in the ED, out of it, buried inside of you or hot mouths on each other had Robby groaning, moaning and wanting you to do the same.
His fingers thrusted knuckle deep in and out again, the soft moving of skin moving around the room as your breaths covered the sound.
His fingers moved quick as your breaths grew laboured. He sucked the skin of your neck, thrusting and curling as his hips sort some sort of friction.
You withered against him. “I'm gonna- Michael I'm gonna-”
He released your skin with a small bite and laid his mouth open on yours. “Cum,” he uttered.
“Michael-”
His voice turned harder, the hand that wasn't inside of you wrapping around your neck, pushing you into your bed. “Cum.”
With just the right curl Robby had your pussy in the palm of his hand, slick with your release as he worked you through it, rubbing his hand along your clit with jolts of your body.
“God so good,” he said, looking up at you as a thin sheen of sweat glistened on your bodies. “And all mine?”
You nodded, cheeks flushed. You could feel the heat of your body as strong as it was when he walked in.
“All mine, huh?”
“Yes,” you said, breathless.
Robby slowly took out his fingers from you, putting his fingers in his mouth and licking them clean like it was nothing. He fell back on his feet, fingers working on the ties of his scrubs. “That why you were avoiding me?”
“I wasn't-” your words died in your throat as he dropped his scrubs and boxers in one.
You'd seen his cock enough to know it by memory but the size and fullness of him always rendered you speechless.
Robby knew it to. He stood there with a smirk. “You weren't avoiding me?”
Slowly, he sank to his knees.
“No,” you said, mesmerised by the sight of him going down.
Robby's hands grabbed your thighs, spreading them. He tapped your ankles, getting them on the bed as he got closer to your heat, still leaking from the last orgasm. “Promise?”
The words had hardly left your lips before his tongue pressed into you.
Your entire body moved into his but his arms wrapped around your hips, keeping you pressed into the bed. He moved further up, burying himself in you.
“Aw- fuck-” your hands waved for purchase before curling into the sheets.
He licked a stripe up and down before nudging your lips open and finding himself in there. It wasn't the slow drag of fingers but the desperate kisses and licks of a man hungry. He pulled back, spitting against you. “You won't avoid me again, will you baby?”
You shook your head.
Robby's eyes remained on yours until he buried himself in your pussy. You watched his eyes roll into the back of his head as he moaned into you.
His hands kept you spread open every time they quivered but it didn't take long for his hand to wind down to his cock. You prepped yourself up onto your elbows to watch as he pumped his cock agonizingly slow.
“Want your cock, Robby-”
He halted his movements and you but down on your lip.
“What did you just call me?” he asked, slowly moving up your body.
You knew you were supposed to call him Michael but watching the full swing of his cock stand to attention as he made his way over you was far too distracting.
“Hey-v his hand cupped your chin, forcing you to look up. “Michael.”
You nodded. Your hands reached for his cock, straining to wrap around him.
The only notice of the effect you had was the clench of his jaw.
“Michael,” he repeated, voice almost a growl.
“Michael.”
He nodded.
“Condom?” he asked, jutting back on his heels.
Your hand slowly worked his cock, the pre-cum beading at the tip. You shook your head. You were both clean, you were on the pill but tonight you wanted to feel everything, wanted him to even fill you-
Robby bent his head, spitting down on his cock and your hand. For a moment that's all it was, you hand moving on his cock as your other circled your clit. “God... your hand.... missed you...”
When your strokes got heavier, faster Robby's head fell back and he groaned. His cock was pink, heavy in your hand-
Quickly he grabbed your wrist and threw it off before grabbing the hilt of his own cock and slowly pushing into you.
His throat strained as he groaned at the push in and your back arched into him. “Fuck!” he fell atop you, arms braced at either side. “Shit- ah-”
Your arm wrapped around his shoulders, keeping you in.
“God, you make me crazy,” he uttered, searching for your lips.
The two of you collided in a mess of salvia, tongue, lips as he pushed into you, catching your gasps.
Eventually the rock of his hips grew steady. The creak of your old bed echoed the moves of him against you.
“Shit- ah-” he groaned, shaking off the sweat and the tension.
“Michael,” you said, holding him in closer. “I want you to... go hard.”
Hard he could do. Soft he could do. He would do anything you asked.
His tongue darted out, swiping your lips. “You missed me?”
“So much, so much, so much,” you pulled him down till his weight tested yours, cock deep. “On me.”
“Okay, okay,” he mumbled to himself. He put all his weight down, crashing your body into his bed. He wasn't as young as he once was. By no means but if you wanted it, he'd give it.
Pressed into you his cock went far and deep and he couldn't fully withdraw so it was small, maddening movements.
“Oh god,” he uttered.
You moaned, loud, as he wanted and he was breathless, groaning.
The dull thump of your headboard banged on the wall and something on your bedside table fell off.
Robby's arm stretched out, grabbing your hand and stretching your arms to the headboard, trying to steady it. With the stretch of the bodies he reached that spot in you.
“Aw fuck!” You yelled out, louder than anticipated. “Michael I'm gonna- I'm gonna-”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck-” he grunted with you. His other hand threw to your hip, holding your pelvis flush into you. “Fuck!”
In seconds he let go inside of you and the gush of his cum and the sound of the wet bodies threw you over the edge. His clutch on your hand grew tighter as his body trembled with yours, the spurts of your releases cooling down.
If this was casual Robby wouldn't have lingered, he'd have pulled out, flashed you a smile before using the bathroom.
He moved slower, staying till the both of you were spent. He kissed you, soft and sweet, lips moving around to remember the taste. “I'll move out,” he whispered as he took out his cock.
You stole a glance of both of your release leaking from you and around him before Robby moved aside.
He didn't flee, he didn't go to the bathroom. He pulled the sheets from under your bodies and got the both of you into bed. He laid beside you.
Robby tucked you under his arm, sweat on both your bodies cooling as you laid together. “Feels better when we're serious.” His fingers moved slow on your shoulder, delicate touches like a feather.
If he woke with a new thought, woke with regret you'd deal with it. For the moment you allowed yourself to feel the thump of his heart as the two of you slowly lulled to sleep.
Your alarm was the first thing you picked up in the morning. It's beeping ringing in your ear as you moved to turn the thing off or throw it at the wall-
A weight over your stomach made the effort harder but you got it.
Last night came back to you in the spill of scrubs on the floor and the ache between your legs.
Robby stirred next to you. Last night.
He stayed.
“You on today?” he asked, morning voice rough. You got a look at him, it was a rare sight you got to see him in morning light. His eyes were still shut, his face without the stress the day job gave him. He asked so casual, as if this was a morning routine you'd slipped into years ago.
You hummed, nodding and readying to move-
His arm tightened, drawing you in. “Call in sick.”
You chuckled, but your eyes closed. You promised yourself five more minutes. “My attending might have something to say about that.”
Robby grumbled. “Have a word with him, I'm sure you can be very persuasive.”
Somewhere in you apartment you heard the front door open and close, voices moving around the place.
You hadn't closed the door.
“Hey! We brought coffee and bagels!” called Santos.
“We're sorry for leaving you- we- huh?” you heard Whitaker. “What the?”
The clothes on the floor. The scrub top that would have his doctors badge on it.
You groaned and suddenly Whitaker and Santos were passing the doorway, one smirking, the other shocked.
Robby beside you didn't even stir.
“Good morning, Doctor Robby!” called Santos.
He only lifted a hand in greeting before making sure the covers were over the two of you.
You reached for something heavy, landing on a cushion and aiming at the door. It closed in front of your laughing friends.
synopsisyou were Robby's star pupil, his favourite person, but when he catches you and Jack in the middle of performing a high risk procedure you definitely shouldn't be doing he can't handle the jealousy. so really, is it your fault if your pushed into Jack Abbots bed, but can't stop thinking about Robby?
warningsjealous&possesive Robby x reader, Jack Abbot x reader, kinda Rabbot, Jack kinda wants Robby in this, language. smut MDNI. fingering, oral (f receiving) breast play, dirty talk, praise, Robby calls while Jack eats you out. handjob
authornotei'm so close to writing Rabbott fics, I need them both!
pitt masterlist. last robby fic! last jack fic!
“What the hell are you doing?”
If you weren't as skilled a resident as you were, as stony as you'd been made, the raise of voice and slam of a door would have stolen you from your attentive work. But it didn't. You didn't flinch. As your hands were all but inside a patient it was a good thing, too.
Jack tutted from over you, the heat of his breath hot on the back of your neck. “Robby...”
“I said- what are you doing?” he barked again, standing in the middle of the trauma room.
Nurses turned to look at him and then back to you and Jack, un-sure of which immovable force was greater.
You only focused on the woman in front of you. Bruises up her arms, blood on her cut-away clothes, tubes coming out of her and into her, monitors beeping with life signs fleeting.
“It's a hypotensive pelvic bleed,” you said through your face screwed in concentration.
“A REBOA? Are you serious, right now?”
“I'm here, supervising, brother,” said Jack, still caved over you like he could protect you from Robby's wrath.
“You're not her attending,” Robby argued.
“No but I'm an attending.”
You could hear Robby's sharp inhale of breath, picture the clock of his head in annoyance and the tight pinch of his eyes. You knew every small give away of his that he didn't know he had. The tightness of his muscles when angers, the way he clutches at his chest for his star of David when silently scared.
The tension in the room chocked you.
Jack was still at your side, a comfort, a gentle wave against the sharp rocks. “Keep going.”
Robby said your name, an edge to it you'd never heard before.
Looking past Jack you found Robbie. He stood blocking the door, gowned up already, arms over his chest. His brows were pulled in, eyes dark as they levelled on you. He was danger dressed as a man.
But in front of you there was Jack, nodding encouragingly.
“Keep going.”
Your hands moved to carry on in spite of Robby's sigh.
“Okay... good...” said Jack as you pushed in the needle. “Femoral artery, couple inches. All right, let's guide wire and introduce the sheath.”
You pushed and did what Jack said, careful under his guidance.
Robby watched all the while, walking slowly around. He knew how well you preened under praise and careful instruction, like a cat purring at an owners touch. Robby knew because it was always him, ever since you began as a med student to intern to resident he'd been there to build you up, crafting you into a perfect doctor.
His perfect doctor.
Apparently he didn't like to share.
“How much saline have you pushed?” asked Robby.
“Five CC'S,” said Jack, without entertaining his attitude.
“Your carotid is weak,” said Robby. “Is it even there?”
“Yes,” you said.
Jack caught your gaze behind your goggles, pleading silently. You hadn't worked with him as much as you had Robby, or Langdon or almost anyone in the day shift but he seemed to catch on to your needs at once. “You know what to do.”
With his words you proceeded.
“Push another three CC'S of saline in the balloon,” you ordered.
“Injecting.”
There was a moment of silence as the saline was passed through tubes into the woman.
“How we looking?” asked Robby.
“Radial is up, pressure's up too- BP hundred-and-ten,” said Donnie.
For the first time since Jack dragged you into the trauma to teach you a REBOA, you looked at the patients face. At the blankness of it, the blood splattered at her cheek. There was colour returning to her.
“Check the wound,” said Jack.
You did so, the wound at her pelvis are that had been gushing on arrival had stopped bleeding.
“Looks okay,” you said.
Jack's gloved hand squeezed your gowned shoulder, blood of the woman passing between the two of you. However, it was the physical contact that broke you from your trance, pulling you up taller. “Good job, you saved her life, another couple minutes she wouldn't have made it.”
“She's still not out the woods yet,” said Robby.
You looked back at him with enough time to catch an un-characteristic roll of his eyes.
“Surgery can take her now,” said Jesse from the phone.
“Oh, finally they're ready for us?” teased Jack as he moved around the gurney. “Now that they've missed all the fun.” He passed you a wink that sent butterflies in your stomach rolling around.
The team pulled off gowns and gloves, pulling the gurney out the room.
“Wait-” said Robby, arm out stopping you as you went to follow.
The doors shut behind the gurney before Jack could understand you were behind, trapped in a room with a bear of a man who was failing at concealing his anger.
You waited for him to begin. Whether it were to be a lecture or an approval that you saved a woman's life, you wanted it over and done. The adrenaline was coursing through your body in crashing waves of red. You'd crash if you didn't calm. “There was no time for anything else-”
“- save it-”
“- there was no time for me to come and get you-”
“- stop!”
You stepped back, hands balled at your sides.
It wasn't un-common for any member of staff at PTMC to have Robby Robinavitch yell and demand the stars and moons from a person. It was scary to have him yelling at you, his deemed shadow and golden girl.
Since day one everyone knew you held a special place in Robby's heart.
“I saved a patient's life,” you defended. Was that not the most important thing to be doing? Could you not be attending to at least two other patients while he stood- imposing- in front of you.
“Doing an extremely risky procedure that is only reserved for the senior residents which you are not,” he scoffed out.
“Doctor Abbot was at my side the whole time, he talked me through every step.”
Robby shook his head, chuckling and looking around the room as if to be anywhere but with you. “Abbot-”
“- he believed me capable,” you said. “Don't you think I'm capable?”
His teeth bit into his bottom lip as he turned away from you, stretching his hand to the back of his head and flattening the hair there. When he turned back to you he took a step closer, watching the toes of his shoes meet yours.
“Do you know why I'm angry?”
No, you really didn't.
You took in a deep breath, meeting his eyes that lowered to yours. “Because I performed a high risk procedure.”
“A high risk procedure without me,” he corrected. “You're on day, not night. I'm your attending, not Jack. You get me when you're doing something like that, you understand?”
There was little room for argument. Your body trembled, the mixture of blood on your gloves and the beating of your heart heard in your ears. The lights of trauma two were suddenly too bright; walls too sterile. You nodded.
Robby tsked. “Do you understand?”
Every word was punctured with anger.
You rose to all your height. “Yes, I understand.”
He didn't dismiss you, only jutted his head back as he dragged a hand over his beard.
Without a word, you dismissed yourself.
“I just don't get why he was so.... angry,” you admit quietly.
The lights of the bar were dimmed in a golden light, casting sun set gazes around the bar Jack had told you was a good place to get a drink. He'd led you to a small table by a window with the blinds pulled down, his hand- the one that had saved so many lives- splayed out on the small of your back.
Somewhere along the night Jack's chair had scraped around closer to you. So close with every inhale you could catch the musk on him and his arm was comfortably slung around the back of your chair.
There were two empty whiskey glasses of Jack's and you were still cradling your first, down to the dregs.
“It's Robby,” said Jack with a shrug of his shoulders, but it didn't stop the crease in his brows.
“But he's never been like that with me.”
Was it the fact you'd seemingly lost your favouritism bothering you? More than you cared to admit. More so the fact you didn't understand why he'd yelled.
Why the flare of anger had burned brighter with you saving a life than anyone else?
Why your body had trembled at the rise of his voice.
Jack's body tilted toward yours, head bowed low as he looked up at you through his lashes. “Oh, come on....”
You slurped the last from your straw and looked at him. “What?”
“You don't have to play dumb with me.”
Your own body gravitated towards him. “Play dumb? I'm not playing dumb, what are you talking about?”
Jack chuckled, shaking his head to himself. He sipped the last of his drink. “Robby's...” he trailed off.
“Robby's...”
Jack levelled his gaze to yours. “He likes you.”
The words sat frozen in your brain. You knew Robby must have had some soft spot for you, you knew he liked you. But the way Jack said it, a teasing lift to his voice and the serious gaze of his eyes suggested it was more than the competence of your skills as a doctor that had Robby's affection.
“He doesn't,” you chuckled.
“He does,” said Jack, nodding along with your words.
“How would you know?”
Jack's cheeks dusted a faint pink, the rain on the window behind you dropping like mini thunderstorms. “Believe me, I know.”
You waited for more clarification.
“You have no idea the kind of effect you have on old men like us.”
Like us. Jack didn't just speak for Robby but himself. The pink in his cheeks, the hand on your back earlier. The heat from him was all different now. A wanting.
“Old men?” you smirked.
Jack's eyes darted between your eyes and lips. “Yeah, old men.”
“You're not that old, are you?”
Jack tilts his head side to side.
You peer closer at him as if trying to find the lines of age in his face. “Younger than Robby though, right?”
Jack nods. “Younger than Robby, if that makes any difference.”
“Any difference to what?” you asked, stirring the straw against the ice in one hand, the other holding your chin.
“To you.”
Under the table Jack's fingers traced over your knee, gently, as if he was trying to go un-noticed. You felt it anyhow. Felt as his fingers gripped your knee when you pushed your leg against his.
He watched you, analysing.
“Well,” you began, pushing your leg to kick over the other under the table and moving his hand further up your leg, till his all too eager fingers were splayed over your thigh. “What kind of effect is that?”
Jack was always a serious man at work. Competent and well kept. You didn't expect him to be so well versed in 'playing games'. “I dunno if I can tell you.”
“No?”
Jack shook his head, eyes lingering over his lips and his head tilted to the side, watching you. “I could show you?”
There was lip gloss stain over the straw in your glass, you saw it catch Jack's eyes as he pushed away your empty glasses to provide more space on the table.
“See any time you look at us, it's like-like a tingling sensation,” he said. “Like when you know someone's got their eyes on you.”
His hand that had been riding higher at your thigh darted away, leaving a sudden tremble of everything cold through your body. Instead, he rested his elbow at the table and beckoned your hand to his. He didn't hold it, instead, spread your fingers out and put palm to palm in a tender touch.
“And then when you touch us, it gets worse,” he uttered, eyes stuck on where your palms met. Jack's hand moved around yours, playing with your fingers.
“Worse?” you ask.
“A good worse. Good shivers,” said Jack, pulling at a finger.
“I touch you enough for you to gather all that?”
Jack's dark gaze found yours again. He bit down on his bottom lip. “Not nearly enough as I'd like.”
The door of the bar opened and a gush of wind cooled the heat on your skin. But Jack's eyes were like a furnace that you were sitting too close to, burning yourself and delighting in it. When the door shut again with an un-oiled squeak, Jack reached over.
He plucked the necklace charm from against your chest, the brush of his knuckles against your chest. “Pretty necklace.”
“Thank you,” you said, voice shaky un-characteristically.
“You get it yourself?”
“No, it was a present.”
It was almost as if he didn't have to ask who had gifted it to you. Whose hands had brushed back your hair in the middle of a shift and clasped it around the back of your neck.
Or maybe he just didn't want to know.
Jack's apartment was everything that made him.
As you passed the kitchen and he peeled off his jacket, keeping his lips close enough to breathe you in, you could smell the coffee from the morning plastered to the walls.
When he pressed you up to the sofa to shove his hands down your pants and slide a finger into your wet pussy your fingers scratched at some blanket he had thrown over the back of it.
You caught a glimpse of pictures around the place, a frame of meddles too but his place came to you in flashes and glimpses through pleasure.
“I'm gonna show you,” he uttered against your mouth as another finger slipped into you, worked inside of you. They curled up, your body moving into him at the feeling. “Just how I want to touch you.”
The car ride over had been torture enough. He could hardly get himself inside the car, stealing himself away from you. But your lips had been at his neck at every stop sign and red light. Your hand had ghosted over his crotch and the hardening length of him. As occupied as you'd been in each other in the front seats of his car you'd been beeped at twice.
“Jack,” your voice whispered, lips dragging against his as he slowly worked his fingers in and out of you, pulling at the seams of your panties.
“I'm gonna show you just how Robby wants to touch you.”
You wish the name didn't have the effect it did. That the fury you felt at him for how he yelled didn't turn to a throb in your core when Jack said his name.
“You're touching me, Jack,” you said, breathless.
“Yeah... yeah,” he said. “You like that I'm touching you?”
You nodded as his fingers retracted, finding your clit and wetting the bud of nerves, circling it.
“Say it,” said Jack. “Say it.”
“Yes, I like it.”
Jack grinned into the curve of your neck as his fingers plunged back in, working you open and spreading your wetness of the black of your panties. “God, you're making such a mess for me baby, aren't you?”
He worked you open a little longer, mumbling encouragement with every moan and throw back of your head. 'So pretty, arg, you're so pretty baby.'
By the time your stomach was coiling tight like a snake ready to pounce Jack removed his hand from your pants and kissed you again. It was a hard kiss, his clean hand grasping your cheek and keeping you still as he forcefully worked his lips against yours, like it had only just clocked in his head it was you he had on his lips, it was you he was turning to putty in his hand. Like he wanted to forge you into his lips
“Not done yet,” said Jack, hands sliding down to your hips as he guides his nose up and down your neck, breathing you in. “I wanna make you moan on my tongue, like Robby wishes he could, yeah?”
Your body betrayed you, shivering again in anticipation.
Jack's hands stirred you by the hips, urging you to his room. He pushed the door open over your head, licking into your mouth.
“Please... don't mention Robby right now,” you said as Jack fell slowly to his knees in front of you.
His brows rose. He kept his eyes on you as he pulled down your pants, helping you step out of them. “No? You don't want me to mention Robby?” he asked.
You shook your head, looking away from him. You knew you'd soaked yourself through by the small touches and passionate kisses from Jack. But you didn't need to see the realisation hit when he realised Robby's name had as much effect on you as Jack's own touches.
“Eyes on me, keep your eyes on me,” said Jack.
With a tight squeeze, you looked at him, seeing the attending of the night shift get closer to your heat.
“See, I think, you like when I say his name, huh?” his nose nudged your clothed clit. “Robby.”
Jack licked a stripe up your pussy, gathering your want through the cloth.
You were left, mouth agape, to catch your breath. Your hands didn't know where to go till Jack peeled off his shirt and guided your hands to his shoulders, your nails digging into the freckled skin there.
Jack wet his tongue with his spit before he rubbed it along your panties again, kissing you there. “I think you're so wet for me, but you're wet for Robby too, huh?”
“Jus-just you, Jack,” you gasped.
He swept a finger into your panties and let the elastic snap back against your skin.
Your body jolted in its wake.
“Not just me, don't lie,” he said, darkly.
In the morning would you realise what you'd done? Jack wasn't your attending but an attending none the less and Robby's friend- brother- at that. Although you and Robby were nothing more than colleagues, it didn't feel right to have Jack licking up your want with his name on his tongue.
“Liars don't get to come, you know,” he said. “So, you get this wet when you think about me?”
“Y-Yes.”
You could feel Jack's smile against your thigh as he pressed a kiss there.
Jack hooked two fingers around the bands of your panties and slowly dragged them down. “Do you get this wet when you think about our Doctor Robby?”
“Yes. Yes I do,” you gasped, your body curling up in the relief of letting go.
Yes, you liked Robby's extra attention. You couldn't even be left angry at his chastising you when it sent a wave of need through you, settling in your core. When you'd been at the bar with Jack, touching him in ways you'd thought about touching your own attending, almost wishing he would storm through the door and see the two of you.
“Good girl.”
Quickly Jack tilted his head back and found purchase in your pussy.
His tongue laid flat against your core.
It didn't stay in one place long. It explored all around you, tasting you for the first time and mapping out delicate spots. He slipped between your folds like he was always supposed to be there, moaning into you.
Your nails dug into his shoulders. “Mmh, Jack!”
He licked you up, spreading the mess of your want around and cleaning it up. “Taking my tongue so well,” he said against you. He dragged his lips down your thigh, wet tongue dragging up and down.
Your legs trembled as Jack spread the lips of your pussy and buried himself in there again. He pressed his thumb onto your clit, your body lurching at the pressure.
“Oh fuck, J-Jack!”
“Pull my hair, pull my hair,” he said into you.
Your did so. Your hand fell into the short strands of his salt and pepper hair, twirling into the strands and tugging just enough to rip a groan from him.
Jack buried himself into your further, his nose nudging into you deeper and deeper till he was almost trying to be inside of you.
Every time your eyes fluttered shut Jack pulled back, easing up on his work of your pussy and easing the orgasm that was slowly building up.
“No, no- eyes on me, keep your eyes on me, baby,” he said.
You looked down to him. “Jack, I want- I want to come.”
“I know, I know you do baby,” he said, flicking the tip of his tongue against your clit again. “You will, I promise, I promise.”
He eased himself up from his knees and helped off your shirt and peeled off your bra before he latched himself onto your breast.
Your back arched into him. His hands felt larger than ever as they curled around your waist and held you in. He groped at your breast, watching it jiggle as he moved before swirling his tongue around your nipple.
“Jack-”
“God, I wish Robby were here,” said Jack as he switched his attention to your other.
“Wh-what?” you didn't know if you'd heard him right.
Jack looked at your breasts instead of you, dedicating time to licking up each of them. “Wish Robby could see how good a girl you're being,” he muttered, almost to himself, like he wasn't talking to you. “How responsive you are. Would you like that? Would you like Robby to watch?”
You imagined it, closing your eyes.
Jack let you.
You pictured Robby sat on the bed, watching. Would he watch with his glasses perched low on the bridge of his nose? Would he keep his hands to himself or want to touch and play? You imagined how big he was, if he'd get hard watching.
If he'd touch. If he'd stand behind you while Jack kissed along your breasts. Would Robby dedicate enough time to the back of you?
“You want Robby?” asked Jack.
Anyone else eating you out or with hands on your chest wouldn't want another mans name on your lips.
Jack seemed to thrive on it.
“Yes,” you gasped.
Jack reached back up to you. “Yeah.... yeah...” his nose ghosted yours as he inched closer to kiss you.
In the slim lighting of his bed room you could see the shine of his lips from your arousal, the burn of red at his cheeks. There was a clink as he un-did his belt, throwing it behind him as he slowly pulled down his trousers.
First you saw the prosthetic of his leg before you trailed up, past the scars, to the heavy set of his cock. It flushed red at the tip, a leak of pre-cum running down. It stood tall onto the thin, greying hair down his sternum.
“Jack-” you reached for him, wrapping your hand around him.
“Ah- ahh fuck, baby,” he moaned as you slowly pumped him. “You feel so good. God, Robby doesn't know what he's missing.”
You tangled your tongue with his as you pumped, growing confident in every pump, in every leak of his cock, in ever groan of him into your mouth.
Would Robby guide you to holding Jack's man hood in your hand? Would his own hand wrap around your wrist and guide you up and down, muttering how good you were doing.
It was like you could hear him in your head.
'What a good girl doing what you're told, so responsive,' you imagined the heavy set of his tongue dragging over your pulse as you wrapped your arm around Jack's shoulders, smothering him in closer.
“I wish-” you said against his lips, making a mess out of you mouth as you squeezed his cock. “I wish Robby were here.”
“Yeah. Yeah, me too baby,” said Jack, slowly wrapping his fingers around your wrist and peeling back your hand. He pulled two of your fingers into his mouth, licking the taste of himself off and into the warmth of his mouth. “Next time.”
Jack eased you back on his bed, crawling over you.
You shuffled up, sitting up on his headboard. “Do you- do you want me to?”
Jack's brows pulled together as he brushed back your hair, tucking it behind your ear. “To what, baby?”
“To ride you? Would it be easier on your leg?”
Jack smiled, love sick. “That's very kind of you sweetheart. Next time, I'll let you ride me like I'm a damn horse,” he whispered as he slowly lowered you down. “Right now I want you to finish on my tongue. Then I'm gonna really fuck you like I've wanted to for so long.”
You watched with a bite to your lip as Jack rolled a condom over his cock before hovering over you.
He stirred the base of his cock against your pussy, rubbing the arousal of you over your slit.
“You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes, yes.”
Would Robby hold you against him, keep your legs spread for Jack? Or would Jack insist on Robby going first.
“Beg for it, baby.”
Before your words could leave your mouth the familiar buzz of your phone echoed between you.
Maybe anyone else would have ignored it, sent it to voicemail or let it ring. Except Jack- he moved down his bed, reaching for your pants and fishing out your phone. He smirked down at the contact before holding the phone out to you.
“Answer it.”
You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, looking at him. “Wh-what?”
“Answer him,” he said, grabbing your hand and putting the phone it in.
Robby.
You looked to Jack, having no time to ask if he was serious before he was descending on the bed again. His eyes were pointed, gaze locked on you.
You answered, holding the phone to your ear. “H-hey, Robby.”
“Hey. Is everything okay?”
Did he know you'd left the bar with Jack? Did he hear his name called from both your lips?
“Yeah, everything's okay.”
Jack smirked at you.
“I've been calling you all night, you didn't answer,” you could hear the slight accusation in his voice, the small anger you hadn't bowed and answered the phone when he called. He wasn't good at hiding it though maybe he thought he was.
“Sorry I-”
Jack slid two fingers inside of you at once and pumped them without warning.
You caught your breath in your throat. “- I was busy.”
“Busy?”
“Yeah,” you gasped.
Robby stirred down the line. “You okay?”
Jack was looming close enough to you, nodding for you to pull the phone back enough for him to hear.
“Yeah, it's just, cold in my apartment,” you lied.
Jack's brows rose, he mouthed the word, cold?
“Still haven't sorted that heating, huh?” Robby chuckled down the line. “You need someone to come sort that out for you.”
Jack withdrew his hand, dragging those two fingers from inside of you around you, before lowering himself back down. He spread you open, lying his tongue back in.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Want me to come take a look at it?” asked Robby.
“Not- not right now,” you pushed your phone back as Robby scoffed lightly. You sort Jack's attention, begging for the end of the torture he was inciting. His eyes were a haze of lust as he only watched you, shaking his head slowly to feel all around you.
His hand pushed your knee up to your chest, welcoming him in deeper.
“Are you still mad at me for earlier?”
“Y-yes!”
“You are?”
You'd forgot Robby down the line, forgot his question, could only feel the depth of Jack's tongue in you. You bit down on the bottom of your lip. “Yes! Yes! Yes, I am!”
“Okay- well, i'm sorry,” he said down the line. “You just have no idea what seeing you with Jack does to me.”
Jack moaned into you, sending vibrations through your body. His nose nudged against your clit, circling his tongue in you. Your mouth opened, a moan ripping through you that Jack managed to stifle quickly by slamming his hand over your mouth.
“- It's just, I think of you as one of mine,” Robby continued down the line, un-aware's to Jack tapping your phone on speaker and placing it next to you.
Jack dropped his mouth next to your ear, nipping at the lobe. “As mine,” he uttered.
“- seeing you with Jack, I can't stand it, you know I can't-”
Jack went back down to his work, two fingers working inside of you as he sucked in your clit. Your walls are like silk that his fingers thread through with ease, your mind blank with pleasure.
Your moans continued to be muffled by his mouth, he dared not move it.
“- you know I... you know I favour you over anybody else in that ER-”
Your hand reached out for your phone, sure you would come soon and needed to end the phone call.
Jack reached out for you. “Be nice, be nice.”
You picked up the phone and put it to your ear, Jack sucking diligently at your bundle of nerves. “Robby, I-”
“What is it? You sound like you're burning up? You need me?”
Yes, you needed him.
Jack curled his fingers up and you came with a loud gasp, ending the call abruptly as your world shattered in stars of want. Your back arched into Jack's mouth as he laid there open mouthed, taking what you could give him like a man dying of thirst.
Only when your breathing calmed and you could open your eyes to make sense of the world- and Jack's room- did Jack slowly move out his fingers, gently crawling up you body with kisses like butterflies.
You laughed when Jack reached your neck. “Oh god.”
“What?” he said, laughing along with you.
“I hung up on Robby.”
Jack fished for your phone, holding it between the two of you as he rubbed the head of his cock against the slick of your folds. “Then I guess we better call him back.”
summary: the evolution of you and carmy's relationship, as told by the layers of the dessert that brought you together in the first place, and almost ruined your life. or: the four times carmy caught himself falling in love with you, and the one time he actually let himself. (10k)
characters: carmy berzatto / fem!reader, mentions of claire / carmy, luca, richie jerimovich, sydney adamu, chef terry
contents: slow burn, strangers to friends to lovers, idiots in love, angst (hurt/comfort), jealousy, so much yearning, reheating sydcarmy nachos, canon divergent (i kinda mish-mash the events of season 2 and 3 together here for funsies), cw for mentions of grief, talks of depression and anxiety, smut 18+ (carmy's touch-starved and cries during sex, you heard it here first guys!)
( NAVIGATION ) | ( AO3 )
pear mille-feuille, a classic parisian dessert, meaning "a thousand layers" in french, pronounced: pair-meel-fwee.
—
I. BURNT CARAMEL
Carmy rushed out of the restaurant with his pulse thrumming in his throat and the word of David Fields bouncing around in his pounding skull. “I don’t think about you at all,” he’d said. “I don’t think about you at all. I don’t think about you at all—” Carmy shoved the metal door open with a too-aggressive hand, so hard it hit the brick wall on the other side with a resounding bang.
He waited for the cool Chicago night air to smack him in the face, to remind him how to breathe again. He got a heavy whiff of warm caramel and sweet pear instead.
With his tattooed knuckles running hard along his tight chest, he turned his head to find a strange woman he only vaguely recognized sitting on the curb a few feet away — dressed for a funeral, wearing a wrinkled black dress and a run in her tights along the knee. A plate of something sweet rested in her lap.
“Uh… Hi,” Carmy greeted shakily, half-strangled from the leftover panic still clutching him hard by the throat.
“Hi,” you responded quietly, as if choked by some strange emotion of your own.
The man’s wet, ocean eyes flit between your face and the food in your lap. A rogue brown curl fell over his forehead as he nodded down towards you. “What’s, uh… What’s that?”
“My mortal enemy,” you answered gravelly, before turning away. “It’s a Pear Mille-Feuille… I thought maybe I could finally get it right before we closed…”
Carmy blinked owlishly at your profile. “…Well, did you?”
“Nope…” you answered through a heavy sigh, popping your lips together. “The pastry’s too soft. But somehow the pears are still overdone, so… I can’t win.”
Carmy looked it over with an inquisitive eye — the thin gold layers of puff pastry, all stacked neatly atop one another; pears poached to the perfect amber color; thick cream piped with a near impossible precision. It looked like something straight out of a magazine. And, if Carmy had to guess by how hard you were on yourself about the whole thing, it’s entirely likely you’d been published in one before.
“Well, it looks good, at least.”
“That’s only ‘cause you’re standing six feet away.”
Carmy scoffed a quiet laugh and found his breath coming more easily to him. “Here,” he offered, shoes scraping the worn pavement as he approached you. “Let me try it.”
Your head snapped in his direction. Your wide eyes raised to follow his form as he loomed suddenly over you, black blazer rippling in the cool, late-summer breeze. The night air filled suddenly with the scent of him — deep cologne, cigarette smoke, and nicotine gum.
“Wh…What?” you stammered.
“Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective, is all. Like, uh… A new pallet, you know?”
Carmy reached a tattooed hand in your direction, leaving little room for argument. You got the feeling that he must run a restaurant of his own as you passed him the ceramic plate, fingers trembling. You watched anxiously as he took the fork in his large hand and cut himself a slice of the pastry.
He shoveled it into his mouth — an explosion of butter, vanilla, pear, and caramel — the near-perfect balance of elegant and comforting. Just refined enough not to impose too much on itself.
His cheek jut softly out as he chewed. He nodded to himself until the words caught up to him. “Yeah, this is… incredible, Chef,” he said through the mouthful, laughing slightly through his nose. The sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
You didn’t believe him, not entirely, but the line in your taut shoulders relaxed slightly at his praise anyway. Sometimes, feeding others felt like a leap of faith. Sometimes, feeding someone felt like handing over a piece of yourself to them, and hoping they found something worth keeping.
—
Months later, Carmy realizes that there are only two kinds of things a person holds onto in this world — things they can’t bear to lose, and things they never meant to keep.
Mikey belongs perpetually in the first category. And, ever since you started working here, he’s begun to realize that you belong in the second. Maybe that’s why he felt himself on the verge of a panic attack for the third time today, ‘cause he was spending his evening excavating his brother’s office like an archeological dig, and found himself surrounded by both at once.
This office had belonged to Mikey, and would be the last thing that ever truly did.
Carmy thinks, knows, that’s why he put off cleaning it out for so long — like keeping it exactly the way his brother left it would preserve his ghost there in some way. This place was practically his tomb, made of four concrete walls faded to the color of old dishwater, an ancient desk so cluttered you can barely see its surface, and a bunch of dented filing cabinets that haven’t been organized in at least three presidential administrations.
They’re all half empty now, organized in boxes with Mikey’s frantic scrawl left on every crumpled receipt, invoice, and payroll record. Soon this office would match the rest of the place — clean, sleek, erased — and what’s left of his brother would be gone.
Carmy slouches against the cool brick with his arms propped on his bent knees, holding the last of Mikey’s things in a tattooed hand. A prescription pill bottle with the label scratched off, which he found while grave-digging through the cabinet drawers. He clutches it tight in his fist, holding the remnants of addiction as if it were his brother’s hand.
The grey, mildew-and-coffee-scented abyss of his grief is abated only by the sound of your laughter, which bounces off the concrete walls and finds him like the rays of milky-orange sunlight filtering through the stained window above his head, which turns his wild curls a more golden shade of brown.
His heavy ocean eyes lift and find you instantly — the way they always seemed to do — and his features flood with horror when he finds you with his sketchbook in your hands.
“What’s all this?” you wonder with a quiet laugh, beneath the subtle thwipping of the pages as you flick through them with your thumb.
Inside are random lists, phone numbers, and mock-ups for the restaurant, all in Carmy’s scrawled handwriting. Then you stumble upon a series of sloppy portraits — some of them of the others in the kitchen; most of them of you, like he was trying to capture you just right.
They feel like memories in some way, moments stolen when no one else was looking. They’re slightly messy, as if drawn by a loose and absentminded hand. It’s quite strange, looking at yourself from another person’s perspective. But even still, you don’t think you’ve ever looked so pretty, so alive, than on these pages of smudged ink.
“I didn’t know you could draw.”
Carmy shrugs lazily with his pink mouth softly jutted, feigning an air of indifference despite the red tint speckling across his cheeks.
“I can’t,” he mumbles through a huff as he stands to full height again, bracing himself on the cleared-out desk beside him. He tucks the pill bottle into the front pocket of his slacks and clears his throat when he feels his pulse skipping there. “N-Not really.”
“Well, I beg to differ,” you scoff and turn another page.
Another scribbled portrait of you sits in the center, drawn in blue ink this time. You’ve got the eraser end of a pencil in your mouth and another sitting behind your ear, concentrating on coming up with a new dessert menu. You were captured quite beautifully, even in your subtle frustration. “I didn’t think I was capable of looking this good until now.”
“You look good all the time,” he dismisses quietly, curls swaying when he shakes his head at you.
He grimaces at himself right after the words spill from his lips, face flaring hotter when the expression on your face shifts slightly in response to them. He lacks the courage to meet your eyes as he looms before you, smelling of stale cologne and sweat from days of renovation.
“What do you, uh— What do you usually draw?” you stammer and pass the sketchbook back to him.
“I don’t know…” Carmy mutters. “Whatever’s, you know, on my mind, I guess—”
Your heart lurches in your chest, both at his words and at the office door slamming suddenly open across the room. Your heads snap to the side in tandem to find Richie towering in the narrow doorway. “Cousin, I swear to god, I’m about to fuckin’ lose it, man—”
“You’re so dramatic, Richie, jeez…” Sydney sighs as she walks past him and further into the newly renovated kitchen, to busy herself with actual work.
Carmy hangs his head and closes his eyes, digging his thumb and forefinger into the sockets in a quiet frustration. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come to me with any problems while I was in here—”
“I know that,” Richie shrugs. “It’s not a problem.
“—I don’t have time for this shit right now, Rich.”
“Well, it’s not a fuckin’ problem, Carm! What do you want me to say?” the older man repeats, louder now.
“It’s literally a problem,” Syd monotones from somewhere further inside the kitchen.
“Well, Ms. Know-It-All over here wants less tables in the dining room— says it’ll fuckin’… make it more systematic or whatever, I don’t know,” Richie rambles, gesturing wildly with his hands. “But I told her we’re opening a restaurant here. Not a library. More seats means more customers, which means more money— Which we’re slowly running out of, might I add!”
He turns over his shoulder to yell into the kitchen. You wince when his voice bounces off the bare concrete walls.
“Yeah, Syd’s right,” Carmy nods.
“Thank you!” the girl calls distantly.
Richie blinks slowly in offense. “…What?”
“Syd’s right—”
“No, I heard you—”
“Then why’d you say what—?”
“‘Cause you’re fucking with me,” Richie scoffs an emotionless, half-delirious laugh.
“I’m trying to be efficient here, Rich—”
“You’re all fucking with me—”
“We can turn over tables quicker if there’s less of them,” Carmy explains, much more calmly in response, though there’s a sudden bite behind his words that you don’t miss. He keeps one hand propped on his waist while his other gestures with the sketchbook between his fingers. “Which means more customers, which means more money, which… we are running out of…”
Richie laughs like it’s funny. “Well, that’s real funny, Carm, ‘cause I bet if I brought Claire-Bear in here, and she agreed with me — which she would, by the way — you’d change your mind like that—”
Carmy flinches when the man lifts his hand to snap in his face. He swats him away with a little more aggression than probably necessary. “Get your hand out of my face— What are you twelve?”
“Yeah, you’re mad ‘cause you know I’m right.”
Your head tilts to the side like an intrigued puppy at the foreign name, which you haven’t yet become acquainted with in your weeks working here. Your wide eyes dart between the two men in front of you. Your smile trembles slightly at the edges.
“Who’s… Who’s Claire-Bear?”
Carmy’s head snaps in your direction. His mouth parts, but nothing comes out for an embarrassing fraction of a second, as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. Bringing her up in front of you feels wrong in a way he can’t explain.
“She’s uh… She’s— She’s no one,” Carmy stammers.
“Oh, please,” Richie scoffs, dark blue eyes flitting in your direction. “She’s his girlfriend.”
Your stomach sinks, even despite Carmy’s arguing.
“For the last time, she’s not my fucking girlfriend. Richie—”
“Well, not for lack of tryin’, cousin—”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Carmy repeats, this time only to you. There’s a solemn look in his light eyes, like he’s trying to make sure you really hear him. “She’s, you know, an old friend. A family friend. That’s all.”
“Oh,” Richie laughs. “I bet Claire-Bear would love to hear that.”
“Fuck off, Richie,” Carmy spits.
“Oh, there you are.” A softer, deeper, more foreign voice breaks through the boyish bickering in an instant. Luca appears in the doorway behind Richie — golden locks pushed over his forehead, physically built beneath his white undershirt, looking a lot less plagued by the chaos of the kitchen than the rest of them. His pink lips quirk into a smile at the sight of you. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you— I need an expert opinion on this lemon-blueberry trifle I’m trying out.”
“Yeah, put this girl out of her misery. Please,” Richie scoffs drily, then turns back to you with a warm, sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “I apologize for my cousin, Sunshine. I did warn you he could be a bit of an asshole—”
“Richie.”
“It’s… okay,” you murmur with a sheepish laugh, before glancing over at Carmy beneath your lashes in a sheepish look. “Are you… okay in here?”
Carmy’s expression shifts slightly, like he’s about to say the exact opposite of what he really means. He feels his chest stinging with a pinch of misplaced jealousy — because he knows you spent time in Copenhagen with Luca some years back, and the idea of someone knowing parts of you that he doesn’t feels a little like a punch to the stomach.
“Yeah,” he nods anyway, slightly strangled, like his body’s trying to keep him from saying the words. “Yeah, I got the rest of it. Go ahead.”
You flash the boy a smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes as you go. Carmy watches you trail behind Luca out of the office and back towards the dessert station. Richie watches Carmy watch you.
“So about the tables—”
“Enough about the fucking tables, Richie!”
II. ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY.
There were only two times in your entire life that you swore you’d never bake again: first, when you got your first scathing review that sent you on a downward spiral for longer than you’d like to admit, and second, when Ever closed down for good.
There was still joy in it, somewhere deep down, you just couldn’t find it anymore. Honestly, you had trouble finding it most days in most anything. Which is probably why Luca told you to give The Bear a shot in the first place.
“I’ll tell him you’re stopping by, alright?” he’d told you over the phone that evening. “Just talk to Carmy. See the place out. And if you hate it, I will personally fly myself across the Atlantic so you can say ‘I told you so’ to my face.”
“That sounds very expensive, Lu.”
“Well, it’d be worth every penny.”
So there you were, weaving through a restaurant that seemed more abandoned than not — as though someone had taken a perfectly good kitchen and detonated a small explosive in the center of it. Walls had been torn down. Floors were covered in sawdust. Extension cords snaked across the room like vines. The smell of drywall and fresh paint grew stronger the further you went.
For a moment, you worried that no one was inside waiting for you, and that you had accidentally committed a breaking and entering — until you spotted a curly-haired stranger hunched over a metal counter in the not-quite kitchen, scribbling at a notepad with his pen.
He glanced up at the sound of your footsteps, dark curls hanging over his eyes. A mixture of surprise and confusion flashed in his gaze, brows raising and lowering again.
You lifted a hand in an awkward wave. “Hi…”
“Hey…”
“I’m sorry. I let myself in— I… I tried to knock, but I guess you couldn’t… hear me…” You trailed off with a wavering smile, scratching anxiously at the back of your neck. “Uh, Luca was supposed to call you, I think...”
Realization flooded the sharp edges of Carmy’s face.
“Oh. Right,” he nodded. “Yeah, for the, uh...”
“Yeah…”
Carmy swallowed hard, tapping his pen along his palm, no more anxious than you are now. “Well, uh, I— I hope he warned you that we don’t have much of a kitchen yet...”
“Yeah…” you answered with a breathless laugh, eyes wandering across the spray-painted tarps hanging as makeshift walls as you strolled further inside. “I just… I thought he was exaggerating a little bit.”
A short laugh escaped him then as he rounded the counter in front of him. “Yeah, this is— basically a construction zone more than a kitchen at this point, so… Sorry in advance.”
“Well, if we’re sharing apologies, I’m sorry for not bringing a résumé,” you confessed sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s gaze when he stood before you. The scent of paint and sawdust clung heavily to his navy sweatshirt. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me working here.”
“C’mon. I know your résumé,” Carmy scoffed. “I’ve actually eaten your food before, remember?”
“The desert I was crying over at Ever, you mean?”
His lip twitched into a soft smile before he turned away, too shy to say this to your face:“Well, in my opinion, something that perfect is worth crying over.”
You grinned at the back of him, wider than you realized. “You’re still sparing my feelings after all this time…”
Carmy planted himself on the right wing end of the soon-to-be kitchen and turned to face you again. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but… This is gonna be our dessert station. Hopefully. If this entire place doesn’t cave in—”
‘Ours,’ he said, as if it were already yours in some way, too.
“—That’s a joke. Sorta,” he said, scratching at the back of his wild curls. He glanced up at you once more. “Have you tried making it again since we met?” he wondered suddenly. “You know that… pear… mill-fill thing?”
A giggle sputtered from your lips before you could stop it. Your hand flew to your mouth, as if you were trying to put it inside.
Carmy grinned shyly at having earned the pretty sound, despite his mild embarrassment. He fidgeted with the pen in his tattooed hands and gave you a sheepish look in response. “Help me out here…”
“It’s French,” you told him. “It’s mee-fwee.”
His brows lowered with a visible hesitation. “Mee… foy…”
“Close enough,” you laughed with a shake of your head. “And, to answer your question, no. I haven’t made it again. And I probably never will— I’m too fragile for another defeat.”
The grin that tugged at the corner of Carmy’s mouth then was brief, but no less genuine. “You will,” he said, like some kind of an oath, with so much conviction you couldn’t help but believe him.
—
“You seem happier here.”
Luca’s observation comes suddenly. His English-deep voice cuts through the soft quiet of the empty restaurant, renovated to near completion now. The two of you lie supine on the cool hardwood, the tops of your heads nearly brushing, as you put together Carmy’s newest splurge — which his uncle called “expensive, ergonomic, fuckin’ hippie tables.” You screw each bolt in by hand. You can feel your fingers threatening to cramp around the screwdriver clutched between them.
“Happier than Copenhagen, I mean,” he continues.
You scoff. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure any version of me is happier than I was in Copenhagen…”
“Oh, c’mon…” Luca lilts lowly. “I wasn’t that bad company, was I?”
“You know it wasn’t about you…” you mumble.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know…”
It was the fault of that goddamn critic, and the devastating review he left that seemed to compliment everything but your work alone.“The pear mille-feuille reads less like a dessert and more like a young chef begging for validation,” the publication read. “For all its technical accomplishment, the pastry never once feels human. It is difficult to imagine, dear reader, a pastry with so much insecurity baked into each of its layers.”
Your world seemed to shrink after that. The singular paragraph of disapproval lodged itself somewhere deep within your psyche, along with all the cynicism and sorrow that built a home inside you, too. Every other failed recipe somehow led back to it, and every success thereafter felt purely accidental — until, eventually, baking stopped being fun and started being the one thing most capable of hurting you.
It hollowed you from the inside out. You worked the kitchen like a ghost returning to its haunt. You wanted to quit, in virtually every sense of the word, and it was Chef Andrea who convinced you to stay — by sending you four thousand miles away to Copenhagen, that is, to remember a world without critics and service and non-stop perfection; to remember what it felt like to exist without constantly needing to prove yourself.
It was there that you met Luca, who taught you what it meant to approach food with curiosity again. And it was here now, in the bones of The Bear, that reminded you how to love the work again — the simple joy of making something with your bare hands and sharing it with the people who mattered most.
“I’m just glad you didn’t stop cooking…” Luca continues with a quiet grunt in the back of his throat as he slides out from under the table. “And I’m glad Chef Andrea sent you over to my neck of the woods.”
“Let me?” you scoff, tilting your head back against the floor to look at the boy upside down. “She practically forced me on that plane.”
“Best thing she ever did,” the boy croons with an air of sarcasm to mask his sincerity. He rises to full height and dusts his palms off on his slacks. “I’m headed out for the night… Need a ride?”
“I think I’m gonna stay here for a while…” you sigh.
“Suit yourself,” he huffs and walks away. “Just don’t overdo it.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will be very upset with you,” he deadpans with faux-solemnity.
“Oh, the horror!” you call to his disappearing figure, right before the door shuts behind him.
Silence returns when he’s gone. Your chest deflates with a heavy sigh, a held breath you didn’t know you were keeping, as you return to your work — twisting the screwdriver in your fist and reveling in the burn in your wrist, the only thing keeping you from thinking.
About that critic. About Copenhagen. About Carmy’s sketchbook, about Carmy and the girl called Claire-Bear.
You rise onto your elbows with a huff when you’re done, stretching out the aching tendons in your neck. You vaguely hear the kitchen door swishing open and shut again before a sudden voice calls out. “Oh, hey—”
The sound of Carmy’s voice startles you for a reason you can’t name. You sit further up on instinct and slam your head against the table with a whack that jostles one of the screws.
“Ow...” you whimper.
“Shit—” Carmy rushes to your side, catching the wooden top when it wavers. His long, tattooed fingers curl around the edge of it to keep its weight from falling back on you. He ducks his head to look at you, features twisting with a sympathetic grimace as you rub at your aching forehead. “Sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you…”
“You didn’t scare me…” you assure him weakly.
His mouth lifts into an amused half-smile. “No?”
You shrug, lips jutted in feigned apathy despite the newfound pounding in your skull. “Not even a little bit...”
Carmy’s grin widens, but he makes no further argument. He just crouches down in front of you and keeps the tabletop steady while you lie back to realign its leg. You spend the next minute or so screwing the loose bolts back into the blanched oak, hands going clammy around the screwdriver at the proximity between you now. The air grows considerably warmer accordingly, filled with the familiar scent of him — of cologne, garlic, and cigarette smoke. You have to keep reminding yourself to breathe.
“You, uh— You never told me,” Carmy starts suddenly, as if he’d been sitting on the words for some time and only now got the courage to say them. He swipes at his nose with the back of his free hand and mumbles shyly behind his fingers.“About, you know, why you almost didn’t come here… Why you went to Copenhagen...”
Your breath hitches faintly in throat. You hope he doesn’t notice. The screw twisting itself back into the pale wood above you becomes the most interesting thing in the room. “It never came up…” you answer quietly. “It was stupid anyway…”
“No, what the asshole critic said was stupid.”
You turn your head against the floor to flash him a playful look, hiding behind the veil of your sarcasm. “There you go again…”
“There I go again?” he echoes.
“Sparing my feelings.”
“No, I— I’m serious.” Carmy stammers with a breathless laugh. “And I know I’m right because I’ve had your stuff before.”
“Yeah,” you scoff and turn away again. “That stupid fucking pear dish that I still can’t get right.”
“No, it was, uh…” Carmy trails off and shakes his head, going distant with recollection. He rests the elbow of his free arm on his bent knee and drops his wild head into his palm. He digs his thumb and forefinger into his eyes as he struggles to recall the name. “It was, uh… It was the— the Bordeaux, I think?”
He lifts his head to glance down at you once more. Your arms fall to your lap, eyes narrowing in confusion as your lip twitches into a shock half-smile. “The Canalé de Bordeaux?” you repeat with much more ease.
“Yeah,” Carmy nods, brown curls swaying. “It was right before I took over here— when I was, you know, eating everywhere I could, trying to learn as much as I could, and I…” His mouth lifts into a distant smile; his eyes glaze over at the memory. “I didn’t even place it until you made it for the kitchen the other day… Don’t think I would’ve noticed otherwise…”
“That was… God, that was forever ago,” you say with a laugh of disbelief, rising back up onto your eblows. “I’m surprised you remember it now.”
“I remember everything,” Carmy shrugs.
“That sounds… terrifying,” you scoff.
“It is. Sometimes,” he jokes with a breathy chuckle. “But, I don’t know… Now I’m starting to think it’s not so bad…”
His light eyes lock with yours. You lose your breath almost instantly, chest aching as your lungs struggle to find it again. You feel like the distance between you has vanished in a blink; each of your breaths feels like inhaling him in some way. You feel like you can taste him, almost, and your mouth waters at the thought alone, parting for his on instinct.
With your heavy eyes settled on his glassy ones, you catch the soft blue of his irises flick down to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You want so desperately for him to kiss you. And you hate how badly you need it.
“I-I don’t think this is a good idea,” you hear yourself blurt.
Carmy’s brows lower in confusion as you scramble suddenly out from under the table. You rise to full height on shaky legs and place several feet of distance between the two of you, crossing your arms over your chest in a feeble attempt to soothe your racing heart.
Carmy rises slowly from his crouched position, blinking the lingering haze from his eyes. “Wha… What are you talking about?” he stammers with his hands splayed in front of him, approaching you again the way someone would a stray puppy.
“Because of, you know… Because of… Claire.” You whisper the name like it’s a curse of some kind.
The confusion etched on his features only deepens further. “Claire?” he echoes, face screwed. “Wh—What does Claire have to do with this? Claire is— Claire is nobody—”
“Does she know that?” you press, brows raised.
“Yes!” he answers without missing a beat. “Because nothing ever happened between us! Because nothing will ever happen between us! Because I— I’m not into her that way!”
“That… way?”
“Yeah,” he shrugs, tattooed biceps straining against the sleeves of his undershirt as he rests his hands on his hips. “You know, the— The way I’m into…”
He trails off when he catches himself. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. His unwavering stare bores into yours as he weighs the words in his head, wondering briefly if he should say them aloud. His wild curls sway as he shakes his head to himself. “You know what. Fuck it. The way I’m— The way I’m into you.”
Your chest warms at his words. So furiously, it feels someone has taken a white-hot blade and pierced your sternum with it. You can feel the heart flaring in your face, too, as your mouth curls into a wide, slightly apprehensive smile.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Carmy nods firmly, though something in his gaze seems distantly surprised by his own forwardness. He scratches at the back of his curls and looks down at the table just beside you. “Are you, uh— Are we you good here?”
You nod rapidly until the words to speak catch up to you. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
“Good,” he hums. “Do you… Do you need a ride, or…?”
You hesitate on instinct, nose scrunching sheepishly. “If it’s not too far out of your way…”
Carmy scoffs like it’s funny. “You’re never too far out of my way,” he says and turns on the heel of his sneaker to walk away, as if he hadn’t just taken all the breath from your lungs right with him.
III. ALMOND PRALINE.
Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
You pressed your back hard into the rough brick behind you, letting it snag against your chef whites in a feeble attempt to ground yourself. You tipped your head back for further assistance, and fought every instinct that told you to beat your skull against the concrete as your heart thrummed wildly in your throat — as though it were trying to burst through the delicate tendon there altogether.
Adrenaline soared through your veins. The starry night air refused to pierce through your burning skin, face burning red-hot while your fingers turned to ice.
You had survived a million dinner services much harder than this one, The Bear’s very first. You had survived Carmy’s anger, Richie’s shouting, and the entire kitchen learning how to operate itself. But it was the food critic that nearly killed you — the man who came in older than you remembered, greyer, and a little skinnier than you recall.
It took you a long moment to remember to breathe as you watched Fak seat him through the kitchen window. “I need you back at your station, Chef,” you heard Carmy telling you from the expo, though his voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. “Back at your station, Chef! Now!”
You listened, but your body seemed to work on autopilot. You broke out the baking sheet, the jelly roll pan, and the perforated pastry tray without thinking. You patted out the puff pastry and fired the pears like it was muscle memory to you. You had Richie deliver it to the man, on the house, and tried to expel the rest of it from your mind.
You forgot how to be human thereafter, hardly more useful than a fumbling ball of panic. Carmy told you to get out of the kitchen when you dropped a bowl of sourdough starter you’d been tending to for nearly two months. And now there you were, post-shift, with all the anxiety of a prey animal being hunted for sport.
And the worst part was, you couldn’t tell if you were terrified or exhilarated. Or both.
The heavy metal door beside you squeaked slowly open. A familiar voice broke through the memory. “There you are…” Carmy hummed as he walked out, chef coat hanging open, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the expanse of his tattooed arms.
His wild curls were still damp from sweat and steam, glowing a more golden shade beneath the amber streetlights. The exhaustion of the shift seemed to carve into all the chiseled edges of his face. But his eyes were heavy with relief at finally being alone with you all the same.
You grew sheepish as he stood before you, struggling to meet his gaze like a scolded child. “I’m sorry, by the way. For… all that.”
Carmy shrugged and cupped his palm around the cigarette he pinched into his mouth. His lighter clicked a few times before it lit, basking his features in a flicker orange hue. “It happens,” he mumbled before inhaling the nicotine into his lungs. The grey smoke left through his nostrils a few seconds later as he flashed you a sterner look. “Just don’t let it happen again, Chef.”
You nodded once. “Heard, Chef…”
Carmy flicked the orange filter with his thumb. His eyes fell to your lap, where you wrung your hands together in a feeble attempt to keep them from trembling. Concern surged through his chest instantly.
“Jeez,” he mumbled.
Your eyes followed his form as he crouched to set the newly-lit cig to the sidewalk, leaving it burning there as he rose to full height again.
“What?”
“Your hands… You’re shaking…” He closed the brief distance between you and took your hands in his warmer, larger ones. The contact stole the breath from your lungs. You’re still getting used to touching him so freely. “God, you’re ice cold.”
You laughed breathlessly. “Because my nervous system is shot.”
Carmy began to rub the warmth back into your fingertips. His palms felt like velvet, calloused from years of burns and knives and hard labor. The gesture was so gentle that it made you feel the crying. Again.
“He liked it, you know,” he told you. “The critic, I mean.”
Your stomach fell as anxiety flooded your veins once more. “I appreciate the sentiment, Carm, but… You can’t know that…”
“No, he said it. Cousin cornered him on the way out— asked him about it,” Carmy confessed. “And after he answered, Richie defended you. Said the guy was an asshole, and that he was a pretty shit critic if he didn’t know what good food tasted like.”
Another startled laugh sputtered from your lips. “That means we’re definitely getting a bad review outta him, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “But it’ll be worth it.”
Quiet settled between you. The city grew louder on either side of you in its wake — wind whipping warmly down the alley, cars passing distantly, a train rattling against the tracks somewhere further away. Carmy still hadn’t let go of your hands; he just kept holding you there as his eyes flicked down to your mouth.
He spent a long moment just staring, as if silently trying to will some courage into his body.
Your lips curled slowly into a sheepish smile. “You gonna kiss me, Bear?” you wondered lowly, almost inaudibly.
He nodded for a moment, then pinched his brows to ask. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“I always want you to kiss me,” you laughed.
His mouth twitched shyly. “Then get over here then.”
Your chest swelled when he urged you forward with a gentle tug at your hands. You pressed yourself to his chest as his mouth ducked down to yours, tasting of nicotine and garlic and boy. You moaned at the feeling of him against you, fingers twisting in his silky brown curls. His larger, tattooed hands splayed along your waist, a little less confident in comparison.
The metal door shrieked open once more with little warning. The droning of ten different conversations filled the air as the rest of the kitchen staff spilled out all at once. You and Carmy sprang apart quickly, losing any and all ability to play it off.
The conversation quietened in an instant. You turned away, wiping at your mouth with the back of your hand and refusing to meet their eyes. The three or more seconds of silence that went by felt like a lifetime, until—
“Pay up, assholes!” Richie shouted, fist pumping triumphantly in the air. He continued gloating through the chorus of laughter and groans of failure. “I knew you idiots were dating, and everyone acted like I was losing my mind! But the house always wins, baby!”
—
Carmy sat along the top of the booth with a plate of Canalé de Bordeaux in his lap. Family was your turn tonight, and you’d opted to make the first dish of yours that Carmy had ever tried for the rest of the kitchen. No one knows just how much tenderness is cooked into the caramelized crust and soft custard. No one, perhaps, other than Carmy.
His sneakers dig into the smooth pleather booth below as he props his back against the wall behind him. The rum-vanilla dish melts in his mouth as he surveys the bustling dining area, filled with his family and friends, some of whom were halfway strangers to him a few years ago. His eyes fall to you without trying as you deliver an alcohol-free dessert to a heavily pregnant Sugar. A distant smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your lips move with a conversation he can’t hear from here.
The soul music playing on the radio drowns out your conversation, but not the sound of Richie’s voice as he slides into the booth next to Carmy. His long, graceless limbs bump against the table as he goes, trying to cut a bite of dessert to shovel into his mouth at the same time.
Annoyance twists in the younger boy’s features on instinct. “I’m not cleaning that up if you spill it—”
“I’m not gonna spill it!” Richie argues boyishly, with his mouth full of food, as he settles into the booth a few inches from Carmy’s sneakers. He nudges the boy’s leg with his elbow. “And get your feet off my booth, you fuckin’ animal... Jeez, I don’t know what that girl sees in you…”
“You’re a fuckin’ asshole…”
“No, I’m serious!” the older man laughs with amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. He shovels another too-big bite into his cheek and talks through the yellow custard clinging to the sides of his mouth. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, cousin— There’s no way you even know what to do with all that.”
Richie turns away, still laughing through his nose at his own stupid joke. He cuts himself another bite, already calculating a retort to Carmy’s inevitable argument on the matter — only one never comes.
The younger boy just stabs absentmindedly at his plate, distracting himself from the topic under the guise of forming the perfect bite.
Richie pauses with his own fork to his mouth. He turns slowly over his shoulder, brows raising to his hairline until four wrinkles line his forehead. “Oh, shit,” he scoffs after a few moments. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
“Shut up…” Carmy murmurs under his breath, taking another aggressive bite.
“Oh, c’mon! Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your dick wet, Carm—”
“Keep your voice down, fuck-o!” he spits through his mouthful, eyes darting anxiously to make sure no one else had heard him — that you hadn’t somehow heard him, from your spot all the way across the room, laughing with Sugar and Tina. Carmy turns away with a lazy shrug. “We’re just… We’re taking things slow. Not that it concerns you, FYI.”
“Well, FYI, you guys have been dating for months—”
“Oh, thanks for keeping track. I had no idea.”
“—And if she isn’t getting it with you, she’s gotta be getting it from someone else,” Richie rambles absentmindedly as he turns back to his plate. “I mean, I don’t even swing this way, obviously, but if I were a chick, I’d be all over that Luca guy—”
Carmy’s chest stings with a misplaced jealousy. He shouldn’t listen to Richie; he trusts you far too much for any of that. But maybe it’s his own lingering insecurity coming through — the cynicism that always lingers in the back of his head like a shadow, telling him that he’s unworthy of touching you, and then berating him for not being man enough to try.
He huffs. “Well, this is making me feel a whole lot better, cousin. Thank you.”
“I’m just sayin’!” Richie says, muffled through the dessert wadded in his cheek. “She’s obviously crazy about you, man— She looks at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon! I’m just sayin’, you know, trust your instincts. That’s all.”
“…Trust my instincts?” Carmy monotones.
“Yeah,” the older man shrugs. “You’re a chef. Isn’t that supposed to be, like, your whole thing?”
Carmy just blinks at him. “Your point?”
“My point is… She likes you. And you like her— I’m pretty sure half of Chicago knows that by now. So just… Stop getting in your own damn way before you ruin somethin’ good, alright? She picked you, cousin—”
Carmy leans back when Richie gestures too closely with his fork.
“So if you can’t trust your own judgment, at least trust hers.”
Richie’s words pierce him almost physically, giving him that surge of courage he’d been lacking these past few months with you. It makes him want to stop dissecting each of his feelings, for once, until they’re just lying there ahead of him, dead and useless.
Carmy’s light eyes narrow suspiciously. “You know… You’ve gotten, like, really good at giving advice since becoming house manager. You know that?”
“Yeah, I know, it’s freaking me out, too,” Richie deadpans, stabbing at his plate. “Sometimes I hear myself talk and I’m like, who the fuck said that?”
IV. PUFF PASTRY.
The first time you spent the night at his place, Carmy had a panic attack.
It started as a dream, or a nightmare, or maybe a memory. It played through static like an old film — Christmas Eve at the Berzatto house, beneath glowing Christmas lights and smoke from his mother’s cigarettes and something she burnt on the stove. He could smell the nicotine hanging in the hair, and the thick smell of tomato sauce, and Cicero’s expensive nose-stinging cologne.
Carmy was sitting at the head of the table, unable to move from his chair. The rest around him were empty, save for the one at the opposite end. Mikey’s seat. The ghost of his brother was laughing one moment, then screaming at him, then crying the next. Carmy was terrified — the kind of terrified he got as a kid when his mother got in another one of her moods — but he was comforted, at the very least, that his brother was here.
Alive.
Then the lights went out, for only a fraction of a second. And the Christmas lights were glowing again, but his brother’s seat was empty. And the silence was worse than the screaming.
Carmy woke with a sharp breath to a bedroom filled with a navy blue darkness. He rose to his elbows, chest aching as he waited, for a fleeting moment, for the Christmas lights to come back on. Then he realized that he was back in his bedroom, and his brother’s still dead; but you were beside him now, and that was enough.
As his eyes adjusted, he found you lying beside him, bathed in the dim glow of the muted streetlamp outside his window. You’d kicked off the sheets, revealing the expanse of your bare legs and the softness of your stomach from where your shirt had ridden up — one of his, which you wore with a plain pair of cotton underwear. Your mouth was softly parted; your breathing was even and slow.
He tried to match each of your exhales, but the panic dug deeper into his chest. His lungs refused to fill properly. His skin felt too tight. The air was too hot, but his teeth were still chattering. He couldn’t ask you for help if he tried.
The walls spun around him as he rushed immediately to the kitchen. He bent over the sink, gripping the counter hard enough to blanch his knuckles with one hand, while his other scooped handfuls of freezing water into his mouth. He was not sure how much it was helping.
The muscles in his back tensed when a warm hand settled suddenly between his shoulder blades. Carmy didn’t realize you’d followed him out until then; until he heard your voice in his ear, cutting through the wild pounding of his heartbeat.
His breath came easier to him after that. The kitchen soon filled with the sound of his trembling pants and the loud hissing of the kitchen sink. Carmy’s shoulders loosened slowly under your hand.
“Do you need me to do something?” you wondered quietly.
He shook his head, curls hanging over his eyes from where he was still hunched over. “No, I— I got it— I’m… I’m good now.”
He waved you off with a trembling hand. You couldn’t help but notice the way he avoided your gaze; the way he fought every instinct to tense again when you rubbed along his spine. You wondered if you were only making it worse.
“Do you want me to go—?”
“No,” Carmy blurted instantly. His head snapped in your direction. He blinked back at you with wet ocean eyes. “Please. D-Don’t go. I just— I had a bad dream. I’m okay, I swear.”
You didn’t look convinced, and, honestly, neither did he.
“No, you’re not, Bear…” you murmured gently, with a sleepy smile that bordered on sympathetic. But you didn’t ask him to explain the feelings he didn’t have the words for. You just stood beside him and asked if he wanted breakfast.
—
Carmy’s apartment always smelled different when you were in it. Less like an ashtray and more like warm sugar, and your fruit-sweet perfume, and whatever sweet treat you’d spent the service dreaming about. Tonight, it was homemade churros.
Carmy can smell it down the hall when he exits the bathroom. The shower steam mixes with that sweet cinnamon wafting from the kitchen — where he finds you standing at the stove, tapping a socked foot to the synth pop on the radio, and stirring a pot of glossy chocolate syrup with a wooden spoon.
“Only a psychopath spends all night cooking just to come home and cook some more,” he says to announce his presence as he leans against the doorway, replacing his uniform with a sweatshirt and a pair of plaid boxers. “You know that, right?”
“What can I say?” you grin as you glance over your shoulder at him. “You’re rubbing off on me, Bear.”
Carmy exhales a quiet laugh and spends a long moment just watching you, with all the attentiveness of someone who watched sunsets come or go or mapped constellations in the starry sky. You occupied his kitchen as if you’d been there this whole time, in a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to your elbows, big enough to hide the less-than-flattering underwear you’re wearing beneath it. You look like home, in every sense of the word.
“You know…” Carmy starts lowly, swiping at the tip of his nose with his thumb. “For a while there… I kinda thought I was done with all this…”
Your spoon slows as it slides along the bottom of the pan. “…What do you mean?”
“Cooking,” he answers. “There was a stretch where I couldn’t even look at a stove without… hoping it would blow up.”
He laughs at himself, though, admittedly, the words sound slightly more concerning leaving his lips than they did in his head. He swallows hard, grateful when you don’t press him on the matter. You just eye him with a carefulness that makes him shift his weight on his bare feet — uncomfortable at being so foreignly vulnerable.
He crosses his arms over his chest in a childlike attempt to hide, scratching along the expanse of his bicep. “Yeah, I, uh… I just— didn’t enjoy it anymore. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore.”
“What changed?” you press gently.
“You came around,” he confesses. “And I watched you learn to love it again— have fun again, and it made… realize why I loved doing what I do.”
Your mouth lifts in a sheepish half-smile. You turn away, grinning wide at the pot of dark chocolate below as it ripples beneath the spoon.
“Well, I probably wouldn’t have learned to have fun again if I didn’t start working at The Bear…” you tell him. “It’s very likely I would’ve stopped baking altogether. I mean, Copenhagen was great and all, but… you, and Syd, and Richie— watching all of you work… I feel like I could do this forever…”
Carmy’s eyes soften as he watches you. A strange emotion surges warmly through his chest and up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.
“Yeah,” he hums, half-strangled. “Me too…”
Your smile turns shy when you look back at him, nodding your head to beckon him over. “C’mere. Come try this.”
Carmy obeys instantly, as if every muscle and bone in his body was made to be under your command. You twist the spoon to gather the liquid chocolate and hold it out toward him, cupping your free hand beneath it to catch any rogue drizzles. Carmy’s pink mouth parts for a taste — the syrup is warm on his tongue, silky and rich as it coats his mouth.
A low sound of approval sounds in the back of his throat. His damp curls sway as he nods.
Your smile widens instantly, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Yeah?”
“Mm,” he hums. “Hell yeah.”
His smile falters slightly when your free hand reaches suddenly towards him. Your thumb brushes the corner of his mouth, gathering the bit of chocolate lingering on the corner there. You press the pad of it to his lips without thinking, and Carmy drags his tongue against it just the same.
The motion was more instinctive than not. He didn’t realize how charged the moment was until your eyes flickered with it — going glassy and heavy in an instant. Even still, you don’t part from his stare as you bring your hand to your mouth, licking the remnants of chocolate on your thumb that was more of Carmy’s spit than anything.
Carmy’s ocean eyes darken in a flash. The cynical, uncertain thing that lingered in him like a shadow seemed to vanish, as his racing heart lurched with an emotion that bordered on primitive. He decides not to think — to follow his instinct, as it were.
He ducks down to kiss you, hard, with the bridge of his nose smushing against the side of yours and his tongue licking into your mouth.The spoon in your hand clatters hopelessly to the tile floor when he urges you back against the counter with a pair of wide hands splayed along your waist.
Behind you, the chocolate continues to simmer.
V. SPICED PEARS.
The first time Carmy had tasted any part of you was at Ever.
It wasn’t long after Mikey died, and he was making his tour around the city to try new food — seeing what changed and what hadn’t — and trying to take his mind off all the rest. He sat alone at a small square table, finishing up his lemon chicken piccata, when another plate was slid suddenly in front of him.
“Oh, I— I didn’t order this,” he stammered.
Then his eyes lifted to find Chef Terry standing before him, with a smile much gentler than he remembered.
“This one’s on the house,” she’d told him. She did not mention the death of his brother, but Carmy knew that was likely why she came over. “Figured you might appreciate something with a wee bit of alcohol in it. I had our pastry chef whip it up for you—” Her eyes flickered with warmth at the mention of you, who Carmy had not yet met. “I’m quite proud of that one.”
She left him with a pat on the back and nothing more. Carmy eyed the dessert before him, studying it.
The burnished bronze pastry sat on the small plate ahead of him like a tiny piece of architecture. The caramel on the ridged exterior gleamed in the candlelight. The shell cracked audibly beneath his fork, a delicate snap that most chefs spend weeks trying to perfect. The inside yielded immediately — golden custard oozing from its center.
Carmy scooped a bite into his mouth, and his world stopped for a fraction of a moment.
The deeply caramelized sugar hit his palate like a memory; a taste of nostalgia accompanied by a satisfying crunch. The silken custard melted on his tongue, rich with vanilla and warm with dark rum. A brittle shell followed by an impossibly soft heart.
Carmy thought, at the time, that it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.
But it wasn’t.
—
You were.
His face burns hot between your thighs, which tremble on either side of his flushed cheeks from your previous orgasm (that he gave you with two of his fingers, a lot quicker than you’re willing to admit to.)
“Can you take another?” he’d asked, right after pulling his hand out of your underwear and licking your cum off his fingers, which glistened down the knuckle. You whined at the sight of it, half-scared at the warmth still lingering in the pit of your stomach. “C’mon. Let me taste it, yeah?”
You lift your head from the pillows to watch the boy slink down your body, still wearing all of his clothes despite you lying half-naked in the center of his unmade bed. He slides your panties to the side with a pair of tattooed fingers and licks a fat stripe up your pussy, from your pulsing hole to your already sensitive clit.
Your whine fills the lamplit bedroom as your hips buck to follow him.
Carmy pulls off wearing a barely-there half-smile. “Good?” he asks, for the hundredth time or so since you started.
“Yes…” you moan, head tipped back.
And then he starts eating you. Like eats you, eats you — with his mouth wide and his broad nose smushed into your clit. He’s led by nothing more than primal emotion and pure instinct as he laps all the honey you leak for him. The lewd wet noises of his mouth are only slightly muffled by your contented sighs and his own moans, as he rocks his hips against the mattress in a feeble attempt to relieve the ache in his boxers.
Your fingers tighten in his wild curls, as though you mean to pull him off of you, though your hips chase his tongue all the same. His lips latch on your clit, sucking the delicate button, and you cum with a drawn-out sound you didn’t know you were capable of making. He pushes your knees to your chest with a pair of wide hands to milk the orgasm from your pulsing confines.
“No— No more,” you whine feebly, watching with a pained sort of look as he continues licking at you. “It’s too much, Carm—”
“Just let me taste it, baby,” he says, half-muffled against you.
He’s wearing your glittering cum down to his chin when he crawls back up your body. It’s a mess of awkward, tangled limbs as you drag his sweatshirt up his torso from the hem while he reaches into his nightstand for a condom (a feat made more difficult by the fact that the box is still wrapped in its plastic). He kneels between your thighs, open and wet, and tucks his heavy balls under the hem of his plaid boxers.
You watch him as he rips the foil open with his teeth and rolls the latex on. Your eyes trail down his tattooed torso — over the sparse brown hair along his sternum and down to where it trails along his stomach in a thin line. His cock is heavy in his fist, glowing crimson with desire at the tip and leaking drops of pearly-white.
You should tell him that it’s been a while for you — long enough that you’re not sure if you can take something so thick — but you don’t want to stop the momentum you have going, not even for a second. You just curl your arms down and over his shoulders, palms splayed along his sweat-slick back, and fall back with him when he leans down over you.
His gold chain brushes your chest as he ducks down to open his mouth against yours. He rolls his hips forward and back, gliding his cock through your velvety folds, before piercing you fully.
There’s a fleeting, burning sensation as your cunt stretches around him — which quickly floods into a warmer, fuller feeling when he’s seated fully inside you, with his tuft of coarse hair pressed mercilessly against your throbbing clit.
“Oh, fuck—”
Carmy’s words sound less pleasured and more terrified.
Your eyes snap open. You catch a mere glimpse of his profile as his lips smudge along your burning cheek. “You okay?” you ask through panted breaths.
“Y-Yeah. I just—” The words come out strangled and half-muffled against your neck. “It’s just… been a while for me. I can’t— I can’t move.”
A delirious grin tugs at your mouth. You rake your nails gently along the expanse of his spine, until he shivers on top of you. “You can move, Carm,” you tell him.
He laughs breathlessly, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “I can’t, babe. I— I really can’t.”
“It’s okay if you’re close,” you murmur gently, smearing your lips along his flushed cheek. “You already made me cum— twice. This is about you feeling good, too, you know?”
Carmy makes a strangled noise, as if your words had hit him physically somehow. He lets himself go at your permission to feel good and rolls his hips against you. There is little rhythm or precision to his thrusts. They’re shallow and quick and a little sloppy, never pulling all the way out, as he buries his moans into your neck. The bed creaks below you like it might break.
“Fuck,” he groans like it hurts him, like he’s half-scared of his own orgasm.
“That’s it...” you coo in his ear. “I know you’re close, Carm. It’s okay. Just cum for me—”
“Fuck!” It comes out like more of a whimper this time, because he’s trying to calculate how long it’s been — two minutes, if that — but his brain’s too fogged and his stomach is starting to cramp from how hard he’s tensing to keep the feeling going a little longer.
Carmy doesn’t warn you when he cums. Not that you need him to. His heavy body just tenses on top of you, forearms shaking beside your head. You exhale a contented sigh when you feel him pulsing inside of you. “There it is…” you whisper in his ear. “Give me all of it, bear. C’mon. Doing so good for me…”
As your hands rub soothingly along his spine, you feel his bare shoulders shaking a little harder than before. It’s like he’s laughing to himself, or crying maybe. Then you feel something warm and wet drip along your neck.
“Bear?”
“Fuck—” He clears his throat when his voice breaks, lifting one hand to wipe at the tear running down the bridge of his nose. He laughs wetly at himself. “Fuck, I’m so lame. I’m sorry.”
“Are you okay?” you whisper, as if anything too loud might break him.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he assures you, sniffling as he pulls slightly off of you. “It was just— a lot, you know?”
“Yeah,” you nod.
“I wasn’t lying when I said it’s been a while for me.”
“Wow,” you hum sarcastically. “You’re telling me the anxious-avoidant chef who keeps his jeans in his oven isn’t absolutely drowning in ass? In this… very illustrious bachelor pad?”
His laugh is more humorous this time. “Fuck you.”
“You already did,” you remind him with a cheeky grin. “Unless you’re askin’ for round two— which I’m not opposed to.”
His mouth twitches into a more sincere grin. His glassy eyes soften further as they dart across your features, memorizing the wrinkles beside your squinted eyes and how your smile sits a little crooked to the left.
He shakes his head, ocean eyes still a little wet, as he smooths his fingers over your temple to brush away an invisible strand of hair there. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that?”
“Oh, but what a sweet, sweet way to go,” you croon as he ducks down over you again.
But if loving you is a slow death, why does kissing you taste like salvation?
if you made it this far, thank u so much! pls let me know what you think and reblogs are always appreciated! here's a virtual forehead kiss for me to you *mwah*!!!
came across this internet drama series called I Accidentally Sexted My Enemy and binged it until there was nothing left... then i couldn't stop thinking about neuro!reader being in love with robby but jack's getting all the messages from a failed dating profile he tried to set up for robby. and when they both amp up the flirting simultaneously??,,,
between robby breathing down your neck and jack looking down his nose at you, you are put to the test every day.
werewolf brendon park who barks at interns more than he speaks to his colleagues. he’s a giant ortho bro who likes meal prepping and fishing, but the lack of bedside manners and consistent mean behavior guarantee a low satisfaction score inside and outside of the ptmc. he’d rather die than admit it but he protects his coworkers from the dangers of other supernatural phenomenon like a sheepdog watching its herd.
Yesssss!!!! That's his pack! And he'll always protect them but he has no idea how to bond with them they way humans do so he's stuck being the mean ortho bro who makes snarky cutting remarks to poor intern's and has shit satisfaction scores but incredible job security because he is just that good.
Brendon who comes into work tired and achy, people assume he hit the gym to hard, but instead he was dealing with the threat of some rouge wolf who was causing an influx of patients to the Pitt. Or dealing with the incubus who'd caused a woman to arrive on his table with a fractured pelvis. Or helping a newly turned vampire cope after the idiot had turned up at the hospital thinking he had the flu.
Brendon who might shout at his interns or frankly any of his pack, but god help anyone else in the PMTC who tries that. Brendon who nearly pushes Robby off the roof when he finds out that his mean remarks caused on of his nurses to get a bit teary eyed. Or has one of the residents in nuro fired for sexual harassment of one of his interns. Or who writes a career assassination of a review for a fellow surgeons publication after the man had been rude to one of his doctors at conference.
Even after they leave Ortho, even if they never come back to his department, they are his pack.
They can't explain it, even having no idea what Brendon does for them supernatural or otherwise, they respect the guy. Are drawn to him. Find themselves defending him to others without meaning to.
you get it!! i mean can we blame the guy for being grumpy 24/7 like he’s literally a wolf in sheep’s clothing trying to keep all hell from breaking loose
Pairing: Brendon Park x femReader (nurse reader, floating nurse…?)
Warning: This is my interpretation of Park’s character, considering the 30 seconds of screen time he got. No medical knowledge from the writer (sorry :/ )
Summary: Brendon Park feels like he’s being haunted by a pretty girl in scrubs who seems to always show up when he needs her.
Chapter Summary: You learn what it’s like to work with Dr. Park.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
——————————————————————
Park had to admit you were good. You were really good.
You tied his surgical gown around him just right. Not too tight. Not too loose. He almost got a nurse fired before for choking him with the gown when putting it on him.
The back table was impeccable. Everything was angled perfectly. You kept track of everything. A stupid question was never heard from you.
Even with his regular scrub nurse, Linda, it took a few days for her to get the hang of things. You read his mind, knowing his next move before he even had a chance to correct you. Your arm would be reaching towards the tool while the words were on the tip of his tongue.
Park’s plan for pushing you to quit was slipping through his fingers. He couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse to be angry towards you.
He racked his brain for a flaw. He couldn’t think of anything bad that you did today. You kept his schedule on track. You helped him out today.
Always the helpful ghost.
The workday had finally come to a close, he wore his usual pride on his chest. His mind was already on his post-work routines, when he heard your voice.
“Good job, everyone!” Your bright voice interrupted the usual quiet.
Everyone turned to look at you. It took them a couple seconds before they politely nodded in your direction. Most choosing to scatter away. Clearly scared of Park’s reaction. You were unbothered by their quiet reactions.
With a radiant smile, you turned towards Gilroy and the other resident next to him.
“You guys doing anything fun tonight?” You asked, looking at both of them.
“Not really” Gilroy, the only brave one who lingered, answered.”My girlfriend really wants to stay in and watch Love Island tonight”.
“Don’t spoil it! I gotta catch up” you covered your ears. Both Gilroy and the other resident chuckled at your reaction.
“So, who are you rooting for?” The other resident inquired.
“Do not get me started on- “ Park walked away before you finished your sentence. He never engaged in social hour before and he wasn’t going to now.
He approached the elevators and pressed on the buttons. Park took out his phone to check on his messages. The elevator dinged and he quickly stepped inside.
He heard footsteps running down the hallway.
“Please, wait” he heard outside and held the door open. You stepped in.
“Thanks, Dr. Park! These elevators are too slow.” You turned to him, “Are you doing anything tonight?”
You were interrupting his post-work silence. There. That was your flaw.
“No.” He answered gruffly and looked back down at his phone.
“Ah ok” You remained quiet the rest of the elevator ride, thankfully.
You reached across to press on the elevator button, a floor before his. The door opened and you stepped out.
“Have a good night, Dr. Park” you waved at him and walked away.
The doors closed again, Park let out a breath.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about you, yet. You disrupted his silence. You stuck to your usual habit of disrupting HIS habits.
But you were a good nurse. One of the best he’s worked with. He still couldn’t find something legitimately wrong with you.
He would just have to keep it strictly professional with you. You seemed to get the hint tonight that he wasn’t your friend and he wasn’t going to socialize.
He could put up with it for a week. At least, until the next guy came in.
——————————————--
You could not wait for the week to be over.
Dr. Park was definitely one of a kind. You had mentally prepared for the worse, basing it off of your previous experiences. You knew not all surgeons worked the same way. You had dealt with opposite sides of the spectrum.
A surgeon who spoke the whole time about his boring fishing trips and another who blasted AC/DC on the speakers and flirted with the youngest nurse.
You had not really expected one like this.
When he first entered the room, he circled it observing everything and everyone. Definitely living up to his nickname.
The staff was quiet around him. Some scared, some tense. Whatever it was, there was an unspoken agreement to not disturb Dr. Park when he was doing his thing.
He seemed like a very no-nonsense and cold person. Carried himself with a quiet arrogance. Simply unamused by most people around him.
Whether he liked you or not was impossible to tell, though. At least he didn’t yell at you like the other resident.
One of the residents made the rookie mistake of scratching his forehead with his gloves.
“Out.” Park bellowed.
“I didn’t use my bare hands”
“Did you use your brain?” Park bit back at him.
It was the survival of the fittest. But thankfully, you knew how to adapt. The words the other nurse said earlier to you had stayed with you.
“Be smart.” So you were.
Warning after warning from people to be careful didn’t worry you, it almost challenged you. Sure, others didn’t escape his bite but you would. You were incredibly stubborn and so determined to do your job right.
He was just one of those surgeons that was cold and didn’t want to socialize during work hours. You understood completely. You did not always feel chatty, but working in a quiet OR was different for you.
As soon as your shift was over the first day, you were itching to talk to anyone about anything. The staff had been so quiet, you felt your vocal chords stiffening from underuse.
You assumed Dr. Park was a little more chatty outside of work, so you tried. But that elevator ride was so painfully awkward, you got off the floor before his instead.
“Are you doing anything tonight?” Maybe that was a terrible question. Didn’t give him much to work with.
So you tried again the next day.
“I don’t really visit the area. Do you have any dinner recommendations?”
That should get him talking, you assumed.
“No.” You assumed wrong. Maybe he didn’t eat out much.
You tried again the next day.
“This weather has been crazy. Hasn’t it?” The dumbest question, but everyone talked about the weather at one point in their work life. Dr. Park was clearly not everyone.
“It’s normal” Probably the most he talked to you outside of work hours.
By the fourth day in a row together, the end of your work week together, you realized there was no point in trying anymore. You were not going to make a talker out of Dr. Park and that was ok. It was the end of your time together, after all. You would soon be back in the emergency department and talking to your heart’s content.
You stepped into the elevator with Mr. Stick Up His Ass. At least, he held the elevator door for you.
“Thanks, Dr. Park!” You reached down to fix the socks sticking out of your shoes. The standing around was really getting to you. Your feet were killing you.
“Hmm” he hummed. You looked up to see him looking at your feet.
“You shouldn’t wear those shoes” That was more than he usually spoke.
“Excuse me?” You were caught off guard.
“Those shoes,” he pointed at your feet, “you shouldn’t wear them.
“I didn’t know these shoes were against dress code or something.” You frowned. “Why?”
Park shook his head. Finally taking his eyes away from his phone and looked you in the eyes.
“Terrible arch support. You’ll end up in my OR in 15 years if you don’t start taking care of that.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d go to a good surgeon instead.” As soon as you said it, you regretted it. You looked over at him carefully. Scared you had poked the shark too hard.
He looked like he was smirking. He was staring straight ahead at the doors trying to fight a laugh. Unbothered by your joke.
The elevator doors dinged. His smirked dropped and he cleared his throat.
“Wear better shoes next shift.” He looked at you. You both walked out the doors together. You had even forgotten to get off the floor before him.
“I’m not gonna be here. I’m scheduled for the ER already.” You laughed as you walked towards the exit. “So, you won’t have to worry about me and my terrible shoes.”
Dr. Park stopped in his tracks.
“Right.” He stared at you thoughtfully. “I forgot.” Then pushed open the exit doors for you. You stepped out, him following closely behind you.
“Good night.” He nodded in your direction then walked away.
Well, would you look at that? You thought to yourself. He actually does know how to talk.
“Good night, Dr. Park.”
————————————————
A/N: I can’t help it, I love a forced proximity trope. Your feedback is always appreciated 🫶🏻
Summary: Brendon notices his favourite resident has been a little off recently, and when he finds out why he is morally obligated to help out
Warnings: Power imbalance, work place romance, daddy kink, face/pussy slapping, (wet) panty gag
Word count: 2k
Brendon noticed everything. He’d noticed your patience thin as you were called to the ER for a consult that was unnecessary, he’d noticed the slightly duller tinge to your complexion, he’d noticed you taking a beat longer than normal when answering his questions on the process of the attachment of Mr Lisbon’s finger this morning. And now he was noticing that slight tremor in your hand as you stood across from him over a patient.
He told himself he would worry about any resident if he noticed these things, but even he wasn’t convinced. Any other resident would be asked how they expected a patient to hold any respect in their diagnosis and treatment plan if they were so clearly incapable of looking after themselves. But not you. You, he wanted to take home, wrap up in a blanket safe from the world. He would solve each and every one of your concerns as easily as smoothing out the crease between your brows with his thumb, until all the weight was lifted from your shoulders and you were nothing but soft and sweet for him.
“Doctor Park?” He’d been staring again. He blinked at you, sizing you up.
“Swap out.” He gestured with his head for one of the other residents in the back of the OR.
He hated watching your face crumple in response, but the fact you didn’t fight him was a testament to how far gone whatever this was had gotten. Park heard the snickers and whispers that followed you out, he could imagine what they were thinking. That the two of you were fighting (he hoped not), that he’d gotten sick or bored of your (never), that you’d fucked something up (impossible). His head turned slightly to the notice, his eyes never leaving the operating table, but the residents caught it. The noise stopped. That wouldn’t be enough to save them.
The rest of the surgery went well, he handed off to Garcia and went to find you. It wasn’t hard, you were sitting in his office. You felt comfortable here, had spent enough time at the small table in the middle of the room together pouring over case files and journals. Even sharing take out after one particularly bad shift.
You jumped when the door opened and stopped your pacing. “Are you going to tell me what is going on?” He’d ask once, a professional courtesy something only you seemed to get from him.
“Doctor Park, it's nothing. I just haven’t been sleeping.” His eyes were drawing to your hands where you were nervously picking the skin around your nails. You were lying to him and he had had enough.
He stalked towards you, his large frame quickly dwarfing you as you took a step back finding his large desk at your back. He raised an eye brow, his gaze dropping to your mouth as your tongue darted out to wet your lips.
“I just, it's nothing! I should go” you tried to straighten up but he didn’t move. Your hand almost involuntarily came up to his chest, as you tried not to think about (or squeeze) the firm muscle under your palm. You pushed but he didn’t move.
“You know I don’t like to repeat myself.” You could feel the vibrations of chest as he spoke against your palm. You cast your eyes down to look at his feet. His leather shoes shining a stark contrast to the black rubber of yours.
“I’ve just been a little frustrated recently, okay it's no big deal and nothing you need to be sticking your big nose in.” you could hear the pout in your voice as you said it.
Brendon’s hand gripped your face tilting you up to look at him, he squished your cheeks together as you determinedly looked anywhere but at him. “It is a big deal I need to stick my big nose into if it is affecting patient care. So I will give you one final chance to tell me yourself. Why is your hand shaking in my OR.” The reminder of what you do here was like cold water through your veins. Of course Brendon cared you could kill someone because you were so distracted. Hot tears welled up in your eyes threatening to spill but Brendon remained unmoved.
“I can’t cum” your voice was so quiet he hardly heard it over the background noise of the hospital. But he had, and it was like his brain whited out. The thought of you in bed with your legs spread desperately playing with your clit or pushing your fingers into your pussy trying to get off but just making yourself more needy and desperate. He needed to hear your little whimpers more than he needed air at that moment.
You whined and he realised he was squishing your face hard as the images of you flew through his mind. He let you go and watched you pout at the loss of his hand on you. “Poor baby, how long has it been since you came? I bet you are aching for it aren’t you?” His tone was thick with condescension, not that you noticed anything. He tried not to laugh at how hard you were nodding your head at him.
“Been weeks. I need to cum so bad I can’t think about anything else. I can’t focus at all, it's awful.” A few of those tears escaped and Brendon watched them race down your cheek before swiping one with his thumb and bringing it to his lips to taste.
His hands gripped your hips, lifting you onto his desk and pushing himself between your legs. It was unprofessional, improper, and grounds for termination but all he could see were your bright wet eyes begging him to help you. He was really doing this for the patients and your care, it was a completely selfless act.
“You know my rules. You need help, you ask for it.” He had lots of rules, they weren’t written down and he expected his residents to know them back to front within a few weeks. He thought it was important to recognise when you need help and to have the humility to ask for it, something a lot of his colleagues lacked. But not you, never you.
“Please” you whined looking at him, trying to subtly rub yourself against his leg the pressure hot against you.
Brendon rolled his eyes at your display. He reached up to your face, but before you could lean into it he lightly slapped your face. It wasn’t hard, just enough to settle you. “I know you can do better than that.”
You were pretty sure your scrub pants were showing the signs of how desperately you needed the Shark to stop teasing and fuck you. Your breath was fast and shallow, your brain a hazy mess of need and want. You turned your head into the hand still resting on your warm cheek and sucked his thumb into his mouth. Your tongue swirled around it a few times before you sucked it as deep as you could into your mouth. You let go with a wet pop letting the string of drool break and land on your chin.
“Please Brendon. I need you to make me cum. Please you fingers are so big” your wide glassy eyes were staring at them. “Kept thinking about how they would feel inside me watching you in surgery. How good they would feel holding me in place so I can’t do anything but take what you give me. I need to be so full of you I can’t think anymore. Need my brain to be so overwhelmed that I can’t think about anything else but you and how you make me feel.” His face was close to yours now he could feel your hot breath fanning over his face at each plea for him.
“Once we do this there is no going back baby, you’ll be mine. I can’t do things by halves, not with you. If you want to leave now, go and sleep this off we’ll never mention it again.” Your hands flew to his neck gripping him like a vice scared he would leave.
“I want it. All of it. With you.” You were rubbing yourself against him again, the whole thing too much you were convinced this was a dream.
“Are you sure?”
“I thought you didn’t like to repeat yourself?” The last part came out in an almost shriek as your found your back against the large desk and the man who had featured in every fantasy since you started at PMTC above you.
Your scrubs were quickly pulled down and you felt Brendon’s hands press down into your thighs as he ran his hands up your legs. “You smell fucking incredible baby. You’ve soaked your panties.” His thumb ghosted over the thin piece of fabric covering your pussy, making you shiver and goosebumps to appear on your thighs. “This all for me sweetheart? This how needy you get thinking about Daddy playing with you?” You let out a high pitched whine at his teasing.
Brendon’s tongue ran along your panties before sucking on your clit through them. He sighed, stopping at you moaning loudly again. “How am I supposed to enjoy myself you with you making so much noise hm? Do you want the rest of the team barging in here to find you laying out like this dripping all over your boss’ desk like a slut?” It wouldn’t happen, most were in a surgery that would still take a few hours, and the door was locked. The screams of a victim being murdered in this room also wouldn’t be enough for any on of the staff on this floor to so much a knock on the Shark’s office door.
“Nooo please I’ll be good Daddy just don’t stop please!” You hiccuped. The idea he might stop almost bringing you to tears. You were so close already just from him being so close to you.
“Hmm” Brendon mused as he pulled your panties slower down your legs, watching the sting of wetness connecting them your cunt. Once they were off he looked back at you, your wide eyes and already messy hair, and smirked. “It’s okay baby, Daddy couldn’t stop if he tried. But I am going to help you be a good girl, okay?” You nodded looking like prey.
Brendon leaned over you “open” he demanded and you did. His fingers pushed into your mouth making it open wider as he pressed the wet centre of your panties down against your tongue. Tears filled your eyes again and the humiliation burned so sweetly through you. “Do you like tasting what a messy little girl you are for me?” He used the leverage of his fingers in your mouth to move your head into a nod, making you whine and flush. “Good girl” he groaned, pushing the rest of the fabric into your mouth.
Next went your scrub top, pushed up under your chin so the Shark could mouth and bite at your tits, leaving you to try and grind against him before he held you firmly down against the desk. “Now now, what was that about wanting to just take what I give you, hm?” His tone was like syrup all sickly sweet and fucking addictive.
His hand came down hard on your cunt, the slap echoing around the room. The heat bloomed causing you to hiss and bite down on the panties, your mouth constantly filled with the taste of your own need. Your hips bucked in response, your thighs shaking and toes curling as you felt yourself finally cum. It was quick, your poor pussy clenching around nothing and aching to be filed. Your chest heaved against him as you tried to focus back on the present.
“Was that all it took, baby? Don’t worry you can give me more, Daddy isn’t finished with you let.” You looked up at his smiling face, looking every bit the predator of the sea.
Werewolf Robby (hairy) and vampire abbot (awake at night) just makes so much sense and I love them
Reader is an armature hunter (cry baby who has never actually hurt anything ever) in over her head thinking shes tracking a rouge werewolf but is actually falling into a trap these pervy old men set and is now trapped in a basement being edged until she's lets jack feed from that juicy vein in her thigh and Robby is telling her how good his knot is going to feel when it splits her open
Reader getting fucked dumb constantly, Jack making jokes calling her his 'hunting trophy' that he should mouth to the wall, Robby calling her his little chew toy. Reader buying Robby some slow feed doggy bowls telling him wild he's a wild animal he doesn't need to eat like one. Reader who makes eye contact with Jack as she orders the most garlically thing on the menu on their dates. Reader who accidentally befriends an actual wolf mistaking it for Robby on a full moon. A wolf who now lives in their house and has 0 respect for Robby as an alpha or Jack as a predator but will 'sit', 'roll over', and give 'paw' easily for reader. Reader who is convinced Jack can turn into a bat (he cannot) and is constantly asking to see, once pushes him off the roof of the Pitt to check. He cracks the sidewalk. She still thinks he just needs to believe in himself, and that she's sure his 'performance issues' happen to a lot of vampires. She takes him to the Zoo under false pretences and takes him to the bats to help him find his inner bat.
Brendon Park is one of those guys who doesn’t like you being around other men because he “knows how they think”. He don’t trust them. Not around you. He’s jealous. Territorial. He’s Mr hand on your ass at the beach while you tan. He’s mr “sit in my lap baby” in the hotel hot tub so no clowns get any bright fucking ideas. He’s arm around your shoulder all the time. Sometimes he worries it bothers you. Feels patronizing. But when you tell him it’s hot, it’s fine, he feels better.
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