｡𖦹°‧➵ After a long shift, all Robby wants is to get home and bury himself inside you. The only problem? He has to wait for his little blue pill to kick in first.
｡𖦹°‧➵tags/warnings: smut, minors DNI, Robby pops viagra, erectile dysfunction (duh), age gap, unprotected piv, sucking Robby’s limp dick, creampie, Robby has a big soft belly and reader loves it, multiple orgasms, multiple positions, hair pulling, neck grabbing/slight choking,
A/N: This is the result of this poll. Thanks to those who voted, I hope you enjoy it!
The hospital lights faded behind Robby as the automatic doors hissed shut at his back. It was past eight p.m., but the moment the night air brushed his face, the bone-deep tiredness drained away. He knew what was waiting for him at home, there was no space left for exhaustion.
He was fifty-four now. Too old for some people’s tastes, but still young to others. Caught somewhere in the middle where the body began keeping score of the accumulated stress, every skipped meal, every skipped gym session, and every cigarette smoked. And lately the score included the humiliating betrayal of his own dick.
He fished the small blue pill out of the zippered pocket inside his jacket as he walked the first block on his way home. The tablet dissolved on his tongue as he swallowed it dry, making him grimace at the aftertaste.
It started about a year ago. It had been just… gradual, first it was a night when the want was there, he was so pent-up, he’d waited all day long to finally bury himself inside you, but the response was sluggish, and for some reason he couldn’t keep his dick up no matter how much he wanted to. Then it was another night where it didn’t happen at all, he’d been incapable of getting an erection in the first place. He’d laughed it off the first few times, said he’d had a long shift, or was too tired, it happened to every man at least once in their lifetime. Except it kept happening, and the truth turned into something he couldn’t keep denying, he had erectile dysfunction. Suddenly he was one of those old men, the ones who needed pharmaceutical help to do what used to happen automatically.
And then there was you, full of that energy that came from not yet having your soul sanded down by the weight of the years. You fucked like you were still discovering how good it could feel, like every time was the first time and the last time all at once. You wanted him constantly, you climbed into his lap after a shower, sent him filthy voice notes at 3 p.m. while he was still at work, you waited up for him in nothing but one of his shirts, with your legs already parted like he’d be able to get hard and inside you the second he walked through the door.
He wanted to give that to you. Christ, he really wanted to. The drive was still there, so strong it was almost painful some nights. He’d be one his way home after a deadly shift, and his brain would flash to the way your thighs clamped around his head when you got close, to that little broken sound you always made when he hit that spot just right, and the way your cunt fluttered and gripped him like it was trying to keep him forever.
But none of that could get him hard, and it pissed him off. He was pissed with himself. With biology too. Pissed at the unfair arithmetic of it all, he was finally with someone who made him feel twenty-five again in every way except the one that mattered most, in bed. He was supposed to be the experienced one, the one who knew exactly how to unravel you until you were shaking and begging and cumming so hard you forgot your own name. Instead he was popping little blue pills and praying they kicked in before you started minding how long it took
He hated waiting. The worst part was the way you looked at him sometimes, not with disappointment, never that, but with patience. You were so sweet and understanding, and it was your infinite patience that somehow made it worse. He didn’t want patience, Robby wanted to pin you to the mattress and fuck you until the headboard dented the wall. He wanted to feel that raw and animal surge again without needing chemical backup, but it was impossible, his cock had stopped obeying him.
On every red light on the way home, he quickly pressed the heel of his palm against the front of his cargo pants, checking if his dick had decided to react already. But every time he did, he was still soft.
“Come on,” he muttered to his own traitorous body. “She’s waiting. She’s wet for you. She’s been thinking about this all night. Don’t fucking fail her.”
Once he finally made it to the house you both shared,the place was still dark except for the soft light coming from inside the bedroom. You’d left the bedroom door cracked, the way you always did when you were already in bed waiting for him.
He kicked off his sneakers and placed the jacket and badge on the hook. When he pushed the bedroom door, he found you propped against the headboard in nothing but one of his old faded t-shirts, with the hem riding high on your thighs. Your eyes found his immediately, sleepy, and yet so hungry for him. You didn’t say anything at first, just shifted, letting your legs fall open just enough that he could see you were already wet, the cotton crotch of your underwear dark where a patch of your slick arousal had formed, making the fabric cling to your drenched folds.
“Hi, you,” you whispered.
He didn’t answer with words. He crossed the room in three strides, hitting his knees on the mattress, reaching for you with his hands until he found your face. The kiss was messy and desperate from the start, clicking your teeth together from so much desire. You opened your mouth for him immediately, curling your tongue against his, sliding your hands under the scrub top to drag your nails lightly down his back, earning a from his mouth.
You broke the kiss just long enough to tug the top over his head, and he let you. You still remembered the first time you’d stripped him bare, how he’d hesitated, how embarrassed he’d sounded as he muttered an apology about not having enough time to hit the gym anymore. You’d turned that shame into an obsession for the silver-threaded hair across his chest, and for the way his once-flat stomach had softened into a warm and rounded swell that begged to be grabbed, kneaded, and kissed.
Your hands went to his chest first, sliding your palms through the coarse grey curls, finding a nipple and pinching it sharp enough to drag a moan from his throat. Then you went lower, gripping the meat of his sides, digging your thumbs into the plush give of his belly, stroking and squeezing the soft layer that jiggled faintly under your touch. You mapped every inch like you were claiming it.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” you breathed against his mouth. “Look at this gorgeous body… I’m so wet for you right now. I need your cock inside me, Michael. Please.”
He knew that tone, you were already desperate and he had to distract you before you got impatient for something he couldn’t give you quite yet.
Robby surged forward, latching his mouth onto your throat. He sucked hard, painting a dark bruise just below your jaw while he shoved your shirt up roughly, exposing your tits to the cool air. He closed one palm over your breast, squeezing it with force, his thumb found your nipple and rolled it mercilessly until you were arching your back off the bed and moaning his name in ragged gasps.
“Michael—”
He dipped his head, closing his mouth over one of your stiff peaks, swirling his tongue in circles around it, then flicking it fast against it, making you jolt. He sucked hard, pulling the nipple deep into the heat of his mouth. The suction sent sparks straight to your core, and you could feel yourself clenching around nothing.
Robby used his free hand to knead the other breast, digging into the soft flesh, using his thumb and forefinger to pinch the neglected nipple, tugging until it throbbed. Then he switched, abandoning one glistening and swollen peak with a lewd pop only to latch onto the other, sucking even harder this time, lashing his tongue relentlessly while his teeth grazed the bud just enough to make you cry out.
Robby was already hard enough in his mind, but the rest of him was lagging. You reached down between you, slipping your fingers beneath the waistband of his pants. His cock was still soft. Still heavy and thick, but soft. You traced your fingertips over the hot length of him, trying to coax him to get harder, and he let out a shaky breath against your collarbone.
You pulled back just enough to look at him. “When did you take it?”
“After shift,” he muttered. “Fifteen minutes ago. Maybe twenty.”
You whined needily and unashamed. “I want it now.”
He laughed tiredly. “Greedy girl. You know how this thing goes, gotta give it time to work.”
You pouted, acting a little bratty cause you knew how much it drove him crazy, keeping your hand wrapped around him, stroking his member slowly, sweeping your thumb over the head, the most sensitive part, on every upstroke. “Don’t wanna wait.”
“Too bad.” He said nipping your earlobe. “You’ll wait however long it takes.”
You loved Robby with an intensity that words could never fully capture. And the sex with him? It was better than anything you'd ever felt with anyone else. He was the only older man you’d ever been with, and the first time his cock refused to harden, the panic hit you. You blamed yourself instantly, maybe you weren't turning him on anymore, maybe your body wasn't enough, maybe you'd done something wrong in the heat of the moment.
But Robby had pulled you close, and reassured you that it wasn’t your fault. Then he gave you the unfiltered truth, the medical and biological explanation: As men get older, the arteries narrow, the inner lining of the blood vessels gets less responsive, and the production of nitric oxide, the very chemical that signals those vessels to relax and let blood rush in, drops. That means poorer vasodilation and slower blood flow to the penis. It takes longer to get hard, or it just... doesn't happen, no matter how badly he wanted it.
He’d promised you that his desire for you was still intact, he wanted you the same as the first day, even more than he’d ever wanted anyone else in his life. And you’d never once shamed him, never let the word “impotent” even brush your lips, never made him feel like less of a man. To you he was still your perfect Michael, the one who could wreck you pill or no pill.
If anything, knowing how badly he still craved you only made the want hotter. You wanted him more now, because you could see that frustrated, almost feral edge when he pinned you down, grinding against you, desperate to bury himself deep and fuck you into the mattress until you couldn’t think straight… but his cock stayed stubbornly soft, thick but not hard enough yet. That look on his face, the aching need mixed with irritation. didn’t make you pity him, it set you on fire. Your cunt clenched just watching him fight his own body for you, rolling his hips uselessly against you. You’d whisper filthy encouragements against his mouth “I love how hard you’re trying for me… how bad you want to split me open” just to feel him shudder.
You slid down the bed, pushing at his hips until he rolled onto his back. Your hands found the waistband of his cargo and underwear, and you pushed them down all at once. Robby lifted his hips a little to help you slide them off his body.
He was fully bare under you now, with his cock lying soft against his left thigh. You settled between his legs, tucking your knees under you, with your hair falling forward to curtain your face. He reached down, gathering it in one fist so he could watch what you were about to do.
You started with soft kisses, open-mouthed along the crease of his hip to the sensitive skin of his inner thigh, and then to the base of his member. He twitched just a little, but not enough. You dragged your tongue flat up the underside, tasting the salt and clean flavour of his skin.
His soft tummy tightened, and a curse slipped out his lips. “Fuck, baby…”
Even when he wasn’t hard yet, the warm slide of your mouth felt incredible against the sensitive skin of his cock. Every swirl of your tongue around the head or suck along the underside, sent jolts of pleasure straight up his spine. And the sight of you kneeling between his spread thighs, with your lips stretched around him, and your cheeks hollowing as you worked him was mentally arousing. His mind was flooded with images of finally getting rock-hard, flipping you over, and pounding into you until you screamed his name.
You took him into your mouth anyway, despite the softness. It was easy to fit all of him this way, and so you sucked gently, with your tongue cradling the head, letting him fill the wet heat of your mouth without any real pressure. It was more comfort than stimulation right now, and he kept his hand in your hair, not guiding you, just holding.
Minutes dragged by, and you took your time, alternating between lazy and wet sucks that pulled the soft length deeper into your mouth, and delicate kitten licks along the underside, tracing every vein with the flat of your tongue. You kissed lower, brushing the heavy sac before drawing one of his balls into your mouth with gentle suction. He shifted his hips restlessly, chasing the sensation, twitching his fingers against the sheets. He was still mostly soft gainst your tongue, pliant enough to mold around the curve of your mouth, but there was a change now, a subtle thickening at the base, a new heaviness settling in as blood began getting there. You felt it swell just a fraction against your palm when you cupped him, and then felt the head starting to nudge firmer against the roof of your mouth. Not hard yet, but waking up for you.
You pulled off with a wet sound, looking up at him through your lashes. “Getting there,” you murmured, stroking him with your fist. He was heavier in your hand already, and you noticed how the veins were beginning to stand out.
“Yeah?” His voice sounded wrecked. “Keep going.”
You did. You worked him with patient devotion, moving your mouth and hand in a slow rhythm. You focused on the head mostly, sealing your lips tight around it, sucking gently but insistently while your tongue swirled over the slit, coaxing out every bead of pre-cum and mixing it with your spit until the tip glistened. Your saliva gathered at the corners of your mouth, dripping in strings down the soft shaft, pooling at the base where it met his balls.
You slid down further, taking him deep in one easy glide, relaxing your throat to swallow around the length until your nose was brushing the hair at his groin. You held there for a heartbeat, humming so the vibration rippled through him, and then pulled back, letting your lips drag along every inch, leaving him soaked and twitching.
Every few minutes you paused to worship him properly, pressing kisses and nuzzling the flesh like it was your favorite thing in the world. You whispered dirty words right against his skin, “come on, baby, get hard for me… I can feel you starting to swell… fuck, I love how heavy you feel in my mouth already… just let it happen, I’ll wait as long as it takes to feel you stretch me open. Look at you… so pretty like this… just wait till you’re hard enough to fuck me stupid…”
He laughed breathlessly. “You’re gonna kill me.”
Another minute, or maybe two or three, and his thighs started to tense under your palms. You felt the slow swelling, the way he lengthened against your tongue, until the head nudged the back of your throat now when you took him deeper, making you gag a little.
“There it is,” you breathed, pulling off to watch. His cock stood proud now, flushed dark at the head, glossy with your spit and his pre-cum. Fully hard, finally.
Robby thumped his head back against the pillow. “Jesus fucking Christ. Took long enough.”
You grinned wickedly and triumphant, and gave the head one last kitten lick before crawling back up his body, until you were straddling his hips.
Once you did, Robby noticed immediately how wet you were. He slid his hands up your thighs, hooking his thumbs under the waistband of your panties. He dragged them down just enough to bare you, then cupped you with one broad palm, sliding his middle finger through your slit. You were dripping, it made his finger glided easily, collecting slick that stringed between your cunt and his hand when he pulled back to look.
“Fuck me,” he said half-laughing. “You’re a lake down here. Been this wet the whole time I was soft in your mouth?”
You rocked against his hand. “Mhm. Couldn’t help it. You taste good even when you’re not hard yet.”
He snorted, but his eyes were dark brown with hunger. “Filthy little thing.” He circled his finger over your clit once, making you jolt and whimper. “All that patience… sucking me off for twenty-five minutes straight just so you could get this messy for me.”
“I wanted to get you hard,” you breathed, grinding down harder, making the head of his cock, gloriously hard, nudge against your entrance. “Want to feel you inside me already.”
“Yeah?” He grabbed your hips, stilling you just enough to lift you up so he could line himself up properly. “Then prove it. Sit on it.”
You took hold of his shaft with one hand, letting it rest right in your entrance. You were soaked, slippery enough that the first press of his head against your cunt made you both moan.
Slowly, you sank down, taking him inch by inch. The blunt head breached you first, parting your slick walls with a burning stretch that made your breath hitch and your thighs tremble. You felt every ridge and every vein as he filled you deeper, making your cunt clench greedily around the gradual invasion until your ass finally pressed flush against his hips.
You were both shaking now, him from the grip of your pussy swallowing him whole, you from the overwhelming fullness that pressed right up against that deep spot inside. His hands clamped on your waist, digging into your flesh, holding you pinned and still for one long heartbeat.
You looked down and saw the almost pained, overwhelmed expression on his face. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck—” The words tore out of him. “You’re so fucking tight, baby. You gotta relax for me… please.”
He groaned it like a plea. Every time your walls gripped him too hard, the friction turned unbearable,and he needed a second to allow your body to adjust, otherwise the pleasure turned into pain for him. “Just… breathe, baby. Let me feel you open up around me. Fuck, you’re gonna kill me if you keep squeezing like that.”
After a couple of minutes, your cunt finally stretched around his unyielding length, and Robby exhaled a shaky breath. He gave a single nod of permission. “Go on, baby.”
Then you started to move, slow at first, with rolls of your hips that ground your clit against the hair at his base while his thick cock dragged along your inner walls. Every slow circle stretched you anew, the friction making obscene sounds that filled the room as your arousal coated him completely, dripping down his shaft and onto his balls. His head fell back against the pillow with a groan, and you leaned forward, planting your palms firmly on the soft expanse of his chest, feeling the thud of his heart under your fingers.
You snapped harder now, riding him with purpose, up until just the head stretched your entrance, then slamming back down to take him to the hilt again. Each downward grind made you flutter and spasm around him, as his hands slid up to grip your ass, digging his fingers in to help you fuck yourself onto him faster.
“Fuck! Michael… right there—”
He planted his feet flat on the mattress, with his knees bent and hips angled just right beneath you. The shift gave him leverage, and the next time you sank down, he thrust up hard to meet you halfway. The collision was brutal, his cock slamming deep and stretching you open all over again as your ass slapped against his hips.
He groaned. “That’s it—fuck, take it.”
Each upward snap of his hips met your downward grind, burying himself to the hilt every time. Sweat covered his skin under your palms, nd you watched his rounded belly flexing with every powerful drive. He wasn’t holding back anymore, he gave you hungry thrusts that claimed you from below. You cried out, digging your nails into his meaty soft pecs. He sit up suddenly, banding his arms around your back, crashing his mouth into yours as he fucked up into you with short but punishing strokes.
He watched you mesmerized, one hand palming your breast, the other staying clamped on your hip to guide your rhythm. “Look at you. Riding me like you’ve been starving for it. So wet I can hear it every time you take me.”
“Michael, please—!”
“Please what, baby? Please fuck you stupid? Please let you cum?”
“Yes! Fuck! Yes—”
You came suddenly, seizing as your walls spasmed around his cock, clenching in frantic pulses that milked him deep. A gush of slick poured out of you, soaking his shaft and coating his thighs and the sheets in a messy puddle. Robby didn’t stop, he kept thrusting up into you, grinding the base of his cock right against your swollen clit.
The friction was brutal now, and you whimpered pathetically, jerking your hips as you tried to squirm away, pushing weakly at his chest. “Robby—fuck, too much, I can’t—”
“Not done,” he growled against your lips. “Not even close.”
He flipped you without warning. One second you were on top, and the next your back hit the mattress. Robby hooked your legs over his shoulders, pressing your knees toward your chest. The new angle was brutal, and he bottomed out in one hard thrust, grinding his pubic bone against your clit.
Robby fucked you with long and punishing strokes, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in, snapping his hips with the kind of force that made the headboard thud against the wall. You were loud, you just couldn’t help but moan his name, beg and babble nonsense as he railed you into the mattress.
“So fucking good,” he gritted out between thrusts. “Taking me so well. You were made for me… fuck—gripping me like you never want to let go.”
You felt your orgasm building faster than you could control, the pleasure coiling tighter in your core until it bordered on desperation. Your body moved on instinct, sliding one hand down between your thighs, finding your swollen clit and immediately circling it in little loops. The nub was slick, throbbing under your touch, each rub sending sparks straight up your body.
His eyes dropped to watch, locking on where your fingers worked yourself shamelessly. The sight snapped something in him, and the thrusts turned brutal. “Yeah, that’s it, rub that pretty little clit for me,” he growled. “Show me how bad you need to cum again.”
He angled his hips just right on the next upward, grinding the fat head against your g-spot. You sped up your fingertips on your clit, matching the rhythm of his grinds until you snapped.
You came violently, a cry toreing from your throat as you shook uncontrollably. Robby almost lost it right there when your cunt spasmed around him again. But he wasn’t done, he yanked out of you fast before he spilled. In one rough motion he flipped you onto your stomach, gripping your hips and hauling them up high so your knees dug into the mattress, with your ass arched in the air.
You pressed your face into the pillow, still dazed from the aftershocks, but he didn’t give you time to catch your breath, just lined himself up and slammed back in from behind in one single thrust, burying every inch to the hilt. The stretch was immediate, your walls being forced open wider in this new angle, his cock punching straight against your cervix.
Robby fisted a handful of your hair, yanking your head back to arch your spine into a perfect curve, until your tits were pressed to the sheets and your ass presented high. “Fuck—take it deeper, baby,” he growled.
The new position let him sink impossibly further, and the added stimulation of his balls slapping wetly against your clit on every drive made you whine his name loudly.
His rounded belly was pressed flush against the curve of your back, molding to your spine until the heat of his body surrounded you completely, cocooning you in his grounding weight that made you feel owned and claimed.
Robby wrapped his big hand around your throat, curling his fingers possessively around the column of your neck, pressing the thumb lightly against your racing pulse. He held you tight like that, arching you back further into him, keeping your body locked in place as he started pounding into you faster.
His stomach jiggled faintly with the impact, and guttural groans spilled from his throat right against your ear, “Fuck… feel that, baby? How deep I’m buried in this tight pussy? You’re taking every fucking inch.” His grip on your neck tightened just enough to make your head spin, holding you exactly where he wanted while he fucked you into the mattress with raw need.
“Cum again,” he ordered. “Cum on my cock one more time. Wanna feel you milk me.”
You had no choice but to obey him. The pleasure crested again, and you climaxed around him for the third time, squeezing him so tight it felt like you were trying to pull him apart. Your arms gave out beneath you, your elbows buckled as you collapsed forward onto your forearms, with your face mashed into the pillow and your ass still high and impaled.
Robby followed right after, his hips stuttered, the thrusts turning erratic until the moment where he buried himself to the hilt one last time, throbbing inside you and pulsing hard with every thick spurt. He came deep, flooding you with rope after rope of his sticky hot cum that filled you so full you could feel the excess leaking out around his shaft, dripping down your thighs and soaked the sheets beneath.
He stayed buried inside you, grinding through the aftershocks, milking every last drop while your cunt fluttered around him. He loosened his hand on your throat, sliding down to stroke your back in sweeps.
Robby pressed a lazy kiss to your shoulder. “Think the wait was worth it?”
You laughed weakly, clenching around him just to make him hiss. “Ask me again when I can feel my legs.”
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this! I’ve written this concept a few times for Joel before, and after getting some asks about it, I finally decided to write one for Robby too.
I’m actually really excited about it because erectile dysfunction is one of the hottest topics for me to explore in fics. I’m definitely not opposed to writing more Robby one-shots with this theme in the future if that’s something you’d like to see.
summary: you have a sex dream about your attending that leaves you hot, flustered, late for work, and completely off your game. then things go from bad to worse when gossip spreads and the entire emergency department finds out—including dr. robby.
notes: i honestly haven't been this excited or motivated to write in forever, and i just really hope it doesn't suck. this one feels a little different, kind of like... it just flowed? my writing feels less mechanical, i think? i don't know, i feel like i've been stuck in a rut and even though this isn't perfect, it feels like i finally enjoy writing again. i put so much love into this and tried so hard to get the characters right, i just really hope you guys enjoy! please, please let me know what you think!
warnings: more sitcom than drama (just let them have a good day, i beg you), swearing, italics, reader can drive, medical descriptions, blood, medical procedure descriptions (it's not super graphic though), most definitely incorrect medical information (my friend is a doctor, i am not), implied age gap but never specified, very likely incorrect tagalog (i'm sorry in advance), reader doesn't know tagalog, implied smut but nothing explicit, reader gets injured (and stitches), and making out (on shift, lol, nothing graphic but still, mdni please).
word count: 12763
You wake all at once.
Not slowly, not gently, but with one sharp inhale like you’ve surfaced from deep water.
For a second you don’t know where you are. Your room is too warm, the air too heavy, every inch of your skin flushed and slick with sweat. Heat clings to you, your heart pounding wildly in your ears, sheets twisted tight around your legs, and for one disorienting moment you swear you can still feel him—warm hands, breath close, the dizzying pull of something forbidden and overwhelming.
The echo of his voice follows you up from sleep, low and wrecked and impossibly real.
Dr. Robby.
Your stomach flips.
“Fuck,” you mumble into your pillow, already mortified, already knowing your brain has crossed a line it absolutely shouldn’t have this time.
Because it didn’t feel like a dream. It still doesn’t. Fragments flash behind your eyelids—the way he touched you, his voice softer than you’ve ever heard it, the teasing burn of stubble where he shouldn’t have been close enough to touch.
You roll onto your back and drag both hands over your face, groaning quietly as awareness settles in piece by piece. Your pulse refuses to slow, every nerve still humming like your body missed the memo that none of it actually happened.
You stare at the ceiling.
“…You have got to be kidding me.”
This wasn’t random. Not by a long shot.
It was him. Your attending. The stubborn, overworked, infuriatingly competent man who makes unresolved emotional baggage look hot. The man you have to see in barely two hours.
A small, helpless sound escapes you as you roll onto your side again, squeezing your eyes shut.
This is a problem.
A very real, very immediate, absolutely unprofessional problem.
And yet, you still don’t move. You lie there too long, cheeks burning despite the fact that no one else can see what you’re replaying in your mind. Warmth lingers beneath your skin, pooling low in your belly as you let yourself remember every phantom touch. Every whispered word. The look in his eyes as he’d settled between your legs and—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
You bolt upright, your hand flying out to find your phone.
You’re still hot, still flushed and sticky. Still half-dreaming about Robby and his goddamn hands—but now? Now you’re late. Horribly late. Because that alarm isn’t your wake-up alarm—it’s your backup alarm. The one that goes off when it’s time for you to leave for work.
“Fuck!”
You throw the covers back and rush into the bathroom. You strip quickly out of your damp sleep shirt, tossing everything on the floor before stepping into the shower without even waiting for the water to warm. Which is exactly what you need, you remind yourself as you hiss beneath the cold spray.
Fifteen minutes later, you’re standing in front of the mirror in your black scrubs, trying to fix your hair and will the colour to drain from your cheeks. But it’s stubborn. Bright. Hot to the touch and utterly telling.
“Jesus Christ,” you sigh, squeezing your eyes shut for a second too long.
A second you don’t have.
With a deep breath, you turn, grab your bag, and sling it over your shoulder, wondering whether running to the hospital might actually be quicker than your usual commute at this time. Traffic is never great—you never truly know which route will get you there fastest—but now you’re about to hit peak hour.
You spend the entire drive trying to think about literally anything other than the dream—patient charts, upcoming shifts, whether your stethoscope is in your bag or your locker—but your thoughts keep slipping sideways, traitorous and vivid.
So vivid.
Stop thinking about his hands.
Stop thinking about his voice.
Stop—
You groan softly and turn the radio up louder.
It doesn’t help.
By the time you pull into the hospital parking lot, you’re almost twenty minutes late. You slam your car door shut, hike your bag higher on your shoulder, and practically run toward the ER doors.
“Woah,” Donnie says, quickly stepping out of your way. “Someone’s in a hurry.”
You don’t reply. You just keep going until you hit central, then slow to a hurried walk—head down, eyes fixed on your feet, praying everyone is already too busy to notice you.
“You’re late,” Dana says.
You stop mid-step, more out of habit than intention.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I—”
“Shit, hon, you okay?” She steps around the desk, peering over her glasses. “You look like you’re burnin’ up.”
You step back before she can press a hand to your forehead.
“I’m fine, I swear.” You keep backing up. “Just my—my car’s A/C isn’t working and I’m a little warm. That’s all.”
You know she doesn’t believe you. This is Dana you’re talking to, not some brand-new, bright-eyed RN. Dana can see through any and all bullshit, and by the look on her face, she isn’t buying this at all.
“I’m fine,” you say again, forcing a smile before turning sharply on your heel.
Only to turn right into something solid.
Warm. Tall. Unmoving.
“Shit, I—”
You look up.
And your entire nervous system shuts down.
Dr. Robby.
“Sorry,” you blurt instantly, stepping back so fast you nearly trip over your own feet. “I didn’t see—I mean, I was looking, just not—”
His hand is still wrapped around your elbow, grounding you in place, and for one terrible second all you can think about is how close he is. How close he’d felt last night. How real it feels right now.
His eyebrows lift slightly, confusion flickering across his face. “You alright?”
“Yes,” you say too quickly. “Fine. Totally fine.”
You are not fine.
Your face feels nuclear, and you’re suddenly aware of everything at once—his height, his proximity, the way his sleeves are pushed up, the fact that he’s looking directly at you like he’s trying to figure something out.
His head tilts slightly.
“You’re late,” he says, not unkindly.
“I know.”
Neither of you move for a moment.
You can feel your pulse in your throat. Your chest. Lower.
“I—I’m gonna—”
You don’t even finish before you turn away, hurrying down the hall toward the lockers. Every inch of your skin feels like it’s on fire—and every thought in your head is so wildly inappropriate for where you are right now you feel like you might throw up.
“Damn.” Santos appears beside you, her eyes flicking between your face and the tablet in her hands. “Either you’re febrile or you just did something really embarrassing.” She tucks the tablet under her arm. “What gives?”
You shoot her a flat look as you key in the code to your locker. “Nothing gives. I’m fine.”
She snorts. “Sure. That tone is really selling it.”
You take a deep breath and turn toward your locker, shoving your bag inside before unzipping your jacket and shrugging off. You stuff that in too—then sling your stethoscope around your neck, shut the door, and turn back to your fellow R2.
She looks concerned now, brows drawn as her eyes track over your face and neck.
“You’re seriously flushed,” she says. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” You turn and start walking back toward central. “Just running late, okay? Now can I start my shift before—” You stop yourself, his name catching somewhere in your chest. “Before I have an attending down my throat for slacking off?”
God. You could have chosen better words.
“Okay, whatever,” Santos mutters, holding her tablet out again. “Sorry for caring.”
She gives you a sarcastic little eye roll before veering off around the other side of the nurse’s station and ducking into one of the active patient rooms. You watch after her for a second before a voice across the room steals your attention.
He’s on the other side of central, nodding along while Mohan and Whitaker brief him on a patient—and looking entirely too hot for seven-thirty on a Monday morning beneath harsh fluorescent lights.
“Stop it,” you whisper to yourself, pausing at the nurse’s station to collect a tablet.
“Stop what?”
You startle, head snapping toward the man suddenly beside you.
“Jesus Christ, Dr. Abbot,” you sigh. “Are you trying to get me admitted for a heart attack?”
The corner of his mouth twitches. “You already look halfway there.”
You roll your eyes. “Okay, I get it. I’m red and I’m sweaty—can everyone please stop commenting on it now?”
He chuckles. “Sorry. Didn’t realise you’d already been bullied about it.”
You sigh again and turn your attention to the board, tipping your head back to read it.
“Why are you still here, anyway?” you ask.
“Wanted to see my favourite resident,” he says. “You sure you don’t want to come back to nights?”
You huff a laugh through your nose. “I love you, Abbot, but nights aren’t for me.” You glance across the nurse’s station, where Dana and Robby are now discussing the latest incoming trauma. “I just miss Dana too much.”
Abbot snorts. “Dana?”
You look back at him. “Yes. Dana.”
Amusement flickers across his face. “You sure?”
“Yes,” you say, too quickly. “I mean, who—what else would—”
“Doctors,” Javadi interrupts, stepping in front of you both. “Sorry to interrupt, but could I get a second opinion on a patient in South Twenty-One, please?”
Abbot nods, glancing at you. “I’ll go. You settle in.” The corner of his mouth lifts a little higher. “Maybe check in with your attending.”
Then he turns and walks away with Javadi at his side.
You stare after him—eyes wide, pulse racing, wondering what the fuck he meant by all that.
You’ve always suspected Abbot might be a mind reader, but that? That was something else. Too knowing. Too dangerous. And now you need to figure out what the hell he thinks he knows.
“Doctor,” Perlah calls from behind the desk. “Could you check on Central Twelve? She’s still complaining of pain after morphine and Zofran.”
You turn to her, shaking your head as if that might knock your thoughts back into place. “Uh—yeah. Of course. Central Twelve, heading there now.”
She gives you a curious look, brows drawn, but you turn away before she can ask any more questions.
On your way to C12, you pull up the patient’s chart—seen by Whitaker about half an hour ago—and double-check the morphine and Zofran doses she received. You pause just outside the room, drawing a deep breath and reminding yourself that you are at work. You don’t have time to be flustered. You don’t have time to worry about what Jack Abbot may or may not know. And you definitely don’t have time to obsess over the imaginary rasp of Robby’s beard against your thigh that you can somehow still feel.
When you push the door open and step inside, you’re the picture of professionalism. You offer the patient a polite smile, introduce yourself, and start the routine checks that feel more like second nature than work.
After the exam and a brief conversation, you order two more milligrams of morphine, review the labs Whitaker sent, and make a note to check back in fifteen minutes. Then, still intent on avoiding your attending, you bury your nose in your tablet and move on to the next patient waiting in South Sixteen.
Pressure-like chest pain. Diaphoretic, no shortness of breath. Initial ECG normal. Labs pending.
“Alright, Mr. Mullens,” you say, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm. “We’re going to get some scans done so we can get a better idea of what’s going on. If the pain gets worse before then, let us know.”
The man nods. “Thank you, Doc.”
You smile, stepping out into the hallway. “I’ll be back soon to check in.”
As soon as you turn around, you look for Robby, making sure you’re not about to run into him again. Literally.
You spot him all the way across central, walking with Santos toward the North hallway. Good. You’re safe. And if all goes well, maybe you’ll manage to avoid him for the entire day. Maybe you won’t have to come face to face with the face you can still see buried between your legs.
Fuck.
Your pulse kicks, heart beating too fast as you remember the way his eyes had watched you in your dream. It’s almost too much. Even the phantom memory of it is making you breathless.
God. If it ever actually happened, you might pass out.
“Why would you even think of that?” you mutter to yourself, stopping at the nurse’s station.
When you finally look up, Perlah and Princess are watching you closely, speculation sparkling in their eyes.
“Sobrang pula ng mukha niya,” Perlah murmurs.
Princess nods. “Hindi lagnat ’yan.”
Perlah lowers her voice even more. “Sa tingin mo ba may kinalaman ito sa crush niya?”
They both laugh quietly, turning away from you as if it isn’t you they’re gossiping about.
“Malinaw,” Princess says.
You give them both a tight smile before glancing up at the board, searching for something suitably distracting and far away from nosy nurses and unfairly attractive attendings.
You’re just about to head back toward the South hallway when a gurney crashes through the ambulance bay doors.
“Trauma Two!” Dana calls. “Robby!”
Abbot is already moving, meeting the paramedics halfway and guiding the gurney toward T2.
He points at you as he walks. “With me.”
“Shit,” you mutter, dropping your tablet on the desk and jogging over.
“Thirty-two-year-old male, MVC, restrained driver,” the paramedic says. “Front-end collision, airbags deployed. No LOC. Increasing shortness of breath during transport. Breath sounds decreased left side.”
“Let’s get him on monitor,” Abbot says, moving to stand opposite you at the head of the bed. “On my count.”
Robby steps in at your side, like he always does—close enough that you feel him before you see him.
His arm brushes yours.
Your stomach flips.
Focus.
“One. Two. Three,” Abbot counts.
You transfer the patient from gurney to trauma bed, and Santos starts cutting away clothes.
“Two large-bore IVs,” Abbot tells Jesse. “Trauma labs. Portable chest X-ray.” Then he looks at you, brows raised. “Breath sounds?”
“Oh—uh—” You fumble with your stethoscope, pressing it to each side of the patient’s chest. “Diminished on the left.”
You reach for the patient’s neck, fingers steady despite the noise around you.
“Trachea midline.”
Abbot nods, then turns to Santos. “Let’s get ultrasound.”
“BP holding?” Robby asks.
The sound of his voice sends goosebumps racing along your arms—and you shiver before you can stop yourself.
“Pressure’s 118 over 76,” Jesse replies. “Stable.”
Robby glances at you, brows drawn. “You okay?”
You nod quickly, without looking up. “Never better.”
“Absent lung sliding on the left,” Santos announces.
“Likely pneumothorax,” Abbot says, looking at Robby.
“Sats dropping,” Jesse calls. “Eighty-nine.”
Robby nods once. “Okay. We’re putting in a chest tube.”
“Chest tube tray. Twenty-eight French. Left side,” Abbot orders.
You try to move out of the way, but Robby’s hand catches your elbow—and you can’t help but look up. His dark eyes meet yours with an intensity you’ve never noticed before, and suddenly your lungs forget how to work.
“You’re up,” he says. “I’ll walk you through it.”
You know there’s no time to argue. You know you can’t. Shouldn’t. This is your job. And it’s not like you could say no to this man even if you wanted to.
You swallow. “Okay.”
Robby nods, then looks at Jesse. “Alright, let’s get some lido. Sutures ready. Hook up suction.”
You turn back to the patient, watching Abbot position the left arm above his head while Jesse preps the area—chlorhexidine swab, sterile drape. The rustle of sterile gowns and the snap of gloves fill the room as you pull on your own and push a pair of protective glasses up your nose. Then you grab the lidocaine from the tray and lean over the patient’s left side, steadying your hand as you guide the needle in.
The room is quieter now—save for the steady beeping of the monitors—chaos narrowing into focus as everyone watches you sink the needle into the patient’s skin.
“A little deeper,” Robby murmurs.
Your breath catches, but your hands stay steady.
You can feel him just behind you, leaning close, his warmth bleeding through your scrubs and setting your whole body on fire.
“Now find the rib,” he instructs. “Stay above it.”
You discard the needle onto the tray and start feeling ribs, counting down until you find the space.
“Scalpel,” you say, refusing to take your eyes off the spot your fingers found.
Jesse places the scalpel in your hand, and without hesitation, you cut a three-centimetre incision.
“Good,” Robby murmurs.
Your pulse thrums beneath your skin.
“Clamp,” you say, your voice almost breaking.
Jesse takes the scalpel from your hand, replacing it with a curved clamp.
You insert the clamp, pushing past muscle layers, and begin to spread. It feels forceful. Too much. Invasive, even though you know this is exactly what you’re supposed to do.
Robby steps closer. “Commit to it.”
His hand covers yours to adjust the angle, add pressure—until you feel the pop. And it takes every ounce of your self-control not to react. Not to whimper at the very normal, very professional way your attending is guiding you right now.
“Now sweep,” he says, so close you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek.
You insert your finger into the space, confirming entry into the pleural cavity and checking for adhesions—then nod. You don’t dare turn your head as you hold your hand out for the tube. He’s too close, too warm. You can smell the faint scent of soap on his skin even over the antiseptic and metallic tang in the air.
“Inserting tube,” you say, more to yourself than anyone else.
You start guiding the tube in—slow and controlled—feeling every millimetre of movement.
Until it stops.
Too much resistance.
“Up,” Robby says, his hand covering yours again. “Aim higher.”
He adjusts your wrist slightly, guiding the pressure.
You swallow hard and nod, hoping no one else can hear your uneven breathing—but knowing Robby definitely can.
He helps you apply more pressure, firmer now, angle corrected, and the tube starts moving again.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Good girl. Keep going.”
Your brain short-circuits.
Heat floods your face. Your chest. Lower.
His voice echoes from your dream. Breathless. Panting. Words whispered against your skin.
Fuck. Now is not the time.
You tighten your grip on the tube and push.
Then—
A rush of air.
“Air return,” Abbot says, a hint of pride in his tone. “Now secure it.”
Robby steps back, and you hear the snap of his gloves coming off.
“O2 sats climbing,” he announces.
“Cool,” Santos says, grinning at Abbot’s side. “I’m doing the next one.”
You barely look up. You can’t. Your whole face feels like it’s on fire. You've never blushed this hard before. You’ve never been this hot in your life. And you’ve definitely never been this horny in the goddamn trauma bay.
“You good to finish up?” Robby asks Abbot.
Abbot nods.
From the corner of your eye, you see Robby step toward the door, glancing over his shoulder with a small, impressed smile.
“Nice work, Doctor.”
You don’t reply. You just nod, lips twitching with a soft smile as you keep your eyes on the patient.
As soon as you finish suturing and securing the tube, you step back, tearing off your gown and gloves as if that’ll somehow give you a reprieve from the heat beneath your skin. Jesse takes your place beside the patient, nodding along to Abbot’s orders while he and Kim start cleaning up.
You shove your gown, gloves, and glasses into the biohazard bin and head for the door without looking back—which is exactly why you don’t notice Santos trailing you.
“That was so cool,” she says, startling you.
“Jesus,” you mutter. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
She frowns. “Sneak? I was right behind you. It’s not my fault you’re all weird and jumpy today.”
“I’m not—” You glance across central to make sure Robby isn’t somewhere in your path to the ambulance bay. “I’m not weird and jumpy.”
Santos scoffs. “Right. And I’m not behind on my charting.”
You don’t bother arguing with her. You just keep walking—and she follows. All the way through the ER and out to the ambulance bay, where you stop just before the curb and draw a deep breath. It isn’t nearly as refreshing as you’d hoped, but a break from the fluorescents is always welcome.
“Okay,” she says, folding her arms. “What is with you today? You’re never this off. I’ve seen you perform procedures you’d only read about without a single assist from the attending. And I know you’ve done a chest tube before.”
You don’t answer. You don’t even look at her. You just tip your head back and stare at the roof of the ambulance bay, wondering whether it might collapse and save you from this conversation.
“And on that note,” she goes on, “Dr. Robby knows you’ve done a chest tube before, so why the hell was he being so patient? I swear he’s got a soft spot for you. Javadi pointed it out a few weeks ago and I honestly don’t know how I missed it. I mean—has he ever yelled at you?”
You finally look at her, brows drawn. “I—uh—no, I don’t think so.”
“Exactly,” she says, stepping closer. “And please tell me I heard wrong, but did he say good girl to you back there?”
As soon as she says it, your cheeks burn with renewed intensity. You can feel your heart in your throat, beating out of rhythm and way too fast for someone who is definitely not in a life-or-death situation.
And Santos notices—because of course she does.
Her eyes go wide. “Oh my God. This totally has something to do with Dr. Robby.”
“Shut up,” you mutter. “It’s not—”
You stop yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and pinching the bridge of your nose.
Santos isn’t going to let this go. You know her. She’s too inquisitive, too nosy, and there’s not nearly enough chaos today to distract her.
“Okay, fine,” you sigh, looking up, face burning. “I had a sex dream about him and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”
She stares at you for a second.
“A sex dream?”
You nod miserably.
Her mouth twitches—then she snorts.
Not a polite laugh. A full, startled snort she tries—and fails—to muffle behind her hand.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I knew you had a thing for him, but a sex dream?”
“Would you stop saying it?” you hiss, glancing nervously around the empty ambulance bay.
She laughs a little harder. “Was he good?”
“Oh my God,” you mutter, dropping your head into your hands. “I regret everything.”
“Hey,” she says, still laughing as she drops a hand on your shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.”
Your head snaps up. “If I asked?”
She shrugs. “Why not shoot your shot?”
“Because he’s my boss!”
“He’s your attending,” she says. “Technically, Dr. Underwood is your boss. Dr. Robby just supervises you.”
You shut your eyes again and draw a deep breath, trying to steady your pulse.
“Okay,” you say, squaring your shoulders. “I’m done with this conversation. I’m going back to work, and you’re not telling anyone what I just told you. Okay?”
She mimes zipping her lips. “I’m a vault, I swear.”
You nod. “Good.”
Then you turn and start walking back inside, trying not to conspicuously check for Robby on your way to the nurse’s station. Santos is still at your heels, still wearing an amused grin as if your humiliation is her exact brand of humour.
“One more question,” she says, stopping beside you as you grab another tablet from the rack.
You sigh. “What?”
She leans in. “Did he say ‘good girl’ in the dream too?”
Your pulse jumps.
“Goodbye, Dr. Santos,” you say, turning quickly on your heel.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” she calls after you.
You ignore her, turning toward S16 to check on your chest pain patient.
“Hey, Mr. Mullens,” you say as you push back the curtain. “How are you feeling?”
The older man sits up a little. “I’m okay.”
“Good.” You pull up his chart on your tablet. “The pain hasn’t gotten any worse?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“That’s good to hear,” you say, quickly flicking through his lab results. “Your first labs look reassuring, but we’ll repeat them in a couple of hours just to be safe.”
You glance up, and he nods.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
You smile softly. “If the pain gets worse, or if you start having trouble breathing, press the call button.”
“Will do.”
You offer him one last nod before tucking your tablet under your arm and squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm as you exit the room.
The second you step into the hall, you take a deep breath, finally feeling like your lungs remember how to work. Like your pulse might finally be settling into something resembling a normal rhythm. Like maybe—just maybe—you can survive the day if you stay distracted with work long enough not to think about last night.
About his voice—low and rough in your ear, whispering something you can’t quite remember.
Except the way it made your spine arch.
Or the moment he’d braced his hands on either side of you, his head dipping just enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath before he—
“Doctor.”
You jerk slightly, heat rushing straight back into your face as the memory evaporates.
“Sorry—what?”
Whitaker, now standing in front of you, clears his throat. “Nothing. I just—you looked a little out of it.”
You shake your head and turn toward central. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a little off today.”
He nods, falling into step beside you. “Santos mentioned.”
Your head snaps toward him. “Santos mentioned what?”
“Just that you were out of it today,” he says quietly, staring at the floor.
You stare at him. “And?”
He shrugs, but it’s stiff. “And nothing.”
You stop at the nurse’s station and drop your tablet on the desk.
“I swear to God, Whitaker, if she told you—”
“She didn’t tell me anything,” he says, clearly panicked now. “I—I’ve got to go check on a patient.”
Then he’s gone, hurrying off toward the South hallway.
Fuck.
You told Santos barely ten minutes ago and she’s already told Whitaker?
So much for being a vault.
“What’d I tell you about swearin’ on God, little lady?” Dana asks, peering over her glasses from the other side of the desk.
You sigh, resting both forearms on the counter. “Sorry. Rough morning.”
“Tell me about it,” she says, glancing down at her tablet. “Sprained ankle in North Four wants an MRI and a wheelchair escort to the parking lot. Psych hold in B2 tried to climb out the bathroom window. Ogilvie ordered the wrong labs and blamed the computer. And someone—” she pauses, squinting toward where McKay is assessing a patient, “—keeps leaving half-empty coffee cups everywhere like we’re running a café instead of an emergency department.”
You huff a quiet laugh.
“And we’re only on hour two,” she adds, looking back up at you.
“Lucky us,” you mutter.
She sets her tablet down and slides her glasses off, folding them into the breast pocket of her scrubs.
“What’s with you, hm?” She leans in. “First you’re late, then you run out of trauma like you’re about to pass out. That’s not like you, kid.”
You shrug. “Just a little off today.”
She watches you for a second, her eyes narrowing just a fraction. She’s not stupid. She knows there’s more to it than that—but Dana isn’t the type to push.
She hums quietly.
“Alright,” she says. “I’ll pretend I believe that.”
You give her a small, appreciative smile as you push off the counter. “Love you, Dana.”
She just shakes her head, the corner of her mouth lifting as she glances back down at her tablet. “Yeah? Then check on North Four for me and see if you can get ‘em discharged.”
You nod. “North Four, on it.”
You start to turn away, then stop yourself and swivel back toward her.
“Hey—uh—is Abbot still here?” you ask.
“No, he left right after the MVC trauma,” she replies without looking up.
“Oh.”
“Why? You need him?” she asks. “I’m sure whatever you need, Dr. Robby can—”
“No,” you say quickly. “Nope. I’m good. Totally fine. Don’t need anything at all.”
You hug your tablet to your chest and start turning away again.
“Everything’s fine!”
You don’t dare look back. You just keep walking toward the North hall, completely missing the sceptical look Dana sends after you—and the confused look on Robby’s face as he glances between the two of you.
On your way to N4, you pull your phone out of your pocket and tap on Dr. Abbot’s contact, typing quickly.
So much for saying goodbye to your favourite resident.
Then you hit send and tuck your phone back into your pocket.
You’re not actually offended. Not really. This is the ER. People barely have time to finish a sentence, let alone say goodbye.
You’re just… nervous.
Nervous because Abbot thinks he knows something—and you need to figure out what that is before he decides to say something to Robby and make this whole situation infinitely worse.
You stop outside N4 and take a deep breath—your hundredth deep breath of the morning. You can do this. This is the easy part. The patients. The work. The familiarity of what you do every day. You just need to focus on this for the next twelve hours and definitely not the way you can still feel the weight of his hand on your hip, steady and certain, holding you exactly where he wanted you as he—
“Nope,” you tell yourself out loud. “Absolutely not. Focus.”
You shake your head as you step into the room and slide the curtain back, greeting the patient with your practiced mask of cool, calm, and collected. You manage to convince them they don’t need an MRI, since their ankle is only sprained, but you do get Ahmad to escort them out in a wheelchair—and now you owe him ten bucks and a bagel tomorrow morning.
Then you move on to the next patient. And the next.
The next few hours pass by in a blur of minor catastrophes. A migraine that melts away with the standard cocktail of Toradol, Reglan, and Benadryl. A Lego piece extracted from a three-year-old’s nose while Whitaker distracts the squirming patient. Three stitches in the eyebrow of a man who swears he doesn’t drink before 10AM—even though you can smell the alcohol on his breath. An overworked woman with chest pain that turns out to be a panic attack. A teenager with a swollen knee and a devastated look on his face when you suggest he might be benched for the rest of the season.
And at half past noon, you step into C9. Mid-thirties, right lower quadrant abdominal pain, nausea, mild fever—what you can already guess is appendicitis.
“Hi, Ms. Park, how are you feeling?” you ask, squirting a pump of sanitiser into your palm.
She winces. “Not so good.”
“It says here you’re having abdominal pain, nausea, and a bit of a fever,” you say. “When did that start?”
She nods. “Early this morning. Four, maybe.”
You set your tablet on the cart, grab a pair of gloves, and drag a stool beside the bed. “Mind if I take a look at your abdomen so I can get a better idea of what’s going on?”
She nods and tips her head back against the pillow, hands falling either side as you start palpating her lower abdomen. It doesn’t take more than a few presses for her to hiss and lift a hand, trying to push you away.
“Sorry,” she says, voice strained. “It hurts a lot.”
“That’s okay.” You scoot back and rise from the stool, peeling off your gloves. “I’m going to order a CT scan to take a better look, and we’ll give you something for the pain and something for the nausea in the meantime.”
You step around the bed and grab your tablet off the cart.
“A nurse will come in shortly to start fluids too,” you add. “You’re probably a little dehydrated if you haven’t been able to eat or drink much this morning.”
She looks at you with wide eyes. “I don’t know if I want a CT. Isn’t that a lot of radiation?”
“It’s a relatively small amount,” you reply evenly, “and it’s the best way for us to see what’s going on inside your abdomen. I can assure you, it’s very safe.”
“I try to avoid unnecessary radiation,” Ms. Park argues, shifting uncomfortably. “Is there another option?”
“Ultrasound can sometimes help, but it’s not always reliable in adults,” you say. “A CT scan will give us the clearest answer.”
She hesitates, eyes dropping to her lap. “Well—could I please speak to the doctor in charge?”
You open your mouth to reply when someone steps in beside you. Tall. Solid. Close enough to make your pulse skip and your stomach take a nosedive.
“You are,” Robby says, arms folded. “She’s the physician managing your care right now, so we’ll follow her recommendation.”
You step to the side, nearly tripping over nothing, clutching your tablet to your chest.
“Uh—Dr. Robby, this is Ms. Park,” you say quickly. “Thirty-five, right lower quadrant pain since early this morning. Nausea, no vomiting, low-grade fever at triage. Tenderness at McBurney’s point. I’ve ordered labs and a CT abdomen to rule out appendicitis.”
Robby nods once. “That sounds appropriate.”
Ms. Park sighs.
“Alright,” she says, a little more pleasantly now. “If that’s what you recommend.”
She doesn’t even look at you as she says it—her eyes stay fixed on Robby, softening in a way that makes you briefly consider poking her appendix again.
Not that you can blame her.
Your gaze flicks to Robby, wondering if he’s noticed the sudden change in demeanour—or the way she’s practically making heart eyes at him.
But he isn’t looking at Ms. Park.
He’s looking at you.
You clear your throat, quickly glancing back down at your tablet. “Uh—that’s good. Great. I’ll finish the orders now, and a nurse will be by shortly with some pain relief.”
Ms. Park gives you a brief nod before turning back to Robby with a smile that makes you want to roll your eyes. Robby just nods, squirts a pump of sanitiser into his hand, then steps out of the room—and you try not to follow too closely.
You slide the curtain shut before turning into the hall, half expecting Robby to be gone—but he isn’t. He’s still standing there, holding his tablet in one hand while the other scrubs at his jaw in that mildly anxious way it always does.
“Nice work in there,” he says without looking up.
Heat floods your face.
“Thanks,” you say with a tight smile. “And thanks for backing me up.”
He glances at you over the top of his glasses.
“You had it handled.”
You clutch your tablet to your chest. “Well—uh—thanks anyway.”
Then, before you completely lose the ability to function, you turn on your heel and start down the hall—but not fast enough to miss Dana’s voice.
“Careful, Robinavitch,” she says dryly. “You’re hovering.”
“I supervise,” Robby mutters.
Dana hums.
“Uh-huh. I’ll pretend I believe that.”
Hovering?
You tighten your grip on your tablet as you hurry down the South hall, pretending you know where you’re headed.
Robby wasn’t hovering. He was just doing his job. Right?
He hovers around every resident and med student.
It’s not like he was—
You shake your head.
No—Dana’s just teasing. It’s her thing. It’s practically her love language.
You stop short when you reach the end of the hall. Elevator ahead. Restrooms to your right.
Nowhere else to go.
“You okay, Doctor?” McKay asks, stepping out of the ladies’ room.
You blink. “Uh—yeah, I just—”
You’re not sure what excuse to use now—standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the elevator, white-knuckling your tablet like you’re one bad patient away from a psychotic break.
“You look like you’re buffering,” she says, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Why don’t you take a break?”
You shake your head. “I don’t need a break.”
Her brows lift as she gently places a hand on each of your shoulders, turning you back the other way. “Alright. Well, why don’t you go sit down and catch up on your charting?”
She starts guiding you slowly back up the hall.
“Charting,” you echo, a faint frown forming between your brows. “Yeah. That’s a good idea, actually. I haven’t done much all day.”
She nods. “See? I’m full of good ideas. And you are seriously concerning me today.”
You give her a look. “I’m fine. Everyone is just being—”
“Caring?” she offers.
You roll your eyes. “Overbearing.”
She shakes her head, laughing quietly as she steers you toward the nurse’s station.
“Here,” she says, pulling out a chair in front of a vacant computer. “Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am,” you mutter, dropping down at the desk.
She steps behind you, pushes the chair in, then leans over your shoulder.
“Good girl,” she murmurs.
Your entire spine locks.
“What was that?”
McKay straightens, already grinning.
“Charting,” she says lightly, tapping the monitor. “Try it.”
“But—you just—”
She laughs under her breath, already backing away.
“Finish your notes, doctor. You don’t want to have to stay late.”
Then she’s gone, shaking her head again as she disappears back toward triage.
You sit there for a few seconds longer than you should, staring after her while your brain desperately tries to reboot.
“Fucking Santos,” you mutter, finally turning back to the computer.
“You called,” Santos says, appearing on the other side of the desk.
Your eyes snap up. “You.”
Her brows lift. “Me?”
“Yes,” you snap. “You’ve been telling people.”
She tries—and fails—to suppress a smile.
“Not technically.” She leans forward, resting both forearms on the counter. “I only told Huckleberry, but McKay overheard. Can you blame me, though? It’s the most interesting thing to happen around here today.”
“Yes,” you hiss. “I can blame you. And I will blame you if—”
You stop, your eyes flicking past her to where Robby has just stepped out of C8, chart in hand and head bowed. Santos frowns for a second before following your gaze over her shoulder.
She snorts. “Oh my God. You can’t even function.”
“Who can’t function?” Whitaker asks, stepping up beside Santos.
You drop your head into your hands and sigh. “Great. They’re multiplying.”
Santos leans closer. “Hey, what’s the song that plays in your head whenever he walks past? Is it, like, SexyBack, or more… Like a Prayer?”
Whitaker snorts softly, his cheeks turning pink.
You glare at Santos. “Neither.”
“You’re right.” She nods thoughtfully. “I can practically hear the Careless Whisper sax playing in your mind right now.”
Your eyes go wide as you snatch a pen off the desk and lob it straight at her—but she dodges it easily.
“Wow,” she says, still laughing. “I’m on fire today.”
“Is that so, Dr. Santos?”
You recognise the voice before you even see him—because of course you do. You dream about that voice.
“That would mean you’ve caught up on all your charting and discharged your patient in North One?” Robby asks as he steps up beside Santos.
Her grin drops. “Uh—yeah. Actually, I was just on my way to North One.”
Her eyes slide back to you as she pushes away from the desk, lips pressed tight to keep herself from laughing.
“Dr. Whitaker,” Robby says. “Are you hovering?”
Hovering?
Whitaker glances up. “Oh—uh—no. I was just finishing some orders.”
“Good. You can finish them on your way to discharging South Twenty.”
Whitaker nods, barely even glancing at you as he grabs his tablet off the desk and turns toward the South hall.
Then Robby looks at you, holding up the pen you threw at Santos.
Your pulse stutters.
“Think you lost this,” he says, leaning forward to drop it on the desk.
“I threw it,” you blurt.
He hesitates, the corner of his mouth twitching before he turns away.
“I know.”
You watch him go until he turns a corner and disappears—then you look down at the pen.
“Fuck,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I need today to end.”
You slide the pen aside and force your attention back to the computer—to the cursor blinking patiently beside the single word you’d managed to write since sitting down.
Right.
Charting.
You manage exactly four more words before you’re interrupted again—something about your abdominal pain patient in Central Nine.
With a sigh, you push away from the desk, grab your tablet, and head for C9.
After confirming Ms. Park does indeed need an appendectomy and contacting Garcia for a surgical consult, Dana stops you in the hall to ask if Mr. Mullens can be discharged from South Sixteen. Then Javadi grabs you to present a calf laceration that you end up supervising while she sutures it, and after that Whitaker calls you in for a second opinion on a dizziness patient in North Five.
The hours start to blur together. You bounce from one room to another, just barely finishing your notes in between patients and med students and reviewing labs. By the time you finally make it back to the desk again, you’ve almost—almost—forgotten about why your heart is still beating a little too fast.
“Back to charting?” Princess asks.
You nod. “The never-ending task.”
She gives you the same quiet, speculative smile she gave you this morning.
“You seem off today,” she says.
“I’m fine,” you mutter. “Just tired.”
“And red,” she adds before turning away.
You frown, pressing a hand to your ridiculously hot cheek as you turn back toward the computer. If this keeps up, you’re more likely to end the shift as a patient than a doctor.
With a small sigh, you scoot your chair closer to the desk and pull the chart back up. Your eyes flick to the corner of the screen, to the little clock telling you that you only have a few hours left. A few hours to finish your charting, discharge a couple more patients, and keep avoiding Dr. Robby. Then you’re free. Then you’ve got at least eight solid hours to sort yourself out before you’re back here tomorrow.
Just as you position your fingers over the keyboard to start typing, your phone vibrates in your pocket—and your pulse jumps.
Abbot.
You quickly pull it out, swipe up, and open the notification.
Sorry. Too busy mourning the loss of my status as your favourite attending.
Your stomach drops.
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
You stare at the text for an unreasonable length of time—heart pounding, face burning, thoughts racing. Abbot definitely thinks he knows something. Something he shouldn’t know. Something he’s probably very wrong about. Something you need to figure out and shut down immediately.
Before he decides to say something to Robby about whatever it is he thinks he knows.
“Hey,” Dana says, stopping on the other side of the desk. “Thought you were working?”
You clear your throat. “Uh—yeah. Sorry. Got distracted.”
Her brows lift. “Distracted, huh? That’s exactly what we want in emergency medicine.”
Then she shakes her head and walks away.
You tuck your phone into your pocket and turn your attention back to the chart in front of you. The chart of exactly five words—the first of many unfinished charts standing in your way of going home on time.
And today is not a day you want to stay back.
Your fingers hover over the keyboard again, eyes flicking over the few words already written. It takes a minute—probably longer than it should—but eventually you remember how to do your job and start typing.
The ER fades into background noise—monitors beeping, nurses chatting, the rumble of beds rolling past—and for the first time all day, you feel focused. Steady. Until—
“Robby,” Dana calls, “can you come over here for a sec?”
Your fingers slow over the keys—and against your better judgment, you glance up.
“Mrs. Alvarez,” Robby says fondly. “What brings you here?”
Your brows draw together as you study the older woman sitting on the bed. She looks familiar, and Alvarez rings a bell, but you can’t quite place it.
“Perlah,” you say, without fully looking away from the woman. “Who’s Mrs. Alvarez?”
“She used to work here,” Perlah replies. “She was the night shift charge nurse before Lena. Partially retired a couple years ago, but she’s covered a shift or two since then.”
You tilt your head. “Oh.”
“She probably asked for Robby,” Princess chimes in. “She always had a soft spot for him.”
Perlah tries to muffle her laughter. “Katulad ng ibang kakilala natin.”
Princess laughs behind you, but the sound barely registers. You’re too captivated by the scene unfolding in front of you. The very normal, very professional interaction that is hardly out of place in an ER—yet for some reason, it feels like you’re watching an adult film made specifically for you.
Mrs. Alvarez’s bed is parked up against the wall—a sight that would normally remind you to look for patients to discharge, but right now that’s the furthest thing from your mind.
Robby has pulled a stool up beside her, leaning in while she talks, forearms resting loosely on the bed rail. He nods along as she explains what’s wrong, his expression soft, his posture relaxed. There’s absolutely nothing obscene about it—but your pulse is still racing.
There’s just something about the way he listens—really listens—that makes it difficult to look anywhere else. That makes it difficult not to envy Mrs. Alvarez right now.
“Let’s take a listen,” he says after a moment, voice low and steady.
Your stomach does a strange little flip.
It’s such a normal sentence. Completely harmless. Totally professional. You’ve probably said the same thing yourself at least three times today. But hearing it in that voice—calm, warm, just rough enough at the edges to carry across the department—does something deeply unhelpful to your concentration.
He slips the stethoscope from around his neck, the tubing sliding through his fingers with the kind of easy familiarity that only comes from years of doing the same motion over and over again. The movement is quick, practiced, almost absentminded.
Still, your eyes follow it.
They follow the way he leans forward, one hand bracing lightly against the mattress while the other presses the diaphragm of the stethoscope gently against Mrs. Alvarez’s chest.
“Deep breath for me.”
Your pulse stutters.
Because suddenly—unhelpfully, vividly—you remember exactly how those hands felt in the dream.
The same steady fingers. The same calm voice, dropped just a little lower when he leaned close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath near your ear.
His hand had been wrapped around your wrist—firm but careful—guiding your hand above your head and pinning it against the pillow.
“Hold still,” he murmured.
The memory is sharp enough that for a second you can almost feel it again. The weight of his body pressing into the space between your knees, the quiet authority in his voice when he spoke, the way his fingers tightened against your skin just enough to keep you right where he wanted you.
Your hands had curled into the bed sheets as his lips traced the line of your jaw, his voice dropping again—softer now, almost thoughtful.
“Look at me.”
Your breath had caught in your throat when you did.
Because he was watching you the same way he watches patients—calm, focused, completely absorbed—except the attention felt different in the dream. Slower. Heavier. Like he was studying every reaction you gave him and deciding exactly how much more you could handle.
Your pulse had started racing the second his gaze dropped to your mouth.
It wasn’t subtle.
Just a brief shift of his eyes—thoughtful, almost curious—but the heat that followed it made your stomach tighten.
His thumb found its way back to your jaw, tracing slowly along the curve of it as if he were considering something. Following the line of your chin as he tipped your head back just slightly beneath his hand.
You hadn’t realised you’d stopped breathing until his fingers stilled.
“Breathe,” he said quietly.
The word brushed over your lips.
You remember the way your chest rose when you obeyed him—slow, unsteady—and the way his gaze followed the movement before drifting back to your mouth again.
God.
The corner of his mouth had lifted slightly then, like he’d noticed exactly what he was doing to you.
Like he wasn’t in any hurry to stop.
His hand slid from your jaw to the side of your throat, fingers warm against your skin, thumb resting just beneath your chin as if he were holding you there—not tightly, just enough that you stayed exactly where he wanted you.
And the entire time he watched you with that same quiet concentration.
Like this was just another thing he was very, very good at.
“Hey,” Santos says, appearing beside the desk. “Your abdominal pain in C9 just went upstairs.”
You blink at her. “Already?”
She shrugs. “Garcia signed off.”
You nod once, shifting awkwardly in your chair as you turn back toward the computer, trying very hard to ignore the heat pooling low in your belly.
“You good?” Santos asks, as if you haven’t been asked that enough today.
You clear your throat, eyes flicking briefly back to Robby and Mrs. Alvarez. “Yeah. Fine.”
She follows your gaze, the corner of her mouth twitching.
“Wow,” she says. “You’re down bad.”
You glare at her. “I’m charting.”
“You’re drooling.”
You quickly lift a hand to your mouth, swiping at the corner.
Santos grins. “Well, it depends who you’re asking, because if you ask—”
“Santos,” you warn.
She laughs. “Come on. It’s just a joke.”
“Isang biro?” Princess says, smiling. “Walang nakakatawa sa paraan ng pagtitig niya kay Robby.”
Your stomach drops.
You might not understand Tagalog, but you sure as hell know what that last word was.
“Santos,” you say, slowly rising from your chair. “How many people have you told?”
She presses her lips together sheepishly. “Again, technically? Just Huckleberry.”
“And—and I haven’t told anyone,” Whitaker adds quickly.
“Ano ang pinag-uusapan nila?” Perlah says behind you.
Princess shrugs. “May alam lang na sikreto si Santos.”
Your eyes widen. “Santos, I swear—”
“Relax,” she says. “They’re not talking about the dream. They were talking about your staring.”
Princess steps forward. “A dream? What dream?”
You bury your face in your hands. “Oh my God.”
“Wait,” Perlah says. “Did she have a dream about—”
Santos smirks. “Yep.”
“Oh,” Princess gasps. “That’s why she’s been so weird today.”
Perlah snorts.
Princess mutters something else in Tagalog that makes them all laugh again.
“Oh my God, Santos!” you say again, louder this time. “I’m just trying to get through the day without my attending finding out I had a sex dream about him and you’re telling the entire emergency department?”
Silence.
Perlah is staring at you.
Princess is staring at you.
Whitaker looks like someone has just pulled the fire alarm inside his head.
And Santos—
Santos is very carefully not looking at you anymore.
“What?” you snap. “No more jokes?”
No one answers.
Instead, Princess’s eyes flick slowly past your shoulder.
Whitaker clears his throat.
Santos presses her lips together, the corners twitching like she’s fighting for her life not to laugh.
“What?” you repeat, glancing over your shoulder.
And there he is.
Your attending—standing just a few feet from the nurse’s station, tablet still in one hand, glasses sliding slightly down his nose as he looks at you over the top of them.
Your stomach drops so violently it feels like all your organs have fallen out of your body.
He clears his throat.
Once.
“Alright,” he says evenly. “Back to work.”
That’s all it takes.
Perlah and Princess busy themselves on the other side of the nurse’s station.
Whitaker rushes off toward triage.
Santos lingers just long enough to give you a look that promises she will never let this go before she slips away too.
And then it’s just you.
And him.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Just adjusts the tablet in his hand, pulls his glasses off, folds them into the pocket of his scrubs, and turns away.
And as he steps away, you could almost swear you see the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Almost as if he’s fighting a smile.
But that would be ridiculous, right?
It takes an embarrassingly long time for you to remember how to move.
How to function.
You can feel Perlah and Princess watching you. Waiting for you to do something other than stare at the spot your attending had been standing when you announced your sex dream about him to the entire department.
God.
This has to be some kind of HR violation.
Robby is probably on his way to find Dana right now so she can tell you to go upstairs and talk to someone about misconduct. If you’re not fired, you’ll be transferred.
Or worse—night shift.
You gasp and fumble for your phone, pulling it out of your pocket.
Abbot's message thread is already open when you swipe up and start typing.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Then you hit send and tuck your phone away again.
It’s a ridiculous thought, but maybe if you can talk to Abbot and explain that this was all just one giant misunderstanding, maybe he can convince Robby not to hate you for it. Maybe he can convince Robby to let you finish your residency at PTMC without it being painfully awkward for both of you.
Because as funny as this is to Santos and the nurses, you’re not so sure Robby will see it that way.
Not when you’ve let it affect your work.
Not when you just embarrassed him—and yourself—in front of the entire emergency department.
You draw in a slow breath and grab your tablet off the desk.
All you can do now is your job.
All you can do for the next hour is avoid Robby and pray Abbot will hear you out when he comes back on shift.
You turn deliberately toward the North hallway and pull up the lab results for Whitaker’s dizziness patient, keeping your eyes fixed on your tablet as you walk.
The department hums around you like it always does—monitors beeping, beds rolling past, nurses calling out vitals—but you can still feel eyes on you. Whether it’s the nurses or the med students, or even a patient who overheard your outburst, you know you’re being watched.
Whispered about, probably.
But if you don’t look up, it doesn’t count. Right?
By the time you circle back to central, Mrs. Alvarez has already been discharged, which you take as a small mercy. Then you duck into South Fifteen to check on a teenager with a sprained ankle who is mostly interested in whether he can still play soccer this weekend. After that it’s a quick review of labs for a chest pain patient in Central Ten—normal troponins, thank God—and a brief stop at the nurse’s station to sign off on discharge instructions Dana has already printed.
None of it requires you to look up very much.
Which is ideal.
You spend the next half hour moving steadily from room to room—listening to a set of lungs for a persistent cough in North Three, answering a worried daughter’s questions about her father’s blood pressure in South Twenty-Two, and checking a set of repeat vitals on a dehydration case Princess flagged earlier. Every task is perfectly ordinary. Completely routine.
And through all of it, you make a very conscious effort not to look for your attending.
Not that you’re avoiding him.
Obviously.
You’re just… busy.
You still see him, though—across the hall, talking to patients, nodding along while med students present. He doesn’t look up. Never looks at you. Just keeps walking, keeps working, keeps nodding.
Like nothing happened.
And somehow, that’s worse.
You’re on your way back from dropping discharge paperwork at the front desk—walking a little slower than you should as you wonder how long until the end of your shift—when McKay calls out from triage.
“Hey, you busy?”
You stop mid-step. “Always. What’s up?”
“Can you grab me a suture kit?” she asks. “I’m out in here.”
“Of course. What size?”
“Four-oh nylon. Whatever's closest.”
You nod. “On it.”
“And maybe send a med student to grab more from supply,” she calls as you walk away.
You don’t reply. You just duck into Trauma One—thankfully empty—grab a kit, then call out to Ogilvie on your way back, telling him to go get more suture kits for triage as soon as he’s free. You don’t even wait for him to answer, but you do hear him turn to a nurse and ask where supply is.
You wedge your tablet under one arm as you head back toward the triage bay. With the kit held against your chest, you start peeling back the sterile packaging—since you know McKay’s already halfway through cleaning whatever it is she needs to suture up.
You’re just being helpful.
But the plastic seam is stubborn, and just as you turn into the bay the wrapper gives with a jerked tear—and the scalpel slides free.
You shift to catch it, but the blade grazes the inside of your upper arm before you can pull away.
“Oh—shit.”
It’s not dramatic. Just a sharp sting at first, and for a second you assume it’s nothing more than a scratch.
Until the warmth starts to trickle down your arm and drip from your elbow.
“Damn,” you sigh, watching a small droplet of blood hit the floor.
McKay glances up, eyes going wide. “What the hell happened?”
She quickly takes everything out of your hands, and you lift your arm to inspect the damage.
“Scalpel slipped.”
McKay winces. “That’s going to need stitches.”
Ignoring the confused patient still sitting in the triage chair, she grabs a wad of gauze off the cart and presses it against your arm.
“Hold this,” she says. “I’ll go get someone to take over here, then we can—”
“It’s alright,” a familiar voice says from somewhere behind you. “I’ll deal with this.”
Your stomach drops.
“Oh.” McKay glances over your shoulder, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Thanks, Dr. Robby.”
Fuck.
You turn slowly, one hand still clamped over the gauze on your arm.
He’s already so close—barely half a step away—and you have to tip your head back to look up at him.
“Let me see,” he says, voice low.
You hold your arm out obediently.
His fingers brush yours as he peels back the gauze, and your pulse jumps.
“Alright.” He nods once, something indistinguishable flickering across his face. “That needs stitches.”
Before you can respond, his hand closes lightly around your wrist, guiding your arm back toward your side as he turns you with him.
“Come with me.”
The touch is brief, professional—but when his hand shifts to the small of your back to steer you out of triage, the warmth of it makes your heart stutter out of rhythm.
“Dana,” he calls, walking quickly through central. “What’s open?”
Dana looks up from the desk just as the two of you pass. Her gaze flicks from the gauze on your arm to Robby’s hand still resting lightly at your back, and something sharp and knowing slides into her expression immediately.
“Central Eleven just got cleaned,” she says.
Robby nods once. “Thanks.”
Dana’s brows lift just a fraction as she watches the two of you step into the room, like she’s just connected several very interesting dots.
You move automatically toward the bed, trying not to feel disappointed when Robby’s hand leaves your back. He shuts the doors on both sides of the room, then slides the curtain closed—and every move makes your heart rate climb higher.
“Lay back,” he says.
Your whole body flushes with heat as you adjust yourself on the exam bed, trying desperately not to think about the other circumstances in which he might give you that instruction.
He rolls the stool beside the bed and reaches for your arm, turning it out gently.
His fingers are warm as he removes the gauze.
You try not to think too hard about his fingers.
“It’s a clean cut, at least,” he says after a second.
You nod. “Sharp blade.”
Like he didn’t already know that.
He releases your arm long enough to pull on a pair of gloves and gather what he needs from the tray beside the bed. You watch him move around the room with that same quiet efficiency that has been ruining your concentration all day—steady hands, calm voice, not a hint of hurry even though the department outside the door is probably chaos.
“Come a little closer,” he says, almost absentmindedly—as if he doesn’t know what saying something like that is going to do to you.
You shift against the mattress while he lifts your arm again, angling it under the exam light.
He’s so close now you can hardly breathe. You can feel his breath against your cheek, his warmth bleeding through the thin fabric of your scrubs, every touch careful as he starts cleaning the cut.
The antiseptic stings enough to make you tense.
“Easy,” he murmurs, steadying your arm. “It’s not that bad.”
“I’m aware,” you say quickly. “I do actually work here.”
“Yes,” he says mildly. “I’m aware of that too.”
You risk a glance at him then—and immediately regret it.
He’s standing now, leaning close enough that you could count every fleck of grey in his beard. Close enough to notice the way his glasses have slid slightly down his nose while he concentrates on the wound. His fingers move with careful precision as he prepares the needle driver, completely focused.
Completely calm.
Completely unaware that your brain is still stuck somewhere between the nurse’s station and a very inappropriate dream.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
Your stomach flips—and when you squeeze your eyes shut, that exact moment from your dream flashes through your mind again.
The lidocaine burns for a second when he injects it, and you suck in a breath before you can stop yourself.
“Breathe,” he says automatically.
God.
If he could stop with the direct quotes from your dream, maybe you would actually be able to breathe.
You clear your throat, staring stubbornly at the wall now while he begins the first stitch.
“Try to relax,” he adds quietly.
You let out a short, incredulous laugh. “I’m trying.”
His hands pause for the briefest moment.
Then he glances up at you over the rim of his glasses.
“You of all people should know better than to open a suture kit while walking.”
You let out a small, embarrassed breath and shift slightly on the bed while he works, trying not to react every time the needle passes neatly through the edge of the cut.
“Sorry,” you mutter. “It’s been a weird day.”
“Mhm.”
The sound is absentminded, the same one he makes when a patient is explaining symptoms he already understands. His attention stays on your arm while he ties the knot and reaches for the next stitch, movements calm and precise, like this is the most ordinary thing in the world.
“You seemed a little distracted earlier,” he adds after a moment.
Your stomach tightens.
“Busy department.”
He hums again as he adjusts your arm slightly.
“Not exactly what I meant.”
You stare at the ceiling again, your pulse racing dangerously fast.
“It’s not unusual, you know,” he says after a moment, his voice calm and thoughtful as he works. “There’s actually quite a lot of research on it. In high-stress environments people’s subconscious tends to latch onto someone they admire rather than… straightforward attraction. It’s a way of organizing all that pressure—long hours, constant adrenaline, the need to trust the people around you.”
He pauses briefly to adjust the stitch.
You feel like you’re about to throw up.
“Hospitals are particularly good at creating that kind of dynamic,” he goes on. “Everyone’s exhausted, everyone’s relying on each other, and if there happens to be someone who seems steady in the middle of all that—someone people look to when things go wrong—it’s very easy for admiration to blur into something else.”
Another small pause, the thread tightening neatly under his fingers.
“It’s rarely intentional,” he adds, quieter now. “Most of the time the person experiencing it doesn’t even realise what their brain is doing.”
You finally look at him. His face is barely inches from yours, close enough that you can see the faint crease between his brows while he concentrates on the last stitch, all of his attention focused on closing the cut.
“Wait,” you say slowly. “So… I—I’m not fired?”
His hands still for the briefest moment before he glances at you, genuine confusion flickering across his face.
“Fired?”
You swallow. “For… you know. The thing I said. Out there. To the entire department.”
He huffs a small laugh—barely a breath.
“Why would you be fired?” he says mildly. “Embarrassing yourself in front of the nurses isn’t exactly grounds for termination.”
Your face burns.
He sets the needle driver down and reaches for the scissors, his tone settling back into that same calm, matter-of-fact rhythm.
“You shouldn’t have let it distract you from your work, though,” he continues. “That’s the only part I was concerned about. But one off day doesn’t suddenly erase an otherwise solid record.”
You stare at him.
“Concerned?”
“Mhm.”
He snips the suture, then reaches to adjust your arm slightly under the light, examining his work.
“First you were late,” he says, almost absently. “You were flustered during the chest tube. You’ve been avoiding traumas all day—” His eyes meet yours briefly. “And your attending. You’ve barely caught up on your charting, and you’ve unintentionally encouraged the nurses’ gossiping.”
Your stomach drops.
“Not to mention,” he adds, just a little drier now, “the pen you threw at Dr. Santos for—what? Teasing you, I presume.”
Your brain short-circuits.
Because suddenly, Dana’s voice echoes through your mind.
Careful, Robinavitch. You’re hovering.
Hovering?
Like the way he’d stood so close while you placed that chest tube. The way his hand had settled at your back when he guided you out of triage.
Why was he even there to begin with?
Santos’ voice cuts through your mind next.
I swear he’s got a soft spot for you.
I’m pretty sure he’d go there if you asked.
And suddenly the entire day looks… different.
Not like an attending keeping an eye on his resident.
Like a man trying very hard not to make it obvious he was paying attention to you.
Robby smooths the edge of the dressing over the sutured cut, pressing it down carefully as he glances back up at you.
“Keep that dry for the next—”
And that’s the moment your brain finally catches up.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, your hand shoots out and grabs the front of his scrubs, fingers bunching the fabric at his chest as you pull him the few inches closer.
Then you kiss him.
It’s not graceful.
It’s barely even planned.
Just a quick, impulsive press of your mouth against his—warm and startled and over almost as soon as it begins.
For half a second, he doesn’t move at all.
“Oh—fuck. I—”
You drop his shirt like it’s suddenly on fire and lean back on the bed, horrified.
“I’m so sorry,” you blurt. “I don’t know why I just—”
The apology dies halfway through, because Robby hasn’t stepped away.
He hasn’t leapt back, shocked or offended. He’s just… there.
Where he was when you grabbed him—close enough that you can still feel his warmth, with one hand resting lightly near your arm where he’d been finishing the dressing. For a second he simply watches you, studying your face with the same quiet concentration he uses when he’s working through a diagnosis, like he’s trying to decide whether the last thirty seconds actually happened.
Your pulse is hammering.
“I shouldn’t have—” you try again.
His hand lifts.
The movement is slow, deliberate, and before you can finish your sentence his thumb and forefinger settle lightly around your chin, tilting your face upward just enough that you have to look at him.
Your breath catches.
He hesitates for the briefest moment, his gaze moving across your face as if he’s still weighing the decision.
Then he leans in.
The first contact is firmer than you expect—his mouth warm and solid against yours, the faint scrape of his beard against your skin as he adjusts the angle. His glasses are still on, the frame nudging the bridge of your nose when he shifts closer. His nose bumps yours before he tilts his head, finding a better position.
For a second it’s almost restrained.
Then it isn’t.
His grip on your chin tightens a fraction as he deepens the kiss, tipping your head back against the pillow while he leans over you. The change is sudden enough that your hands catch the front of his scrubs again without thinking. The fabric bunches in your fingers as he moves closer, the pressure of his mouth shifting—slower now but more certain, like he’s stopped pretending he’s about to pull away.
The beard you’d been trying not to notice all day brushes your cheek again when he moves, softer than you expected, and when his teeth graze your lower lip for half a second the sound that escapes you is embarrassingly honest.
He exhales quietly through his nose against your skin.
Not stopping.
If anything, the opposite.
His free hand comes down beside your shoulder on the mattress to brace himself as he leans over you, the movement tilting your head back further while his mouth finds yours again—deeper this time, the rhythm of it suddenly practiced enough to make your stomach flip.
Like this is something he hasn’t done in a while.
But definitely knows how to do.
And the entire time his thumb stays lightly under your chin, holding you exactly where he wants you while he kisses you like he’s still trying to decide whether this is a mistake—and losing that argument by the second.
You barely notice when he shifts closer again, the movement subtle but unmistakable, his hand tightening slightly against the mattress beside you as if he’s about to lean in further, about to let himself forget the door, the department, the fact that this is an exam room in the middle of a shift—
The curtain whips open.
“Been looking for you, Robinavitch—”
Abbot stops dead.
For half a second no one moves.
You’re still on the bed, Robby bent over you, your hands fisted in the front of his scrubs while his hand is still braced beside your shoulder.
Abbot’s gaze flicks from your grip on Robby’s shirt, to Robby’s face, to the dressing he’d just placed on your arm.
His eyebrows climb slowly toward his hairline.
“Well,” he says after a beat. “I wish I could say I'm surprised, but…”
Robby straightens immediately.
Not panicked. Not flustered.
Just very, very still for a second before he adjusts his glasses and steps back from the bed like he’d simply been finishing a routine procedure.
“Jack,” he says evenly.
Abbot folds his arms, the corner of his mouth already curling upward.
“Michael.”
The silence stretches just long enough for the humiliation to fully settle in.
Abbot glances at you again, then back at Robby.
“Should I come back later,” he asks mildly, “or are you two… just about done here?”
The heat that floods your face is instantaneous, and you slide off the bed so fast you nearly fall.
“Don’t get it wet for twenty-four hours, stitches out in a week unless there’s redness, swelling, drainage, fever—I know the drill,” you ramble, slowly backing toward the door.
Robby has already turned back to the tray, calmly disposing of the suture needle like none of this is remotely unusual. Only the faint redness creeping up the back of his neck gives him away.
Abbot doesn’t move. He just stands there, arms folded, with a look of deep theatrical satisfaction on his face.
“This,” he says pleasantly, “is exactly what I meant, by the way.”
Your stomach drops.
“What?”
His brows lift.
“Your text.”
Your eyes widen.
Abbot tilts his head, studying you for a moment before glancing toward Robby again.
“I mean, honestly,” he adds. “I leave you two alone for what—ten hours?”
“What day shift does is none of your business, Dr. Abbot,” you mutter, trying to slip past him.
Abbot’s mouth twitches.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “It seems very much like my business now.”
You snort, the sound escaping before you can stop it.
“Don’t be jealous,” you say, glancing over your shoulder as you step out the door. “He’s still your boyfriend.”
Behind him, Robby drops the gauze into the bin and gives a quiet shake of his head, laughing softly despite himself.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs.
Abbot’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Your girl, huh?”
Robby scrubs a hand over his beard and turns away.
“Shut up.”
You’re not sure you were supposed to hear that last bit—but it makes your heart race anyway.
The second you step into the hallway, the emergency department crashes back in around you—monitors beeping, nurses calling for labs, a stretcher rattling past that you have to dodge. Almost like the last fifteen minutes never happened at all.
“Hey, Doc,” Princess calls from the nurse’s station. “North Five, dizziness patient’s daughter is looking for a doctor, but Whitaker’s stuck in chairs.”
“And Javadi needs you in South Seventeen,” Perlah adds. “Something about a rash.”
“Oh—and imaging’s back on your sprained ankle kid,” Santos says. “He’s asking when he can get out of here.”
You nod. “Uh—right. Okay, yeah. I’ll just—”
“Hey,” Dana cuts in, appearing beside you. “You okay? How’s the arm?”
You blink down at the fresh dressing like you’d almost forgotten about it.
“Oh. Yeah. It’s fine.”
She studies it for a second before her gaze drifts up to your face—and her brow lifts.
“Uh-huh,” she says slowly.
You frown. “What?”
“Nothing,” she says lightly, starting to walk away. “Just thought that looked like beard burn.”
She gives a small shrug, then glances back over the top of her glasses.
“But I know my doctors are far too professional for that.”
Your entire face goes hot.
You open your mouth—then close it again, because there is absolutely nothing you can say to that without making it worse.
Santos leans across the desk at the nurse’s station, squinting at your face.
synopsisRobby wants to take you- his beautiful wife- on a romantic get away, he forgets about the knuckleheads that means leaving at home
warningskids, robby is a dad in this, you are a mom, language, smut-ish (pentration) hospital stuff, bone breaking etc
author notewasn't i so original with the names? my genius frightens even me sometimes. this is a short little thing I just had in my head and really wanted to write. if you're not into kid fics i apologise, really this was just an excuse to write something featuring a version of john carter again. I have lots and lots and lots of pitt drafts and thank you for requests!! I am slowly getting through them:)
the pitt masterlist. another Robby fic!
The smell of wood and coffee drifted to you as Robby nudged open the door with his boot, grunting slightly at the weight of the bags he carried that you'd offered to help him with but hadn't even got a reply as Robby slung one under arm, taking the other two in hand and walking past you with a smirk.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
The cabin was small and hidden away from the city. It was miles away from the hospital and any roads to hide the noise of wailing sirens.
Peace. That's what this getaway was about, taking you somewhere the two of you could live as a young couple, un-disturbed. It was about the only thing that had gotten Robby through the last tough weeks of work. All the blood and death and bathroom breaks of locking himself in stools to silently cry was all so he could come home to you and his family in one piece.
Now, he could shred every responsibility that didn't include being your husband and that wasn't a responsibility. More an honour.
Robby looked down at you with a smile, expecting to see one back. Instead, you were looking down at your phone. “Sweetheart, what are you doing?”
“I'm just checking in with the kids.”
He groaned and grabbed your phone, throwing it ahead into the cabin. It landed somewhere soft on the rug. “They'll be fine, they're what? Twenty something?”
You laughed and stepped closer into his circle of heat, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and drawing yourself closer. “Look at you, pretending not to know your kids ages.”
Robby dropped the bags, snapping his arms around your waist and holding you up. “What can I say? I'm loving... attentive...”
His beard scratched up and down your neck as he littered slow kisses there.
“Should I carry you through the doorway? Like when we were married?” Robby wasn't exactly encouraged by the idea with your laughter shaking in your chest.
“I don't think your back can handle that, old man.”
His brows rose up, tongue poking the inside of his cheek and you bit back a smirk. He couldn't help but think how sexy you looked, even after kids and marriage you never failed to stop looking beautiful.
And Robby had never found being called old sexier.
“Well,” he grunted, lifting you further till your toes were scraping the floor. “How about you go up to that bedroom and I show you just what this old man can do?”
“Dad's gonna kill me... Dad's gonna kill me.”
Noah watched his brother, John, pace the small hospital room. For such a tiny pace he was making good job at trekking miles. “Relax, at least we're in a hospital,” he said. “That way they can shock you back to life.”
“So he can kill me all over again!” John hit his forehead with the palm of his hand, the smack bouncing around the walls.
Their sister, Casey, laughed on the bed.
She was taking all this surprisingly well considering it was her arm broken and limply lying in her lap.
The brothers looked to her as if remembering she was there. Like she wasn't the reason they were there. Well- technically it was John's fault. Because he was older and he was supposed to be looking after Casey. He should have been the one watching her on the trampoline. Should have seen how she fell on her arm and a sickening crack followed.
To her credit, Casey didn't cry.
Instead she let out a string of curse words that would make a sailor shudder.
Noah didn't know which is dad would hate more: the cast she'll inevitably be put in or the words she'd some how picked up.
“How're you feeling?” John asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Hungry,” she said, pulling out the puppy dog eyes and pout that only a six year old could do effectively.
“Can't eat I'm afraid, not till we've got that arm looked at.”
“Will I need stitches?”
Noah let out one loud, ha! “Worse!”
Casey shrieked.
“Noah!” John lectured.
“What? I'm being honest! Honestly is the best policy.”
“Not when it scares her!”
“I'm not scared,” said Casey, momentarily misplacing her broken arm as she tried to flail them around only to end up teary eyed at the pain.
John shuffled closer to her side in panic, throwing an arm around her shoulder and comforting her. “It's okay, oh, it's okay.”
“I want daddy!”
John and Noah looked at each other, gulping.
It had been a total of four hours. Four hours they'd been gone and already things had gone wrong! The drive up to their cabin alone was five so they'd maybe only had three hours of relaxation. That was enough, right?
For months their dad had drilled it into them he was taking their mother away for an anniversary he had to work three months ago. This was the only time off together your schedules could work out. After all, PCMT didn't run steady without the attending and nurse.
We'll be gone three days, their dad told them, sitting the two brothers a year apart down. Carter will be busy at Presby so I need you two to look after Casey, alright? John you're eighteen, you're in charge.
Noah had never been happier to be younger.
It was all amusing to him really, besides the fact his sister was hurt- obviously.
“I want daddy too,” Noah laughed.
John paled.
Suddenly the door flew open and just when Noah thought it might have been a doctor they'd never seen, or Abbot or Dana, it only got worse.
Carter rushed in, white lab coat billowing a second behind him. Their dad thought it was tacky and dumb (med students haven't worn them since the 90s, he'd said) but their mom thought Carter looked handsome so- the doting mommy's boy he was- Carter always wore it.
Noah rolled his eyes.
“Hey, hey, what's going on here?” he rushed over to Casey, pressing a kiss to her forehead and petting down her hair. “You okay? She okay?”
“She's fine,” said John, standing from the bed.
“My arm hurts,” whined Casey.
“I'll give you ten bucks to say nothing,” said John.
Casey made a dramatic move in holding in her words.
John should have done it for five.
Carter looked around the room like he was wholly confused even if he was in his second year of med school in Presby and was accustom to the look of a hospital room. “Where's her chart? Has she been looked at? Has Dana been in?”
“No, I got us in on the down low,” said Noah, standing from his chair.
Carter hovered over the computer, trying to find a way to log in that didn't mean hacking into the system. “The down low?”
John reached his other side. “I bribed Donnie to get us a room.”
“Why would you do that?”
“So they don't call mom and dad!”
“They're not here?” Carter asked, a furrow between his brows.
“No, they're up at the cabin,” said John.
“Their romantic getaway, you remember that?” asked Noah.
Carter's expression dropped. “That was today?”
“Yeah that was today, where have you been living?” said Noah, knowing his brother lived in the second biggest room of the house and had been pretty much vacant from it with his studies. Noah had took to invading the room at any chance.
John rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “We called you cause... you know, you're a doctor.”
“Well, no, I'm a med student,” said Carter, though briefly the word 'doctor' had gone to his head. And ego.
“But you're so good at it,” encouraged Noah, thumping their eldest brother on the chest and fixing his crooked stethoscope. “What better time will you have to put your skills to good use then to help our sister?”
The three looked back to Casey who was watching them, blinking.
“How's your pain on a scale of one to ten, Casey? One being no pain at all, ten being horrible, terrible, worst pain of your life?” asked Carter, keeping his voice as light and brotherly as possible.
Casey looked to John.
He sighed. “You can talk, Casey.”
She thought about it for a second. “A seven?”
Carter cursed under his breath.
John and Noah shared a look, knowing who to blame Casey's exclamations on. “You can order labs,” said John.
“Yeah, get her a scan or something,” added Noah.
Carter laughed them off. “I can't, I don't work here!”
John put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Of course you can, you're a Robinavitch.”
“Hey,” said Santos, approaching the nurses station as if in a daze. “I'm like totally not crazy and I totally don't miss the guy or anything but I swear I just saw a younger version of Robby walk in here.”
“What?” Javadi laughed.
Whitaker nodded along, as if he'd expected it. “You must really miss the guy, huh?”
Santos rolled her eyes. “No, Jesus that's not it. I just mean Robby's literal doppelganger just walked in, white lab coat and all.”
Dana didn't make it a habit to listen into gossip... sometimes she couldn't help it. She lingered at the nurses counter, listening with one ear to everything else around her in case there was an actual emergency.
“Really, where?” Javadi asked.
“Hey! You three!” Dana called, snapping her fingers as she approached the three, peering at them over her glasses. “We got beds to empty, people to see, let's move it!”
The three were resigned to do their job, as so many usually were, but Dana watched them go, ensuring they were all going to three separate locations but not before she caught Trinity leaning into Javadi, whispering in her ear an exam room where this mysterious young Robby was hid in.
Dana wondered but not for long as she found the room with not one, not two but four Robinavitch children inside.
A grin formed. It was always good to see them, especially since she'd been seeing them since they were babies, having held each one of them in her arms and held each of their hands as they started to walk. Sometimes they still needed the hand.
Carter, John and Noah's backs were to the door, the three standing over the bed in clear thought if their folded arms and tense backs were anything to go by, so like their father they were.
Casey Robinavitch, the youngest of the set, was first to spot her, smiling wide. “D! D!”
“Well look what the cat dragged in!” she celebrated.
Casey did what she could to move but Dana was there at her side, embracing her and helping her back down onto the bed.
The boys were less enthusaticaly.
“Hey, Dana,” John said quietly.
Carter was by far his father's son in looks. The same sloped nose and brown eyes. Dressed up as a doctor he looked even more the part. It freaked Dana sometimes, like having the ghost of young and cocky Michael Robinavitch hovering around the place.
John and Carter- still alike their father- had a bit more of you in them. In their smile and eyes. Casey too.
“What the hell's going on here, you miss me that much you invaded the place, huh?” she asked though she could tell by all three of the boys looking worried and Casey sitting still that there was some reason to have been here.
“It looks like Casey broke her arm,” said Carter, brushing back his hair. “A simple Distal Radius fracture.”
“You got all that without a scan? Presby must be teaching you something,” she teased.
Carter blushed.
Dana cast her gaze to the quiet John and Noah. “Which one of you supposed to be looking after my girl here anyway?”
They both pointed at each other.
Dana shook her head and rolled her eyes before focusing ahead to Casey. “Okay, honey, you hungry? I keep a stash of candy in my draw, you want a piece?”
She nodded enthusaticaly.
“But she'll need surgery for her arm, she can't eat,” said Carter.
“Even I knew that,” added John.
“Yeah well the OR's a little backed up,” said Dana with a pat to Casey's knee. She stood up and drew the curtain around them, closing them in. “We had an accident and there's a long que.”
She didn't want to get in the specifics of crash that involved all the OR's time but Carter approached her.
“Anything I can do?” he asked.
Dana smiled. She had to say, it was good to see the kids that were made from her favourite attending and nurse. “No, kid. You stay here with your family, I'll handle everything.”
“What's with the curtain?” asked Noah.
“Are we grounded?”
“You're all a bit of a celebrity around here, the new residents and med students don't know you guys exist, heck they only realised your parents were married after Huckleberry caught them in the lounge.”
“Ew,” said John.
“Caught them what?” asked Casey, full of child like innocence.
The boys looked to Dana in amusement.
“Doing things adults shouldn't do at work,” she said.
Casey wasn't satisfied. “Like what?”
“You can ask them when they get here.”
“You're not gonna call them, are you?” asked John, adam's apple moving in his swallow.
“Have to kid, sorry! I'll get Princess to take you to X-ray, sound good?” she asked Casey, knowing Princess was her favourite (other than herself of course) because she was better at braiding than both her parents.
John fell into his seat, hunched over. In comfort, Carter clamped a hand on his shoulder.
Dana left the family, shaking her head and trying to hide her smile. She'd pushed you and Robby to go away, trusting that the three boys you held in such high esteem would handle looking over one small girl who really wasn't that much trouble.
She hated to be proved wrong.
Hated even more she had to interrupt the two of you after she'd had to watch the sultry looks passed between the two of you and stop the two of you from disappearing together into rare empty beds and store rooms.
Dana called you first, shaking her head while she did.
“Robby!”
He groaned into your neck, his arms caging in your head as he moved in and out of you with a rapid pace. Sweat covered both your bodies from the long-awaited sex he planned to drag out. “My god,” he groaned.
Your nails scratched down his back leaving angry welts in your place. He licked lazily at your neck, moaning and groaning at the taste.
The both of you were as loud as you liked, without kids barging in to say they couldn't find the remote or wanting to know what was for dinner. The cabin stood alone with only trees as its companion so you could be as loud as you liked.
He'd had you coming on his mouth and fingers- then once more for luck- before he finally found himself home in you and that was how it felt, coming home.
Your back arched into him as his hips met yours. “Michael... Michael...”
You could feel him grin into your neck. “Gonna come again? Come on my cock, jus how I like.”
Robby found your lips and kissed you openly, all teeth and tongue. His breathing was laboured, his lips a hungry mess. His hips drove in more and more, his groaning louder, face scrunched in concentration to last.
“Please, Michael, please,” you whined against his lips.
Robby licked at your lips, nodding-
Suddenly there was a loud ringing and vibration against the wood off the bedside table where you'd left your phone.
Robby groaned but not in pleasure. As his lips pulled away from yours you turned to look at your phone. “Ignore it, ignore it,” he begged, cupping your cheek to move you to look at him again.
You let him kiss you, let him distract you with his tongue as he drove his cock in and out quicker, desperate to chase your high.
“Oh god, hurgh, fuck!”
Your phone still rung and his grip hardened on your face.
“Could be... could be the kids...” you uttered.
“They're fine, they're fine-”
But you couldn't help but stretch, under the feign of pleasure you arched up and grabbed your phone, turning it face up.
“Jesus-” Robby grunted but stilled inside of you, impossibly close.
Hospital. Work. Calling.
“Jesus-” he chuckled dryly. “Hasn't even been a day.”
Before you could even think about answering it Robby snatched it from your hand and threw it half way across the room.
“Robby!” you laughed.
Your arms wrapped back around him and drew him in, legs going around his waist as his cock continued his work.
“Jack, thank god!” Dana gasped when she spotted the night attending making his way in. He greeted her with a bag already over his shoulder, giving her a brief hug.
“Hey, got your message, what's going on?” he asked, brows knitted together in worry.
It was a last ditch attempt. Dana had called you a handful of times from the hospital phone and her own. She'd tried Robby and been sent straight to voice mail. Nothing. She couldn't exactly blame the two of you, it was supposed to be a holiday.
None of the kids were willing to be the one to make the call and other than tackle them to get a phone Jack was the last result.
“Got a family situation, the parents won't pick up,” she explained.
“What kind of family-”
Dana led him into the exam room.
Casey was sitting in the bed, her arm up in a sling with a pizza box in her lap. Next to her Noah was cosied on the bed while John and Carter were on each side of the bed, chairs pulled him and pizza slices in hands.
“Uncle Jack!” Casey cheered.
The boys at least looked happier to see him than they had Dana. They knew if Jack was here it meant they couldn't get in contact with either you or their dead.
“What's this? A pizza party and I wasn't invited?” he said, setting down his bag and heading for Casey, checking in on her first.
“What's this? Where's the pizza come from?” asked Dana.
“They were hungry, I ordered,” said Carter.
“And surgery for her arm?”
Carter chocked down the last of his pizza. His doctors coat was still sat on his shoulders but his tie was lose around his neck and several pens were missing from his pocket. “The OR's backed up, you said that, you gave her a lollipop!”
Dana tried her best efforts to be mad on behalf of Robby but it didn't work. Robby could maybe be mad at the boys if he had the right too but Casey he could never seem find to be angry with. A daddy's girl through and through.
“Hey, Carter, how's Presby?” asked Jack, all the while testing the pain with Casey.
“Good, it's er, it's good,” he said. “I told them there was a family emergency.”
There was only one reason Carter had gone to Presby and that was to keep work and home away from each other. He couldn't be a student under his dad and mom.
“So you er-” Noah started. “Couldn't get through to mom or dad, huh?”
There was an un-denying gleam of joy at that.
“No, we couldn't,” said Dana. “But we're gonna keep trying.”
Carter crossed his arms over his chest as if he were the concerned doctor and not the worried older brother. “We need their permission for the surgery, what happens to her arm if it's not put right soon?”
“Well good news is I can pull weight in the OR, though we'll have to wait for the pizza to go down,” said Jack, taking a bite from the slice Casey held in hand. She laughed. “What colour we thinking? Pink? Red? Black?”
“Can I have three colours?” she asked.
Jack shrugged. “I'll put the request in.”
“Why aren't they answering? Maybe they're asleep?” said John.
Noah smirked. “Or maybe they're enjoying their free time.”
Jack shot him an unamused look.
“I meant playing games!” he defended.
“Like twister?” asked Casey.
Carter looked away, scratching the back of his head as Dana hid her smirk along with him.
“Yeah, twister.”
You'd managed to escape the clutch's of Robby, managing to throw his shirt on and get to the kitchen for a glass of water. Your legs had been shaky in the sort of delicious way you'd missed.
It was dark out, the small orange glow of the lights around the cabin lighting your way as you downed half your drink.
The wooden floor creaked behind you. The curve of Robby's belly met your back.
His hands wound under his shirt on your body, fondling your hips. “I thought the point of a get away was no clothes allowed.”
You bit your lip, gently setting down your glass of water. “And if I turn around are you going to be following that rule?”
Robby chuckled into your skin. His lips found your neck again, kissing over the bruises he'd left from before. It started slow, the sort that reminded you of your first time before his teeth met your skin and nipped. His hands got further up your skin, running over the curves of your body. “Why don't you look and find out?”
The idea of Robby in all his beauty had you salivating at the mouth and lower parts when a vibration alerted the two of you.
Robby groaned again, the both of you finding his phone left in his pants pocket crumpled on the floor.
It seemed you'd been in a hurry to get them off.
“The thing keeps going!”
Robby was naked, and it distracted you all through the walk to get his pants, fishing for his phone. Not that he cared, he only finished your glass of water.
Your hormones were going crazy, begging you to climb your husband like a tree but you still managed to answer the phone. “Michael's phone.”
“Jesus what's it take to get you to pick up a phone!” Dana said in a way of greeting.
“Oh, hi Dana, how are you? Sorry, we were... busy.”
“Yeah busy my ass, listen you guys need to come back.”
“Why, what's happening?”
Robby heard the worry in your voice and turned to look over his shoulder.
“Your kids are here, Casey's hurt.”
“So let me get this straight: You're letting Jack sign your cast first, then Carter, then John, then me!” gasped Noah.
The family had made themselves at home at in the small room, Casey in the bed like the queen of the castle though even queens needed sleep.
Carter was watching his sister come in and out of sleep while John stayed close to her side, stroking back her hair. They'd put her in the list for the OR, it was backed up enough that by the time she got in her eating wouldn't have been a problem. In three more hours he'd have to get back to Presby and carry on a shift. He should've used the time for napping but found the hospital chairs not so comfy.
Casey nodded, as if proud.
“It's John's fault and he gets to sign it before me!”
“He didn't steal my favourite crayons!” she said.
Jack raised his brows at Noah. “Crayons?”
Noah stuttered with all the eyes on him. “I was taking notes.”
“In crayons?” asked Jack.
“Colour helps you retain information! Look it up!”
There was a gang of laughter before the doors burst open.
Robby was first into the scene and you were close behind.
“Dad!” said Casey.
“Hey, sweetie,” he greeted, by-passing everyone else in the room to press a kiss to her forehead, keeping a hand on her fine arm. “What the hell happened?” he asked to the room.
John and Noah fell into your side, trying to be safe there away from the wrath of their father. “She- she was on the trampoline and she fell, broke her wrist.”
“Distal fracture,” corrected Carter.
“Why weren't you looking out for her?” Robby asked as he took Jack's stethoscope from around his neck, pressing it to her chest as if there could be something wrong and as if they hadn't already checked.
“I-I turned my back for a second,” said John.
“It's okay,” you said, stroking back John's air just a little.
You walked past the boys, greeting Carter quickly before you set on the edge of Casey's bed. Your daughter had your eyes. “Hey honey, how are you feeling?”
Robby gave her another kiss on the forehead before stepping away and letting Jack- the closest thing the kids had to an uncle- take his place. There was a small wave of his hand and the boys- even Carter- fell into step. “So tell me why not even five hours into the trip with your mother we're called back in because you let your sister get hurt?”
“He didn't let her get hurt, dad,” Noah defended. “It could've happened whether or not John was watching her.”
Robby's hands ran up and over his face, pulling at the lines of age and worry. Deep down he knew that was true and the boys knew he knew that. It didn't change that Casey had been hurt and ended up in the hospital. If it had been one of them- Carter, John or Noah- Robby and you would have drove with the same speed.
“Okay, okay,” Robby nodded. “And who let her have pizza when she's in line for the OR?”
John and Noah turned to Carter.
Robby frowned. “Are they teaching you anything at Presby?”
“Dana said the OR was backed up!”
“Don't drag me into this kid!” called Dana from the open door and over the crowd that had formed.
On second look Robby spotted Whitaker, Javadi, King and Santos at the door with Samira- all of who knew you and Robby well, knew you had a flirty thing going on yet had no idea the life you'd shared and continued to create behind the scene.
Next to them stood Langdon, the one holding the door open for them all to see. The one that did know and had even played a hand in Casey's birth.
“Holy shit,” said Whitaker.
“You have kids?” asked Javadi. “Like actual, real-life off springs?”
Carter frowned, looking from the crowd to you. “Why do they seem so surprised at that?”
You smiled, leaning your head on Casey's as she babbled about the accident and everyone she wanted to sign her cast (including barbie herself). “Well, we didn't really mention the whole kids part.”
“So nobody knew we existed?” asked Noah, offended. “What happened to pride and joy?”
“What happened to pain in my ass?” said Robby, lovingly. At least, Carter thought it came off that way. “Okay- yes, yes,” he said addressing the crowd. “We have kids, we didn't say anything because well frankly it was none of your buisness-”
“I knew I saw a younger Robby!” said Santos. Her phone was in hand and clicking with the sound of a picture of the room- specifically Carter-before anyone could stop her.
“It's not like I don't have my hands full with you lot already,” Robby mumbled, rubbing at his temples. “But yes, we have four beautiful children, anything else?”
There was a clear of a throat. Surprisingly not from the crowd of doctors but from behind him. From you.
“What?” asked Robby.
You gave him a pointed look.
He'd said four kids. Had he got it wrong? Somewhere along the lines it did get hard to keep track of them all. Who had exams when, who was in line to follow in their footsteps in practising medicine, who wanted a dog for christmas, etc.
Just in case, Robby did a head count, counting his kids off on his fingers: Casey, Noah, John, Carter. Casey, Noah-
It wasn't till he looked at you and saw your hand lingering over your stomach that he realised.
He thought back to the wine you'd declined at dinner last week, to the morning sickness you'd tried to hide from him, to the way you said there were things to talk about when you had a chance alone. After four, Robby should have been good at spotting the signs.
Five children it would appear.
“Congratulations, brother,” Jack was first to say, smiling in amusement that you'd caught your husband so off guard. Again.
John and Noah were next in clapping him on the back before attending to you in the same celebrations.
Robby took it all red in the cheeks as Santos started to clap behind him, Whitaker following un-sure a beat behind her.
“Jesus, dad, can you keep it in your pants for once,” joked Carter, standing at his full height next to him.
Robby shrugged, arms folding over his chest. “Takes two.”
Noah frowned. “Ew.”
Casey, the poor girl with the broken wrist, wasn't sure what was going on. “Takes two to what?”
The room fell silent. You pursed your lips, looking to Robby for some explanation.
Carter patted his dad on the back, slipping out of the room.
John smirked. “Yeah, dad, takes two to what?”
Robby glared. “Son, lets talk about your grounding.”
one shot ✮ michael robinavitch x resident!reader ✮ 18+
summary: when robby leaves pittsburgh for a three month sabbatical, you’re left house-sitting his apartment. what starts as the occasional check-in text quickly becomes part of your daily routine, and somewhere between late night phone calls, shared photos and thousands of miles apart, neither of you realise you’re falling until it’s far too late to stop.
tags: age-gap but not mentioned massively, long distance, robby is yearning, friends to lovers, slow burn, texting, photo texts, eventual phone sex, masturbation, dirty talk, happy ending.
wc: 12.8k
a/n: i haven't included any visuals of the reader in place of where selfies are sent bc i want this to be inclusive for anyone who reads. also sorry for some of the gaps / spacing between texts n paragraphs, i hate the tumblr word block limit and ANOTHER sorry if the pics aren't transparent. i reached the end of my tether at this point
✮
"Silver key is lobby, brass is front door." The bunch jingled between his fingers. "This one is for the mailbox, you can just leave anything that comes in on the side."
You stood in front of Robby with your arms folded, letting him run through his spiel even though you were a grown woman and could probably figure out which key got you through which door. Still, you nodded along, even made a joke about taking notes that seemed to fall flat, and then he was pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket with four digits scribbled across it.
"This is the alarm code-”
"Jesus, what neighbourhood do you live in again?"
"You don't have to use it, but a young woman staying alone? I want you to feel safe."
He handed you the note. That felt sweet.
You weren't entirely sure how you'd ended up being the one house-sitting for Robby while he disappeared on a three month sabbatical. You were the newest resident, barely eight months into your time at PTMC, but for whatever reason he seemed to trust you. He liked the way you taught, how patient you were with the med students, how you somehow managed to balance nurturing them without letting them walk all over you.
You'd been a little intimidated by him when you first arrived. Robby didn't take mistakes lightly. If you fucked up, you fucked up. There was no sugar coating it.
But he'd turned out to be a better teacher than you'd expected, taking you under his wing and dragging you into procedures most residents would have had to fight to get near. Sometimes you wanted to call it favouritism but it was probably just him doing his job. Probably.
"Anything else I need to know?" you asked. "Weird neighbours, paranormal activity, stalker exes?"
You tried to keep a straight face, only for the corners of your mouth to betray you.
He shook his head, laughing. "You sure you're okay doing this?"
"Are you kidding? This is gonna be like a vacation for me."
Robby nodded once, seemingly satisfied, and dropped the keys into your palm.
"Good. Call me if you need anything."
He started backing away towards the chaos of the ER. "Hey, remember. No parties, no pets, no boyfriends. Yours or anybody else's."
You scoffed, not quite loud enough for him to hear. Party? Required more than three friends. Pets? Required energy. And boyfriend? Don't even go there.
You didn't see Robby again before he left. Maybe the apartment handover had counted as a goodbye, or maybe the ER had simply done what it always did and swallowed every spare second before anyone got the chance to wave him off into the sunset.
Either way, all you could really focus on right now was three whole months without roommates and a bed bigger than a single. Happy days.
-
You managed to slip off shift without attracting any attention from the nurses or the night shift. Robby had said the only person he'd told about the house-sitting arrangement was Abbot. If you wanted to tell people, you could, but he didn't particularly care either way.
You decided to keep it quiet.
Work wasn't really where you made friends. You had three good ones on the outside but that was mostly it. Everyone was nice enough in the ER, and there had been the occasional invitation for drinks after a shift, but by seven o'clock you were usually too exhausted to be anything but horizontal.
Your circle stayed small, mainly Mckay and Ellis within the hospital.
You worked with Cassie every day and had become close over the months, and Parker had been your person during those brutal night shift rotations when you first arrived in Pittsburgh.
Either way, you made it to Robby's building without interception. Silver key for the lobby and brass for the apartment. Just like he'd said.
The building itself was nice. Clean hallways, warm lighting, planters hanging in the windows. The kind of place that felt looked after without trying too hard about it. The apartment was even nicer. Or maybe it just felt huge compared to the place you shared with four other girls.
"Well, fuck." The words slipped out before you could stop them as you flicked on the light switch.
The front door opened into a small hallway that led into a spacious living room, all exposed brick and worn hardwood floors. A brown leather sofa sat opposite a huge TV, surrounded by shelves packed with books and an almost concerning number of CDs.
You drifted towards them automatically, scanning album titles as you went. Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley. A laugh escaped you.
"Checks out."
Your finger brushed across the collection before you moved on, abandoning your investigation in favour of something far more important.
Bed.
The guest room had already been made up for you, fresh sheets stretched neatly across the mattress and extra towels folded at the end like you were checking into a hotel instead of crashing in your attending's spare room. It made you smile.
Maybe your standards for grand gestures were embarrassingly low, but between that and the hundred dollars waiting on the kitchen counter with a note that read for anything you need, you couldn't help it.
There was still plenty left to explore. The contents of his fridge, the bookshelves, photo albums (or lack thereof) and most definitely the bedside drawers. But not tonight.
You peeled off your scrubs, barely managing to change before exhaustion caught up with you. Within minutes you were under the covers, eyes heavy, asleep before your head had properly settled into the pillow.
-
Turns out this house-sitting gig was absolute heaven.
Two days in and it was already starting to feel less like a favour and more like a reward.
Today was your day off. You'd actually eaten breakfast instead of inhaling a protein bar, spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive and met up with a couple of friends for drinks that evening. The friends who weren't doctors, nurses or in any way connected to the hospital.
Then you'd come home, changed into something comfortable and settled onto Robby's sofa with your book.
Life was good.
So far, the hundred dollars he'd left behind had contributed to a half-full fridge and a bottle of wine, which felt perfectly reasonable considering Robby had specifically said it was for anything you needed. It was somewhere around chapter twenty-three of your hot romance fantasy novel (not one of Robby's) when your phone buzzed beside you.
Robby:
Hey, hope you're good. Just checking in to make sure everything's okay?
You smiled before you could stop yourself. He was so proper. So formal. Even his texts somehow read like work emails. Still, you appreciated him checking since you honestly hadn't expected to hear from him at all.
The whole point of this trip was supposed to be getting away. You'd heard him say more than once that he wanted to leave Pittsburgh and everyone in it behind for a while. No calls. No emails. As close to no contact as he could realistically get. According to Robby, that was the only way to properly clear your head.
The one exception had always been Abbot, maybe even Dana. Apparently now it was the three of you.
You:
all good! your apartment is insane by the way
and thank u for the money, u didn't have to!
You took a sip of wine as you hit send. A reply came almost immediately.
Robby:
You're doing me a huge favour!
Spend wisely…
A laugh escaped you. You were a little tipsy by now. Not drunk, just pleasantly warm from the two glasses of pinot you'd had at the bar combined with the one currently sitting beside you. Which, admittedly, was a lot considering you barely drank.
Without thinking too hard about it, you snapped a picture of the glass balanced on the coffee table. Then you zoomed in slightly. Mostly to crop out the fact you weren't using a coaster.
You:
wise you say???
The typing bubbles appeared almost instantly. Then disappeared. Then appeared again. You frowned at the screen.
For some reason, a flicker of self-consciousness crept in. Maybe the photo was weird. Maybe the lipstick mark on the rim was weird. Maybe it was weird to be sitting in your attending's apartment drinking wine and texting him on a Friday night.
Before you could overthink it further, another message appeared.
Robby:
Naughty!
Your stomach flipped. It was ridiculous. The word itself wasn't even remotely suggestive. If anything, it was probably about the coaster.
But between the wine and the book currently sitting open beside you, the message seemed to land somewhere deep in your belly. You stared at it for a second longer than necessary.
"Time for bed." You said it out loud, as though hearing it might make it true.
Leaving the glass on the coffee table with a single sip left, you gathered your book and headed for the guest room.
-
Robby stared at the photo for longer than he meant to. Not at the wine or the coffee table and certainly not at the missing coaster.
His attention had landed on the faint lipstick mark circling the rim of the glass and stayed there for a second too long before he caught himself. He sat back against the headboard of the hotel bed, somewhere around Chicago, after a long day on the road.
The room was forgettable. Beige walls. Generic artwork. The low hum of an air conditioner fighting for its life in the corner. Exactly the kind of place he'd expected to find himself in.
He'd only been checking in. That was all.
You were doing him a favour and it seemed polite to make sure everything was going smoothly.
Except now he found himself picturing you in his apartment. Curled up on the couch, feet tucked beneath you. A glass of wine in one hand and whatever book had managed to distract you from answering his text in the other.
His apartment. His couch. His glass.
He exhaled through his nose. It was ridiculous. Of course you were there, that was the entire point. For the next three months you were going to be using his mugs, watching his TV, standing under his shower and sleeping in the guest room.
None of that should have felt strange. And it didn't. Not really. It had just been that split second when the photograph appeared on his screen and his brain had connected the image to a real person rather than the vague idea of someone looking after his place.
Someone he'd see almost every day at work. Someone currently sitting exactly where he usually sat. Robby shook his head once, more at himself than anything else.
Then he typed out the reply.
Naughty!
The second it was sent, he dropped the phone onto the bedside table and turned off the lamp. Tomorrow he'd have another few hours of driving ahead of him. That was what he should be thinking about.
Not a lipstick stain on a wine glass.
-
It was strange how different work felt when you had somewhere peaceful to come home to.
The shifts were still long and the patients exhausting. None of that changed. But when there were no roommate arguments waiting for you at the end of the day, no mountain of dishes that didn't belong to you and no obnoxiously loud sex through the wall at midnight, everything felt a little more manageable.
You had energy again. Energy to come home and shower. Energy to cook. Energy to actually enjoy your evenings instead of collapsing face-first into bed.
You'd always been a good cook. Your mom had made sure of that. While other kids were watching TV, you'd been standing beside her in the kitchen learning how to chop onions without crying and season food without measuring every ingredient.
Your family tree contained exactly zero Italians, but your signature dish was carbonara. Real carbonara. The proper kind. The kind that required ingredients expensive enough to make you wince in the grocery aisle.
Which was exactly why you rarely made it. But with Robby's hundred dollars quietly subsidising your lifestyle, you figured you deserved a treat.
The plan was going perfectly until you tried to turn on the hob.
"Come on."
You twisted the dial until it clicked. Nothing. You tried again.
Another click. Still nothing.
By the fourth attempt, you were staring at the appliance like it had personally offended you.
"Am I losing my mind?"
Getting a burner lit should not have been this difficult. You glanced at your phone sitting on the counter.
No. Absolutely not.
You were not texting Robby because you couldn't operate a stove. You were a doctor, a functioning adult. You could figure this out.
Another click. Nothing. "For fuck's sake." The curse echoed around the kitchen. A few seconds later, you picked up your phone.
You:
i don't want you to think i'm completely incompetent but i cannot work your hob…
Three states away, Robby's phone lit up. He'd spent most of the day hiking through some forest outside Rockford before ending the evening under a shower hot enough to steam up the entire bathroom.
He walked over to the phone, towel slung low around his waist, hair still damp. The text made him laugh.
Robby:
You have to turn and press. It's more of a button than a switch!
Also don't worry, I couldn't work it for the first six months I lived there because of that…
It was strangely comforting to know a physician widely regarded as one of the smartest people in Pittsburgh had also been defeated by a kitchen appliance.
Following his instructions, you pushed the dial inward and a blue flame immediately burst to life.
"Oh thank god."
You set a pot of water on one burner and poured oil into a pan on the other before reaching for your phone again.
You:
life saver. i was about to starve
and the great robby also not knowing how to operate a stove makes me feel better so thank u
Back in his hotel room, Robby laughed quietly at the screen. A small smile lingered as he reread your message.
He'd answered your question, technically the conversation could end there and it probably should. Instead, his thumbs hovered over the keyboard for a second.
Robby:
What are you cooking anyway?
You saw the message while stirring egg and cheese into freshly drained pasta. Not now. Carbonara required concentration and you weren't risking scrambled eggs for anybody.
Five minutes later, when the sauce was silky and clinging perfectly to the noodles, you twisted a generous serving onto a plate and admired your handiwork.
Then you grabbed your phone.
You:
carbonara!
You attached the picture before hitting send.
The photo sat open on his screen for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what he'd expected, certainly not that. It looked better than anything he'd eaten in the last week.
After a moment he tapped the heart reaction and tossed the phone onto the mattress beside him. He ignored the part of himself that wanted to ask for the recipe.
-
The next two days brought two hellish shifts.
First a mass casualty then a stomach bug that seemed determined to take down half the ER.
Dana did her best to pull people in for extra coverage, Abbot came in early and somehow ended up working a double, but even that barely kept things afloat. It was chaos. The kind that left you running entirely on adrenaline until your body remembered it was human.
You finally made it home just before eleven: a personal record. The worst part was that when you dragged yourself up the stairs, peeled off your scrubs and collapsed into bed, you couldn't sleep.
You were trapped in that miserable state of overtiredness where your body was begging for rest while your brain stubbornly refused to switch off.
You hadn't looked at your phone once during the shift. Not during the mass casualty or the endless stream of patients. Not even while inhaling a granola bar somewhere around hour twelve. It stayed buried in your pocket until you stepped through the apartment door.
It wasn't until you were under the covers that you finally saw the notification waiting for you.
Robby:
I had diner food for the third night in a row tonight, your carbonara is making me look bad…
He'd given you a rough outline of his route before he left and, if you remembered correctly, he should be somewhere near Minneapolis by now. An hour behind. Not too late.
You:
trust me, my carbonara is the least impressive thing about my week
i just survived a mass casualty and half the department trying to die from a stomach bug
diner food sounds peaceful honestly
Robby:
Mass casualty?
You:
three car pile up
and before you ask everyone survived
mostly because abbot worked about seventeen hours straight
Robby:
I leave for one week…
You:
i was waiting for someone to blame
Robby:
Blame Dana…
You:
do you think i have a death wish???
that's not the attending wisdom i was hoping for
Robby:
🤷🏻♂️ ️
You stare at the screen. He's using emojis now? Something about that feels strangely significant.
The conversation probably should have ended three messages ago. Instead, another text appears a few seconds later.
Robby:
You okay?
The question catches you off guard. Not because it's particularly personal, just because he seems to actually mean it. You stare at the message for a moment before replying.
You:
yeah
just tired
too tired to sleep which is apparently a thing
Robby:
Been there. Your body's exhausted but the brain's stress response overrides it
Makes for a very restless night
You:
oh good
thought i was dying
Robby:
You're a doctor..
You always think you're dying
A quiet laugh escapes you. You weren't entirely sure why any of this felt comforting.
After one of the worst shifts you'd worked in months, you were lying awake in your attending's apartment, texting your boss from beneath the covers.
On paper, it sounded ridiculous but the knot that had been sitting between your shoulders since this morning was slowly beginning to loosen.
Your eyes felt heavier, your body sank deeper into the mattress and the first time all night, sleep actually seemed possible.
You:
night robby x
You hit send before thinking too hard about it. A second passed. Then two. Then your phone lit up.
Robby:
Sleep well!
You smiled at the screen. By the time you set your phone on the bedside table, your eyes were already closing.
Robby didn't go to sleep straight away.
Instead he sat against the headboard, phone still in his hand, staring at the open conversation. The room was quiet. Outside, somewhere beyond the hotel curtains, a truck rumbled along the interstate.
His thumb drifted across the screen and paused, hovering over the last message.
night robby x
Just one stupid little letter. It probably meant absolutely nothing. For all he knew, you signed every text that way. You were exhausted when you'd sent it, practically half asleep and already drifting off. He knew that. So why was he still looking at it?
With a quiet huff of amusement at himself, Robby locked the screen.
Tomorrow he'd drive another few hundred miles, stay at another hotel, eat another mediocre meal. Continue doing exactly what he'd left Pittsburgh to do.
And yet, as he finally switched off the lamp and settled back against the pillows, he found himself wondering whether you'd text him tomorrow.
The thought stayed with him longer than it should have. Long enough that sleep didn't come quite as quickly as usual.
-
The next few days settled into something that almost resembled normality (or at least as normal as life in the ER ever got).
The stomach bug finally burned its way through the department, leaving a trail of exhaustion and empty electrolyte bottles in its wake. Everyone looked tired and complained constantly. You included.
It was nearing the end of another shift when your phone buzzed in your pocket.
You ignored it only for it to buzz again.
And because every doctor secretly believed they were the most important person in the building, your brain immediately convinced itself it could be an emergency.
You pulled it out while waiting for the elevator.
Robby:
Rode twenty minutes off route for this
You opened it. Then frowned. Then laughed.
You:
what the fuck is that
Robby:
The world's largest prairie chicken
You:
of course it is
you rode twenty minutes out of your way to see a giant chicken?
Robby:
Yes.
You:
no further questions your honour
The elevator doors opened. You stepped inside, still smiling at your phone. Another message appeared.
Robby:
Thought you'd appreciate it!
Your lips curled at the suggestion he had taken the picture with you in mind.
You:
i'm genuinely concerned about how you're spending this sabbatical
Robby:
That's fair
For the record I did also spend six hours riding through some very beautiful countryside today
You:
and yet it was the giant chicken you sent
Robby:
Correct.
You laughed, probably too loud for the setting as others in the lift glanced over before you quickly looked away.
You:
well i'm glad my attending is making good use of his time
Robby:
You laughed didn't you?
You:
immediately
The elevator dinged and people shuffled out around you while you lingered behind, looking down at the conversation. At the completely pointless exchange.
The kind of conversation that served no purpose whatsoever and yet somehow it had made the end of a miserable shift feel lighter.
Robby:
Worth the detour then
You shook your head but the smile wouldn't disappear. It stayed with you all the way to the parking lot.
Across the county, Robby sat on the edge of his hotel bed with the television murmuring quietly in the background.
The hotels he was staying in were nice, he had the money to stay in much nicer but there wasn't much point when only passing through.
The final destination was a cabin in Alberta. That's where he'd spend the rest of the sabbatical when he got there, that he had spared no expense on.
But he didn't find himself thinking of his trip. The conversation still sat open on his phone. Nothing important, just the giant chicken staring back at him amongst a handful of messages and a stupid amount of amusement considering the subject matter.
After a minute, he locked the screen and set the phone aside. Then despite himself, he found his gaze drifting back towards it as though another message might somehow appear.
He'd be crossing into North Dakota soon and if he happened to see anything ridiculous along the way…
Well he knew exactly who he'd send it to.
-
The next few days followed suit. You and Robby started speaking like it was part of your routines without ever actually agreeing to it.
Nothing constant or heavy, just small check-ins threaded through the day. Snapshots from the road. Snapshots from the ER.
Things you'd caught out of the corner of your eye like the giant pigeon on a fire escape outside the hospital that made you stop mid-conversation just to take a picture.
Food also became a kind of currency between you. The home-cooked meals you'd send, still steaming on the plate whilst he'd drop his roadside breakfasts, gas station coffee, or whatever local specialty he'd found himself staring at that day.
You started waiting for the messages without really meaning to. Both of you did.
Robby:
This morning's view
You:
versus my morning's view
—
You:
i'm going old school and listening to your CDs
you have good taste old man
Robby:
I'll ignore those last two words and take it as a compliment...
—
Robby:
Got caught in a thunderstorm on the road today
You:
😭😭😭 😭 😭 omg
just know i'd be laughing if i were there
—
You:
robby
a guy came in today with an action figure up his ass
and dana made whitaker deal with it
Robby:
Nothing says good evening quite like a HIPAA violation
You:
i know you won't tell x
—
Somewhere between shifts and miles, the apartment stopped being the reason you spoke. It just became something that existed in the background, as if you'd both forgotten the house-sitting gig and this was all normal.
An excuse that had quietly turned into a habit. You didn't really notice the shift until one night you didn't text him at all.
Not on purpose, because of pure exhaustion. A shift that ran too long, a body too tired to think in sentences.
And on his end, Robby found himself checking his phone more than he liked to admit. Each time with a little more irritation than the last.
"Stupid." He muttered under his breath, tossing the phone face-down on the bed.
It didn't stay there long since he picked it back up a minute later.
His trip was still everything it was supposed to be. Long stretches of highway and peaceful mornings. Mountains, towns, weather that changed without warning.
It was all the kind of distance he'd been looking for and for the most part, the noise in his head had settled. It wasn't gone, he needed more than a solo road trip to fix that but it was quieter.
It was at its quietest when you text. Or when he took a picture and thought, without really meaning to, that you'd probably laugh at it.
Then his phone buzzed.
You:
sorry
today's been awful
The irritation disappeared immediately and he sat down properly on the edge of the bed.
For a moment, he stared at the message longer than he needed to. His first instinct was practical, to ask what happened and if you were okay. But it was nearly midnight your time and he knew, instinctively, that whatever you needed wasn't a barrage of questions.
Robby:
Do you want to talk about it?
You:
think i just need bed
speak tomorrow
He stared at the screen a moment longer than he meant to, leaving the chat open, your name sitting at the top of it. He didn't reply.
There wasn't anything else to say that wouldn't feel like too much.
-
The next day didn't actually bring a text. Or the day after that.
Shift patterns blurred together in the ER anyway, time measured in admissions and discharge paperwork rather than hours. You were exhausted, that was your excuse for not texting Robby. But by the second night, you were wondering what his excuse was.
It wasn't anything dramatic, just… absent.
No photos from the road or pointless updates about whatever strange thing he'd stopped to look at. There'd been no diner food commentary that made you roll your eyes while smiling at your phone.
You told yourself it made sense. Robby was on a bike somewhere between states and you were drowning in back-to-back shifts. There wasn't always going to be time.
Still, your phone felt heavier in your pocket than usual.
On his end, Robby told himself the same thing.
He'd spent most of the day on the road, miles of open highway stretching out ahead of him, the kind of silence he'd gone looking for. It should have felt good and it did, mostly. But every time he stopped for fuel, or pulled off to check a map, his hand drifted to his phone out of habit.
There he would find no new messages and he told himself that was normal.
It was normal. Until it wasn't.
-
It happened on a night that started like any other.
You'd left the hospital later than you meant to, fatigue settling into your bones in that familiar way that made everything feel slightly delayed.
The apartment was quiet when you got back.
You climbed the stairs and only realised something was wrong when your keys didn't turn properly in the lock. You tried it once, twice, three times and nothing. You paused then tried again but the lock didn't budge.
"Oh come on," you muttered under your breath.
You stared at the door for a second, exhaustion making it harder to think than it should have.
Of course this was happening now.
You pulled your phone out, looking who to burden with your troubles and force to come to your rescue. For a second, you considered calling Mckay but her shift had been just as rough as yours and Ellis' night was only just starting in the ER, suddenly you were out of options.
Your thumb hovered. Then moved.
In some hotel in one of the Dakotas, Robby's phone lit up on the bedside. His brow furrowed slightly, not expecting to see your name across the screen.
"Hello?"
Your voice came through slightly breathless and oh so tired.
"Hi," you said. "I have a problem."
He sat up a little straighter without thinking. "Are you okay?"
You let out a short laugh that didn't quite sound amused. "Your lock hates me." There was a pause.
Then, quieter, "Which one?"
"Front door."
"Right," he said. "Stay there."
"I am there."
"No," he corrected. "I mean don't try anything else. Just- stay."
You leaned back against the wall, sliding down slightly until you were sitting on the floor outside his apartment door.
"Robby," you said, "I am physically incapable of breaking your door at this point. I'm too tired to commit crimes."
That earned a small exhale of something that might have been a laugh.
"Good," he said. "I prefer it that way."
There was movement on his end. Fabric shifting, something being set down.
"Okay," he added. "Walk me through what happened."
-
The locksmith said he'd be there in twenty minutes which, judging by his tone, probably meant thirty. You thanked him anyway before ending the call and letting your head fall back against the apartment door.
"Well," you sighed, stretching your legs out in front of you. "Guess I live here now."
The laugh that came through the speaker was soft. You'd heard Robby laugh a hundred times at work, usually in passing conversations or when Dana pulled it out of him, but hearing it through the phone felt strangely personal.
"Could be worse."
"How?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I'll let you know when I think of something."
You smiled. For a while, neither of you said anything.
The silence wasn't awkward, which surprised you. You could hear faint traffic somewhere on his end of the line, the distant sound of a television through a hotel wall perhaps.
"Where are you?" you asked eventually.
“Just outside Sioux Falls."
"Fancy..." You shifted against the wall, tucking one knee up towards your chest. "How's the trip?"
There was a pause. Not because he wasn't going to answer, but because he seemed to actually think about it.
"Good." You waited. "Actually, really good."
"Wow."
"What?"
"I don't think I've ever heard you sound that enthusiastic about anything."
"That's not true."
"Robby, I've worked with you for eight months."
"And?"
"The highlight of your emotional range is usually a nod."
That earned a proper laugh. The kind that made you grin before you'd even realised you were doing it. Why were your cheeks getting hot at the idea of making him laugh?
"That's harsh."
"I think you mean accurate."
"I'll have you know I've been having a great time."
“The giant chicken gave it away."
"Don't mock the chicken."
"I'll mock the chicken all I want."
He sighed dramatically. "This is exactly why I send you things."
Your smile lingered, you weren't entirely sure why. Like even if you wanted to get rid of it you couldn't. Maybe because it was nice knowing someone saw something during their day and thought to share it with you. Or maybe because lately, you'd been doing the same thing.
"Seriously though," you said. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."
The teasing slipped away a little and you could hear it in his voice when he answered.
"Yeah. I think I needed it more than I realised."
You looked down at the floor. You'd thought that yourself. The difference in him was obvious, even through a screen. The texts were lighter. There was an ease to him that hadn't existed back in Pittsburgh.
"You sound happier."
He didn't answer immediately.
"Maybe."
It wasn't much of a response. Coming from Robby, it felt like a confession.
The conversation drifted after that. Work came up eventually, because it always did. You told him about the latest departmental disaster and he laughed harder than he probably should have at Whitaker's expense. Then somehow you ended up talking about music, and when you admitted you'd been making your way through his CD collection, he spent five minutes defending an album you'd called objectively terrible.
Before either of you realised it, headlights swept across the apartment parking lot. You glanced through the stairwell window to see a white van pulling in.
"Oh."
"What?"
"That's him." You pushed yourself to your feet, brushing imaginary dust from your scrubs. "The locksmith."
"Right."
You checked the time. Nearly forty minutes since you'd spoken to him on the phone.
For a moment, neither of you said anything. Then you laughed softly.
"I don't think we've ever actually spoken like this before."
"Spoken like what?"
"Just…" You searched for the right words. "Talked."
He huffed a laugh. "We talk all the time."
"About work."
"Hmm. True."
You shook your head. "I know more about a giant prairie chicken than I do about you."
"Now that's probably not true."
"It definitely is."
The locksmith was already making his way towards the building entrance. You tightened your grip on the phone.
"Thanks for staying on the phone with me."
The words slipped out before you could think too hard about them and for a second, there was only the sound of his breathing on the other end.
"Of course." Robby said it with such ease, as if there'd never been any question about it. Something in your chest warmed at that.
"I should go."
"Yeah. You should."
Neither of you hung up immediately. You smiled even though he couldn't see.
"Night, Robby."
"Night."
-
Robby eventually made it to Alberta, trading motels and roadside diners for a cabin tucked between trees and more open sky than you'd ever seen in one place. The photos changed after that. It was less giant roadside attractions and more mountains, lakes so still they looked painted. Sunrises taken from a porch with a mug of coffee balanced somewhere just out of frame.
Your own contributions remained considerably less scenic.
You:
this mornings view
Robby:
Stunning!
You:
i know
thinking of getting it framed
Robby:
You should. Really ties a room together
The conversations drifted in and out of your days. Sometimes twenty messages. Sometimes two.
But there was rarely a day that passed without hearing from him. It had become your normal and that probably should have concerned you more than it did.
One afternoon you were halfway through a grocery shop when your phone buzzed.
Robby:
What's for dinner?
You snorted. Most days he was interested in what you were cooking, never quite getting over how good that carbonara looked weeks ago.
You:
demanding aren't we?
Robby:
I've been living off campfire food
Let me live vicariously
You balanced the basket awkwardly on your hip. Typing with one hand was becoming increasingly impossible so after a moment you sighed and held down the microphone button.
"Okay, so technically I haven't decided yet," you said, navigating around a woman studying avocados with suspicious intensity. "But I was thinking maybe chicken, potatoes, something easy because I had a twelve hour shift and Mckay spent most of it arguing with a guy who was convinced Red Bull counts as water."
You stopped recording and sent it, immediately forgetting about it as you continued to shop.
Robby was sitting on the cabin porch when the notification appeared. A voice note.
For a second he just looked at it before pressing play. Your voice spilled through the speaker, lighter than he was used to hearing at work, less hurried.
He could hear the wheels of a shopping cart somewhere in the background, people talking. The automatic doors opening and closing. It felt strangely intimate. Like being invited into a moment he wasn't supposed to be part of.
Before he knew it, the recording had ended and he found himself smiling Then replaying the first few seconds just to hear it again.
Robby:
Red bull absolutely counts as water
You:
you're part of the problem
-
A few days later you sent him a photo of a coffee shop you'd stumbled into before work. The picture was supposed to be of the ridiculous chalkboard menu, pretentious and completely overpriced.
Unfortunately, the reflection in the window caught most of your face and you didn't even notice before pressing send.
But Robby did.
He was halfway through replying when he stopped and stared at the photo. Then stared a little longer.
It wasn't as though he'd forgotten what you looked like, he'd worked beside you for months, seen you almost every day and yet somehow seeing your face appear unexpectedly on his screen felt different. Like it was more personal than bumping into you across an ER.
He zoomed in without meaning to then immediately felt ridiculous.
Robby:
That coffee costs more than my first apartment
You:
i knew you'd focus on the important issue
He didn't mention the photo but it stayed open on his screen longer than necessary.
The next Saturday night, you went out with friends.
The three you socialised with maybe once a month, the ones you'd gone out with on your first week at Robby's.
The evening disappeared beneath cocktails, bad music and stories that got funnier with every retelling. By the time you got home, your shoes were in one hand and your keys were in the other.
Your phone buzzed before you'd even made it upstairs.
Robby:
Survived?
You:
barely
my feet are filing formal complaints
Robby:
Worth it?
You:
yeah
free drinks always help
There was a pause before the typing bubbles appeared then they seemed to disappear before appearing once more.
Robby:
Free drinks?
You:
some guy at the bar bought them
either he was being nice or I looked desperately in need of a margarita
Robby stared at the screen. For reasons he couldn't quite explain, he found himself reading the message twice.
Some guy.
An entirely normal sentence since people bought drinks for each other every day. It meant absolutely nothing. Yet his thumb hovered over the keyboard.
Robby:
Which was it?
The message sent before he could overthink it and he immediately regretted it. Not because it was inappropriate, just because he sounded interested.
And he wasn't sure why he was interested.
You:
definitely the margarita
he started talking about crypto ten minutes in
That pulled a laugh out of him. An actual laugh.
Robby:
My condolences
You:
thank you
it was a difficult time
The conversation moved on after that. But later, after you'd gone to sleep and the cabin had settled into silence around him, Robby found himself thinking about the message again.
Not the drinks. Not the guy. But the fact that he'd wanted to know. And the fact he still wasn't entirely sure why.
-
You hadn't really talked about the house sitting arrangement to anyone at work.
It never seemed relevant and, if you were honest, you quite liked having something that belonged entirely to you. That was until Abbot casually asked how it was going in front of Parker and Shen. Both of them had turned so quickly you would have thought they'd rehearsed it.
John loudly slurped through his straw.
You immediately regretted coming into work.
You'd spent the next five minutes trying to explain that, yes, you were staying at Robby's apartment and no, it wasn't a big deal. At the same time, you were reassuring Abbot that everything was fine and that the place was still standing.
Parker wasn't convinced. She waited until the handover was done and everyone had started drifting away before falling into step beside you as you gathered your things from your locker.
You'd only just pulled your phone out when it buzzed. The smile arrived before you could stop it and Parker saw immediately.
"Message from your boyfriend?"
"Just Robby-”
You stopped and looked up to see her already grinning.
"Oh."
"Oh indeed."
"Haha. Very funny."
"I'm just saying," she replied, holding her hands up in mock surrender. "That man hasn't been here for nearly two months and I've heard his name more than I have some of the attendings who actually work here."
You rolled your eyes. Except the comment lingered because you didn't talk about him that much. Did you?
Sure, you texted most days, you snapped pictures when something made you laugh. You answered when he called and never made a secret of it because, in your mind, there was nothing to hide.
But maybe Parker had a point.
You were always quick to tell people where he was, what he'd been up to, what ridiculous thing he'd sent you that morning. You were also one of maybe three people who actually knew how his sabbatical was going and that felt strangely significant when you stopped to think about it.
Which was exactly why you decided not to think about it. Instead, you bumped your shoulder into Parker's arm.
"Leave me alone."
"Never."
You laughed despite yourself, waved goodbye to everyone and headed out through the main doors.
-
Even without a department full of doctors reminding him, Robby found himself thinking about you more often than he probably should.
Alberta was beautiful, exactly what he'd imagined.
The mountains seemed endless, the lakes impossibly clear and every evening the sky stretched so wide it barely looked real.
He'd come here to breathe. To remember what it felt like to wake up without immediately carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
For the first time in years, it was working and yet every time he stumbled across a view that took his breath away, he caught himself reaching for his phone.
The bear he'd spotted at the edge of a trail or the river he'd nearly slipped into while trying to take a photo. The sunset that turned the entire lake gold. All of it was filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. Something to show you, to tell you later.
He enjoyed those moments for himself, he really did, but there was always a second thought afterwards. A quiet one of she'd like this.
And that was dangerous territory for a man who had left Pittsburgh specifically to be alone.
-
Today had been a bad day for absolutely no reason. Work hadn't been worse than usual. There was no mass casualty or outbreak, no disaster waiting for you.
You'd left almost on time and the handover had been unusually smooth yet, somehow, by the time you found yourself curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine balanced on your knee, you felt like you might burst into tears.
You probably wouldn't but it was comforting to know you could if you wanted to.
The apartment was quiet. A CD hummed softly in the background while the evening light spilled through the windows. You'd been enjoying the solitude for weeks now.
Your phone lit up. A text from Robby. It was just a small update about his day, a picture of a lake with a note underneath telling you there was a viewpoint about a mile from the cabin that you would absolutely love.
You stared at it for a second and then pressed call without thinking.
The phone rang twice.
"Hey, you okay?" He'd answered immediately.
Not because he'd been expecting the call but quite the opposite.
You almost smiled at the concern in his voice.
"Hey. Yeah, I'm good."
"You sure?"
"Yeah." A pause. "Can you talk?"
On the other side of the continent, Robby was sitting on the cabin porch with a beer bottle in hand, watching the sky darken over the mountains.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can talk."
You exhaled. You weren't entirely sure why. Just hearing his voice had already made something feel lighter.
"Bad day?" he asked gently.
"A little."
"Want to talk about it?"
You considered it.
"Not really."
He laughed quietly. "Fair enough."
You took a sip of wine.
"Does it sound stupid if I say I just wanted to hear your voice?"
The words slipped out before you could stop them.
For a moment, all you could hear was the wind moving through the trees on his end of the line. Then Robby shifted in his chair.
"Well," he said, amusement colouring his voice, "I sure feel special."
You groaned. "Don't make it weird.”
"I'm not making it weird."
"You absolutely are."
His laugh settled something warm in your chest.
"I can tell you about the bear I saw today if you need a distraction."
You smiled. "Yes please."
And he did. He told you about the trail, about spotting movement through the trees and realising it was considerably larger than he'd first thought. Halfway through the story your phone buzzed with a picture he'd sent while still talking.
You put him on speaker to zoom in, immediately informing him that he was insane for getting that close. He disagreed.
You told him he was objectively wrong then somehow you were refilling your wine while he wandered into the kitchen for another beer and the conversation simply kept going.
Hours slipped past unnoticed. The topics changed every few minutes. Canadian wildlife became grocery shopping.
Grocery shopping became work which became Dana. Dana became the night you'd gone out with your friends. It felt effortless.
Like no matter what either of you said, the other would find it interesting, as if there were no rush to end the conversation.
Eventually, somewhere between your third glass and his third beer, Robby circled back to something you'd almost forgotten.
"So," he said casually. "Any more plans to go out and let random men buy you drinks?"
You scoffed. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds suspiciously like jealousy, Michael."
Using his first name felt deliberate. The kind of thing you couldn't take back once it left your mouth.
For a moment he didn't answer and you could almost hear him thinking.
"I think I'm just curious."
"Curious?"
"You mentioned him." His voice was careful now. "And then I spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering whether you actually liked him."
Your stomach flipped unexpectedly.
"And did you come to a conclusion?"
He laughed quietly. "Yeah."
"Which was?"
"That anyone who talks about crypto for ten minutes straight probably doesn't stand a chance."
The warmth that spread through you had nothing to do with the wine. You sank further into the sofa, smiling into your glass.
"Good answer."
For a second neither of you spoke. The silence felt different now, like an awareness blooming.
On the other end of the line, Robby stared out across the darkening lake, suddenly very conscious of the weight in his chest and the dryness in his mouth. He wasn't entirely sure when the conversation had become the best part of his day.
He was even less sure what that meant.
On your end, the wine bottle was looking considerably emptier than when the call had started.
"How much longer have you got out there anyway?" you asked eventually.
He leaned back in his chair.
"Couple more weeks."
You hummed. "A couple?"
"Three."
You did the maths automatically. Three weeks. For some reason that felt shorter than it should have.
"That's weird."
"What is?"
"You coming back."
Robby laughed softly. “I haven't left forever."
"I know."
You picked absentmindedly at the label on your wine bottle.
"Still weird though."
He understood exactly what you meant. The cabin had become normal, so had the mountains. Waking up and sending you a picture of whatever he'd found that day had become normal too.
The thought settled uncomfortably somewhere in his chest.
"Yeah," he admitted quietly. "It is."
For a moment neither of you spoke. The silence wasn't awkward, if anything, it felt too honest.
"You'll probably be sick of Pittsburgh again within forty-eight hours."
He laughed.
"Probably."
"And I'll have to move back into my shoebox apartment."
He laughed again.
"You laugh, but I've become accustomed to luxury."
"My apartment is not luxury."
"It has an en-suite."
"It does."
You smiled into your glass.
"I'm gonna miss it."
The words came out before you really thought about them and then, after a beat, you added, "The apartment, I mean."
Robby looked out across the lake. The moonlight stretched across the water in silver streaks. He wasn't entirely sure why that qualifier felt necessary.
"Yeah."
Because he was going to miss something too, he just wasn't sure it was the apartment.
"I'm glad I gave you the keys."
The words slipped out naturally.
"Because I've been such an excellent tenant?"
"Questionable."
You laughed. "Rude."
"You locked yourself out and you don't use coasters."
"That happened one time. And yes I do."
"One time that I know about. And, no you don't."
You shook your head, laughing. "So why are you glad?"
The question hung there. For the first time that evening, Robby didn't answer immediately. He could have made a joke and he probably should have but instead he found himself telling the truth.
"Because otherwise…" He trailed off and you waited. "Otherwise I don't think we'd have ever talked like this."
Something in your chest tightened, just enough to make you still. The sounds around you seemed to disappear for a second. The music, hum of the refrigerator, everything.
"Yeah."
It came out quieter than you'd intended. Because he was right.
Without the apartment, he would've stayed your attending, you his resident. You would've chatted during shifts and maybe grabbed a beer with a group after work once or twice.
But this? The hours spent on the phone, the daily messages, knowing what the other person had for dinner. Sharing parts of yourselves that had nothing to do with medicine.
None of that would've happened.
"I guess not."
Robby stared down at the bottle in his hand. His pulse felt oddly loud.
"Would've been a shame."
The words were barely above a murmur. Honest enough that neither of you quite knew what to do with them. You swallowed. Suddenly very aware of the warmth spreading through your stomach.
And not because of the wine.
Another silence settled between you but this one felt different. It felt full. Like there was something sitting quietly between the two of you that hadn't been there before. Or maybe it had and neither of you had looked directly at it until now.
"Yeah," you said softly. "It would've."
For a second, neither of you spoke, neither of you hung up either.
Somewhere between Alberta and Pittsburgh, with a lake outside one window and city lights outside the other, it felt like the conversation had shifted onto unfamiliar ground.
Not enough to turn back yet not enough to move forward. Just enough that both of you knew something had changed.
-
The next morning arrived with a headache.
Not a catastrophic one, just enough of one to remind you that two glasses of wine had somehow become four and how you clearly couldn't handle your booze anymore.
Thank god it was your day off. You'd spent most of the morning moving slowly, making a trip to the store for supplies before returning to the apartment with a bag full of groceries, painkillers and absolutely no intention of leaving the house again.
After a shower, you pulled on an oversized t-shirt, climbed into bed and put something mindless on the TV. You weren't really watching it. Your attention kept drifting back to your phone. In between doom scrolling TikTok, you kept flipping to your messages.
Nothing from Robby.
You told yourself it was normal since he was a couple of hours behind. He could still be asleep or hiking, he could be doing literally anything.
Still, your thumb hovered over the conversation and you found yourself thinking through parts of last night's call. Especially the end.
Would've been a shame.
You groaned and tossed the phone onto the bed beside you. "Get a grip."
The phone buzzed almost immediately.
You grabbed it so fast it was actually embarrassing.
Robby:
Morning
You:
afternoon actually
Robby:
Right
How's the hangover?
You:
presumptuous much?
Robby:
I'll take that as confirmation
You:
i’ve survived worse
Robby:
Doctor approved medical assessment
You:
exactly
The conversation stayed comfortably familiar at first. Small things, nothing important. What he'd done that morning and what you were doing now. The weather in Canada versus Pittsburgh. The coffee he'd burnt.
You laughed quietly at something he'd sent and snapped a quick picture in response.
Mostly intending to show him the disaster of snacks you'd surrounded yourself with on the bed.
You hit send before really looking at it.
A few moments passed, longer than usual. You frowned.
You:
???
The typing bubbles appeared.
Robby:
You know you're in that photo right?
You opened the image again. Your stomach immediately dropped.
Between the blankets and the snacks was a very obvious stretch of bare leg disappearing beneath the hem of your t-shirt. If you zoomed you could definitely see the edge of lace from your panties.
Heat crept into your cheeks.
You:
well
too late now
His reply took a little longer this time.
Robby:
Suppose it is
Something about the message felt different though you couldn't have explained why.
The conversation slowed. Not because either of you wanted it to end but because both of you seemed suddenly aware of it. Aware of each other.
You:
you're being weird
Robby:
I am not
You:
you absolutely are
Robby:
And what if I'm just thinking?
You:
dangerous
Robby:
That's rich coming from you
You laughed and the tension eased for a moment then returned just as quickly. The phone sat warm in your hand. Neither of you quite saying what was on your mind.
Both of you hovering suspiciously close to it.
Then-
A knock sounded at the apartment door. You sat upright.
"Oh for god's sake."
You:
one sec
Robby:
What?
You:
someones here
terrible timing honestly
Robby:
That sounds ominous
You:
don't go anywhere
Robby:
Wasn't planning on it
You tossed the phone onto the bed and headed for the door.
When you pulled it open, Abbot stood on the other side with two coffees in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
"Jack?"
"Good afternoon."
You stared. He stared back.
"Why are you here?"
"Robby asked me to check the place hadn't burned down."
You folded your arms.
"And?"
Jack looked past you.
"Still standing."
By the time Abbot eventually left, the afternoon had slipped away with him. He'd actually brought you coffee because he was passing by, knew Robby cared about you and wanted to check in. Sweet actually.
Your conversation with Robby had fizzled into a couple of harmless messages before disappearing entirely which somehow felt worse. Because now you were thinking about it and judging by the phone call that arrived later that evening, so was he.
You answered on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"I can't believe you left me hanging like that."
You laughed immediately. "Excuse me?"
"We were having a conversation."
"Jack showed up at your apartment."
"And somehow that's my fault?"
"Everything's your fault."
His laugh crackled through the speaker.
"You know," he said, quieter this time, "I did actually spend the next few hours wondering what happened."
Your heart stumbled slightly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
There was a pause. Comfortable but dangerous.
"Well," you said, settling deeper into the sofa. "Lucky for you, I'm free now."
The silence on the other end lasted just long enough to make your stomach flip. Then Robby laughed softly.
"Good."
The word settled somewhere low and God you hated that it did. Or maybe you loved it. Either way, you found yourself smiling into the darkness of the apartment.
"You sound very pleased with yourself."
"I am."
You laughed softly.
"Because I answered the phone?"
"Because I was beginning to think Abbot had kidnapped you."
"Trust me, if he'd kidnapped me, you'd know about it."
You eased into conversation again, tucking yourself deeper beneath the blanket, listening to him talk about a trail he'd found that morning. He was halfway through describing some impossible view over a lake when he suddenly stopped.
"Can I ask you something?"
You frowned. "Depends."
"That picture earlier."
Your pulse immediately betrayed you. "What about it?"
There was a pause. "Nothing."
You laughed. "That's not how questions work."
"I know."
"So?"
Another pause. You could practically hear him weighing his words.
"I just didn't realise you'd sent it like that."
Heat crept up your neck.
"Like what?"
"You know exactly what I mean."
Unfortunately, you did.
The worst part was how carefully he was speaking. How neither of you was actually saying anything and yet somehow both of you knew exactly what the other was talking about.
"It was an accident."
"I figured."
"You sound disappointed at that."
The silence that followed lasted a fraction too long. Your breath caught, just slightly. Then Robby laughed low and quiet.
"That's a dangerous thing to accuse me of."
You stared at the ceiling. Very aware of the oversized t-shirt you were still wearing and how your nipples were suddenly hard beneath it.
"I think you've become a lot more confident since Alberta."
"Oh yeah? Is that a bad thing?" he asked.
"No, it's kinda sexy actually." You laughed, so did he. Then a second passed and you felt the boldness creep in, so much so it decided your next move. "Do you want me to send another?"
You could practically hear Robby choke on his own breath and in the time he tried to get on top of his words, you'd pulled the blanket away, your phone up high with the front camera on, snapping a pic that showed a lot more than the last.
This time it was the bottom of your face, lips plump and pouty, your t-shirt tugged 'innocently' higher to give way to the band of your panties flashed across your hip. Your legs were crossed, not for the picture but to try and ease the now insatiable ache between them. As for your nipples? There was no denying they were the star of the show.
You sent it before thinking twice.
"Fuck." Robby breathed and you knew he was looking right at you.
"Is that better?"
You heard him take a deep breath and could imagine the blush on his cheeks. "You're gonna be the death of me."
You couldn't help but smile. His voice had gotten lower, a little huskier, almost like he was out of breath.
"Robby?"
"Yeah?" He breathed.
"What are we doing?"
He took a minute to answer. Not sure of what he should say, what he wanted to say. "I don't know." You couldn't see but he rubbed his face over his hand, coming to rest at the base of his neck. "I don't fucking know."
He was sat on the sofa at the cabin. The fire was going, lights dim and warm. Ever since you'd sent that first picture he'd been tight against his jeans but then you sent another and fuck, his hand came to adjust himself over the denim.
"But I'm not sure I can pretend I'm thinking of anything other than that picture right now."
You felt a little smug. That was, after all, why you sent it. It was so nice to feel sexy, for someone to be looking at you the way he was, someone you wanted to see you this way.
"Yeah? What you thinking about?" You knew what you were doing. Knew how it would draw the last breath out of him but you also knew you'd crossed a line and there was no going back. Not that you wanted to.
Your hands trailed over yourself, light touches over the cotton of your t-shirt. Your body jolted when finger tips ghosted the outline of a nipple, trailing left to pay the other as much attention. Fuck, it felt good.
Robby knew the pair of you were in dangerous territory but god, he wanted to be there. His head fell back in disbelief, as if he were mad at himself for what he was about to tell you over the phone.
His resident.
"You touching yourself in my apartment." He paused, waiting to see if he'd taken it too far only to hear a quiet moan from you in response. "Playing with yourself in the guest bedroom..."
"I am." Your hand snaked from your tits slowly to your panties, cupping yourself over the lace and that's when you felt it. "Fuck Robby I'm really wet…”
Jesus Christ. He felt himself jolt against his own hand, the one that was palming the growing outline of his cock.
"Fuck, baby. You're really trying to kill me huh?" He huffed a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief that this was happening. Almost three months of texts, phone calls, voice notes. A camera roll shared, bad days eased by mindless humour and companionship. A relationship built on all of that.
"You want me to go to your bed?" You almost panted down the line as you moved against your hand. "Fuck myself in your sheets?"
"Shit," He exhaled.
"You want that?"
"Yeah…" His reply was too fast and he cursed himself for it. But all he wanted was the image of you, two fingers deep, coming to his voice while soaking his bed spread. "Please baby, do it for me."
And with that, you got up. He heard rustling down the line as you made your way from the guest bed to Robby's. It wasn't a room you'd gone in much. You'd said you were going to snoop through his drawers, his closet just to be nosy but turns out you had too much respect for his privacy. That was months ago. Now you were crawling onto the bed, setting your phone on speaker next to you as you positioned yourself right in the middle.
Robby was waiting patiently. He'd done no more than rub himself a few times over his jeans, grinding a little into his hand but then knowing it'd be too much and he'd end up blowing his load like a teenager. Instead, he waited. For you. To enjoy you.
You laid your head back against his pillows, inhaling him as if he were right next to you. "Mmm, smells like you in here." You said quietly. "It's like you're here."
He wished he was there. You did too. Wished it was his fingers swiping through your wetness, dipping into your panties and feeling how worked up you'd got from sending him one (not even) dirty photo.
"Tell me what you're doing." It felt like an order even though it wasn't and your pussy jumped at the idea. "Wanna hear you."
"Fuck. 'M rubbing myself over my panties." You whispered lightly. "Wanna take them off."
"Take them off baby." He'd hoped you'd throw them to the side and forget, only for him to find them on his return. "Spread your legs, let me hear."
It'd be hard for him not to hear with how soaked you were.
It was amazing how one phone conversation and suddenly this is how you found yourself, legs open for Michael Robinavitch.
With your panties gone, you anchored your legs apart. Fingers sliding through your dripping slit, gathering your arousal to swirl it in tight circles around your clit. The slick sounds filled the room, they filled the cabin too.
Robby couldn't take it anymore. You heard the sound of metal, a belt unbuckling before a zip slid down in haste. He freed himself, pulling his cock from his boxers, thick and hard. He was leaking from the tip, all red and worked up just from listening to you. It felt so fucking good when he finally stroked himself.
"Oh fuck." He tried to bite it back, failing miserably.
That was music to your ears.
"You hard for me Robby?"
"You have no idea. Feels so fuckin good, thinking about you." He fucked his fist nice and slow, wanting this to last and despite his cock not being inside you, he wanted you to cum first.
You decide it wasn't enough. After all this time, the calls and the pictures, you needed to see him. And you wanted him to see you.
"Wanna see you." You picked up your phone, hand still working your pussy. "Can I face- face time you?" Your words faltered a little as your fingers sped up, rubbing your sensitive clit.
Robby froze for a second. He'd got this worked up just by thinking of you in such a state and now, you were actually going to show him?
"Mhmm, yeah."
And within a second you'd pressed the button the change this to a video call. When he accepted, he saw the dark room lit by a single bedside lamp. You'd slowed your motions for a second, to pick up the phone properly and see him for the first time in months.
"Hey." You smiled, like it didn't matter what the pair of you had been doing just seconds ago. You were so happy to see his face. The slight tan he'd caught, his greyed out beard and stubble around the neck.
"Hey." He couldn't help but smile too. Knowing your hands were down your pants but not being able to get past the heat in your cheeks, how your hair had fallen across the bed and despite stating you had a hangover, you were fucking glowing.
He pondered it for a second, how he might have not noticed this before. The way your eyes narrowed when you smiled, how you looked at him.
"You look beautiful."
That might have turned you on more than anything in the last fifteen minutes. You were breathless, a little wrecked, in disbelief at any of this.
Then you set the phone down on the bedside table to free up your hands. That's when you pulled off the t-shirt entirely, leaving your perfect tits in plain view for Robby to see.
His eyes grew wide as he surveyed every inch of your skin before you laid back into the cushions as you were before, shifting to your side facing the phone.
"Is this what you were thinking about?" You snaked your hand back down to your cunt, dipping in but not all the way, just enough for Robby to hear the slick mess.
"Even better." His hand slowly started to work on himself again, matching your rhythm as he held the phone in front of him.
Your mouth parted when you finally sank a finger inside, then another. Two digits curled deep in your pussy, rolling your hips against them and you never took your eyes off him.
"Fuck Robby." You sped your motions a little, so did he. "Wish it was your fingers, wish it was you inside me."
You weren't sure where it came from. The filthy tongue, the boldness. You weren't shy in bed but he was your boss. The boss you were innocently house sitting for until you decided to get attached.
"Christ." He bit back a moan at your obscenity. "Imagine it's me baby." He started fucking his fist faster, wishing it was your pussy. "Imagine it's my cock deep inside you, I'd fuck you so good, make you feel so fucking good."
It dropped from his tongue with little effort. He thought about how much he wanted to be buried inside you, how he'd wanted that for a while and was too scared to admit it.
"Mmmph Robbyyyy." You whined his name, breathing hard, riding your fingers as you felt the coil tighten in your belly. "Let me see you."
He did the same as you, positioning the phone on the side table that sat at the same height as the sofa. It left him in view from the waist up, free hand roaming his covered chest, the other pumping his cock hard.
You watched him intently. Heard the sounds of precum slickening his strokes as his hips drove up with every beat.
"Fuck I'm close-” You worked yourself with both hands, two buried to the knuckle and the other rubbing your clit with such ferocity. "Really fucking close Robby I think I'm gonna cum soon."
"Cum for me angel, let me see. Such a good girl."
Your hands worked even faster and suddenly, the coil snapped with words of praise and you were coming in Robby's bed.
"Oh my god oh my-” Then silence, your body went rigid as you clamped your hands hard, riding out the most intense orgasm you'd had in years.
You were a sight for sore eyes. Mouth wide open, tits bouncing with every movement and all it took was your guttoral moans for Robby to feel himself close to the edge too. He was fucking himself so hard and fast, it was almost a blur on screen until you heard him pant, a strangled "Uh uh uh" and then-
"I'm gonna cum baby oh fuck-”
You watched him spill his load all over his hand. Thick white ropes dripped down his knuckles, marking his jeans as he stroked himself through it, twitching at his now very sensitive cockhead.
You were both left breathless and sweaty, each reaching for your respective phones.
"You-” He was trying so hard to catch his breath. "-are something else."
You both laughed breathlessly. Fuck, this felt good.
You stayed on the phone for hours after until he ordered you to bed. Told you to sleep well, that he'd be thinking of you.
And that night was the best sleep of your life.
-
Everything felt different after that night except it also all stayed the same.
You spoke every day. Called most nights, FaceTimed, voice noted when you were cooking dinner or carrying groceries. But now it seemed like nothing was left unsaid, that you were both being honest with each other. It was amazing.
The only thing eating away at you right before you fell asleep was the idea this might end. When the three weeks crept closer, when the sabbatical would end. Would everything go back to how it was before?
"Hey can I ask you something?" You broke mid conversation.
"Anything."
"When this is over. Your sabbatical I mean. When you come back and I'm not here." You trailed off slightly. "...Will this all go away?"
There was silence on the line for a second.
"Not if I have anything to do with it."
Your smile reached your ears. Good because-” You inhaled deeply. "I don't think I can go back."
-
You worked like a dog over the next four days.
At one point you'd even picked up a double because Lena had practically begged for night shift cover, and despite every intention of saying no, somehow you'd found yourself agreeing anyway.
It meant you barely saw daylight all week and you didn't get to speak to Robby much either. Not in the way either of you would've liked.
You checked in between shifts, during breaks and whenever you made it home with enough energy to keep your eyes open. He'd send the occasional text during the day, but most of your conversations happened at night. Sometimes a quick call, sometimes longer if exhaustion didn't drag you under first.
It was a brutal four days. By the end of it you were running almost entirely on caffeine and stubbornness, convinced you'd briefly developed double vision somewhere around shift three.
When you finally crawled into bed at the end of it all, you slept hard.
Since your FaceTime call, you hadn't stepped foot in the guest room. Every night you ended up in Robby's bed instead, tangled in his sheets and surrounded by things that smelled faintly like him.
He loved knowing that.
Day five arrived with something close to actual rest. You woke around nine and, for the first time all week, didn't feel like death.
After a shower you made coffee, pulled on some loungewear that wasn't technically pyjamas and settled onto the sofa with every intention of finally finishing the book you'd started at the beginning of all this.
You'd texted Robby before getting in the shower. There was still no reply. You assumed he was asleep or hiking or somewhere without signal. Either way, you weren't worried.
Twenty-five minutes later there was a knock at the door. You sighed immediately.
It had to be Jack.
Apparently nobody trusted you to spend three months in an apartment unsupervised.
Already preparing your speech, you marched towards the door and pulled it open.
The words died in your throat.
"Robby."
For a second your brain simply stopped working. Because Robby was supposed to be in Canada. Robby was supposed to be another two thousand miles away. Robby was supposed to be a voice coming through your phone speaker. Not standing in front of you.
"Hey."
His smile spread slowly across his face, tired and genuine all at once. His cheeks were pink from the road and his eyes looked glassy around the edges, like he'd spent too many hours behind the handlebars and not nearly enough sleeping.
You stared. "What are you doing here?"
He laughed softly. "Good to see you too."
"No, seriously." You gestured vaguely at him and the doorway. What are you doing here? You were in Canada. That's like-" Your brain searched desperately for a number. "It's like five thousand miles."
"Not quite."
"Robby-”
He kissed you.
Just stepped across the threshold and kissed you.
His hands came up to cup your face as he guided you backwards into the apartment, the front door swinging shut somewhere behind him.
Every thought disappeared. All the questions and confusion, gone.
Because he was here, after months of messages and phone calls and hearing his voice through a screen, he was finally here. The last four days worked in his favour, you being so busy. He'd hit the road almost immediately, covering far too much mileage to be considered safe. All to make it back to you.
You kissed him back immediately, both hungry and relieved. Like you were making up for every mile that had sat between Alberta and Pittsburgh.
When he finally pulled away, it was only far enough to look at you, forehead resting against yours.
"Two and a half thousand miles," he corrected quietly.
You laughed.
For a moment neither of you spoke.
"You know," you murmured, fingers still wrapped around his wrists, "this is a very dramatic way to get your keys back."
Robby laughed, the sound warm and familiar.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
His thumbs swept across your cheeks.
“Good thing I never came back for the keys”
Your heart squeezed.
And this time, when you kissed him, neither of you had anywhere else to be.
robby having you lying across his lap with your panties down around your ankles, his thumb circling your tight hole while he holds you down with his other hand because you squirm so much when he slightly dips his thumb in, teasing you.
“aww poor baby, someone’s needy huh?” he coos, his voice dripping in condescension which makes you squirm more under his touch.
“n-no” you pout but the whine that escapes your lips when he swaps his thumb for two fingers betrays you.
robby chuckles at that.
“yeah, okay baby, you’re not needy at all” he laughs biting his lip as he feels your walls tighten around his fingers.
Intern!Reader being afraid of the consequences that may occur if she gives in to sleeping with Robby would go a bit like this:
"We can't, Michael," you breathe, your voice a little strained on account of the fact that the man in question - your attending, for fucks sake - has you in a compromising position in a long since forgotten on call room.
"Why not, honey? Do you want me to stop?" Robby's fingers trace along the seam of your cunt, effortlessly gathering your slick before his hand pulls away to wrap back around his cock.
"No," you whimper emphatically, "but what if someone finds out? It'll be fine for you, but for me-"
Your words cut off as he resumes rubbing the thick head of his cock against your clit, the same torture he's been subjecting you to for the last few minutes.
It's not that you don't want him. You do. Oh god, you do, but you're afraid.
He's chief attending, and you're just an intern. If anyone were to find out, he'd probably be able to walk it off. He's a man, in a position of power. It's a dangerous risk to take.
But fuck, if you don't want to.
You make breathy little moans as he taps his cock against your clit, the sensitive bundle of nerves already puffy and swollen from the earlier ministrations of his skilled fingers.
Each impact sends a little jolt of arousal through you, makes your cunt flutter and tighten around nothing.
"Shhh, shhh," he soothes you, presses little kisses to your throat, open mouthed as his free hand slides up your scrub top, finds your breast and caresses it, before it slides back down to pull you closer.
"I'll take care of it, honey, if that happens. I'll take care of you, I promise-"
He coos the words to you as he drags his cock through your slick, notches his tip at your dripping entrance, searches your gaze for the permission that he finds there before he presses in.
Your eyes glaze over, kissed plump lips parting in a pretty moan as he stuffs you full of him, but even if you forget, he won't. He'll remember his promise; you may be another secret in a growing line of lovers, but he'll take care of you just fine.
Summary: You and robby have a good thing going, so good you don't mind that you two work together, or that he's twenty years older. That is, until you take him to meet your family at Thanksgiving and all those little differences you didn't seem to notice before come to the surface.
Status: 3/4 parts complete
Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist
This morning isn’t the first time you’ve risen in an empty bed, the right side of the mattress void of the man who typically resides there. You swipe your hand across the rumpled flat sheet, half-way hoping you’re still dreaming and he is actually there, your hand finding his chest instead of the sheet. Alas, he really is gone and the sheet is cold to the touch. He must have left a while ago.
The glowing red numbers of the clunky, two-years-to-vintage alarm clock on his nightstand reads six-thirty-two, its light cutting through the darkness of the late autumn morning trying to seep through the undrawn shades. You’ve told him time and time again to wake you up before he leaves, even if you are groggy and grumpy, even if there is still sleep gluing your eyes shut. As long as you’re conscious enough to kiss him goodbye and lock eyes on his face before he leaves for twelve hours, he should wake you up.
You don’t want to get out of bed. Your body heat and the warmth of the duvet you’re buried under cocoons you in a blissful comfort. Plus, the sheets smell like his skin fresh from a shower: the aquatic notes in his soap, the woody scent of his 3-in-1 shampoo. Pressing the cotton-linen blend to your nostrils, you suck in a deep inhale, letting the aroma gleam over you like a salve to a wound. It conjures up memories of your legs entangled with his beneath the comforter, his calloused hands roaming your bare back, the tickling kiss of his beard on your neck as he nibbled at your cheek with sweet devotion.
It makes you physically ill to be yanked from your daydream by the shrill ring of your phone. You left it on the top of the dresser across the room, and you’re greeted with a fork in the road. Either, you get out of bed and pick up the phone, or you stay under the covers and listen to the annoying blare. You try out the latter option until the sound returns after a moment of silence, the caller trying to reach you again. The idea of Robby’s voice on the other end of the line is motivation enough to spring from the mattress into the cold, morning air. Your feet pad across the hardwood floor, the planks frigid beneath your toes.
Picking up your phone, you see the illuminated screen read your sister’s name.
“Lizzy?” The first word you’ve spoken this morning cracks on the way up your hoarse throat, dry and scratchy from disuse.
Her voice, on the other hand, is nothing but chipper. “Good morning. Did I wake you up?”
“No,” you lie, clearing your throat. “I’ve been up for a bit.”
“Oh, are you on call today? Is now a bad time?”
“No, I’m off today, what’s up?”
“Why did Mama call me last night, telling me you’re not coming home for Thanksgiving?”
You sigh deeply, shoulders falling in defeat. Of course she called her, your older sister, the eldest child of the family, to tattle on you. “I can’t make it, Lizzy, I have work.”
“Can’t you ask for the day off?”
She can be so obtuse. Your whole family thinks you can call off work, willy-nilly. “I can’t, no. I’ll see you guys at Christmas, though. Maybe I can make a trip up there before then, but I just can’t make it this week, I’m sorry.”
“We won’t be in town for Christmas, (Y/N).”
“Why not? We always go to Mom and Dad’s for Christmas.”
Your heart warms at the image of a New England Christmas. The snow that collects on the lawn, fluffy and white. The smell of real pine draped over the mantle of a crackling fireplace, the lacquered wood banister of the staircase. Apple cider and wassail simmering on the gas stove. Even Midnight Mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral has you nearly drooling over the scent of incense and the taste of an undeserved communion wafer on your tongue, stomach still full of the goodies served at Christmas Eve dinner hours before. Your favorite holiday can’t come soon enough.
Lizzy sucks in a deep breath and takes a beat before answering. You hate when people take forever to respond to a question. In your book, the longer the gap between the question and the answer, the more destructive it is.
“Hudson and I are moving to California for his LLC at UCLA. We’ll be right in the middle of moving by that time and we don’t want to have to fly back and forth before we get settled.”
“You’re moving to California with your boyfriend? Do our parents know about this?”
Some more orthodox could call your parents ‘Cafeteria Catholics’, but one stricture they don’t capitulate on is cohabitation before marriage–a marriage ordained by God, held beneath the glow of a cathedral’s stained glass windows.
“Fiancé,” she corrects. “Remember?”
How could you forget? The man proposed beneath the stars in Central Park, with a fat, natural sapphire haloed with diamonds à la Lady Di, your sister’s lifelong muse and spirit animal. She facetimed you immediately, inundated every family group chat with pictures of the proposal and the ring now wrapped around her finger. You were happy that she was happy, but you just couldn’t get it up for the man she was planning to marry–the man who drunkenly tried to make out with you at Lizzy’s holiday party last year, and soberly groped you on his brother’s boat the summer before that.
“Mom and Dad know and they’re excited for both of us. They’re actually planning on flying out after Thanksgiving to help us move into our new space.”
Right, right. As long as a couple is committed enough, pre-marital cohabitation and fornication is a-okay, but you were nearly disowned when you alluded to spending the night at your college boyfriend’s dorm room. Your mother dragged you by the ear to confession the next day.
You wonder what she would do if she knew you were dating a Jewish man twice your age. One with tattoos. Ha!
“That’s sweet of them,” you lie, trying to mask the resentment in your voice.
She hums in agreement. “I have to go. I promised Bubba I’d make dinner before he comes back from pickleball.”
You vomit in your mouth a little.
Bubba. Pickleball. Making a man dinner.
You make Robby dinner all the time, but it’s different with him. He’s a decent human being who deserves any act of kindness you’re able to dole. Bubba doesn’t deserve dinner. He doesn’t deserve her, either, as far as you’re concerned.
“Okay, bye Lizzy-Lou.”
She hangs up after offering a quick word of affection in return, and the line goes dead.
“Back so soon?” You ask cheekily, lazy legs sprawled out across the couch cushions you’ve been asserting constant force on all night…and afternoon. When you have days off, you just want to lounge and let your mind go numb, whether that's by watching whatever trash you can find on Robby’s television (the man still has cable) or by scrolling through the same three apps on your phone. Today, you did both, simultaneously.
Robby huffs flatly as he closes the front door behind him, dropping his backpack onto the floor by his sneakers, tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter. He looks absolutely drained. Hollow cheeks. Heavy-lidded eyes. Messy hair. Red indentations on either side of his nose bridge. The thin skin there has been rubbed raw by the pads of his glasses, which are now hanging on the collar of his shirt.
Most of the time, he tries to sneakily adjust the schedule so the two of you have the same days off, the same break times during your shared shifts together. As much as he wanted to stay burrowed beneath the duvet with you this morning, he just couldn’t make it work. He had to go in early, and stay late. It nearly broke him when he saw you, dainty nose nuzzled into your pillow, the faint hum of a snore escaping passed your pursed lips, knowing he had to leave and spend twelve hours without your presence floating around him in the ED.
“Oh you know,” he starts, unzipping the top of his hoodie. “Time flies when you’re having fun working a near-double shift. Sorry I’m back so late.”
You shrug, sitting up to cross your legs on the cushion so you can better reach the barely-sipped glass of white wine waiting for you on the coffee table. “Don’t be. I know how it gets. I understand.” The wine is crisp on your tongue. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you, though.”
The sleeves of his hoodie are scrunched up at his elbows, exposing competent forearms, the glimmer of the metal watch on his wrist. He reaches into the fridge for a cold beer and pops off the cap on the edge of the counter, sizzling as it becomes exposed to the air.
“That’s why I love…having you around,” he cheers after a moment of hesitation, stopping himself at the word neither of you have put toward anything else. He steps with exhausted feet over to the couch to join you, gently clinking the mouth of his beer bottle against the wine glass in your clawed fingers. “You get it.”
Part of you is glad that Robby has someone in his life that can relate to the uncertainty of his schedule, the bone-tiredness that comes with long shifts of saving lives, the trauma and devastation that come with…not. The other part of you wonders what it would be like if either of you had chosen a different career and still happened to meet, maybe in a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon, or in the produce section of a grocery store. Maybe if one half of the relationship, or whatever it is, wasn’t caught up in the chaos that is the emergency department, things would be easier. The constant assertion from Robby that you both being in the same line of work actually helped the health of your coupling always sates these fears of yours. You’re still holding out for your own interpretation.
“I do,” you agree slowly, the wine already thickening your tongue. “Is that the only reason you love having me here?”
A devilish smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “Of course not, but damn if it isn’t nice not having to explain why I can’t always make it home on time, no matter how much I try, and I really tried today.” He scooches closer, placing a warm palm on the flesh of your inner thigh, fingers beginning to draw tight circles on your skin. The sensation of his cool fingertips on your bare skin made you gasp. “I am sorry that I’m late, though. Believe me when I say that this is where I wanted to be two hours ago. Abbot got a flat tire on the highway.”
“You don’t have to apologize. Just sit with me.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Before Robby can get in five minutes of reading, you’re already hopping onto his lap, planting sloppy kisses up and down his pebbled throat, playing with his beard, tugging the hair at the nape of his neck. He just looks so sexy in his reading glasses, you can’t help but jump him.
Warm, brown eyes look up at you, and a toothless smile appears on his face, causing the lines near them to deepen. You take this moment to really drink up the details, closely studying the faint splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. Have you noticed those before?
His voice interrupts your silent examination.
“I don’t know what a beautiful, young thing like yourself wants to do with an old man like me.”
Oh, here it goes. Robby’s borderline religious ritual of self-deprication. He has to flagellate himself with thirty lashes before he can touch you or kiss you. You let him do it. Sometimes you push back and tell him that his age doesn’t mean anything to you–that you’d still want to be with him, no matter what age or phase of life. Other times, you give in, flipping it into some sort of fantasy to soften the blow, calling him a pervert or a creep.
Tonight, you’re in the mood to be sweet, to take care of him. No need for any name calling.
“I want everything to do with an old man like you,” you quip back, throwing a leg over his pair of thighs to straddle his lap. “I want to kiss you.” You lay a sticky, wet kiss on his cheek, fingers trailing up his neck. They play with the soft hair of his beard, the bone of his jaw beneath it. “I want to undress you.” They move to the zipper of his fleece hoodie, gripping the cool metal, pulling it down to reveal a black v-neck scrub top lying on top of a long sleeve tee. He aids you in removing the layers until the sweet sheen of his skin glimmers beneath the dim light of the lamp. “I want to feel you…everywhere.”
He chuckles. A pair of round, black-rimmed reading glasses sit on the tip of his nose. He looks up at you from across the ridge.
“That so?”
“Mhm,” you hum, pulling the glasses off his nose, taking a good look at his handsome face before slipping them back onto his nose. “Actually, the glasses stay on. I like them.”
“They make me look old,” he groans, yanking them off his face, tossing them next to his discarded book, which now sits open, spine up, on the sofa cushion.
You groan dramatically, slinking off of him until your back meets the sofa cushion, your head leaning on the arm. “Robby, I’m tired of that. Stop it.”
“Stop what?” he asks, actually perplexed as if he has no clue, shoulders rising to his ears as he opens two defensive palms.
You just shake your head and scoff. “Nevermind. Read your book.”
“Suit yourself.” He picks up his glasses. “I will be needing these, though.”
The two of you sit in silence for the next ten minutes, you scrolling through your phone, Robby reading. Silence eats at your skin, the quiet hum of the apartment gnawing at your flesh. It makes you antsy and restless, your limbs aching to be moved, tongue dying to speak.
“I’m thinking about driving up to my parents’ place tomorrow,” you say, voice cutting through the calm.
Robby drops the book onto the coffee table, his glasses to the tip of his nose. “I thought you didn’t want to go.”
“I didn’t. I don’t, really.”
“What made you change your mind?” Hands now free, he guides his palms across your bare legs, rubbing and massaging the flesh of your thighs, dragging gentle fingers over your shins.
“My sister called. She guilted me into it.”
He nods, grinning until the corners of his mouth press his cheeks into round balls. “Whatever you want, baby.”
He’s too chipper. He thinks he’s getting off easy.
“Whatever I want? Is that so?”
He has picked up his book again, eyes now drilling holes into the page, brows furrowed as he concentrates on the words. How the man can read after a near double shift? You have no idea.
With your foot, you nudge his inner thigh. He looks up at you. “Huh?”
“You said ‘whatever I want’, right?”
“Uh, sure.”
“Well, I was actually thinking that you could come with me. It’s the perfect time for you to meet my family.”
His eyes cut around the room, looking at nothing in particular. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? They’re not going to make a big deal about me being half a century old?”
You giggle. “Not to your face at least, and definitely not over Thanksgiving dinner in front of everyone.”
He raises two brows high, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Everyone?”
“Yeah, everyone. You know…we’re Catholic. Big family.”
“How big? Who all will be there?”
“Gee, I don’t know the whole guest list off the top of my head but my parents, my siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins…”
“Big guest list.”
“Like I said, big family.”
“Catholic,” he repeats, sucking in his bottom lip as he nods slowly. The next thing you know, he has discarded his reading material once more, pulling you back onto his lap. He’s never going to finish that book.
“Mhm.”
“They know I’m…not Catholic, right?” He runs a hand over your bare back. A big, capable hand.
You swallow, beneath his touch and at the idea of your mother finding out your boyfriend is not only not Catholic, but not even Christian. She’s going to flip. It kind of excites you.
“No, but it shouldn’t matter.”
“Shouldn’t or doesn’t are two very different things, darling.” The hand on your back travels down past the waistband of your shorts and onto the thick of your ass, grabbing it so hard you yelp as he pushes you further down onto his lap. Instinctively, you begin to grind down, taking his growing erection.
“So that’s a ‘no’?”
“It’s probably not a good idea. Not sure I’m the type of guy your parents want you to bring home.”
“You’re a doctor. What parents wouldn’t want their daughter to bring home a doctor?”
“Must I remind you, I’m the same age as your father.”
You shake your head, adamant that he’s wrong. “We already talked about this, remember? He’s much older.” Five years.
“I still don’t think so, I’m sorry.”
“I guess I’ll just have to convince you, Doctor Robin–”
“Fuck,” you hiss into Robby’s ear as his hard bulge hits all the right spots, even through the fabric of your shorts and the rough denim of his jeans. “Can we–can–ugh–we take this to the bedroom, honey?”
“No,” he growls, slamming your hips onto his lap, holding them down, limiting your movement to grinding back and forth, unable to so much as lift yourself up by the knees. “Keep going.”
“It’s too much,” you whimper, grabbing the front of this unzipped hoodie in your fists, pulling his mouth onto yours. His tongue tastes like beer and nicotine gum as it brings yours into a waltz. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I’m not taking you to the bedroom until you cum on me. Right now.”
The familiar rush builds in the low valley of your belly, slowly rising and gaining strength as Robby moves your hips along his dick, back and forth. He whispers praises in your ear, all coated in the gritty gravel of his voice. He likes being rough with you, but only if such roughness is sugared with affection. It works every time.
“I’m not going to give you what you want until you do.”
A plea is caught in your throat, interrupted by a gasping moan as Robby picks up the pace. Your thighs burn. Your clit is throbbing under the stimulation.
“Come on, baby,” he groans in your ear. “Let me hear you. Be as loud as you want. I just want to hear it.” He tugs on the swathe of loose hair trickling down your back, forcing your neck backward, your mouth into the open air. With your yelps and moans no longer muffled by the crook of Robby’s neck where your mouth had been taking refuge, the silence of the apartment is completely replaced by the cacophony of your sounds and his. He seems to be getting off on this just as much as you are, and for a moment, you’re worried he will enjoy it too much and the fun will be over just as quickly as it started.
“Robby,” you mewl. “I’m so close.”
With the free arm not holding your hips down, Robby slithers a hand behind your neck, bringing your lips down to his. Your faces collide in a wet heat, kisses messy and slobbery as he swallows the sounds of your orgasm.
Now you’re in his room, back flush to the same bed you woke up in, but the only difference between now and this morning is that Robby is on top of you, body pressing body into the mattress. He’s kissing you harder now, hands roaming your naked waist—when did he take off your shirt—and bare tits. He moans into your mouth as he palms the fat flesh of your breasts, switching from heavy palms to ginger fingertips as he caresses your sensitive nipples.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he says into your ear, breath hot on your neck. With the same fingers that suture gaping wounds and save damaged nerves, he pushes a few locks of hair from the side of your face, past your ear. Your neck fully exposed to the cool air conditioning, you shiver, the trembling only getting worse as Robby plants soft kisses over your tendon.
“Please,” you plead. “Please, Robby.”
He pulls back so you can see his face, a smug grin at his lips. His head cocks to the side. “What is it? Huh? What does my little girl need?”
So now he doesn’t seem to mind the age difference. How convenient.
Your sleep shorts are still low on your hips, wrinkled beneath the recent activity. Robby slips a hand beneath the waistband, his fingers immediately finding your clit, immediately rubbing and circling. A whiny moan slips through your parted lips, and he responds by continuing the method of torture he’s applying, eliciting whimper after whimper until you’re near ready to gush again.
Then, he stops, retreating from your throbbing bud completely, yanking your shorts and panties off in one sweet and throwing them both over his shoulder.
“Wha–”
“You weren’t using your words. Tell me what my baby needs me to do to her. Words, this time.”
“I need you inside. Right now.”
You haven’t been able to stop thinking about his dick today, long and hard and dripping for you. The feeling of it stretching your walls as he thrusts in and out of you, unrelenting as he ravishes your body and takes what is his.
He chuckles. “I can do that.”
Fingers thrust inside your entrance. One? Two? You can’t feel exactly how many he’s shoved inside, but you do know that the stretch is only going to push you that much closer to the edge.
“Does that feel good, baby?”
“Uh-huh.” You’re practically babbling at this point, legs wobbling, knees pressing against Robby’s still-clothed torso. “H–Hey–uh no fair. Y-you’re still dressed.” Stuttering, teeth chattering, you’re surprised you can manage to let out a fully coherent swear. “Fuck.”
Your back comes off the mattress like two pieces of velcro detaching. White knuckles grab the loose sheet beneath you, twisting the cotton into your fists. Robby just watches you from above, still wearing his smug smile, proud of the mess he has created. The competent, genius Dr. (L/N), now a shaky puddle beneath him. He likes seeing you come undone before him. Why else would he continue to torture you, one orgasm at a time.
“That’s it, baby,” he coos, soft condescension dripping from his acerbic tongue. “Cum for me one more time. I’m not gonna fuck you until you do, remember.”
He crooks his fingers at the knuckle, hitting the spot he knows makes you fall apart in his arms. And it does. Your second orgasm crashes into you like a moving train, your body shattering into a million tiny pieces that crash onto the mattress.
Robby pulls out three wet fingers. They glisten beneath the dim light as he brings them up to his mouth, sucking your arousal from them, licking them clean.
Your breathing is heavy and labored, and Robby notices, furrowing his brows as if he’s not the one who did this to you. “Shh,” he hushes, smoothing down the hair falling loose at your temples, sweat gluing the strands to your damp skin. “That’s my good girl.” He plants a kiss on your forehead. You cringe beneath the touch, one-hundred-and-ten-percent sure he’s got sweat and oil on his lips now. You’re a mess. “You always do so good for me. I’m gonna have to reward you, huh?”
You nod. “Please.”
He pushes back onto his heels, hands coming up to yank his shirts off in one desperate sweep. Your mouth begins to salivate as you see his now-bare torso, the chain he wears around his neck glinting in the light. Robby is tall, broad-shouldered, strong in the sense that he could chop wood and help you carry heavy things, that is, until his back begins to hurt and he has to pop an ibuprofen and rest for a moment. Poor old man.
You watch as he moves to standing, naked chest on full display, shoulders rolled back. His fingers trail down to his jeans, undoing the button, unzipping the fly. He shoves them down to the floor, now wearing nothing but a pair of briefs, the thick band cutting into the little bit of flesh on his hips. He’s just soft enough.
“Gonna keep those on?” You ask with a raised brow, voice still weak, mind still dumb.
He tilts his head to the side, your favorite habit of his. “Guess not.” Briefs are shoved down to the floor, meeting the rest of his discarded articles of clothing, leaving your lover completely exposed to you. His dick is red and weeping, tip soaked with anticipation. You’re not typically one who craves a cock on your tongue, but tonight you’re feeling especially feral.
You press yourself up onto your elbows, then onto your knees, crawling to the foot of the bed toward Robby, still standing. His hands immediately come to your hair, mussing it with his fingers. The image of his veiny, elegant hands tangled in the strands builds up enough moisture in your mouth to welcome the head into your pursed lips.
“Wha–what are you doing?” He asks, his voice staggering.
You pull yourself off of his tip with a lewd pop, big eyes flickering up at him. Just the sight is enough to make his knees weak. “I wanna taste you.”
His chest stutters as a deep, throaty chuckle emerges from it. “I don’t have the stamina to do too many things at once.”
“No,” you pout. “I guess not.”
“Get on your hands and knees and face the headboard,” he commands. The playfulness has disappeared from his voice, replaced with the domineering tone he typically sports in the bedroom. You follow his order, turning around, backing your ass up until you feel his hands at your cheeks, stopping you in place.
Glancing over your shoulder, you watch as Robby lines himself up with your entrance, his pecs and shoulders flexing as one arm extends out toward your hip, the other stroking himself to complete stiffness so you get the full effect of his length. He doesn’t ask you if you’re ready or if he can enter, he just thrusts himself inside. The stretch is immaculate. You cry out, arching your back so your face is on the mattress, so he can hit that sweet spot against your front wall.
“Fuck,” he growls, bottoming out inside you. The sound of his pelvis hitting your flesh is borderline pornographic. His poor neighbors who have to hear this every night. You should bake them cookies or something. “You’re so tight. It’s like your body is made for me.”
You hoist yourself up onto the heels of your palms, one hand reaching back to grab his forearm, fingers digging into the thick muscle. It pulls him further into you. He groans at the contact.
He thrusts a couple times, pumping in and out. It’s not enough.
“Robby,” you say, looking back at him. His brown eyes lift slightly to yours, called to attention by the syrup on your tongue. He halts all movement, probably assuming he’s done something wrong, that he’s hurt or broken you in some way. He’s insecure like that. “You’re holding back on me. I know you can go harder. I want you to go harder,” you correct, digging your hands into the comforter in preparation for the pounding you hope you’re about to receive. “Harder.”
He groans at the request, and immediately gets to work, being very obedient to his lover’s request. “You’ve got it.” He thrashes into you and strikes your ass with his hand. You yelp at the mean touch, face returning to the pillow beneath you, fingers finding refuge in the squishy material. His dick buries into you, almost bruisingly as it punches your cervix after every thrust.
“Harder,” you cry.
“Fuck.” His breath becomes labored as he tries to keep up with your command, wanting so desperately to satisfy your every wish and desire. Robby just wants to make you happy. You’ve done so much for him, coming into his life to piece together the broken pieces, soothing his every wound like a balm with your infinite affection. “I’m so close.”
“No,” you bite. “Not yet. I want more. Keep going.”
If only he was twenty years younger. He would be able to satisfy you in ways he’s unable to now. He would know all the funny phrases you say around him, the same internet lingo he hears the other residents use at the hospital. He would be able to give you the children you want, the family he heard you fantasize about with Santos in the break room one day. What exactly were you two talking about? Some celebrity named their kid something atrocious and the two of you were nearly buckled over laughing at it. You said you’d never name your child something so heinous.
And he’d be able to fuck you like you want. “I can’t baby, I can’t hold off–fuck–I’m sorry.” He groans one last time and his chest comes crashing onto your back and he finishes inside, filling you up with the warmth of his orgasm.
You are only slightly disappointed, but quickly wipe the visible manifestation off your face as you flip yourself over, back to the bed, to see Robby beside you, completely spent. His cheeks are flushed and rosy. Beads of sweat pool on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he huffs out, mustering up enough energy to lift his arm, placing a warm palm on your thigh. “I wanted to keep going, I just couldn’t.”
“It’s alright, Robby.” You lean over and give him a kiss on the cheek, the graying hair of his beard tickling your lips as you trail them down to meet his. “I still love you.”
What.
You did not just say that.
Yes, yes you did.
You freeze, praying to the Catholic god, the Jewish one, hell, even the one Jehovah witnessed , that Robby was not lucid enough to hear that—that word neither of you have said yet.
Robby’s just lying there with his eyes shut, breathing heavily, huffing and puffing like he just crossed the finish line of a marathon. You’re so not ready to be fifty-three. But you’re totally fine dating a man who is.
“Sorry, what were you saying?”
Oh good, maybe you’re in the clear. The first time you tell him you love him will not be after a round of rough sex.
“Just saying that you owe me, big time.”
He laughs, patting your thigh. “Sure thing. I’ll buy you something shiny.”
Summary: You and robby have a good thing going, so good you don't mind that you two work together, or that he's twenty years older. That is, until you take him to meet your family at Thanksgiving and all those little differences you didn't seem to notice before come to the surface.
Status: 3/4 parts complete
Next Part | Masterlist
"I don't know if I can make it, Mom," you utter into the speakerphone, body already cringing in anticipation for the shit you're about to get from her. "They need me at work."
Thanksgiving is just a made-up holiday celebrating a potluck that happened centuries ago, anyway. A historical event occurred, Hallmark made some cards and slapped it on the calendar, and banks close. Well, by that definition, all holidays are made up. But it's not like you're missing Christmas Day. If you did, you'd definitely deserve the you-work-too-much lecture you're about to get. You make a mental note to block off Christmas Eve so you can go to Midnight Mass with your parents save they cut you from the will.
Your mother hisses at the receiver. "They can't let you go for one night? One night?"
"It's a holiday, Mother. I'm not going to ask for the night off when we're short-staffed as it is."
That's not completely a lie. The department could always use more hands, and you didn't ask for the night off, per se.
"You're there all the time, (Y/N). Surely, they can spare you for one night so you can eat dinner with your family. Especially this year. You know, it'll probably be Nana Rose's last Thanksgiving."
She's been using that line to guilt-trip you for the last three years. Can't make it to lunch on Easter Sunday? It will probably be the last time you can see Nana Rose. Don't want to spend money on a flight across the country for a family reunion? Nana Rose will be there and you better come to hug and kiss her while you still can.
Three years, and Nana Rose still hasn't kicked the bucket. The old lady has been chain smoking since JFK was president and you've never seen someone so religiously throw Dr. Pepper down their gullet. Perhaps that's the fountain of youth after all.
"Is it too much for me to ask that all my children come home for Thanksgiving? I haven't had you all under my roof since we moved Connor into his dorm, and since you started working at the hospital. Even your little brother can take a break from studying to come home."
Connor? The business major who plays pokemon in class when he isn't face-first in a red solo cup of jungle juice? I'm sure he really had to clear his schedule.
"I'm glad Sigma Chi can spare him for the evening, Mom."
You can practically hear the flutter of her eyes as they roll into the back of her head.
"Elizabeth is bringing Hudson, of course, and it got me and your father thinking that you could bring this new guy you're seeing."
"Um, I don't know if that's—"
"We don't bite, (Y/N). Bring him to dinner.”
Yeah, they don't bite. She says that now. One look at the pendant on Robby's chain and she'll keel over into the pumpkin pie. One look at his crow's feet and your father will be reaching for the hunting rifle he keeps above the fireplace.
She keeps yapping about the food she's planning on preparing, as if Aunt Susan's sweet potato casserole is enough to seal the deal on your attendance. You try to listen, to at least give her your attention if you can't give your presence, but a pair of large hands snake around your waist, yanking your focus away from talk of garden-fresh coriander and russet potatoes, not yukon gold.
Warm lips pepper kisses up and down your neck, followed by a long lick of a needy tongue just beneath your earlobe, which gets just as much attention between a set of nibbling teeth.
You place your palm against the speaker, turning your chin.
"I'm talking to my mother," you whisper a warning. Robby’s hands continue to roam up and down your body, lips sucking on your neck.
"If you didn’t want me to interrupt, why are you in our bedroom wearing nothing but panties and my shirt?"
Our bedroom. The possessive noun makes your insides melt into jelly. It's not technically your bedroom as much as it is his, not officially at least. The two of you haven't had the formal move-in conversation yet, but you spend more time at his place than you do your own apartment, the one you pay a significant of your paycheck on, and your toothbrush has taken up residence in his bathroom, amongst other domestic items that have nuzzled their way into drawers and cupboards around the house. For all intents and purposes, you two live together.
The muffled vibration of your mother's voice reverberates against the heel of your hand.
"I didn't know you'd be home so early. Forgive me," you say with a pout.
"Forgiven. Carry on."
You misunderstood what he meant by that, continuing the conversation with your mother, thinking he would remove his hands and busy himself with something else. How wrong you were.
"That all sounds wonderful, Mom, it really does but I just don't know if I can make it. I'd have to find someone to cover for me and I don't—oh god—"
Robby pushes himself against you until your back is flush to his chest, the thin fabric of the t-shirt you nabbed from the dryer giving way to the plush material of the sweatshirt he's wearing. Through the lace of your panties, you feel his hardening cock press its way between your cheeks. He’s wearing his dark denim jeans, but even those can’t hide the swelling between his legs as he grinds against your ass.
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain, (Y/N)."
"Sorry, Mom, I—" you lower your voice into a whisper, turning your chin away from the phone. "Fuck." A hiss escapes you as thick fingers toy with the band of your panties, teasing the soft skin stretched across your hip bones. Robby's hand glides over the cotton crotch, thumbing your clit through the lace.
"Please try to come home. We all miss you so much. The next time we are all together again may very well be…"
You try so very hard to concentrate on your mother's voice flowing from the speaker, but two fingers hook around your panties, pushing them to the side before starting their exploration. He begins circling a heavy thumb around your clit, wasting no time with delicate touches or subtle grazes. The scent of coffee and antiseptic war on his skin, eliciting an instinctive inhale from you.
Still kneading at your throbbing bud with his thumb, he plunges middle and ring fingers into your entrance. Immediately, your walls tighten around them, and a soft yelp pushes up your throat and past your lips. Your arm wraps around his neck and you bury your fingers in the hair at the nape, in desperate need of something to tether you to him, half afraid your knees might give out and you'd drop to the floor otherwise. His touch has had that effect on you since the first time he shoved you into the supply closet and fucked you against the cabinets.
"Okay, Mom. I—I have to go. I need to—"
"Are you working out? You sound out of breath. Jenny from pilates told me about this new program she’s–"
The pads of his fingers find the spongy patch behind your pelvic bone, crooking even further to pet the spot over and over in a rhythm that promises to push you over the edge any moment. You would rather die before having an orgasm while on the phone with your mother, so you quickly spit out the best excuse you can find and hit the "end call" button with a shaky hand.
Throwing the phone onto the bed, you can finally give all your attention to the growing sensation between your legs. Robby doesn't let up, diving even further into your pussy, pressing hungry kisses down the length of the upper arm still hooked around his neck. His other hand charts the territory of your thighs, your waist, your lower abdomen, studying every goosebump and chill with his fingertips.
"Does that mean you can finally make some noises? Or am I just not hitting the right spot?"
You manage to huff out a sound, half-laugh, half-moan. "No, you're definitely hitting the right spot."
You can feel him smile against your cheek, his beard tickling your soft skin as he turns his face to kiss you, starving lips searching for yours. His left hand grabs your breast, massaging the flesh with his palm, switching to a lighter touch as he pinches your stiffening nipple.
Cursing under your breath, you warn him of your impending climax with a disgustingly lewd sound. "Don't stop," you warn. "I'm so close."
"Oh, fuck, you're so hot," he groans into your ear, the sound of your pleasure feeding the fire of his own. He loves the sounds you make, always searching for affirmation that he's still got it in him—that he's still able to satiate the needs of his much younger girlfriend. "Let me hear you. Don't be shy, baby."
It crashes over you almost instantly, that pet name opening the floodgates to a white-hot flash of other-worldly delights. He doesn't stop once you scream out his first name, nor does he slow down when a warm gush of pleasure explodes over his fingers, the sound of his digits thrashing against your juices echoing against the four walls of the bedroom. You nearly collapse onto the mattress, held up only by Robby's strong arm around your waist and your palms pressed into the crisp white duvet, though your spaghetti arms could do nothing to support you on their own.
"I've got you," he assures with a gentle whisper, playfully patting your outer thigh like a coach to a quarterback when it's time to get back in the game.
You pant like a dog under a late summer sun. He turns you around to press you into his chest, letting you inhale the scent of his hoodie, detergent and house woven deep into the fabric. Looking up at him, his body towering over yours, you get a good look at his brown, puppy-dog eyes as they glisten beneath the dim, buttery light of the ceiling fixture. He's grinning from ear to ear.
“That good, huh?”
Unable to coherently string words together, you just nod. His hands cradle your head, pressing you closer. Oh how you wish he could hold you so tight to him that you flesh melds to his, and you become one. Sex is the closest you’ll ever get to that sensation and it barely scratches the surface.
“Now what was that about Thanksgiving dinner?”
You roll your eyes. “Nothing. I’m not going.”
“You should,” he says, very matter-of-fact, taking a seat on the edge of the mattress, leaning back on his palms. The sleeves of his black hoodie are scrunched up at his elbows, exposing very strong, very capable forearms. “Family time will do you some good.”
That makes you laugh out loud. “Ha! You haven’t met my family.” They’re not exactly the type of people you hang around to unwind.
“You’re right,” Robby says. You can’t quite read the expression on his face. Is it disappointing?
“What?” You taunt, hand on your hip. “You want to meet them?”
Lord knows why he’d want to.
You fail to picture Robby sharing a space with your social-climbing, country-club-going, tennis-playing parents. Or your interior designer sister who has never had a bad hair day in her life, and graduated from an SEC school with a golfer fiancé and a golden retriever. He might get along with Connor, depending on how stoned the boy is and whether or not he’s in the mood to give you a hard time for dating someone twice your age. He’s your little brother. He’s always in the mood to give you a hard time.
Before answering, Robby twists his mouth, narrowing his eyes as if he’s really, really thinking about his response. “How old are your parents, again?”
Here we go.
“Older than you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“How much older?”
Throwing your hands up in defeat, you decline to answer that question. Five years.
“Right.” he rubs his beard with his fingers, your silence the only answer he needs. “And is your father in pretty good shape, would you say?”
You shrug. “He hits the gym five times a week. Plays tennis on the weekends. You could take him though, as long as you get to him before he can pull his gun out.” He chuckles, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Let’s just stick with our original plan, ‘kay? You and me, my place, take-out because I’m not cooking on my day off, really salacious sex.”
“Salacious, huh?”
“So salacious,” you coo, each syllable dripping off your tongue like maple syrup.
His eyes light up as you nudge open his knees with yours, situating yourself between them. He looks up at you, bringing your palm to his lips, kissing it with such delicate affection, moving it to cup his cheek. You’ll never get over the way he looks at you, such adoration in his gaze, like he wants you and he’d move mountains to have you.
You step closer, close enough to feel his cock stiffen against your thigh. He hisses through his teeth at the touch, and lets out a nervous little laugh that sends butterflies racing through your veins, their wings fluttering a hundred beats a minute. This next wave of arousal might send you into cardiac arrest, but you wouldn’t mind dying in his arms. He’d bring you back to life.
“T-minus one week. We better get practicing.”
He moves to pull off his hoodie, but you grab his hands, halting them to a stop. Slow, you mouth, taking over the undressing. Fingers graze hot skin beneath the hem, and you play there for a moment, teasing just above the waistband of his jeans, of the boxers beneath them. His breath hitches and you know you’re on the right track. You’ve both been moving too fast lately, fucking in any free moment you have simultaneously, in the backseat of your car before a shift, in the supply closet during a shift, on his motorcycle. Tonight, you’re going to take your time with him, drinking up every second of your mutual lust.
You signal for him to extend his arms above your head as you draw the fleece off his torso, revealing tan, toned muscles. His body is large and commanding, muscles chiseled with just enough life and labor, cushioned with just enough age and experience. He’s perfect.
Long limbs come up to wrap around your waist, drawing you nearer to him so he can plant wet kisses on your abdomen. Tsk. Tsk. You push him down onto the mattress and give him a daring look, a challenge to stay put while you finish getting what you want. Fingers play at belt loops, traipsing across the stiff denim crotch of his pants, feeling him react, eager to spring free. The sound of the zipper coming undone beneath your fingertips is like a symphony to your ears. You pull down his jeans along with his boxers until he is fully on display.
Before you can even think about putting your mouth on him, he pulls you up by the biceps until you’re sitting pretty on his lap, legs straddling his lap. Lips meet in a blissful reunion, heavy and thick with want. You can feel his desire on your mouth, and between your legs as you grind down further onto his cock.
“Take it off,” he orders, tugging at the black band tee you borrowed from his laundry. You obey, ever eager to please him. You like when his voice turns serious. It never fails to make you feral beneath his towering superiority, in or out of the emergency room. “Those have to go too.” he gestures to your panties, and when you move to shove them down your legs, he takes advantage of your lapse in authority and flips you onto your back, yanking them the rest of the way off. There is such power in his movement. You’re pretty sure you heard them rip.
Robby sits back, taking himself in his hand to pump himself to full readiness. Clicking his tongue in disapproval, he shakes his head at the knees you try to shut. “Open your legs.”
You do. You wouldn’t dare do anything else.
“Fuck, you’re stunning.” He sticks two fingers in his mouth, not wasting too much time wetting them, seeing just how drenched your cunt is already, and sinks them inside you, stretching your walls in preparation for his cock. The biggest you’ve ever had. You’re sure that even if he wasn’t so well-endowed, he’d still know exactly how to make you weak in the knees. With his tongue, his fingers. Hell, he’d find a way to make you cum with his toes if he had to, always hell-bent on pleasing you in any way he can.
“How’d an old man like me get so lucky to have you?”
You pout, never a fan of him calling himself old. “Stop talking and get inside me.”
He tilts his head, feigning offense at your impatience. “Shh,” he hushes you, pressing a finger to your mouth. “I’m taking my time, like you took yours.”
“You interrupted said time, and you already had yours. With me. Earlier.”
He chuckles, a sound reminiscent of beer on the porch during a July sunset, rock concerts, a motorcycle ride through a national park. Autumn. Black coffee. Like a song you’d play on repeat if you could. A sound you’d inject into your veins if science found a way. It’s intoxicating and utterly addictive. You do anything you can to hear that laugh.
“Please, Robby. I want you inside me.” White knuckles grasp at the duvet. The anticipation is almost too much to handle. You’re going to explode. “Now.”
Another laugh. Another butterfly metamorphosizes in your lower belly. “You don’t have to beg, honey. I’m comin’.”
He leans down until his beard tickles your jaw, voice hot and languid in your ear as he whispers. “Relax. You’re so tense.” You feel his tip at your entrance as he lines himself up with your slit, hesitating before thrusting inside. “Breathe. We’re in no hurry.”
You follow the rise and fall of his chest, your inhales and exhales gathering in perfect unison.
Holy Shit. You’ll never get used to that feeling. That delicious pain. That indulgent pleasure as he stretches your walls, threatening to split you down the center.
His name dances on your tongue, coming out between breathy moans.
“Fuck, you’re so tight, baby,” he grunts, barely able to thrust as you pussy pulsates, gripping him like it’s afraid he’ll pull out and never return. “I can barely move. You gotta’ relax.” He reaches a hand down between your bodies, thumb finding your clit to draw slow, languorous circles as he trusts into you, deeper and deeper until his full length is coated in your arousal and he can freely move.
“Robby, I–” Dick meeting your g-spot, heavy pad on your clit. The dual sensation is all too overpowering, and you clench his cock. He growls in your ear like a beast.
“If you keep gripping me like this, I’m gonna cum.”
“Then stop doing that,” you gasp. “I can’t…when you…” Another moan leaps from your throat.
“The price I have to pay, I guess,” he kids, rolling his hips into you.
Your hands find his lats and you claw into the taut skin of his back as another wave of pleasure rides over you. So close to the peak of that rollercoaster, you yelp out a warning as the heat begins bubbling in your core.
His thrusts grow more feral as he pounds into your pussy, hands on your head to simultaneously pull you down onto his cock as he hits his hips against yours.
“You gonna cum for me?” He taunts, retreating from the crook of your neck to look you in the eyes. The pleasure is too much, you close your lids, slamming them shut as the pressure builds. His hand grabs your face, squeezing your cheeks. “Look at me? You gonna cum for me, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you say, nodding in tandem.
“Okay, do it. Now.”
The subtle domination in his voice is enough to push you to your limit, the second orgasm crashing over your body, sending you hips to meet his in an involuntary jerk. He groans in your ear, lasting three more thrusts before he collapses on top of you, your bodies welded together with sweat, flesh sticky and abused. He finishes inside, like always–one of the many charms of being in a relationship, if that’s what you can call this.
Labels haven’t been assigned. You’re not sure people of his generation even had those sorts of discussions. Maybe they just assumed that a kiss meant commitment, a date had unspoken purpose. Michael said he was open to anything, completely uninhibited about moving any which way, letting you take the lead. When you tried to have the what-are-we conversation, he said he was too old to be afraid of someone becoming a fixture in his life. In fact, he was more concerned about you and your desires for the future. You can tell he’s still insecure, worried he’s holding you back–you, a young doctor entering the spring of her life–from getting everything she could ever want. You still don’t know how to explain that it’s him you want.
You brush the strands of hair, stuck to his skin with heat, away from his forehead, petting him gently until his breathing returns to normal. He looks up at you with nothing short of gratitude and devotion swelling in his big, brown eyes. Years of stress have vanished from his face, replaced with a youthful flush.
Beautiful, you want to say, but you’re too spent to move your lips let alone conjure up your voice, which is probably hoarse and dry by now.
“I’d say we’re ready for a really fun holiday, huh?” he pants, still out of breath from the cardio.
You shake your head. “Practice makes perfect. You taught me that.”
manipulative pope cody + ‘just the tip?’ + breeding kink drabble :3
this is for my moots who inspired me to blurb! i luv you~ @valleyanimalz @dirtygir1 @bbuuunnyyy @groovyangelkisses
*nasty smut below the cut teehee* ! mdni !
pope cody hates that you make him wear a condom, that you have been making him wrap it up for the entire two month relationship. he feels it’s an unnecessary barrier keeping him from feeling all of you and filling you up properly. but, he agreed the first time because he was so desperate to be inside you. always has been. always will be.
now, even after you’ve fucked more times than he can count while protected. he’s fed up. he knows that you’ll like it bare. that you’ll need it. that you’ll never make him wear a stupid condom again when you learn how good it feels when he sinks into you raw. you just need his help. need your strong, heroic boyfriend to take that step that you cant take yourself. god, he’s so good to you. that’s what he tells himself when he formulates his plan.
he made sure you came on his face at least three times. until your legs were jelly, brain mush, voice hoarse from begging him to stop. ‘i-i can’t’ you had whined, ‘ ‘s too much andy!’. he did it to get you into that floaty head space where you’re babbling mindlessly and lax for him.
and you’re exactly that as pope crawls up your body and settles where he belongs, above you and inbetween your legs. still, you breathlessly slur the question that he despises. “condom?”
he feigns frustration even though this is exactly what he planned. “shit— i left my wallet in craig’s car… i don’t have one.”
your response is a needy whine that morphs into a gasp when he rests his cock against your drenched folds and slowly slides back and forth. “can i just have you like this sweetheart?” pope rubs his thick length upwards, angry pink tip catching your clit with every pressing glide. you whimper through your desperate nods, nails clawing at his shoulders, fusing your knees to his ribs to stay spread for him. such a good girl, he thinks to himself.
he keeps his ruttings short. almost playfully light in order to not get you anywhere besides out of your mind from teasing. just how he wants it. when you start to wriggle beneath him, whimpering a few mindless “please please please”s, he looks down at your aching pussy to see her clench around nothing. poor baby, she needs me so bad, he tells himself.
his dick is so coated in your slick releases that pope ‘accidentally’ notches at your opening. staying in motion, he pushes in ever so slightly. your eyes shoot open in surprise “ohh- andy!” you squeal. frustration bubbles in his chest, but he doesn’t give up. because your panic simmers to pleasure and your mouth forms an ‘o’ as you moan at just his bare tip breaching your wet heat.
he buries his face into your neck to hide his satisfied grin, licking and suckling the skin how he knows you like. “jus the tip sweetheart? please?” he emphasizes his wimpy whines with an inching forward of his hips. your nails tear at the flesh on his back as you shudder. “p-promise?” you croak out in hazy compliance. his reply is strained. “ ‘course honey.”
popes promise — to him at least— goes up in flames when he slips a tiny bit further inside and is met with warm, silky tightness. fuckkk. he groans, muscles tensing and you cry out, eyes rolling back. his thrusts are shallow and unsatisfactory. after a only a few, he’s twitching in need, pathetically trying to inch deeper.
you notice, starting to whine and pant. “you cant andy! i’m not on the pill!” the words almost make pope start to piston in and out of you. the thought of coming in you until you’re swollen with his baby infiltrating his mind. that you’ll be tied to him forever and— oh yeah. that’s happening, he decides.
pope leans down to kiss you languidly. trying to tongue fuck you into submission. your pussy is rapidly fluttering around the first inch of his cock, telling him that you want this just as bad as he does. he uses his words. “you just feel so good sweetheart. need you so bad. need all of you.” a breathy moan slips from you at his praise as you return his kiss greedily.
you pull back and blink up at him with your glossy eyes and kiss bitten lips. when your legs start to wrap around him, crossing tightly at his back, he knows he’s almost home free. “okay... i- i need you too andy.”
you barely get the words out before he hastily pushes all the way inside of you. guttural noises of pleasure are ripped from you both as you clench around him so prettily and he stretches you out so perfectly. it’s searing, intimate and raw. so fucking raw.
as pope starts to thrust in and out of you eagerly, obscene slapping sounds echo throughout the room. he whimpers loudly at the warm, wet feeling of you and the noises your body makes for him.
when you shakily tell him between moans “you h-have to pull out.. okay?”
it takes all of his dwindling restraint to not laugh in your face.
titsay
snowghoul
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
baratheonpilled
kianamaiart
