warnings: spoilerss, mention of body insecurity (this is really self-indulgent, okay?), written in third person. It’s a really short one I wrote after watching the movie. I’ll write something better over the next few days, but I think it’s worth sharing
Peter felt strange at the thought of what he was about to do.
Many things had happened in his life lately.
Reluctantly, he had listened to DeWolff and taken her advice about taking a break. To say he was exhausted was an understatement and, besides, after almost dying, he felt like even breathing hurt.
He was trying new things. He wanted to reclaim his life as Peter and stop letting Spider-Man take over everything.
Talking to MJ had given him that last push he needed to move forward. Not because he had stopped loving her, but because now he was certain that she no longer loved him.
He thought that four years away from her would be enough to get over her, though evidently that wasn’t the case. However, he had to try. One day at a time.
Among all the things he hoped to change was, of course, leaving his solitude behind and finding his way back into the world.
Having to turn to Frank for help had also made him think quite a bit. There really were very few people he could trust. Not as Spider-Man, but as Peter.
And it’s not that he had been looking to fill that void with someone else, but rather… for the first time since the spell, he realized it might be nice to have a friend again.
Or, rather, he decided to do something about it.
That’s why, when the girl from the apartment downstairs greeted him in the hallway again, he responded with more than a monosyllable.
She never gave up. She always asked him how he was doing, smiled at him whenever they crossed paths, and found some excuse to start a conversation, even though he rarely gave her more than a polite gesture in return.
The change came a few days later.
“Are you a Star Wars fan?” Peter asked.
They were both in the elevator when he noticed a small pin on her backpack. He didn’t even know how long it had been there. He simply had never stopped to pay that kind of attention.
“Yes! A little, yeah. Truth is, I only recently started watching the movies. I know they came out a long time ago, but… it’s a recent obsession.”
Since moving into the building, almost a year after Peter, she had never seen him start a conversation. Much less smile at her. That’s why the expression he gave her caught her completely off guard.
Afraid the silence would settle between them again, she continued:
“Do you like them?”
Peter nodded.
He told her he had been a fan since he was a kid and, before he knew it, they were talking about the movies she had already seen, which ones came next, and the order in which he thought she should watch them. The conversation ended only when the elevator’s ding announced they had reached the lobby.
But it wasn’t the last one.
Casual encounters in the hallways became more frequent. Star Wars gave way to conversations about books, music, and work.
Peter discovered that he liked running into her whenever he came home because there always seemed to be something new to talk about.
She, like many people in New York, deeply admired Spider-Man.
She even told him that he had once saved her during an accident, though she had never gotten a good look at him.
Peter had never realized that incident could have put her in so much danger. Knowing he had managed to help her brought him a quiet sense of satisfaction that he kept to himself.
Before he realized it, he was coming up with little excuses to see her.
He started using the laundry room more often than necessary, taking out the trash right when he knew she was getting home from work, or lingering a few extra minutes in the building’s lobby.
At first, they were carefully orchestrated coincidences.
Eventually, they stopped pretending they were coincidences at all.
One afternoon, Peter asked if she wanted to go grocery shopping with him. He wanted to learn how to cook again and admitted, a little embarrassed, that he didn’t know any good places to buy fresh vegetables.
She accepted right away.
During the shopping trip, they ended up talking more than either of them expected and, before saying goodbye, she offered to teach him a few simple recipes. Laughing, she admitted she wasn’t exactly an expert herself.
A few days later, Peter made one of those recipes on his own.
He invited her over for dinner.
And, without either of them being able to point to the exact moment it happened, they stopped needing an excuse to see each other.
“You know I don’t invite you over just so you can swap out the water jugs, right?”
The afternoon had settled in peacefully. The windows were open, letting the warm summer breeze drift through the kitchen and gently stir the curtains. She was wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of pants, the kind of clothes people only wore when they knew they had no one to impress. Peter didn’t look much different: a gray hoodie with the sleeves pushed up and a pair of dark sweatpants. Neither of them looked as though they had been expecting company.
“But if I don’t do it, who will?”
“I was doing it before I met you,” she said with a shrug.
“Yeah, but I already told you that you could hurt yourself. Besides, when I come over, you cook for me, so we’re even.”
“It surprises me to think you used to have such a terrible diet. Little Caesars, Takis, protein shakes… And look at you! Not even a hint of a belly. I try to live a healthy lifestyle, and I look like I’m pregnant.”
“You are fine,” he murmured for what had to be the thousandth time. “I already told you you’re not fat. People’s bodies change. You can’t expect to look the same way you did in high school.”
“I wish I could.”
Peter had already stepped over to her side and, knowing she wouldn’t accept a lecture about her insecurities, decided not to push it. Before he could say anything else, she scooped up a spoonful from the pot and held it out for him to taste. Peter leaned in and took a bite, smiling as he did. The sight of it made her smile too.
“It tastes really good.”
“I added more salt this time. And a few seasonings. Who would’ve thought they’d make such a difference?”
Peter let out a laugh at the obvious sarcasm and started carrying the plates to the table.
They ended up spending more time at her apartment than at his. His neighbor still wasn’t convinced that all the asbestos had been removed from the building after the last repair, and Peter never found a good enough reason to argue with her about it.
As the weeks went by, he also discovered that she had battles of her own to fight.
One afternoon, while they were putting away the groceries, she told him about her history with mental health and how hard she worked to stay stable. She wasn’t looking for pity. She just wanted him to understand why there were days when getting out of bed felt impossible.
Peter realized he wasn’t the only one trying to rebuild his life.
From then on, they both had someone to think about when things went wrong.
And when something finally went right, they had someone they couldn’t wait to tell.
“Who are you talking to so much, kid?”
Frank had been noticing the change for weeks.
Peter smiled more. Whenever he came to visit, he was in a better mood. He took every free moment he had to reply to messages and, every now and then, he even found himself laughing at his phone.
He looked up to answer.
“A friend.”
The words came out so naturally that they caught him off guard.
the way peter was frozen when "mj" kissed him and took off his mask. the way he was SOBBING after she said his name, and "remembered" him. the way he completely broke down, hugging her so tight. the way his voice wavers when he said "i missed you so much."
the way he probably thought that after four years, it will all be okay.
the way it was all taken from him in a matter of seconds.
The worst thing about seeing a movie on opening day is that you have to wait for the entire rest of the world to see it before you see any relevant media.
summary: you hated jack, and you were positive he hated you too. two broken down cars and one blizzard bring the truth to the surface.
warnings: no age gap :(, med student!jack and med student!reader, I'm imagining they're both 26 and in the last year of med school, forced proximity, one sided e2l, there's only one bed! oh no!, cuddle or die, jack is kind of a dick , reader thinks jack is gonna kill her, don't worry he's just hopelessly in love, jack calls reader a bitch, love confessions, getting together, wearing jack's clothes, spooning, grinding, fingering, kissing, hickies, accidental somnophilia, dry humping, unprotected sex, big dick jack, belly bulge, creampie, mating press, sex in a strangers home
author's note: idfk what time period this is set in, im just here to sexualize this man
we're playing fast and loose with how both med school works and jack lore. I'm back to spreading my 'jacks legal first name is John' agenda. also, I barely know how undergrad works, since I am a drop out! suspend your disbelief, my more educated mutuals
There’s no way the universe should be this insistent on fucking you over.
Your shitbox of a car died a day before you were set to present your research at a conference in upstate New York in the middle of January. It was the biggest opportunity of your medical school career so far, and was going to secure your residency. But you couldn’t afford to fix it or buy plane tickets and there was no bus that could get you from Pittsburgh to Syracuse in time.
So when your program advisor called you into his office to say he found another student driving to the conference that would be willing to carpool, you nearly jumped for joy. Until the next words out of his mouth put a bullet in the brain of your newfound hope.
“-Jack Abbot! You’ve met him, right? You’re in the same year.”
Yes, you had met Jack Abbot. Several, miserable times.
Every interaction you’d had with Jack ended with you seething and him smirking. He seemed to be addicted to pushing your buttons every chance he could.
But you didn’t have a choice. And you’d definitely made sure to verify that Jack was your only option. You must have asked every other student you had classes with, but they were either flying or not going at all. So you were stuck with him.
Stuck in the confined space of the cab of his small truck, side by side on the bench seat, for five and a half hours.
Everything about him pissed you off. His perfect curls were irritating, especially since you were sure he used 15-in-1 soap to wash it, the woodsy scent of his aftershave made every breath feel agonizing, and the way his legs were spread wide was obscene. It was his car, you had no right to complain that he was taking up so much space. But god did you wish he was cowering against the door like you were. You wished he put more space between the two of you, but the small cab left about a foot between you, even with you folding your body into the farthest corner your seatbelt allowed. It was entirely too close for comfort.
You’d made it a point to avoid looking at him as much as possible since this disastrous ride had begun 2 hours ago. So far, you’ve managed to mostly succeed, focusing on the falling snow and the freezing scenery outside. But you felt his eyes on you every few miles. His gaze was hot whenever it landed on you. You could feel it, even through your thick sweatshirt and jeans.
But Jack didn’t say anything. He hadn’t said a single word since you’d met him in front of your apartment building at 1 pm and loaded up your bags into the covered bed. It was unusual for him. Normally, he liked to goad you into a reaction, sending barbs your way constantly. So the silence unnerved you. You didn’t know how to exist in a space with Jack Abbot when you weren’t on the defensive.
And then the universe decided to fuck you even harder.
The snow was falling even harder as Jack pulled off the freeway and onto a smaller back road. You wanted to question him, but you didn’t want to be the one to break the silence. Plus, you didn’t know where you were. For all you knew, Jack had driven through this area a thousand times before.
But the farther you got down the road, the heavier the snow was getting and the slower Jack was driving. You hadn’t seen another car or building for the past 30 minutes and the plows clearly weren’t running out here.
And then - truly the cherry on top- the engine started sputtering.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jack braked hard, the tires slipping slightly as he pulled off the road onto the shoulder.
“What the fuck?” You looked over at him for the first time in an hour.
Jack threw the truck in park before he was grabbing his coat. “Stay here.”
Where the fuck did he think you were going to go? You were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a snowstorm. The cab of the truck was pleasantly warm, and the burst of cold air when Jack opened his door convinced you even more that you were not going to get out.
You watched him round the front. He popped the hood of the truck, hiding him from view. What the hood didn’t hide, though, was the cloud of smoke that billowed out.
“Oh fuck me,” there was no way you were making it to the convention. You checked your phone. No service. Of course.
The hood slammed shut and you jumped, looking up to watch Jack walk back around to the drivers side. He slid back in, shutting the door hard behind him and scrubbing a hand over his face.
“We’re fucked.”
“What are we going to do?” You chewed on your bottom lip as you looked at the land around you. “I do not want to die of hypothermia in your shitty truck.”
“My truck isn’t shitty,” he sounded like a petulant child.
“It just fucking died on us,” you leveled a glare at him. “I’d say that makes it shitty.”
He grumbled something under his breath.
Both of you sat in silence for a moment.
“We need to find somewhere to shelter,” Jack was looking out the windows.
“There is nothing out - ”
“There,” he was pointing into the trees at something that you could not see. Everything blended together in the dim lighting and haze of falling snow.
“What?”
“There,” Jack started gathering a few things scattered around. His phone, his water bottle, and the keys made the cut, all being stuffed into the pocket of his heavy duty coat. “There’s a cabin.”
“Bullshit there's a cabin. I don’t see anything,” you really didn’t. All you could see was a mass of black and gray and green.
“There is,” he opened his door again. “Are you coming or are you going to freeze to death here?”
There wasn’t much of a choice. You could already feel the chill creeping in through the thin glass of the windows now that the engine was dead. You could follow Jack into the woods and either find shelter or freeze to death in the snow, or stay in the truck and freeze to death in the carcass of his shitbox.
No matter what, the threat of hypothermia was real and, even though you weren’t officially a doctor yet, you knew the risks. So you gave one last long suffering sigh, and opened your door.
You were immediately thankful you’d put leggings on beneath your jeans that morning. The temperature change slapped you in the face as soon as you stepped out into the ankle deep snow.
Jack was rifling through the bed of the truck, pulling out his duffel bag. You watched him hesitate for a minute, before abandoning the garment bag containing the suit he’d packed. You tried not to think about just how good he’d look in a formal get up.
“Grab your shit,” Jack was pulling on a pair of gloves. His cheeks were already rosy from the freezing wind. “We’ve gotta get there fast.”
You gathered your things, yanking your own gloves and coat out of your bag. You left your own garment bag containing the gown you’d thrifted for the final banquet in the bed alongside the covered poster board for your research. It was going to be ruined if you and Jack ever made it back to the truck alive, given that there was not a chance you’d be making it to the conference, you didn’t bother trying to save it.
“Lead the way,” you slung your bag over your shoulder, pulling the hood up over your head to try and shield you as much as possible from the chill.
Jack led you across the frozen road and down into the treeline. The snow came up to mid calf, soaking your feet through your boots. Very quickly, you started to shiver, trying to curl into yourself as you walked.
You were both grateful and pissed to see the shape of the cabin come into view. You needed to get warm, but you did not want to admit Jack was right.
It took about 20 minutes for you to reach the front porch. By now, the snow was falling so hard that you couldn’t see the road or the truck through the haze.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Jack tried the door handle, sighing with relief when it swung open.
The inside of the cabin was simple. About the same size as your studio apartment back in Pittsburgh. It was dark, but you could see a fireplace against one wall, across from a full sized bed. There was a small kitchenette and a small bathroom you could see through a half open door. The whole place was dusty and looked like it hadn’t been used since last summer, but it would have to do.
Both you and Jack tumbled in. It was cold, but at least the sturdy wooden walls kept the wind chill out.
“You got a lighter?” Jack was already moving towards the fireplace, inspecting a few of the logs piled next to it. He seemed to approve of a few of them, piling them up.
“Yeah, here,” you fished a lighter out of your jacket pocket, tossing it to him as you set your bag down on the bed.
You watched him for a moment. He shed his coat, pushing the sleeves of his sweatshirt up as he set a few scraps of newspaper alight. With a gentle few breaths, he grew the flame before placing it under the pile of logs he’d formed in the fireplace. It took a moment, but gradually the flames grew until there was a bright, flickering fire lighting up the small room.
You could feel the warmth it was putting off starting to seep into you, but it wasn’t enough. Your coat was still on, but you were shivering beneath it.
Jack noticed, doing a double take over his shoulder when he saw you still standing by the bed.
“Come over here.”
“I’m fine,” your voice was unsteady.
“You need to get warm,” Jack was untying his boots, digging through his bag for a new pair of socks as he discarded the damp pair he’d been wearing. “You’re gonna get frostbite.”
“No, I’m not,” but you were moving towards him, crossing the small room to stand beside him in front of the fireplace.
“Take off your clothes.”
You looked over at Jack like he’d grown a second head, ready to tell him off. But the words died in your throat when you saw he was stripping his shirt and hoodie off, leaving him bare from the waist up. You froze for a moment, eyes wide and brain buffering, until his hands grabbed for the zipper of his jeans.
“What the fuck?!” You spun around, trying to will your blush away.
“We need to get into dry clothes and get warm,” the shuffling sounds of his clothes hitting the floor was tempting you to turn around. You wanted just a little peak.
“I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t.”
And then Jack’s hands were at your waist, pulling up your sweatshirt.
“Woah!” You spun away from him, putting distance between you and begging your heart to slow down its rapid beating.
“I’m not letting you blame me when your toes fall off,” Jack crossed his arms over his chest. He’d changed into a plain black t-shirt, gray sweatpants, and thick wool socks. God damn it, he looked good. “I won’t look, but you need to change.”
“Fine,” you walked back towards your bag. “Don’t look.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jack’s eyes raked over you once before he was turning back to face the fire.
You moved quickly, stripping out of your layers. You’d been planning on being in a nice, cosy hotel and convention center, tucked safely away from the cold, so you’d only brought jeans, slacks, and your comfortable sleep shorts. Tight, spandex shorts that left very little to the imagination. The leggings you wore under your jeans were soaked up to the thighs with melted snow and unwearable.
So you grabbed your most modest shorts, although ‘modest’ was a stretch. They were tight and short, covered completely by the oversized crewneck you pulled on after. You didn’t have too many options for socks, stuck with a relatively thin pair of white ankle length ones. Your nice, insulating ones were soaked from your trek through the snow.
“Is it safe yet?”
You glanced over at Jack, silhouetted against the fire. His shoulders looked a hell of a lot broader than you’d realized, the muscles of his arms standing out. God fucking damnit.
“Yeah, it’s safe,” you cleared your throat, looking away from him as you moved your bag away from the bed, setting it on the floor by the nightstand.
“That’s what you’re wearing to not freeze?”
His judgmental tone made you bristle, reminding your traitorous mind that you did, in fact, hate this man.
“I didn’t have a lot of options,” you unnecessarily straightened your duffel, looking anywhere but at him. “I didn’t plan for you to get us stranded in the fucking woods. I packed for a fancy hotel and a conference, which is where we would be if you didn’t try to kill us.”
“I didn’t try to kill us,” he scoffed. You risked a glance at him. He was digging through his own bag. “I took a shortcut to go around the traffic on the interstate. Here.”
He wadded up a pair of flannel pants and threw them at you. You caught them, trying not to take a deep breath. They smelled like detergent and that addicting smell of his cologne.
“These are fucking ugly,” the idea of wearing his clothes and being stuck in such a small space with him triggered your fight or flight instinct. Seeing as flight wasn’t a reasonable option with a blizzard outside, you decided to fight.
“By all means,” Jack rolled his eyes. “Freeze to death because my pants are ugly. I’d finally get some peace and quiet.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘peace and quiet’? I didn’t say a fucking thing the whole car ride!”
“Yeah, and it was fantastic.”
Grumbling to yourself about what a dick he was, you gave in. You were fully aware he was trying to get you to wear the stupid pants. You could sacrifice your pride to put them on and deny him the satisfaction of you going silent.
“Maybe if I’d said something, we wouldn’t be stuck here,” you tugged the god awful pants up over your shorts, having to double know the waistband to keep them up around your hips.
“Oh so you agree, this is your fault,” Jack looked smug. He sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace, his legs spread out before him. His feet were blisteringly close to the flames. You hoped his stupid socks caught on fire.
“How is this my fault? I didn’t tell you to drive off the main road in the middle of a snowstorm. This is your fault,” begrudgingly, you made your way towards him. You sat down 3 feet away from him, relishing the wave of heat that greeted you once you were close to the fire. The rest of the space was slowly warming up, but the cold still seeped in through the fogged over windows and wooden walls.
“Well I wouldn’t be stuck out here if I didn’t have to drive you to this stupid convention,” Jack leaned back on his palms. He looked calm and relaxed, and that made you even more irritated.
“Oh, so you only took this backroad because of me,” you stretched out your hands to warm your frigid fingers. “Glad you admitted this was attempted murder.”
“‘Attempted murder’ my ass,” he shook his head, narrowing his eyes. His gaze scanned you from head to toe. You told yourself the shiver that ran through your body was from the cold. “I would be nice and cosy in my apartment if it wasn’t for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I only agreed to go to the conference because you needed a ride.”
“Bullshit,” you scoffed. That didn’t make any sense. Why the hell would Jack do that? He’d been a massive dick since you met him. Every group project or hospital rotation you ended up on with him was hell. He pushed your buttons, poking and prodding at you with sharp little quips until you snapped.
Jack didn’t say anything. He turned his face back towards the fire, focusing on the flickering flames.
“Jack…?”
He stayed silent.
You didn’t know what to say. You were confused. He hates you, so why would he agree to be locked in a car with you for an extended amount of time. Maybe he truly did want to lure you out into the woods and kill you.
But why? Sure, you were classmates, both competing for residency spots in a technical sense, but that wasn’t strictly true. It pained you to admit it, but Jack was in a league of his own. He was smart. Annoyingly so. He was constantly at the top of your class, leading test scores by a mile. You weren’t stupid, not at all, but Jack was something else. You weren’t competition for him.
“Did you…” How do you ask a classmate if he planned to kill you? You swallowed hard, suddenly very nervous. “Did you bring me out here to - to get rid - ”
“Jesus Christ, [name],” he finally looked at you again, sitting up and resting his elbows on his outstretched legs. He looked horrified. “You think I agreed to drive you, took a shortcut, and sabotaged my truck to - to what? Kill you?”
“Then why did you agree to drive me?” You couldn’t wrap your head around it.
“Just drop it, ok?” He scrubbed a hand down his face, rubbing at his jaw and looking away.
“Just doesn’t make sense,” you were mumbling. You scanned him, reading the tension in his shoulders.
“Drop. It.” This was the most emotion you’d seen him exhibit in all four years you’d been in school together. His jaw was clenched.
In the flickering light, it was hard to tell if his cheeks were flushed from the rising heat of the fire or if he was actually blushing.
“No, I’m not going to drop it,” you finally had a chance to push his buttons, but you also wanted to know why he’d go out of his way to drive 12+ hours round trip if he wasn’t presenting or trying to network at the conference. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“I like you, alright?” He buried his face in his hands. “I’ve liked you for years. I wanted to do something nice for you. I wanted to spend time with you. I like being near you, I like talking to you when you’re not being a bitch - ”
“Don’t you fucking dare call me a bitch, Jack Abbot,” you were still trying to process his confession, the wheels in your brain turning at a snails pace.
“Fuck, fuck, you’re right. I’m so sorry, I’m fucking this up,” Jack took a deep breath, lifting his head to look at you. His expression was pained. “I like talking to you when you’re not trying to piss me off, and even when you are, I still enjoy it. You’re smart, you’re gorgeous - incredibly gorgeous. And we’re about to graduate soon, we’re both leaving for residency in a few months and I couldn’t - I couldn’t not say anything.”
You didn’t know how to respond. Jack paused for a moment at your silence, but then he carried on like he couldn’t stop.
“I practiced this whole little speech for the gala at the end of the weekend,” he laughed sardonically, running a hand through his curls. “I was gonna pull you to the side, somewhere pretty and romantic and tell you how amazing I thought you were, how beautiful you looked in whatever dress you brought. I was gonna ask you out on a date when we got back to Pittsburgh. And then I fucked it up. I swear, I didn’t know my truck was going to die.”
He was definitely blushing now. “And I didn’t take a shortcut. I went the long way around to get more time with you since I knew you’d ignore me as soon as we got to the hotel. But I really was trying to avoid traffic on the interstate! I just didn’t expect it to start snowing so hard.”
For a second, you were quiet. You still didn’t know how to respond, but words fell from your lips before you could stop them.
“The car ride back would have been awkward as fuck if I said no.”
Jack laughed, eyes crinkling as he shook his head.
“Yeah, it would have been,” he sobered up, hope sparking in his eyes. “But I was willing to risk the humiliation if there was a chance you’d give me a shot.”
Would you have given him a shot? You didn’t know. For years you’d been so insistent that you hated him, but you couldn’t deny that you’d been attracted to him since day 1. You’d noticed him immediately at orientation, but you hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to him until the first randomly assigned group project in your cadaver lab. He’d been a know-it-all, correcting your technique with a scalpel, raising one of those condescending eyebrows and judging every move you’d made. It rubbed you the wrong way, and clouded your perception of him.
You’d written him off after that, but the two of you kept being forced together. Same professor assigned group projects, similar friend circles, same hospital rotations. Every interaction just reinforced your view of him. It pissed you off every time you caught him staring at you, every time he sat next to you in lectures, asked to share your notes, when he poked and prodded and teased you.
But everything looked very different with the knowledge that he’d been into you since the beginning. Now, he looked less like a piece of shit that wanted to torment you and more like a lovesick puppy that wanted your attention. Either way, it wasn’t a flattering look for him, but the latter option was much more forgivable than the former.
“So?”
You jumped, ripped out of your thoughts to find Jack staring at you again.
“So…?”
“Do I get a chance?” He looked terrified of what your response would be.
“I - ” you didn’t know. Your mind was spinning, trying to parse out your feelings and figure out exactly how you were feeling about the situation.
“It’s ok if you don’t feel the same way,” his hand ran through his hair again, tugging at his curls as he went. “I get it, I’ve been a dick - ”
“No - I mean, yes you have been, but,” you took a deep breath. “I - I don’t know. I had no clue you felt this way. I’m just… trying to process this.”
“Ok, yeah, yeah that’s ok,” Jack was nodding, his eyes fixed on the floor. “Yeah, I mean, you don’t owe me an answer. And you can say no.”
He laughed again, but it was gruff and self deprecating.
“I swear I’m not going to kill you if you say no.”
“Gee, that makes me feel so much better.”
Both of you were quiet for a moment, and then you burst out laughing. A real laugh, not the sad imitation Jack had let out previously. You felt hysterical, the situation did not call for the intensity of the laughter spilling from you, but it did help to diffuse the tension that had been rising in the confined space.
When you were able to calm yourself, both of you gasping for breath and staring into the flames, your thoughts turned back to everything. You were hesitant to just accept, still struggling to reframe the last 3 ½ years now that you had more context. But you were curious.
“If we live,” you broke the silence that had fallen over the room. “If we make it out of this fucking murder cabin, I’ll give you a chance.”
Jack snorted, a smile tugging at his lips.
“Then we better survive.”
The two of you sat there in front of the fire for a few more hours, passing bags of chips and candies back and forth, trying to make the time go by and conserve the batteries of your phones. You drifted in and out of conversation and silence. Surprisingly, you found yourself enjoying talking to him. For the first time since you’d been introduced, you had a pleasant conversation. Neither of you brought up his confession or your tentative acceptance.
Instead, you asked about him. And you learned a lot, shockingly. You knew the basics; he was a few months older than you, he was too smart for his own good, and he’d sold his soul to the Army and would be doing his residency at a military hospital. You almost envied the fact that he got to skip the stress of match day. Almost. You would absolutely not trade that stress in exchange for the next 10 years of your life.
Jack was from Maryland, and he was getting to go back to do his residency at Walter Reed. You saw his eyes light up with hope when you told him your first choice for residency was John Hopkins, but he didn’t say anything. You’d be pretty damn close to each other if you got lucky, but you didn’t dwell on that.
His first name was actually John, and he looked disgusted by it, but his expression softened when you laughed after he revealed he was actually John Andrew Abbot III. You pretended not to notice that, too.
You shared information of your own, also. Jack smiled when you told him about your childhood pets. He laughed when you told him silly stories from undergrad. He stayed quiet, letting you speak when you shared about struggling to make ends meet while still in school.
It endeared you but also pissed you off that he knew just how to react. He was empathetic and sweet when he wasn’t pushing your buttons.
You liked talking to Jack, you realized. You liked getting to know him.
The two of you had started yawning about an hour ago, but neither of you were ready to stop talking. It was only when the conversation finally lulled and you found yourself fighting against your increasingly heavy eyelids.
“We should get some sleep,” Jack was pushing himself up from the floor, dusting off his hands and sweats as he went. He extended a hand to you, and you found yourself not hesitating to take it, allowing him to pull you to your feet. His hand was warm and steady, and you found yourself fighting off a twinge of disappointment when he let go. “You can take the bed.”
“What? No,” there was only one bed in the one room cabin. It was so small, there wasn’t even room for a couch. The only other furniture in the space was a small kitchen table and two chairs, and a beaten up armchair covered by a thin white sheet. “Where are you going to sleep?”
He shrugged, shifting his duffel closer and moving the clothes in it around until he seemed satisfied with the shape. “Here, in front of the fire. I can make sure it keeps going all night.”
“No,” you grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving towards a small linen closet neither of you had bothered to peek into so far. “No, you’re not sleeping on the floor. We…”
He raised an eyebrow, gaze flicking between your face and your hand still holding onto his bicep. You let go, taking a step back.
“We can share the bed,” you glanced over your shoulder. The bed was small, probably full sized. Just barely big enough to fit the two of you, although you’d have to scoot pretty close to the edge to avoid touching.
“I’m not complaining about sharing a bed with you,” Jack looked at the bed too. “I think I’ve made myself clear about that - ”
You swallowed hard. You hadn’t let yourself think about that aspect of his confession. In fact, you’d beaten it back into the shadowy corners of your mind as aggressively as you could. You wouldn’t survive however long your confinement was going to be if you let yourself think about the more physical implications of Jack being into you.
He looked down at you. The light from the fire was dancing across the planes of his face, knocking the breath out of your lungs with how ethereal he looked. He was handsome everyday, but he looked unreal in this lighting.
“ - but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. You haven’t told me how you feel, and you haven’t agreed to go out with me - not that that means you have to… y’know…” he seemed to be struggling to find the words. He was blushing again. “Be… be that close to me.”
“I - ” you paused, searching for the right words. You really were starting to be willing to give him a chance, especially with how well your conversations had gone. And yes, fine, maybe you’d been physically attracted to him from the beginning, but when you’d found yourself in moments of weakness before, you’d imagined any sort of physical or intimate encounter being… well, not nearly so emotionally charged. In those late night fantasies, it was rough, aggressive, something born out of hate and frustration. But now, he looked nervous, his eyes soft and apprehensive. You once again didn’t know how to handle this type of interaction with him.
So, you decided to be an adult about it. For fucks sake, you were 26. You could share a bed with a man who just confessed he’d been in love with you for years and who you’d been fantasizing about for just as long.
You cleared your throat, taking your hand off his arm. “We can share a bed without… without it being anything more.”
“Right, right, of course,” Jack let out a breath. “As long as you’re ok, then yeah.”
“Yeah,” you were a big fat liar. “It’ll be fine.”
So the two of you got ready for your doom. You gathered your toiletries as Jack threw a few more logs on the fire to hopefully keep it going all night.
The bathroom thankfully had running water, even if the rest of the cabin had no electricity, so you were able to take turns brushing your teeth. You went first, taking many deep breaths and giving yourself a silent pep talk in the small, dark room.
“All yours!” Your smile and chipper attitude felt forced when you let him have his turn. You sat on the side of the bed with your bag, digging through it, searching for nothing to give your anxious hands something to do.
“You ready for bed?”
Jack came out of the bathroom, crossing to the other side of the bed and starting to pull back the covers. You stook, giving him a nod and pulling back the ones on your side. Both of you slipped in silently.
“Good night,” Jack rolled over, his back to you, facing the front door.
You followed his lead, turning your back to him and trying to snuggle in underneath the thin blankets. “Good night.”
Jack’s pants and the residual warmth in your clothes from sitting in front of the fire for so long helped lull you to sleep, and quickly, you found yourself falling under.
When you woke, it was to a warm presence at your back and freezing air nipping at the exposed skin of your face. It was completely dark in the room, no light coming in through the windows or from the now extinguished fireplace.
You pushed back, chasing the heat behind you. That’s when you became aware of several things at once.
That warmth behind you was Jack. The entire length of his body was pressed against yours and his arms were wrapped tightly around your waist, one above and one below, keeping you firmly in place. Those arms were underneath your sweatshirt, one palm resting just below your breasts and the other right above the waistband of your borrowed pants. His face was nuzzled in the crook of your neck, breath hot against the sensitive skin.
You tried to shift, to move out of his hold and restart the fire so that you didn’t have to confront exactly how hot the skin on skin contact was making you deep inside.
Jack didn’t let you move, though. His arm tightened around you, tugging you back against him even more firmly. That was when you really felt him. The hard length of his cock was pressed against your ass.
He was still asleep, but that didn’t stop his hips from grinding forward. You gasped, clenching your thighs together. Involuntarily, you pressed back against him again. His hand shifted up, sliding over your breast and loosely squeezing the flesh.
“Jack,” your voice was quiet and broken around another gasp as he pushed his length against your ass again.
He mumbled something incoherent, before squeezing your breast again. The hand on your stomach dipped lower, his fingers just beginning to slide underneath your bottoms.
You were existing between sleep and waking, half convinced this was some sort of extremely vivid dream.Your pulse was racing, hips pushing back to meet his at every sleepy movement. Both of you were breathing harder, the cold seemingly beaten back by the rising heat between you.
“[Name],” you could just barely make out the slurred groan of your name breathed against your neck. It sparked even more heat in your core to hear him say your name.
“Jack?”
God, you sounded fucked out already. Jack’s hand was pushing even farther into your pants and under the shorts you wore beneath.
The first brush of his fingers over your folds had you whining, and that was when Jack finally woke up.
You felt him freeze behind you, his hands tightening on reflex, dragging his fingers through your folds and against your clit. It ripped an embarrassing moan out of you, your hips pushing back against his cock in response to the jolt of pleasure.
“[Name]?” Jack’s voice was sleepy and confused.
“Jack,” you whined in response.
“Oh fuck,” he pulled back, hands leaving you. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
“Wait - ” but Jack wasn’t listening
“Fuck, I told you I wouldn’t try anything, I’m so fucking sorry. That - I can’t believe I did that. Fuck.”
“Jack, stop,” he was sitting up, elbows on his knees and hands in his hair. The heat in you died when you saw him so upset. “Jack, look at me.”
“I’m sorry - ”
“Stop apologizing,” you pushed him flat onto his back, swinging a leg over his hips and leaning over him. Your hair created a curtain, closing the two of you into a little bubble.
“But I - ”
“Shut up!”
And then you kissed him. He froze for a moment, but he quickly melted into you, his hands coming up to grab your waist. He let you lead for a moment, his lips following the slow, languid rhythm you set.
Until your tongue swiped over the seam of his lips. Then, his hold on you tightened and with a firm buck of his hips, he was rolling you onto your back. He settled between your legs, grinding his length against you as his tongue stroked against yours, licking into your mouth and swallowing the noises that leaked out of you. Your hands tangled in his hair, holding him to you.
“Fuck,” Jack pulled back, gasping for air. His forehead rested against yours. “Are you sure - ”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” you bucked your hips up against his, tugging on his hair as you did. He groaned, meeting your thrust. “Wanted this for a long time.”
“I thought you hated me,” Jack’s hand was slipping back underneath your sweatshirt to push it up. His thumb dragged over your newly exposed pebbled nipple.
“Yeah, I did,” your back arched, pushing your chest even further into his hand. “Doesn’t mean you’re not hot, though.”
“Yeah?” He was smirking, his lips ghosting over yours. “I’m just that irresistible?”
“Shut the fuck up,” you pressed your lips against his, drawing him into a filthy kiss. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him back down so you could chase your own pleasure with his body. One of your hands slipped under his shirt, dragging your nails down over his chest and abs.
He moaned, grabbing your hand on his chest and pinning it to the mattress beside your head. He broke the kiss, nipping at your lower lip as he went.
“Unless you want this to end way too soon, you better fucking stop that,” his voice was low and ragged, fingers flexing against your wrist.
“Stop what?” You wanted to both know exactly what was driving him crazy, and to play dumb and rile him up.
“Touching me,” he ducked his head, nipping and sucking at the skin of your neck. “Looking so fucking good underneath me, all of it.”
“See,” you bit back a whimper. “I don’t think you really want me to stop.”
Your back arched and your hips bucked up again as he sucked a dark mark into the skin below your jaw.
“I don’t, but I don’t want to cum in my pants, either,” he moved lower, to a new, unblemished patch of skin. “So either take your pants off or tell me to go take a cold shower.”
“Gotta let go of my hand first,” your teeth dug into your lower lip as he licked a stripe up your neck.
“Are you gonna keep it to yourself?” Jack pulled back to look down at you. You grinned back up at him and he rolled his eyes.
“No.”
He laughed, releasing you and sitting back on his knees between your spread thighs. His hands came down to the drawstring, undoing the bow at lightning speed, pushing the pants down your hips. Jack groaned as your shorts came back into view.
“These little fucking shorts,” he stripped the pants off you, lifting your legs into the air as he did. “Made me hard earlier.”
His hand trailed over your hip, brushing across the fabric until he was stroking a finger over your covered slit. Your teeth bit into your lip even harder to smother the whine that he was drawing out of you.
“You’re fucking soaked,” that little smile tugging at his lips was smug and self satisfied. He pressed into you a little harder, circling your covered clit through the spandex. “Is this all for me?”
“You’re an ass,” your teeth were gritted. Every circle he made had your hips twitching up, little sparks shooting from the light touch.
“I think you like that about me,” Jack’s hand left you for just a minute, long enough for it to slip beneath the waistband of your shorts. For the second time tonight, the first with both of you fully aware, his fingers dipped below your soaking folds.
Jack leaned forward, his unoccupied hand braced against the bed by your head. His eyes fixed on yours, chest heaving as he watched every shift of your face while his hand moved. He was exploring, teasing, fingers wandering through every soaked inch of you, the tips just barely dipping into your entrance and then moving back up to circle your clit.
“Fuck,” you were panting, trying to move your hips against his hand, guiding him to the right spot. But every time his fingers found where you needed him, he’d move them away, smiling as he worked you up.
“Jack, I swear to god, I’ll - ”
“You’ll what? Hmm?” He slowed to a stop, his index and middle finger sandwiching your clit between them, pressing down to keep you from rocking into them and chasing your pleasure. “C’mon, tell me what you’ll do.”
“If you don’t make me cum in the next 2 minutes,” his cocky demeanor made you want to simultaneously punch him and kiss him. You hated it, but it fueled the heat and desire curling low in your stomach. Judging from the hard length of him you can just barely make out through his sweats, he was enjoying it, too. “I’ll never let you touch me again.”
His face fell, hardening into determination. “Is that so?”
“Yes - ”
Jack’s fingers pressed directly against your clit, rapidly drawing tight circles around your clit. It was like an electric shock to your body after so much of his teasing. Your back arched, eyes falling shut as your moans filled the air.
“How’s that? Is that what you wanted?”
“Shut - fuck - shut up!”
You were impossibly close, already wound so tightly that you were dangerously close to snapping beneath him.
“I thought you liked it when I was a dick?” Jack leaned even farther over you, his lips closing around your nipple, flicking the bud with his tongue and scraping over it with his teeth.
“Stop fucking talking, Jack!” You felt him laugh against your skin, sending vibrations through your breast.
Your hand tangled in his hair, yanking at the strands. He groaned, switching to your other breast and sucking hard.
You cracked, thighs trying to snap closed around his hand and hips. He didn’t let you, pushing his body even farther into yours to keep them open as he worked you through it. Your legs shook and your hips jerked against his fingers that were still going, drawing even more tremors and cries out of your lips.
You writhed beneath him, forced to let each wave crash over you as Jack held you through it.
“Fuck - no more,” it was nearly impossible to get air into your lungs, but as the sensations died down and overstimulation, Jack backed off.
He pushed back up, easing his hand out of your shorts. He let you breath for a moment, his hands rubbing over your thighs until their trembling slowed to a stop.
“You good?”
“Yeah,” your voice was breathy.
“Can I fuck you now?”
You cracked your eyes open to look at Jack. There was a small wet patch on his sweats, right over the head of his cock. Fuck, he looked long and thick.
“Yes, please,” your hands found the waistband of your shorts, pushing them down.
Jack laughed, his hands joining yours to help remove the shorts from your legs.
“I should have made you cum 3 years ago,” he threw the shorts over his shoulder once he got them free from your ankles. “So nice and polite.”
“Shut up and get naked, asshole,” you sat up, reaching for his sweats, tugging them down his hips.
Suddenly, you were face to face with his cock. He was bigger than you though. The flushed length of his cock slapped against his stomach when it was freed, the leaking head smearing clear fluid against his abs.
You couldn’t help yourself. You leaned forward, licking a stripe up the length from base to tip. The skin was smooth and soft, his cock twitching beneath your touch.
“Fuck!” Jack’s hand grabbed your hair, pulled your head back and away from him as he hissed. “Don’t do that. You’re gonna make me cum.”
“Isn’t that the goal of sex?” You smiled up at him, straining against the hold he had on you to try and get your tongue back on him.
“Yeah, but I’m trying not to embarrass myself and end this way too soon,” Jack guided you by your hair, easing you down onto your back again. “You can blow me later, right now, I think I might die if I don’t get inside you.”
“Then hurry up,” you lifted your legs, hooking them around his waist and pulling him down onto you.
“Alright, alright,” Jack slipped a hand between your bodies, grabbing himself by the base. You forced yourself to breathe as his tip swiped through your folds, coating his cock in your fluids before he was lining himself up. He pressed in slowly. You felt yourself part around him, your walls stretching around the crown of his head. You were impossibly full, and he was barely in you.
He kept pushing in, both of you panting and looking down, eyes locked on where you were joined. You didn’t think you could take anymore, but he kept going, your walls sucking him in and pulling him into your depths.
“Fuck,” your head dropped back when he bottomed out. He ground forward, staying fully seated inside you and letting you adjust.
“Oh shit,” Jack sat up between your legs, hands gripping your hips, keeping them pressed fully against his. The shift in angle had you keening. “Look at that.”
Your eyes cracked open, trying to figure out what he was talking about.
“Can fucking see myself, holy shit,” one of his hands left your hips, tracing around the very visible sight of his cock outlined in your lower stomach. You were transfixed, watching with bated breath as his fingertips brushed against your skin. Goosebumps broke out across your body at the sensation.
“I wonder…” Jack trailed off, eyes still focused on your stomach. His hand moved, gently laying over the outline of his cock. He let it sit there for just a moment, palming his length through your skin.
And then he pushed down.
Both of you cried out at once. You’d already felt full, but the added pressure of his hand made his length feel even bigger. He was everywhere, completely consuming you from the inside out.
“Holy fuck!” His hips jerked into you, snapping against a spot deep inside you that had you arching in his hold.
“Oh fuck, Jack!”
“Yeah? You feel that?” Jack started moving, his hips withdrawing and punching back into you, rapidly working his way up to a punishing pace. You couldn’t answer with words. He was pushing the breath out of your lungs with every thrust. “God, you’re so full of me, baby.”
And then Jack hiked your legs up over his shoulders, releasing the pressure on your stomach in exchange for keeping your thighs pressed tight to his chest. It opened you up even more to him.
“Oh my god,” Jack bent forward, burying his face back in your neck, pushing your legs into your chest, folding you in half. He was rutting into you, groaning as he chased his pleasure.
You were getting close again, too. Every thrust had the neatly trimmed hairs at the base of his cock grinding over your clit as his tip slammed home against your g-spot. Your eyes were closed, lost in the pleasure. You couldn’t move, completely pinned beneath him and forced to take the overwhelming pleasure.
“Jack! Please!” Your hand tangled in his hair again, holding the strands tightly. It was your only lifeline and you used it to tether yourself to reality.
“Oh fuck,” Jack was panting into the skin of your shoulder. “Fuck, I’m close. C’mon, cum for me. Please, need to feel you.”
You were so close, only a hair's breadth from your peak.
When Jack bit down on your shoulder and his hips stuttered, you came again. You clamped around him, walls spasming and squeezing while he rutted even deeper into you. Jack was groaning your name while he spilled deep inside of you. The hot pusles of his release propelled your own, the two of you pushing each other even higher.
He finally let go of your legs, helping to ease them down until they were resting on the mattress on either side of his hips. He didn’t move to pull out, though. The two of you stayed wrapped around each other, his softening length buried inside you, until the cold was too much to bear.
“So,” Jack gingerly climbed off of you, the cold air rushing in. “Can I take you on a real date now?”
“If you get me a washcloth to clean up with and get the fire started, I’ll marry you as soon as we get out of here,” you were shivering now.
Jack grinned, leaning back down to press a quick kiss to your lips. “Promise?”
another little note: I'm trying out a new reader insert format. usually, I just keep it vague and don't use any form of y/n, but we're gonna do something a little different. my dear friend @fangirl-dot-com asked her followers how they felt about y/n and y/l/n, and someone in the comments said they prefer [name] and [surname] and I like that. its not really used here very much, but I wanted to give it a try. lmk if you hate it but, like, I like it so ill probably keep using it. unless all of you hate it
you tell jack abbot you can’t cum without a vibrator and he proves you wrong. not proofread btw
“i didn’t sit through all those anatomy classes for nothing,” he grumbles, one hand holding your hip and the other keeping his dick in line with your pussy.
“that was what? like fifty years ago?”
he starts shoving himself in before replying, “very funny.”
“ah, ah! i’m—jesus—telling you, jack. it won’t work.”
“you know i have to try, at least once.”
he hasn’t let up on it ever since you told him. you can’t have an orgasm without some sort of toy. of course that simply can’t be true.
he always just assumed it was a preference. the few times you’d slept with him so far, you’d always had a vibrator ready on the nightstand.
“just—let me try, huh?”
there’s a pillow beneath your lower back, and your legs are tensed up around his hips.
“you need to relax, though, honey.”
you exhale a deep breath and nod shakily. “okay, i can try.”
“good, just listen to me. do you feel me here?”
he pushes down on your stomach, just above your pubic bone.
“sort of,” you say to be nice, appreciative of his efforts. you expect him to pull out and give up, suddenly decide you’re not worth the effort.
“okay, tilt your hips up towards the ceiling a little bit. good, hold it right there.”
he rolls his hips back and forward again, dragging against your upper wall and hitting something that makes you yelp.
you slap your hands over your mouth and stare at him with stupid, wide eyes. he ignores you, just keeps rolling his hips up into you with his hand pressing into your stomach.
“good girl, focus.”
one hand leaves your mouth to dig into the linen sheets. expensive sheets. the ones you liked in the store, that jack had to insist you buy.
the other hand stays covering your mouth to keep in all the noises you’d never made before.
“how’s that feeling?”
“pressure—there’s pressure, jack. i don’t know what—”
he shushes you, “you don’t have to do anything, just feel it. feel me taking care of you.”
he runs his big hands up and down your sides, keeping the same rhythm with his thrusts, not speeding up or going harder.
“jack, i think im gonna cum. i’m gonna—oh, jesus christ!”
you sit upwards, instinctively tensing your entire body up. jack pushes you back down with a hand on your chest that moves up to curl around your neck. no pressure, only a firm, reassuring warmth.
your stomach drops into that familiar buzz you thought you could only achieve with a toy.
“c’mon, breathe through it,” he grunts, letting himself go as you clench around him so tight he tips his head back and groans like an animal.
when all is said and done, you’re panting and glistening with a sheen of sweat.
“look at that. didn’t even have to play with her,” he says with a smirk, giving your clit a light slap.
jack feels insecure that he can’t always fuck you the way he wants to, that he lost of the gift of the stamina he had when he was younger. but between his age and the prosthetic, it’s not always easy to go as rough as he might like, and sometimes he feels like you don’t get as much out of your sex life as you want.
but that couldn’t be further from the truth. one day, you’re impaled on his cock while he thrusts into you from below, stealing any and all control from you. yet as the minutes go on, he can’t keep up, slowing to a halt with sweat trickling down both his skin and yours.
“m’sorry, sweetheart,” he mumbles, kissing your pulse point. “m’trying here, really am. jus’ tired.”
“you don’t have to say sorry, baby,” you say with a smile. your boyfriend could get so in his head sometimes, and it made you want to reassure him all the more.
you start to bounce up and down in his lap on your own, pulling a moan from jack’s throat. “fuck, h- honey, wait. supposed to be fucking you, not the other way ‘round.”
“this is a two-way street, jackie. don’t worry. i’ve got it,” you said. you whined as you squeezed around his cock, the size of him leaving you utterly full like always. “doesn’t my pussy feel so good, babe?”
“so, so good, baby. shit,” jack practically whimpered in response. he held your hips as you took your pleasure in his lap. “still wan’ fuck you.”
“u’re so sweet, jackie. but don’t worry. your big girl’s got it all on her own. . .” ♡
possibly the hottest thing that’s come from your pretty lips, jack was cumming inside you in minutes, filling you to the brim with his load. turns out he likes to lose control sometimes after all! ‹𝟹
casually sexting jack abbot while you’re on the couch eating snacks with a face mask on, barely paying attention but still amused by how excited he was getting. lazily lifting your shirt and snapping a pic of your tits from a low angle, smirking, quite satisfied with yourself. and quickly returning your attention to the tv.
and he’s at work, hunched over in the bathroom and trying not to whine your name while he jerks his cock at a frantic pace. his other hand braced against the wall while he grips his phone, trying not to drop it. alternating between that and sloppily typing out the dirtiest things with his chubby thumb. it takes a while for him to type what he wants — some versions of “need that little pussy so bad” “so fucking hard right now” “please send another pic baby” you ignore the typos.
he’s imagining you touching yourself too, back arching, body glistening with sweat, moaning like a whore for him. he grits his teeth and closes his eyes, imagining his cock enveloped by your drooling pussy instead of his rough hand. in reality you’re fully clothed, immersed in your newest reality tv obsession.
another message from you. he scrambles to read it, his orgasm approaching.
“can you pick up food on the way home”
and he cums all over his fist anyway, the thought of taking care of his sweet, sexy girl pushing him over the edge.
summary: on the worst fourth of july of your career, you suddenly hear that Jack has been hurt
word count: 3k
cw: a little bit angsty and a lot of fluff/flirt, thinking about death, mentioning THAT character's death
a/n: took me three days to write this, had a little mental breakdown and an imposter syndrome but hey! i'm fine now (thanks again to my wife for proofreading)
❤︎ Thank you so much for reading!
You hated fourth of July shifts.
They were filled with fireworks injuries, drunk men staring at the space where their fingers used to be, children flushed and trembling, forgotten in the heat by their distracted parents and other heatstroke victims collapsing on sidewalks. It was always the same bunch of disasters.
But this one…
This one was the worst fourth of July since you became a nurse. Louie had died. The word still felt wrong in your mouth, dead, dead, dead. The bed where he should have been had been stripped, disinfected, remade and a new patient had been rolled in within half an hour. The sound of his laugh had been replaced by someone else’s breathing, someone else’s pain. Someone who wasn’t Louie.
The world hadn’t paused to let you grief.
And Langdon came back. You had rehearsed apologies in your head since the beginning of the shift (long before that if you were honest to yourself). I’m sorry Lang. Sorry that you think that our friendship existed until your situation became serious. Sorry I didn’t answer your calls. That I didn’t call back. We were friends. We still are, if you accept. I’m the one who failed you. But when he stood there in front of you, the words refused to surface. There was always a patient waiting, something more urgent than your own guilt.
And as if all of that was not enough, the department had been gifted Oglivie. You were fairly certain that this guy was the incarnation of Satan on earth, sent to test the limits of everyone’s patience and to destroy all of you, Dennis first.
So yes, you fucking hated fourth of July shifts.
And it was only just noon.
──────────
You were halfway through inserting an IV into someone’s arm in the hallway (because of course, there were no beds left) when Robby appeared beside you, waiting for you to finish and standing there, hands in his jacket’s pockets. That never meant anything good. It reminded you too much of the day he told you about the pills in Langdon’s locker. Of the day he told you he was going to leave for three months away on his motorcycle like it was casual and not something that made you and Jack consider slashing the tires.
“What?” you asked, tone clipped, still focused on the vein.
“You’re going to hear this from someone, kid,” he said quietly. “So I’d rather it be me.”
Your stomach dropped before your brain could catch up, a sickening sensation spreading through your body, like his words had pulled all the warmth out of your blood at once. Robby must have seen you pale, because he immediately added:
“Jack’s fine, but…”
Your pulse felt like detonation in your ears. “But what?”
“There was a call from his SWAT team,” Robby said, choosing his words carefully as you finished securing the IV. “Some shots were fired in a house and he brought one of them in. Pretty bad shape but he’s gonna make it.”
“Is he hurt?” you asked, trying to stay controlled, professional.
“Minor. Something near his shoulder, but…he wouldn’t let anyone look at it until his guy was stabilized.”
Of course he didn’t.
Of course Jack Abbot fucking didn’t.
Your hands dropped from the patient’s arm, finally turning fully toward your attending.
I want to see him Robby. I need to. I have to make sure he’s okay.
“Where is he?” you questioned instead.
“Trauma five.”
You nodded once, with a muttered “Thanks Robby,” before walking toward there, stripping off the gloves you were still wearing and tossing them into the nearest bin.
You didn’t run. No, worse: you couldn’t run. Running was for codes, meaning that someone was dying. Jack is not coding, Jack is okay, he is fine, that’s what Robby says. That it’s minor. Minor. Fuck, how I hate that word. Minor compared to what? To a body bag?
Your throat tightened as you continued to walk, each step feeling too heavy, like the floor was trying to swallow your legs. You forced your breathing to steady. Inhale. Exhale.
If he were critical, Dana would have made sure the code could be heard by everyone in the hospital. If he were unstable, Princess would have ran up to me. If he were dying…No.
Your hand brushed the wall as you turned the corner towards the room, your fingertips against the cold surface to ground yourself, to confirm that the building was still solid beneath your fingers.
You had to get in there and confirm with your own eyes that he was still breathing and alive, because you couldn’t survive being the one standing in a room and hear Robby say, ‘We did everything we could,’ knowing that Jack’s bed would soon get stripped, disinfected and remade.
You pulled the curtain open and for one brief suspended second, your heart stopped. Not because of what was there, but what could have been there.
It was him. Just him, sitting on the edge of the bed, still entirely dressed up and his hands braced on his knees like he had been waiting, waiting for me? He looked up the second the curtain moved, his hazel eyes locking onto yours.
He is here. Alive. Breathing. He is not being open on a table, not flatlining. I am not gonna see him being zipped into a body bag today.
You stepped inside, closing the curtain behind you, sealing the two of you away from the loud noises of the ER even just for a few minutes.
“Take it off,” you ordered, refusing to let any weakness slip into your voice.
“Hey, sunshine.”
“The vest, the shirt. Don’t make me repeat myself, Jack.”
A faint corner of his mouth twitched despite the circumstances. “Yes, ma’am.”
He reached for the straps first, his movements slowed by the adrenaline leaving his system, the vest ending up on the chair with a heavy thud. Then, he caught the hem of his black shirt and pulled it over his head.
Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare.
His chest was broad, muscles still defined from his years as a soldier and maintained by the whole SWAT ordeal and…fucking tanned, is that what happens when you do the night shift? You get to know what it’s like to feel the sun on your face?
You stepped behind him, checking the aspect of the wound among the lighter scratches. “Don’t move.”
“I wasn’t planning to, specially if you have scalpels nearby. Wouldn’t want to scrape this body.”
You pulled on fresh gloves, rolling your eyes. Up close, you realized that it was shallow: a long red abrasion near the shoulder blade and no blood pouring out of it. That meant no need for stitches, just cleaning, disinfecting, patching and giving a few instructions that Jack would absolutely ignore.
“You’re lucky,” you muttered, pouring saline slowly over the wound, running down his back in thin rivulets and washing away the dried blood.
“So I’ve been told.”
“Funny.”
You focused on the scrape, on dragging the gauze carefully over the torn skin and pressing it down firmly, that’s what I know by heart, to care and to heal, I could do this in my sleep: pressure, clean, protect. if only everything were that simple.
“How’s the officer?” you asked after a moment, forcing your voice to settle into a normal conversation rather than speaking about the abyss of desperation you had spiraled into all the way up to this room.
“Stable,” he replied. “The bullet entered through the neck but I intubated him on scene and I don’t think there’ll be major damage.”
Your fingers paused briefly before resuming. “That’s…that’s good.”
“It is. Officer Hiro is a good man.”
You taped the dressing down carefully, smoothing the edges with your fingertips longer than would be necessary.
“There,” you breathed, stepping back in front of him. “You’ll live.”
That was when the feeling hit you again. The fear. The images of what could have been: the version of this room where he wasn’t sitting on the edge of the bed, the version where you were outside the curtain, listening - or worse, inside it, handing the instruments to Robby, checking the vitals, bringing the defibrillator closer, hearing yourself ask ‘time of death?’ like it wasn’t also yours. The version where you promised everything you had if they would just let him stay, the one where you followed the casket down into Earth because if his body went still, you were certain that something in yours would stop answering too.
He saw it. You didn’t know how, maybe something in your face had shifted or maybe he noticed that you weren’t entirely there, your focus still somewhere past him and the present.
“Hey,” he said softly, but you couldn’t reply.
You were still in that other version of the room, I need another blood bag, clear, we’re losing him, time of death?
His hand came up slowly, fingers wrapping gently around your wrist. “Sunshine.”
That pulled you back enough, your throat trying to swallow a thick ache that wouldn’t quite pass. Without a word, he guided your hand until your palm pressed flat against his chest. Right over his heart, where you felt it immediately: the steady rhythm, the most perfect, fucking stubborn cycle of thuds you ever heard.
He covered your hand with his, keeping them both there, where each beat was dragging you further and further away from the other room, he’s not flatlining, he’s okay, I won’t have to hear silence where his heart should be.
“Still here, okay?” he murmured carefully.
“Don’t…Jack,” you sniffled.
He rose slowly from the edge of the bed, not letting your hand slip from his chest as he stood, leaning forward to rest his forehead gently against yours while his thumb brushed over your knuckles in a repetitive motion. “I’m here,” he said again.
“I know,” you whispered, trying to calm your uneven breaths, to focus on the brush of his breath against your skin and the unmistakable sounds beneath your palms, alive, alive, alive, the word pulsing with each heartbeat.
After a few moments of quiet, he smiled. “I liked this morning.”
You let out a disbelieving breath. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
“I’m very serious,” he replied, pulling back just enough to properly look at you before continuing, softer, “I was in the ambulance and all I could think about was how nice it had been to wake up next to you.”
You blinked at him. “While you were holding pressure on someone’s neck?”
“I can multitask,” he shrugged with the smallest smug smile at the corner of his lips before brushing a loose strand of hair away with the back of his fingers. “And I also thought about last night.”
Heat crept up your cheeks. “Jack.”
“And about…” he murmured, his fingers trailing from your hair to the nape of your neck, his thumb lingering just under your ear, “how I had to keep my shirt on until it was you checking me. Wouldn’t want to explain to Robby how I got those little marks and how his very professional and very sweet nurse is absolutely not that sweet in the sheets.”
Your eyes widened.
He tilted his head slightly, studying the way the redness spread along your neck, his gaze dragging slowing over your face. “But more like…” he continued, voice dropping lower, “a feral cat with very sharp claws.”
You swatted his arm, mortified and glancing toward the curtain. “You’re insufferable!”
“What?” he asked innocently, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him.
“You cannot say things like that in here!” you grumbled.
“Well…you’re the one who started, telling me to take my clothes off the second you walked in.”
“That was on a purely profe-”
Before you could finish your sentence, he leaned in, closing the small space between you, his lips finding yours as his hand moved from your neck to cradle the side of your face, thumb slowly caressing your cheek and silencing the whole ER. You felt the exhale he released into the kiss, almost a sigh as your hand moved from his heartbeat to cling on his shoulder.
When he finally pulled back, he kept his forehead close to yours.
“You were saying?”
You blinked at him, words gone entirely from your tingling lips, like he had just wiped your mind clean.
“That it was…purely professional?” he supplied, his smugness slipping back into his tone now that he seemed to understand that the sadness in your eyes had eased.
“Yes,” you replied, clearing your throat. “Exactly. And…anyone could walk in here.”
You stepped back a little, smoothing down the front of your scrub top while he looked at you, one eyebrow slightly lifted.
“Sunshine.”
“I’m serious,” you insisted, lowering your voice. “We’re not…official to the service. And we,” you gestured vaguely between the two of you, “are not a public spectacle for our colleagues. Between HR who will become a nightmare, Zidan who will start betting pools about how long this lasts and Princess and Perlah sharing it to the whole department before…”
He sat back on the bed, arms folding across his bare chest, looking way too amused as he watched you unravel, which would definitely be easier if he could just put. a shirt. on. seriously, is that too much to ask? there really is no god above or at least none who has mercy on you.
“You can’t just…” you waved your hand, frustrated, “do this in the middle of a trauma bay.”
“Do what?” he asked mildly.
“This!” You gestured again, to his torso.
He glanced down at himself, then back up at you. “Oh.”
“Yes, oh. Put a shirt on!”
“I thought you liked the view,” he smirked. “Isn’t it what you begged for last night?”
You closed your eyes, sighing. “Where is your shirt?”
“Took a spare in my locker. It’s on the chair.”
You turned towards the corner where the vest had been dropped, the spare shirt folded neatly with it.
“You could have put this on when I finished the bandage,” you muttered, grabbing it.
“I was enjoying the lecture.”
You shot him a look over your shoulder, before handing it to him, earning a “Thanks ma’am” as he, careful of the fresh dressing, pulled it over his head.
You gave him a once over, folding your arms, am I…starting to act like him? is that what’s happening? is this how it works? the more time you spend with someone the more you become insufferable like them?
“Better.”
“Disappointed?” he asked lightly.
“Oh immensely, Doctor Abbot,” you replied sarcastically, rolling your eyes okay, no, I’m definitely starting to sound like him, no wonder Dana and Robby are looking at me like I’ve been body-snatched. “How will I survive without the view?”
“I’ll file a complaint to the HR,” he smirked. “What an unacceptable loss of morale from a nurse to an attending.”
“You…” you sighed, stepping closer to adjust the collar of his shirt. “You are a nightmare, you know that?”
“And yet you keep me.”
You inhaled through your nose, trying very hard not to smile. “That is still under review.”
His grin widened as you continued: “Now, stay sit on the bed. Ten minutes. I want to make sure that you don’t get dizzy.”
“Noted.”
“And no more comments about last night in here.”
“Also noted.”
“And keep down the…smirking,” you finished, pointing at his face.
“That one might be more difficult to control.”
“Try.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
You folded your arms, giving him a stern look that most definitely betrayed your fondness, hey you know what? let’s have sex Jack. like…right now, on this gurney, in a room where I thought I’d find you dead. no, I’m not insane, just very grateful that you are alive.
“Good. Now if you don’t mind Doctor Abbot, I have other patients to check on.”
He gave you a slow, exaggerated nod. “Of course. Wouldn’t dream of monopolizing such…invaluable hands.”
You stared at him. “I should be the one complaining to HR.”
He pressed his lips together, though the amusement was still written all over his face.
You turned toward the curtain but paused with your hand on the edge of it, staring at the thin strip of hallway visible through the gap.
“Jack?”
He looked up immediately, all smugness and teasing gone from his voice at the tone of yours. “Yes?”
You didn’t turn fully back around, cause if you did, you were fairly certain that the words would spill out of your mouth without your permission.
“I…” you stopped and tried again. “I wanted you to know that I…”
“Hey.”
The softness in his voice made you finally look at him: he had stood up again and stepped closer, his fingers wrapping delicately around your wrist before lifting it up and pressing a soft kiss to the inside of it. “You don’t need to,” he whispered gently. “We have time, you and I. And you don’t have to tell me today, not if it’s because you were scared, okay?”
You nodded, a quiet, “Okay,” slipping out.
“Now go,” he added, brushing his thumb over your pulse once last time. “Before someone wonders why you’ve been gone this long for a graze on the back of an attending doctor.”
You huffed a breath, pulling the curtain open. “As long as you stay exactly where I left you. Which is on the bed. For still…” you glanced at an imaginary watch on your wrist, “…six more minutes. Five, if you promise to behave.”
“Then it will be six.”
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